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Do you find it difficult to disconnect?
It takes me a couple of days to let go. Why I have to work so hard to relax is beyond me but thanks to all of you, I am happy to share Step #3 of my Twelve Step Plan for Restless Creatives. This Plan is for you who work hard and are passionate about what you do. There is this fabulous quote by Leo Tolstoy that opens Part One of The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine, two creative social media thinkers, which I want to share with you.
“Everyone thinks about changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself”
I just got the book and am so thrilled that Beth and Allison have provided a “Google map” for nonprofits to navigate their way into a new and highly networked world. More on this book to come! Just do yourself a big favor and get a copy for yourself.
Back to Tolstoy.
This Plan is to help you change yourself into a relaxed and rested version of yourself so you can This is why it is so important for you to calm down!
I am so grateful for the suggestions you have sent me and will be writing them up for you every Wednesday.
In case you missed them, here are Steps 1 & 2
1 Get over yourself
2 Get off the grid
And today we have -
3. Get local
Slide your feet into those flip flops and stroll down the boardwalk to Rockaway Taco.
Check out the used surfboards with a fish taco in your hand. Somehow you will feel a strong desire to wear one of those tank shirts that say, “Eat, Sleep, Surf” and watch the tide roll in. I have been intrigued by the new patterns I have been seeing in board shorts.
“You got to take in a wave in clutch shorts, dude.” I overheard this fashion tip from a bunch of surfers so it must be true.
Lose yourself in a different world. Be a local in a different galaxy, one where the fire trucks sport rescue surf boards and the firemen look like surfer dudes. It is hard to get aufgeregt (Yiddish for agitated) with sand between your toes.
What do you think?
Get more Wow, dude!
If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:
Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good
Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit
Style Notes from me, your artspy
Hoong Yee
– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day
– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)
– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.
Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?
photo by Neato Coolville
I am not happy with my recent iPad experience.
Self Serve is Not for the Faint of Heart
I am trying to enter my credit card information so that my data plan can renew automatically every month but I keep getting an error message asking me to validate my billing address. No matter what I do, AT & T will not accept where I live. They have cut off my service and everyone I have spoken to over the past few days cannot help me. They cannot even take my information over the phone because this is a “self serve account”.
When I am in the supermarket with Seth, we like to go through the Self Check-Out line where we scan, bag and pay ourselves.
Sweet!
I think the idea is great but I wonder if the cashiers will become as scarce as toll booth collectors since the rise of EZ Pass. However, you will always need to have a person standing by to help you out when something doesn’t scan properly, or if the machine cannot read the barcode.
To help you out.
So, imagine my shock when AT & T shut off my data plan because they needed 72 hours to find somebody to resolve on the problem.
Somebody?
I thought “self serve” means that iPad users manage their own accounts. That’s why the very nice people answering the phones could not fix the problem. Then who is the somebody who is going to fix it?
“I cannot take your information over the phone but I would be glad to walk through the self serve process with you again.” said the pleasant but useless AT & T service person on the phone with me.
Are you kidding?
Where is the person that fixes self serve problems? They always have one at the ready in the supermarkets.
Why doesn’t AT & T?
Get more Wow!
If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:
Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good
Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit
Style Notes from me, your artspy
Hoong Yee
– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day
– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)
– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.
Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?
I am perfectly serious about this.
All of you amazingly busy and creative people out there – stop what you are doing and relax, for crying out loud! It is summer in the city of your soul and time to take a much deserved vacation.
In a recent post, I introduced the first step of my Twelve Step Plan for everyone like me who needs to be accomplishing things all the time and asked you to help me create this. Thanks to everyone who responded with great ideas for the Plan!
I always believed that one of us can be so much smarter with all of us.
OK everyone, the first step to get you in the right frame of mind is:
1. Get over yourself
Here is the next step
2. Get off the grid
This is really scary.
It works better if you accidentally jump in the pool with your phone in your pocket, but for the rest of us who lobsterclaw our phones in our sleep it may be more difficult to let go. If you must must must have your phone with you, shut your ringers and alerts off and try getting used to the silence. After a while you will start to feel disconnected, a little bubble drifting above the rest of us. Suspended.
Like floating on your back in the ocean, suspended between sea and sky. A sunrise, a fading moon.
Have a conversation with the universe. No data plan required.
Get more Wow!
If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:
Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good
Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit
Style Notes from me, your artspy
Hoong Yee
– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day
– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)
– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.
Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?
I am at the sweet spot of the summer.
Early summer, just after the Fourth of July weekend, lazy wide open days ahead of me.
So what does any self respecting nonprofit executive director/momspy/artspy/nonprofit knitter do – angst!
That’s right. I am frantically scheduling relaxing moments and down time into my Blackberry with alerts to remind me to calm down, take deep breaths, wear sunscreen, read, exercise and lose 10 pounds. God forbid I forget to do something.
Another couple of things I have added to my evergrowing List of Things I Must Accomplish are blog related tasks. I want to write, write, write and accumulate a cache of posts. Then I want to work on some sketches, videos, guest posts, reviews – just a few thousand other things.
Sound familiar?
Why do we do this at a time when we are supposed to be on vacation from all of this? Simple. It’s a habit. We are in the habit of overachieving and addicted to the challenge of being ahead of the game. Since we do this more than we are on vacation, it is difficult habit to break especially if we don’t have something else to replace it with.
What we all need is a plan.
This is what you should do. I will give you the first step and then I will need your help in completing this list that will make us happier:
A Twelve Step Plan for Restless Creatives Like Me
1. Get over yourself
You are not as irreplaceable as you think you are. If you go off the grid, believe me, everybody will somehow get along fine without you.
If you feel that the world will explode without you being part of everything, you are a bottleneck, not a leader. Shared decision making infuses your team with an increased sense of responsibility. You can delegate someone the authority to sign off on say, decisions revolving around purchases under $500. Or all correspondences to committee members. If it is something you need to weigh in on, have that someone evaluate the options and make a recommendation. That way you can simply agree or disagree and move forward.
Get addicted to the gradual distancing between you and every little thing that has to be taken care. Design a better system that removes you from doing it all. This is a habit we can get used to.
Get more Wow!
If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:
Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good
Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit
Style Notes from me, your artspy
Hoong Yee
– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day
– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)
– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.
Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?
Johnny B. and Sky waiting for a wave
In the sweet spot of our summer days off,
we hopped across the burning sand to the water’s edge in our flip flops
three beach chairs, two bags balanced
on Sky’s blue boogie board
that we dragged to the shoreline,
riding Rockaway waves til sunset.
Get more Wow!
If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:
Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good
Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit
Style Notes from me, your artspy
Hoong Yee
– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day
– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)
– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.
Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?
