If you hang out here a bunch, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t mentioned Naomi-my-internet-crush (aka Itty Biz) obsessively constantly lately in a while.

That’s because we’ve been secretly hanging out and engaging in passionate make-out sessions discussions. Discussions. Hot and heavy discussions. About interesting things.

Actually we have been brewing up a little something that is tough and powerful and hot.

But wait! I must backtrack.

If you don’t know Naomi yet … well, given that a big chunk of my readers are gentle spirits who, like me, are into yoga, self-work, and deep, intentional looking inward … it seems only fair to warn you.

Here’s the thing. Naomi is a potty mouth.

I love her to death and her cussing up a storm doesn’t bother me, but it wouldn’t be right not to let you know.

Did I say potty mouth? She curses like a sailor. Also, she called my duck a whore.

There’s actually a blog cussometer website that measures how much you swear on your blog — a site I hesitate to link to because: oh boy, time suck — and her ranking is a gazillion percent.

A gazillion? It’s 900% higher than that of most blogs. Close enough.

Yeah, I know I don’t exactly have wings and a halo here (my own blog is, after all, a place where “kosher-ass” is considered an acceptable adjective), but still. Nine hundred percent.

And she called my duck a whore.

I really cannot overemphasize that point. Although, to her credit, Selma did not seem to mind being dragged in the mud like that. It was like water off her back. No ruffled feathers there.

Ouch. See? Cursing is so much better than duck jokes. Not that I’m trying to distract you (I’m totally trying to distract you), but there are more important things in life than whether or not you’re a potty mouth.

Why I love Naomi and why you should too and then getting to the point.

1. She’s super smart.

No. She’s more than that. Naomi is a small business marketing genius.

She knows a million useful things about how to market things, how to put yourself out there, and how to be successful doing it. And in a zero-sleaze, fully-authentic, non-irritating way. Which, let’s face it, is shockingly unusual in the world of internets.

2. She knows her stuff like crazy.

Every single time she gives me advice, good things happen to my business. Fast.

I’ve had mentors. I’ve worked with business coaches. I’ve taken classes. She blows all that stuff out of the water.

3. She makes you happy when you’re miserable.
Remember when I was all sad because I was breaking up with my noozletter?

And everyone was telling me that this was the stoopidest and craziest thing I could do to my business? Guess what Naomi said?

So rock the f*ck on with the no newsletter. Nobody reads newsletters. And they make people feel guilty.

Because you signed up for it, you feel like you have some kind of cosmic obligation, whether to the writer or to yourself, to actually read it. But you’re busy, so you let like nine of them pile up and then you start resenting the sender like it’s their fault you can’t get off your ass to read your email.

See? She’s like a fun, drunk Canadian version of me. But curse-ier.

How is she like me? Let me count the creepy ways. Like me, she’s a Pisces. Actually her birthday is one day after mine. She’s a helper-mouse who genuinely cares about other people, and wants to use her powers for good. And she has my old haircut.

Weird, huh? Also, did I mention that my middle name is Naomi? It is. Weird, huh? I’ve got to stop saying that.

But mostly she just thinks intently and passionately about things I care about. We come to different conclusions occasionally but we hang out on pretty much all the same wavelengths, and that’s the important thing.

If I weren’t me and a yoga freak and all that stuff, I would probably be her. Luckily I don’t have to, because she’s doing such an impressive job of it.

And (drum roll please) here’s the scoop:

We’re going to be collaborating. Not in the creepy way though. More like: combining jedi forces to do good in the world and help people we like.

What happened was this:

We were on the phone, talking about how freaking tragic it is when people we love have an idea for a cool thing — or maybe they’re already doing the cool thing — but then they can’t promote it because promoting it is scary and overwhelming and uncomfortable.

And I was saying how I wished she could zap my clients with her ninja marketing skills and genius ideas.

And she was saying how she wished I could zap her clients with my calming-the-heck-down dust and smart yet wacky how-to techniques.

It was clear we had to do something.

And it was clear that this something should also be out there for people who aren’t our clients and who would never even think of hiring us because it’s too scary or too expensive or all sorts of other things. Because it’s not fair to them that they don’t get access to this stuff.

This something had to be the most accessible, affordable, full of awesome how-to-ish-ness program ever, so that we could facilitate breakthroughs and give people structure and support and work with people we think are fun.

Like, how to work through terror, overwhelm and rampant what-if-ization to feel safe, comfortable and supported doing the thing … all rolled into six weeks of study.

So we went to work.

It’s a boy! I mean, it’s a program.

Right. And what got born was the course I wish I had taken three years ago before learning everything the hard way. Really good stuff.

Anyway, here’s what I want you to do. If the theme of self-promotion for people who can’t stand promoting anything and don’t want to be gross but also would like to make some money sounds like something that might be up your alley …. take a look.

There’s a discount-ey thing for people I like. (IMPORTANT)

Naomi and I figured that we should be able to charge less when it comes to people we think are awesome. And actually, I kind of think that everyone who reads this is awesome.

So should you want to do our how to promote the cool thing you do without being gross and/or getting tangled in scary, overwhelming horribleness, yay. And then you can write the word havi in the shopping cart where it asks you for a coupon code, and it knocks $30 off the price.

(Actually, write havi in there first and press “apply” before you do anything else. That way there’s no chance of something going weird.)

This program thingie? Really fun. Yes, wildly helpful with seriously useful stuff, but also: there will be fun.

So drink boring non-alcoholic champagne with me in the comments, and then come play — because this is for you.

This is a post about Twitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said I’d never do a Twitter post but people persist in asking me to explain what on earth I’m talking about.

And anyway, I promised two readers of this blog who are Twitter newbies that I’d give them some tips.

The great debunking begins.

You know what? People talk a lot of trash about Twitter but really that’s just because they’re doing it wrong.

And can you blame them? Well, you could, but please don’t. It’s not their fault. I blame the Twitter myths.

Yes, it’s absurd that something so young has already acquired a stack of associated myths and legends, but there it is — so let’s take these babies apart. It’s debunking time, my friend.

Twitter Myth #1: It’s “microblogging” or something.

Uh, no. That’s not what Twitter is about. It’s not “microblogging”. No one says, “Oh, boy! You know what I feel like this morning? Microblogging!” Yuck.

(And, by the way, even if there technically was such a thing as microblogging? So what? Microblogging — for those of us who aren’t social media consultants — is an empty, boring, meaningless word. Meh.)

It doesn’t matter anyway whether it is or isn’t because everyone is wrong, and actually that whole tiresome “Gee, what is Twitter?” debate is completely over, because what Twitter is, as it turns out, is a bar.

It’s a bar.

It’s the local neighborhood bar/cafe thing where you hang out. A multi-dimensional neighborhood bar/cafe thing.*

*Only it’s online. And sometimes from your phone. I know. Get over it, it’s the future.

Why do you hang out in your neighborhood bar/cafe thing?

Because it’s your local. It’s your place. It’s where your friends are. It’s where you make new friends. It’s where you go because sometimes being smart and funny in your head just doesn’t cut it.

Is it always cool? No, sometimes it sucks. Maybe no one you like is there. Maybe it’s that new bartender who plays weird music. So you leave. But you come back later anyway because the good days are so, so good.

This bar/cafe/whatever has the awesomest people in the world and yes, some that are just not your people. Hey, it’s up to you to choose where to sit.

If you sit where people are talking loudly on their cellphones, blowing cigar smoke in your face or hitting on you, then yeah, it’s probably going to be yucky and horrible.

If you find a corner where a bunch of smart, interesting people are talking about smart, interesting things, it’s going to be engaging and soul-nourishing. And fun.

If you go and don’t talk to anyone, you might well wonder why you shouldn’t just have your beverage-of-choice at home. Yes, in that case it will be boring.

So. It can be the best bar ever or just that lame place on the corner. Your choice.

Twitter Myth #2: It’s about answering the question “What are you doing?”

No, no, no. This is a misunderstanding of almost tragic proportions, unwittingly perpetuated by the hapless Twitter regime.

If you try to follow the rules according to Twitter, you’ll get lost in a hurry. They ask you right up front to play the game by answering the question “What are you doing”. Do not answer this question! False start. Fail.

Twitter is not about “What are you doing?” in the exact same way that real-life conversations are not about “Hey, what are you up to?” even though they might start that way.

If you try to talk about what you’re doing (unless what you happen to be doing is boxing a poodle while stilt-walking with your poodle-booter troupe), you will almost certainly be boring.

And the first rule of Twitter is “Do not be boring!”

Worse, you may tend to be honest. You may say things like “Eating a banana” or “Taking my kid to soccer practice”.

I refer you to the first rule, mentioned above.

So what should you type into that little box?

Well, the question Twitter really means to ask is “What are you thinking? No, what are you really thinking?”

Or: “What do you think about the thing that you’re thinking?”
Or: “How about you let that voice in your head do the talking for a minute, eh?”

You know that inner voice? The one that narrates a steady commentary of funny, meaningful, goofy and profound things that you usually just say to yourself and no one ever gets to appreciate?

Twitter is that voice’s new home. It is where that voice goes to hang out. Because that voice needs a voice. I mean, it needs a bar.

Twitter myth #3: It’s a time suck.

Uh, no. Twitter does not have to be another procrastination thing. Again, I think you might doing it wrong.

It really only takes a couple of seconds to post something. There’s a 140-character limit, for heavens sake.

Then you take three to five minutes to catch up on what everyone else is up to, and you’re done.

It’s pretty much always going to be a shorter break than the “Oh, I’ll just check my email” rabbit hole.

And here I’ll briefly put on my giant “Hi, I just wrote a book on Dissolving Procrastination” hat so that you trust my expertise on this ….. Twitter is so not the enemy. It’s not. It’s one of the few “right-sized bite-sized” breaks you’ll find on the internets.

Twitter is recess. And recess is good for the soul. Yes, it can be a time suck. So can anything. Including poodle-boxing. But if you use it mindfully as a quick in-and-out, Twitter is actually a productivity tool.

A fun productivity tool that also doubles as the weirdest but most successful marketing technique ever and is also a bar. Beat that.

Twitter myth #4: There are no problems in Twitterville.

Okay, this is a myth that I just made up. A mythical myth, if you will. Twitter is far, far from a problem-free zone, but here are the three main issues and their solutions:

(1) As with any bar, there are people who come to get in fights. Some of these are people who just genuinely enjoy a good brawl and some of these are people who are mean, hurting, hate-filled trolls.

Don’t hang out by that one pool table if you don’t like fights.

(2) And as with any bar, there will be some creepy guys who want to buy you drinks. You use body language to tell them to back off (that’s the block button) and if they overstep, report them to @oddfollow and to the shift manager the Twitter people.

(3) And of course there’s the fail whale.

Sometimes Twitter is broken, and usually just when you really need that metaphorical whiskey or cup of coffee or whatever and your hands are shaking. It’s time to face up to the fact that you are addicted to Twitter. No worries. You’re in good company.

Take whatever smartnesses you were going to spread to the world and turn them into a blog post. It will be back later. Join the Fail Whale Fan Club. (I’m not even kidding, there’s a fan club.)

Or you can just go to IsTwitterDown.com and press the refresh key over and over again like a rat hoping for a yummy, yummy food pellet. We’ve all been there. It’s okay. You’ll be fine.

See you at happy hour, right?

If you want to follow me I’m the one in the pink angora beret I go by @havi. Just so you know, I sometimes say horribly inappropriate things that I would never say here. That’s because it’s a bar.

It’s also my very favorite place on the internets. It’s where that voice in my head likes to hang out. And I pretty much go wherever she goes.

If you want me to follow you back, talk about poodles. Or start up a conversation. I don’t bite.

Special thanks to Laura Fitton aka @pistachio who accidentally inspired this post by being awesome.

So stop saying it is.

I was talking with my friend Nathan Bowers (total Wordpress consultant to the stars) the other day about how frustrating tech stuff can be for people.

Nathan’s pretty awesome in general but it was especially great the way he — as someone who lives in the tech world — agreed, instead of saying what most tech people say: “But it’s easy”.

Because he’s smart enough to know it isn’t. And I quote:

I wouldn’t dream of saying anybody is dumb for not being immersed in this stuff. Unlike many geeks, I know that technology is hard and most people are barely muddling through. It’s my job (and yours, and anybody who runs a web biz) to make it not hard.

Man, I love that. Because really, there’s nothing more horrible than feeling like a idiot because something is really hard and scary for you — and then having some irritating expert say “No, no, no, actually it’s super-easy”.

It’s not.

You know what else people say is easy? Spanish.

Keep in mind that I used to teach both languages and language-learning, so if I wanted to I could give you the whole “actually all languages are equally hard (or easy)” lecture and quote a bunch of linguists to back me up.

But forget about theory and statistics for a minute. Let’s just talk about me. Because if that isn’t why I have a blog … I don’t know how to finish this sentence but it feels like it should end in an exclamation point!

Here’s me. I’m fully bi-lingual in English and Hebrew. And I speak German well enough that I can deliver a three hour lecture in it without notes. That’s three languages I can read novels in without needing a dictionary. Three languages I can be funny in. Three languages I can insult your mother in.* Okay?

*Four, actually, with Yiddish. Not that I would. Good heavens, no. I’m just establishing credentials here.

But I spent two years trying desperately to learn Spanish while I was at university in Tel Aviv, and can’t remember a thing.

Two years of Spanish? I cannot. Put. Together. A. Sentence.

And it can’t even be blamed on the passage of time, because the truth is, I never got it. Sure, I memorized stuff for exams but did I ever actually understood what the hell was going on? Sadly, no.

Could I learn it now? Sure, but only because I’ve got badass techniques. I could probably learn anything now.

But that’s not the point. The point is: don’t freaking tell me that Spanish is easy. Spanish is not easy. And when you say it is I kinda want to smack you for implying that it must be me who’s a little slow.

Which brings me to the point of this whole mini-rant:

Nothing is easy when you’re the one who can’t do it.

And having someone tell you it’s easy does not make it easier.

No kidding. If anything, having some jerk tell you it’s easy actually makes it harder because now in addition to learning the thing, you’re annoyed that it’s taking so much effort to master something that someone else — usually someone who isn’t even that bright to begin with — is telling you is easy.

Okay, enough with the rant. Let’s talk applications.

So you know how to do things that other people don’t. That’s terrific. Love it. You want to help them. Even better. They want your help. Perfect. But they don’t want to know that you think it’s easy.

Here are three ways you can apply this information to make stuff easier.

Application #1: Talking to people you want to serve.

Yes, this is also known as “marketing”. I know, it needs a better word.

Here’s the thing — telling people that the thing they want and are struggling to get is easy to do or attain — just not smart.

You can promise those people (if it’s true) that your system or method or product or whatever will help make the process easier for them. You can tell them that you will show them short-cuts or tricks that will make the hard more bearable. You can show them how to navigate the hard.

Don’t say “it’s easy if you know how”. People won’t buy stuff when they think that the person selling just doesn’t understand how hard things really are. And if you do think it’s easy, you really aren’t getting what they’re going through.

Application #2: Relationships

If you madly care about someone, and that someone is struggling with something, it’s your job to be there with them in their time of stuckness.

Just show up. Not just because it’s the kind, compassionate golden-rule-ish stand-up thing to do, but because otherwise they won’t listen to you.

Don’t say that it’s easy to quit drinking coffee or to learn how to do taxes or to parallel park. Of course you want to share whatever it is that comes easily to you. You want to share your hard-won knowledge and mad ninja skills.

But if you tell them it’s easy, they won’t be able to receive it.

Acknowledging that it’s hard and that they’re dealing with something that’s a big challenge for them is the only way to go. This is what lets them open up to whatever you know that might make things easier.

This is frustrating and requires loads of patience. I know it’s hard. I love you for trying.

Application #3: Persuasion

Persuasion is a loaded word. I do not mean this in some gross, “convincing other people to do your evil bidding” sort of way.

Think of it as finding a way to help people understand that you have a tool that can actually help make their lives … well … easier.

The answer is the same as in the first two applications. Acknowledge their pain. Feel it. Recognize how big and uncomfortable it is. Meet them where they’re at — in the hard part.

Make sure they know that you know (or remember) how hard it is, and offer help only after you’ve empathized the hell out of their pain. Hmm, poor phrasing, but I think you know what I mean.

You aren’t doing this to be manipulative. You’re doing this to be a mensch. It’s the only way you can really help them. And in their fear and stuck and hard, it’s the only way they can really say “yes” to help from you.

That’s it.

Okay, rant over. Really. I’m willing to try that thing you wanted to show me now.

I don’t even care if it’s hard. Just remember to keep telling me you know it’s hard.

So I read about three nonfiction books a week, mostly biggification and self-work (what regular people call business and self-help). Rated on a scale of ducks: 1 duck = Stephen Covey (yawn) and 5 ducks = Malcolm Gladwell (do a little dance). Books worth reading are image-linked to independent bookstores.

The book: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t.
The author: Robert Sutton, PhD. (Also: professor of management science and engineering at Stanford, and all-around swell guy.)
The rating: 4 ducks

What I thought.

This is a smart, funny, sweet, interesting and useful book with lots of neat studies, good research and clever ideas. And it’s well-written too, gott sei dank.

Sutton is a thoughtful, engaging writer (who blogs!) and he’s completely like-able.

In fact, I had the feeling that I could happily have a conversation with him on absolutely any subject and find it fascinating (Bob, if you’re reading this and you ever get to Portland, let me know and I will invite you to dinner!).

Also, you have to love how the title (best title ever?) sums it all up so thoroughly that I don’t have to actually tell you what the book is about or anything about the content. Take that, short review.

And … should you be thinking that the title is somewhat distasteful, he discusses that too, as well as the process of deciding that no, this was really the only thing to call it.

Sutton systematically breaks down the patterns of at-work assholeness, if you will, and talks about who these people are, how to recognize them and how to know when whoops, you’re doing it too. Actually, his “we all have an inner jerk, so let’s be honest here” approach is both endearing and refreshing.

Only one caveat, and it’s not a big deal.

The one thing the book is short on is the how-to side, where, of course, I am naturally tempted to jump in and suggest/apply a bunch of my techniques. Or whatever, forget about my techniques. NVC, baby.

Sutton tends to throw up his hands when it comes to dealing with certain difficult situations in a kind of “whaddya gonna do” attitude, whereas I want him to be more concrete, probably because I already have very concrete opinions on exactly what you could do in these situations.

It doesn’t matter though. The book is about mind shifts, and mind shifts are the important part anyway. I enjoyed this book thoroughly, and it gave me plenty of good material to think about.

Cool unintended side-effect of reading this book:

We’ve all worked with that person. We’ve all had uncomfortable confrontations or uncomfortable avoidance of potentially difficult confrontations.

Though it’s a business book, not a self-help-ey book, you can definitely use it for healing.

Reading the book brought up lots of old memories for me of various people I’ve worked for who could have single-handedly justified the need for such a rule. Doing some work and processing around this has helped me release some old pain and helplessness around certain work-related situations*.

*I know you’re all dying for some juicy Moroccan mafia stories from my pre-yoga life, but that will have to wait for some other occasion.

Bonus fabulousness:

One of my favorite business writers (Leigh Buchanan) interviewed Sutton about the No Asshole Rule for Inc Magazine.

Leigh is so freaking great that even in an interview where all she gets to do is ask questions, she’s still a kick in the pants. But more to the point: it’s good stuff.

Bottom line? I love this book.

Well written, relevant, useful. Read it!**

**Yeah, I’m talking to you, Marshall Goldsmith.

Because it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.

And you get to join in if you feel like it.

The hard stuff

Breaking up with my nooz.

If you were here this week, you already know what the hardest part of my week was. After almost three years of regularly writing my beloved noozletter, I let it go. I dumped my nooz and it was hard and scary and weird.

And yeah, I know you probably think I was all strategic about this, but really I wasn’t.

Actually, my intent this week had been to go crawl into hang out in this one business forum I’m in.

(Which is, interestingly enough, facilitated by the awesome Mark Silver — who incidentally also starred in last week’s Friday Round-up as the mysterious guest forced to drink juice out of a Harley Davidson wineglass).

The plan was genius: I was going to show up and explain to my co-thinkers a little bit about what I was going through, and ask for help. And they were going to comfort me and give me good ideas. Which they totally would have.

Except that I didn’t make it that far.

I got as far as starting — but not finishing — a post where I listed some of the problems I was having with the nooz:

1. Resentment. Used to love, then to like, now kinda hating. Too much work in the back-end and too little fun all around. I wanna be hanging out here on the blog where all the fun is. Stuckness.

2. Envious of friends who have biggified blogs and who are growing their businesses like crazy without even doing the noozletter thing. What? You don’t need a nooz? Nooz to me. I want like this too!

3. My own mental health. Because doing stuff I hate? Bad for me.

4. Trusting the seachange: it’s just time. I’m done.

At that point I stopped and meditated on it. then I re-read what I’d written and realized:

Oh. Right. So I guess I don’t actually need help deciding because apparently I’ve already decided.

Right away it became a question not of “argh, what the hell do I do next?” but “okay, so what are my options?”

Did that make it easier?

Mmmm, not really. It gave me focus, which is nice. But break-ups still suck. Plus I’ve been ending relationships left and right. And it’s a lot to process and adjust to.

Among other things: taking on a brand-new business model, based on not much more than a feeling. And it’s a lot of goodbyes. Sad face.

Okay, can we move on to the good stuff? Because there was good stuff like crazy this week, and thank goodness because I needed it.

The good stuff

My clients’ dads can beat your clients’ dads at arm-wrestling.

This completely inspiring post (from a smart, creative artist I recently worked with) made my week.

We did a one-time mini-session on dissolving procrastination and shifting some stucknesses in the creative process. Well, the creativity was already there, obviously — just nothing happening with it because of some old stuckification patterns.

We got a lot accomplished in less than an hour, and had some serious fun doing it. Heather was also cool about letting me experiment on her with a brand new, uh, wackier-than-usual technique, and we got some really great results.

Anyway, here she is, having gone from pretty much not wanting to think about it to publicly blogging about the process. Which is huge.

Go read about Heather’s decision and cheer her on because she’s awesome.

Speaking of my clients and how awesome they are …

I did an emergency session over the weekend for a former client who had a huge, important, scary, horrible meeting coming up Monday that she was not looking forward to.

It sounded hellish as all get out, to be honest, and my job was to help her come up with a. strategies for not freaking out and b. useful language to get her points across and be heard.

We did both. She survived the scary, came through the meeting-from-hell with flying colors and reported that the language we came up with helped enormously.

I was super proud and happy for her, and also really excited that she was able to use the techniques and all the other stuff we worked on in the moment. Because that’s the test.

Coolest thing ever.

Someone who bought the Procrastination Dissolve-o-matic wrote this in the shopping cart:

I have to say your site is fabulous. I’d read your landing pages just for fun any day!

First of all, that’s just plain cool. Second of all, I’ve never heard of anyone reading sales copy for fun — even biggified marketing people — but whoah, shouldn’t that be an obscure hobby? Or maybe … an Olympic event? No? Fine. I’ll shut up about it.

The break-up, part 2.

Okay, I actually have to include the nooz break-up here in the “good stuff” list too, because while it was really hard and sad, it was also completely liberating.

Also, I would like to add that my gentleman friend is the kindest, most loving gentleman friend in the entire world.

He didn’t say “Oh my god, you’re going to lose all your income and all your clients and your business will go to hell”. He said “Good for you! Taking out things that cause you resentment! You’re really walking your talk.” And then I cried.

Confrontation (and rain gear!)

This one is also a mix of hard and good, that ends up all good. Remember the super expensive raincoat from last week? Well, it showed up and I hated it.

Can I go way, way off our regular topics of “changing yer habits and patterns” and “promoting that thing you do in a smart, conscious way”? Oh, good.

The raincoat I ordered was a “medium”. The raincoat I received was a tent. A muu-muu of gargantuan proportions.

It swamps me. I didn’t take pictures because it was too horrible, but just imagine yards and yards of billowing material with me poking out from somewhere in the middle, and my gentleman friend holding his stomach from laughing at me.

Normally if something is too big you just go down a size. But for this coat I’d need to go down maybe five sizes, and as far as I know they don’t make them in XXXXS.

Also: keep in mind that “small” is not really a word that anyone has ever associated with me.

I’m tall. Taller than average. Plus I’m big-boned. By which I do not mean chubby or round or whatever — if that were the case I’d just say it.

What I mean is … my bones: they are large.

And — you know, being the #2 world expert in an obscure body-mind martial-art-like training thing — I have big, crazy muscles to go with the big bones.

Which is to say: it’s patently absurd that I would wear anything under a medium. If anything, the medium should be tight.

That wasn’t the hard. The hard is that I hate confronting people and this week has been all about confronting people and then I had to return the coat. So you’re probably wondering at this point where the good part comes in. Three things.

1. Instead of avoiding confrontation (as is my wont), I called the company up and told them how I felt.
2. I employed the art of the ask and, while I didn’t get what I wanted, now at least I don’t have to pay for shipping the stupid thing back to them. And I asked instead of not asking, which for me is still pretty awesome because it’s pushing (bonus: pushing gently, not violently) against the pattern.
3. Guess what? Turns out there’s a Columbia outlet store right near my friend’s house … so I got a fabulous raincoat — from a local business — that fits — for $50. Rock. On.

It doesn’t fold up into a neat little package, and it isn’t a cool shade of blue, but hey, it didn’t cost $150 and it doesn’t make me look like Inspector Gadget when he turns into a balloon. I repeat: Rock. On.

That’s it for me ….

And yes, you’re totally welcome to join in my Friday ritual if you feel like it and/or there’s something you just want to say out loud too.

Happy weekend. Happy week to come.

There’s this thing — yes, a thing, don’t make me get all specific — that invariably comes up when you talk to people about habits and how their habits work.

And this thing annoys the pants off of pretty much everybody.

Here’s what happens.

You work really, really, really hard to establish a habit. A new, healthy, good-for-you, good-for-your-life habit. Eventually, with effort, patience, and god knows what else, you reach the hooray point where it’s actually kind of happening.

Next you reach the point where you don’t even think about it anymore because the new thing has totally taken root. This is admittedly somewhat less glorious a moment, but it still feels pretty terrific. The new thing becomes ingrained and automatic, and you’re happy about that. Life is good.

But then … something happens. Something knocks you off track. Of course you think, whatever, no big deal. I own this stupid habit. I’ll just climb right back on.

But then you don’t. Because you can’t. And it’s awful.

Plus you feel frustrated and cranky because deep down you really need to know that you can trust yourself. You need things like support and stability. You want to know you’re not going to let yourself down and you’re afraid you just did.

Hmmm, why would I be bringing this up?

I was just on the phone with a client in Switzerland who is dealing with exactly this issue. Well, this and two other things. And, for the record, we resolved all three of her problems in half an hour. Yay!

So then we spent the next half hour resolving a bunch of problems she didn’t even know she had, and now she is officially problem-free, which means that I probably need to start charging way the hell more.

But getting back to the point.

This woman had a regular daily yoga practice that she loved because it was really grounding for her. It kept her fit, kept her high on happy hormones (because let’s face it, that’s why most of us do yoga) and was a wonderfully comfortable, safe, and supportive thing in her life.

[Note: if you're one of those people who thinks they hate yoga people -- and I was this person before my weird conversion experience, so that's completely fine if you are too -- substitute something you actually do like instead.]

And then, for whatever reason, she stopped doing it. She fell out of the habit — and can’t get back. And it’s gotten all tangled up with old patterns of guilt and blame and pushing herself.

To make matters worse, she didn’t know what she even wanted to fix. Was it re-establishing the practice? Was it allowing herself to not want to practice and just working on the guilt stuff? Was it a bunch of other things she hadn’t thought of yet?

Anyway, this is something that — obviously — comes up fairly often when you work with people on rewriting their patterns and habits. Not to mention on your own stuff.

No, really, why am I bringing this up?

Okay, it’s also something that’s really close to me right now because I was sick all last week. Sick like a dog. In gazillion degree heat. Poor, unhappy puppy. That was me. For a week.

Which means that for seven days I wasn’t doing my yoga practice. Also wasn’t doing Shiva Nata (hard-core yoga brain-training that makes you smart and hot but will seriously mess with your head, watch out). And hardly meditating at all, because when one nostril is clogged and the other is flooded, it’s just too much work.

So, as you might imagine, I was especially tuned in to what was going on for this woman, because ow, I just went through this again myself.

And yes, it sucks when you don’t know if you’re emotionally ready to get back into it, and it sucks when you think you’re emotionally ready to get back into it, but your body can’t take it yet.

And it sucks when you want back in but you don’t know how.

I can tell you how we fixed it, but really I’d rather talk about concepts. There’s four of them.

Four concepts that you really need to know (and I really need to remember)

Concept #1: Permission.

Because resistance is futile, baby. They said so on Star Trek. Or something. That’s not the point. The point is that when you fight with yourself, the struggle always wins.

If this woman forces herself to practice, she’ll either avoid it and hate herself — or do it, but start associating resentment, guilt and irritation with the thing she used to love. Not the healthiest way to (re)establish a habit.

So I wrote her a permission slip.

You know, like a doctor’s note. I gave her permission to give herself permission (yes, it’s complicated) to not do more than one pose a day for a week. And I’m a habits expert and a yoga professional, so she pretty much had to take it. Ha.

You give yourself permission to not want to do the thing. Maybe you’ll do it. Maybe you won’t. But you have permission to not want to.

Concept #2: Ebb and flow.

Stuff shifts. Things change. Not to go all yoga teacher on your ass again, but life is flow.

There will be times when the new, healthy patterns are attractive and supporting you. And there will be times when that’s not happening and you’re in resistance and pain. It’s no fun, yes, but it’s normal.

So it’s always good to be able to stop and remind yourself that this is the way of things, and that all it means is that you’re working on a pattern. You’re noticing the pattern, noticing your reactions to it, and coming up with ways to shift it.

Concept #3: Think small. No, think smaller. No, really. Smaller than that.

Everybody and his mother tells you to break stuff down into baby steps, but they don’t give you any structure. What you need is a strategic plan that incorporates itty bitty baby steps that are beyond ridiculously small. And do-able.

For example, my client and I agreed that for one week she’s only going to do one yoga pose each day.

For say, six to ten breaths. And then go straight to shavasana (intentional, conscious, semi-passed-out-on-the-floor relaxation).

The next week she’s going to do three poses each day. And then pass out on the floor. And so on.

Of course she’ll end up taking bigger steps eventually. It won’t take her months to get back to her hardcore 90 minute practice. It’s just that the pressure is off. The shoulds are gone. It’s one step at a time.

I didn’t start with 45 minutes of Shiva Nata. I started with five. And it hurt. And that’s where I’m at.

Concept #4: Bring on the goofy.

The process of working on your habits and patterns is really a process of learning how you work and how you interact with the world around you.

So that you can learn how to work with and around all your “stuff”, and maybe even like yourself anyway on the good days.

This process is a lot of work sometimes, and it can bring up a bunch of stuck gunk, so you really have to be willing to have some fun with it.

This client of mine was working on about ten different things. And they were all tangled up in the same pattern of feeling guilty. The guilt was mucking everything up, from her yoga practice to her business.

So we came up with a goofy, silly pose she could do and decided that this was her guilt pose.

And every time the guilt comes up, she’s going to go into the guilt pose and talk to herself. She’s going to say, “Whoah, here I am dealing with that guilt thing again. What is my guilt trying to tell me and how can I meet myself where I am while still giving myself comfort and support?”

Obviously I wouldn’t suggest this for just anyone. Probably not even for most people. But it was the right thing for her. For you I’d probably suggest something different. But would it be goofy? Hell, yes. Bring on the goofy!

Of course your patterns deserve a ton of loving attention because they’re part of you, but if you can’t poke a little fun, what’s the point?

And the moral of the story is?

Who knows. Let’s skip that part until I’m fully recovered. Obviously I’m taking all of my own advice, because it would be absurd not to. And I’m trying to have some fun with it because that’s what it’s about.

And sometimes I can’t do that. So when I can’t, I just can’t. And that’s just the way it works sometimes.

There you go. Four concepts. Some humility (mine again, hi). And practice, practice, practice. Ooh, and a snot-free hug to anyone who didn’t get theirs on Monday.

In which I do something fabulously stupid and enjoy the hell out of it.

Some day scientists will isolate the part of the brain that thinks it’s fun to ignore the very sensible, practical things that everyone tells you.

You know — the rebellious part of the brain whose job it is to release joyful chemicals when you’re doing something that goes against all common sense and advice to the contrary. And they’ll probably give it a really cool name.

I have to say, I get a big crazy rush when this part of my brain takes over. It doesn’t happen that often but when it does, wheeeeee!

Two possibilities …

There are two ways this kind of decision can play out.

One is disastrously.

This is what is often known as “the stupid streak” — a phrase I took from one of my all-time favorite novels, Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool.*

[Aside: If you've read Russo's Empire Falls and thought "A Pulitzer? Meh", go read Nobody's Fool. It's the one that should have gotten the Pulitzer. I really don't know why they never ask me. Just saying.]

“Such sudden sensations of well-being … were, in fact, leading indicators of the approach of a condition that Sully had come to think of as a stupid streak, where everything he did would turn out wrong, where each wrong turn would be compounded by the next, where even smart moves would prove dumb in the particular circumstance, where thoughtlessness and careful consideration were guaranteed to arrive at the same end — disaster.”

Ah yes. I think we all know what that feels like.

On the other hand, the other way this thing can go is fabulously.

This is the gambler’s high. You go against the grain. You take the leap. You mix your metaphors. You do the thing you know you have to do and it ROCKS. Cue cheesy end-of-bad-hollywood-movie music.

That’s what I’m talking about, baby.

Anyway, I’m in it right now.

I’m doing something that is the exact opposite of every single piece of business advice I’ve ever received from every single person I respect.*

* Except for Naomi-my-internet-crush (who is also mad as a hatter) and my designer (who just really likes it when I’m happy).

It could be a stupid streak. But it feels more like wheeeeee!

Because no nooz is good nooz.

I’m sick of writing the noozletter. There. I said it.

It used to be a highlight. One of my favorite parts of having a business. Twice a month I got to put on my writing cap and be a writer. In an active “look, I’m doing the thing!” kind of way.

Obviously in my heart and head I’m always a writer. Just never got to be in writer-mode all that often. So writing the nooz was really fun.

Plus people really, really love it. Every time I send one off I get mad fan mail — just sweet, personal contact from the awesomest people ever.

It is a mystery to me how my readership seems to be entirely made up of really bright, thoughtful, inquisitive people, but wow. I’ve gotten to meet some of my favorite people ever through the noozletter.

But a lot has changed since December 2005 when I started writing it. For one thing, I wrote a bunch of ebooks and have other fabulous writing projects in the works.

For another, I has a blog. Which means I get to write all the time. And blogging? Way more fun than noozletter writing. The thing no one tells you about blogging is that it’s basically free therapy. It rocks.

So I began noticing resistance and “do-not-want”-ism showing up — and I started thinking about the life cycle of passion.

The life cycle of passion

My nooz is almost three years old. That’s really old.

Well, it is in internet years — where a blog that’s been around a couple months can already be a freaking establishment for crying out loud.

Here are the life stages of my baby:

1. Baby nooz is unsteady on its feet. Makes a very uh, select few people happy every month or so. I feel nervous and excited and hope I won’t drop it on its head.

2. Toddler nooz is already off-to-school nooz. I’m sharing techniques that I use with clients, and people are using them! Weird. Awesome. I feel curious and a little tired.

3. Nooz comes out every two weeks like clockwork. It’s totally its own thing with its own personality now. It’s separate from me.

I stop trying to give people big techniques and start focusing on little mind shifts that can help them do stuff a little differently right now. I’m meant to do this. I am a writer. I feel elated and giddy.

4. Teenager nooz has its own friends. People email my duck. Seriously. Anything I write will automatically get a ton of email responses. Which is cool. But ack! Responsibility. Adulthood kinda sucks. I feel conflicted.

5. My nooz is all grown up and off to college. I start blogging. I discover that writing every day or almost every day is more fun than doing it just every other week.

So what to do now?

Anyway, this is where I was as of last week. Pre-stupid streak. I mean, pre-ecstatic-high.

I was feeling frustrated because I knew that the noozletter was becoming a “should”. And oh boy, I don’t work well when I’m in resistance.

So on the one hand, I really needed to know I could trust myself to a. be there for the people who depend on me and b. do the right thing for my business.

And on the other hand, I was needing some reassurance that my life wasn’t going to have the fun sucked out of it. Because shoulds are bad for your mental and emotional health. And they’re bad for business.

There was some hair-tearing.

And then I started asking everyone I know for advice. Which was a mistake. Because they all told me what I didn’t want to hear.

Here’s what everyone said:

They told me what I already knew. That you gotta have a list. That writing a noozletter is how you connect to the people you want to help so that they can get help from you.

And so they can feel safe and comfortable with you, so that should the time come when your products and services are useful to them, they feel excited rather than anxious.

And then I would say:

Okay, but having a bunch of blog subscribers, while not as much of an intimate connection, is actually better. Because they do that whole interactive thing.

And then they would say: You have to have a newsletter. You have a relationship with the people on that list. You can’t just dump it.

And then I’d say: Well, I think the wave of the future is going to be blog-based relationships. People will use lists more like fan-clubs — as a way of giving people special attention — but the weekly or bi-weekly article is on its way out.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I realized that we could go back and forth until the cows are already home and tucked in bed, but it didn’t change the basic fact that I just didn’t want to write the noozletter.

It was clearly time to turn down the input from the logical part of my brain and check in with the other parts.

Here’s what my body said:

Blech. Yuck. Ack. Ptooey.

It said: resentment and resistance aren’t good for you. You know what’s good for you? A relaxed, happy state of mind is good for you. Writing is good for you. Creating is good for you. Go do some more of that.

And then I did some meditation and stuff and realized: my goal is still to help as many of the people I’m meant to help as possible. And the nooz just no longer feels like the right way to do it. The way to do it is to go where the mojo is.

I felt better.

So much better in fact that I yelled “OMG, I’m dumping the nooz!”

And that’s when the buzz kicked in. Wheeeeee!

Stupid streak? Maybe. But I don’t care.

The thing I’m taking from this.

My noozletter has grown up. It’s moving on.

It’s not old. I am not saying that my noozletter is old. It’s not wearing frumpy clothes. It’s not like we’ve reached “stick this baby on an ice-floe” time or anything …

It’s just that I’m done with it. Things are changing and shifting. I’m going with what feels like the right way rather than what sounds like the right way..

Here’s what’s going to happen. I’ll still get to hang out with all or most of the smart, wonderful people that I adore. All the teachings, the lessons, the insights, the goofiness — they’re not going away. They’re just going to be here – on the blog.

I’ll still use my list to connect up with because I adore them. I’ll give them special prices on my stuff and send out some case studies and things that I think are useful and important. But the every-other-week nooz is no longer a thing.

Maybe it will start a trend and all sorts of biggifiers will start dumping their noozletters too. Or maybe I’m an idiot and this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done to my business. I doubt it, but it’s possible.

In that case? Oh, well. Then we’ll rethink things and change course. Or I still won’t care. In which case you’ll find me right here. Writing up a storm.

P.S. Special thanks and a big fat kiss to my wonderful designer for the many gorgeous old-timey nooz designs. Showcased here: some of my favorites.

My cold cleared. (yay!)

You know how being sick kind of puts you in this heightened state — a weird place where you’re both more and less aware of everything?

I mean, you can’t concentrate because of the stuffiness and the fogginess and the not being able to sleep. But somehow with most of your brain turned off, you can plug in to other abilities and things come up. Useful things. Mostly.

It might have just been the crazy, evil and completely ineffectual chinese herbs I was taking (never again). Screw you, crazy evil ineffectual chinese herbs.

Sorry, got distracted there.

Did I mention that this was the worst cold I’ve ever had and that it was 103° in Portland?*

*That’s 39° celsius for my European and Israeli readers who want to sympathize with me.

And that I wasn’t taking stuff to help the symptoms because you can only stop taking the crazy, evil, ineffectual chinese herbs that taste-like-death once your symptoms stop on their own? I mean, with the “help” of the herbs?

Screw you, crazy evil ineffectual chinese herbs that taste like death and have zero noticeable positive effect on my ever-worsening cold for three days and three (sleepless) nights until I give up and curse you. And then get better.

Okay, guess I’m still annoyed. Annoyed enough to ignore all rules about using commas. Back to the point.

Clearing takes many forms.

Pretty much any time I get sick, it’s related to me avoiding some kind of confrontation.

I know that sounds a bit wacky, but I’ve literally gone from fevered and delirious to 100% fine just by biting the bullet and finally having that awkward, horrible conversation.

It’s happened so many times and with such reliable results that as soon as a cold comes on I stop everything and ask myself, “Okay honey, who are you avoiding?”. And usually dealing with that is enough to heal it. This time nothing really came up.

Well, fine. Lots of things came up. I mean, being human and all, I’m pretty much always avoiding or repressing something. But nothing that felt like it was “the thing”. So I waited it out.

And while I waited, I worked with two themes.

One was just letting stuff be miserable, because sometimes stuff is miserable. Letting myself be in the stuck. Letting myself not want to be in the stuck, but still be there.

And the other was looking for ways to symbolically clear out congestion and stuckness in my life.

What I did.

I started dumping stuff. Like a woman on a mission.

Of course, thanks to Jen’s cool “give your home office a spa day” thing last week, I was already kind of on an organizing kick. But this was hard core. I took on The Pile.

Yeah, baby. The pile.

The pile that started before I left for Germany and never got taken care of. Papers, ideas, filing, everything that needed attention and wasn’t going to get it.

This pile was obviously really just a pile, and a pretty orderly one at that. But in my mind it had already taken on vast propotions. Kind of like a larger-than-life Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoons. Trailing swarms of flies and clouds of dirt in its messy, messy wake.

I transformed the bed into a lumpy pile-sorting station. And armed with a box of tissues and a large bottle of pomegranite-blueberry juice, climbed right in.

The pile took the better part of an afternoon. Slog city.

Though I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t had to stop for nose-emptying breaks, recovering-from-evil-chinese-tea breaks and emergency-calming-techniques breaks, it could have gone much faster.

Every time I dumped something I said something cheesy and fabulous like, “Whee, look at me symbolically clearing out congestion and making room for new awesomeness!”

The dumping: it is fun.

When the pile was gone I went right on dumping. It was fun. It was addictive. It was cleansing. Plus, I was so on a roll.

I’d already broken up with my chiropractor this week, now it was time to break up with the herbalist (who is actually really, really fantastic and I adore her). Luckily I am the master of the really loving break-up, so it was okay and no hurt feelings.

Then I unfollowed about ten people on Twitter. Take that! Ha!

(I only do loving break-ups with people I’ve actually met).

Then I cleared stuff out of the refrigerator. Tossed some clothes. Recycled like crazy.

And now my nose is clear. My head is clear. My thoughts: slightly more lucid.

I’m not saying that the mad rush of de-pile-ing gets all the credit for it. I’m only saying that it was good for me to let go of a bunch of stuck horribleness.

And the take-away is …

1. Clearing stuff out is always useful, no matter what you’re trying to achieve with it.

2. If you can’t clear stuff out on one level, try another one.

I wasn’t getting anywhere with the herbs (which work on the physical level and the energetical level), but made big crazy progress with the cleaning and sorting (emotional level).

That’s it. Will update if there are further insights now that a. my brain is mostly functioning again and b. I’m almost well enough to get back to my yoga brain training epiphany wackiness.

More important: no more cooties! Snot-free internet hugs for everyone!

Because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in the week that was, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.

This week: The “maybe don’t store vitamins in a container that — though the perfect size — has the words ‘urinary tract infection’ on it, because really, is that the most appetizing thing to have on the table when there are guests?” edition.

The hard stuff

I ordered my first adult raincoat this week.

No, let’s rephrase that. I paid $150 for a raincoat.

That’s oh, about ten times what I paid for my last raincoat ten years ago, and the more I try to wrap my head around that the more insane that seems.

It’s not really about the money. It’s more that I don’t even want a fancy-pants grown-up raincoat. What do I need to look like a grown-up for? Isn’t that the whole point of working from home?

Yes, I believe it is. In fact, I have a job that allows me to be barefoot pretty much whenever I want, which — as it happens — is all the time.

But I’m going to this seminar in September. In Vancouver. Where it will be raining. Obviously. And also, it’s really time to make peace with the fact that I live in Portland where it also rains. (Cough. Understatement).

Also, you may recall that one of the lessons I learned teaching at the Berlin Yoga Festival this summer was: have a raincoat that a grown-up would actually wear.

Anyway, I’m a grown-up now, and it’s kind of weird. Whatever, this raincoat had better have the ability to deflect dragon attacks. Or at least come with a personal assistant.

Sick of being sick

So I had to miss the awesome work on your business with crayons event that I was all excited about. Because I got sick.

I don’t get sick very often, and because I’ve got degrees in wackiness and a bunch of ninja techniques, I can usually clear illness really fast.

This time nothing’s working. Acupuncture, acupressure tricks, meditation tricks, evil chinese herbs … bubkes.

It’s just me and the gazillion-degree heat and snot all over my face. I’m enjoying the time off and not fighting it, but will be really REALLY glad when it clears.

The good stuff

Tea and inspiration

Remember my friend Jennifer Hofmann from Inspired Home Office? The one I raved about because of her genius home office spa day?

We met up for tea this week. I don’t have a lot to say about this aside from the fact that every once in a while you just click with someone really fast in a big way and it’s awesome. Both awesome-cool and awesome-fearful.

Came away from our meeting with a ton of great ideas and even more adoration/appreciation for the amazingness that is Jen.

Speaking of friends

Speaking of friends, Mark Silver popped by yesterday out of the blue. Yes, having a cold is no fun, but the upside to being sick is taking the day off.

Which means I had unscheduled guilt-free time to hang out with Mark and talk up a storm about blogging and business and all sorts of other things. Fun!

Also, Mark’s a good guy. The kind of guy who doesn’t give you a weird look when you serve him juice in a wine glass. A Harley Davidson wine glass. Classy.

Bonus lesson in perspective

I remarked to my gentleman friend last night how lucky it was that when Mark popped by unannounced, we were totally prepared for it.

My evidence?
a. I was mostly dressed (despite the crazy heat),
b. there were fresh flowers on the table, and
c. just the day before I had finally dusted the cobwebs off of the mailbox and the door!

Score! Right?

To which my gentleman friend sweetly pointed out:
a. those flowers were in a whiskey bottle,
b. the table was sticky, and
c. there were piles of paper all over the living room.

He has a point. I mean, since we clean on Fridays, Thursday afternoon is pretty much the least attractive time to visit us.

So I said “oh”.

Not because I was upset or anything. I mean, he was absolutely right about all of those things. It also didn’t bother me because I feel comfortable enough with Mark that it’s not a big deal.

Actually, it probably wouldn’t bother me no matter who it was (well, other than the in-laws).

It was just funny how we were both there, looking at the same scene, absorbing identical information — and seeing different things. 

And a reminder that a. multiple versions of reality are completely possible and b. yours (well, mine) still will always feel right. And then we laughed and drank juice out of the Harley glasses. 

Also, I just want to say that I haven’t had a friend drop by unannounced since I lived in Tel Aviv (where it would happen at least a few times a week). Very cool.

That’s it for me ….

And yes, you’re totally welcome to join in my Friday ritual if you feel like it and/or there’s something you just want to say out loud too.

Happy weekend. Happy week to come.

Part Three in the “reworking my blog” series

Remember? I got my site reviewed by Men with Pens and promised to share all the neat stuff I learned with YOU.

Including what I’m taking from their useful advice, what parts I’m ignoring (even though maybe I shouldn’t), and why.

Just so we’re all clear … caveats, etc.

Remember how last time there was a bit of hullaballoo vocal discussion in the comments?

Well, even more landed in my inbox, and a couple of people who didn’t participate in the comments discussion didn’t realize that the advice I got from these lovely men (with pens!) was not completely random and unsolicited.

So I just wanted to say for the record:

1. Solicited? Hell, yeah. I went and asked Men With Pens for this advice.
2. In fact, I paid them for it. Not much, admittedly. $30 is an absurdly low fee to get professionals to review your website, but it was a transaction all the same, one you can take advantage of too.
3. It is completely clear to me that I don’t have to take any of their smart advice — and that they knew I wouldn’t feel obliged to actually listen to them if I didn’t feel like it.

Alright. Boring part over. Let’s talk about my website and — by extension — yours, and the extremely sexy important theme of navigation.

Talking about navigation …

This is actually the main reason I dropped $30 on their drive-by shoot-up-your-website thing.

I have a tormented and passionate relationship (well, let’s say “love-hate with the emphasis on love”) with website navigation. Specifically with what to name the different pages on my site.

Yes, this is another post about wordishness. I can’t help it. Words make me happy. Or, depending on how they’re used, drive me nuts.

And so I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what to call things and why.

For some reason, this is fun for me.

You’ll notice that there are eight little links in the navigation bar up top. Men with Pens zeroed in precisely on the ones I was most unsure about. Keep in mind that I’ve made some changes since their review, some based on their suggestions and others not … but that’s not the point.

The point is that there are certain parts of the navigation that I feel 100% about, and others that were meh — and Men With Pens immediately picked up on that.

Awesome. Great minds and all that.

Basically they don’t like the ones that I don’t like, and — here’s where it gets interesting — for entirely different reasons.

Sometimes their reasons are better than mine — and sometimes their reasons help me understand more about my reasons.

Let’s start with the something we definitely do agree on.

Men with Pens:

The navigation titles aren’t clear enough to the average visitor happening by your blog.

This is probably true. In fact, I’m sure it is.

I mean, it’s true for almost every website I’ve ever been on, and no matter what you do, there are always going to be people who just don’t get it. But you do want as many people as possible to get it.

Especially the people who are your right clients — the ones you most want to help.

Figuring out how to speak to those right people in the navigation is one of the things that anyone building a website agonizes over — and then constantly tweaks.

My navigation titles have changed more often than anything else on my site in the past three years. Some for the better, some still not sure about. So yay! Bring it on.

Issue #1: “Is this you?”

“Is this you?”… Well, yes, this is me. What of it? I have no incentive to click through and I’m not sure what I’ll read if I do.

Okay, this was actually cramp-inducingly funny for me, because it was a big gigantic lightbulb moment of the kind every business owner absolutely needs. This thing called “perspective” is the weirdest, coolest thing ever.

Let me explain. In the world I come from (self-help-ey, yoga-ey, coach-ey work-on-your-stuff stuff), everyone says “Is this you?” on their websites. I can think of fifteen sites just off the top of my head that do this.

Saying “Is this you?” is so completely de rigeuer where I come from that it didn’t even occur to me that this isn’t at all true outside of those places.

In fact, I was completely expecting James and Harry to have issues with “Is this you?”. It’s just that what I was imagining that what they’d say was this:

[In my head, yes? Not in real life!]

“Come on, do you really have to be a boring blah-blah-freakity-blah cliche like everyone else?”

Huh? At first I didn’t even understand what they were getting at, but then I took a step back — oh, right. We don’t swim in the same pool. Men with Pens don’t hang out in the version of the online world that I hang out in. And really, why would they?

Oh, is there anything better than the realization (again!) that the world is so much bigger and full of possibility than the slice of it you happen to inhabit?

So: “Is this you” is standard formula in my industry. Do I like it? Meh. Not married to it. Am I going to change it?

Well, I’ve been trying “Might be you?”, but just not digging it. “Sound like you?” is kind of a big silent screw-you to anyone who is visually oriented, which is most people and also everyone I know.

Yeah. I don’t know what to call it. I do know that this page (and its place in the navigation) has two functions:

The first thing is to make it extra-clear exactly what kind of people my work is for. It’s my red velvet rope, to use a Michael Port-ism.

The second function is to give me a place to send people when they think they want to work with me but actually they don’t. Because when you’re a consultant people will sometimes just call you up and want to give you their money.

Doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens. And sometimes these are people who are just not a good fit for your business. Instead of having to have a time-wasting “get to know each other” initial consultation, you just point them back to your “Is this you?” page — and they figure it out.

I love this page (hey, wanna read it?). I’m absolutely willing to call it something else that will fill the same function, but in a way, this is the most important page on the site.

Open to suggestions!

Issue #2: “Working together”

“Working Together” also isn’t clear, and “How I Work With You” may be a better choice. “How We Work Together” is another alternative.

Done! Changed to “How we work together”. Thank you. That was super helpful and answered a big silent question of mine.

Love it.

Issue #3: “Get stuff”

Men with Pens were not crazy about the “Get stuff” category. And they have a point.

[Note: this is the section that (as of this writing) is called The "Store".]

“Get Stuff.” What stuff? What is stuff? Clear that up again. “Free Goodies” might be a better choice (if the goodies are indeed, free). Everyone knows what that means.

“Get Stuff” also comes off as flat instead of lighthearted. “Free Stuff” is another choice.

Okay, this clearly isn’t clear. I was trying to be light-hearted. I was not trying to imply free stuff. This site is full of free stuff, but not there. In fact, it’s the one place that isn’t all free stuff.

Basically what I want is a word for “products” that isn’t products.

Because I hate the word products. It’s so sterile and cold and yuck. Pretty much all my associations are negative: factories, warehouses, executive suites, not to mention: more plastic junk the world doesn’t need …

Store? The word “store” is also annoying. Plus I think the shopping metaphor and associated terminology (”add to cart“, etc.) never translated well to the internet because buying something online is such a different experience than real-world “shopping”.

Yes, I’m aware that this ship has already sailed.

Still, it seems stupid to call something a store that has like, three items in it.

Tried calling it “resources”. Too vague.

Tried using “booth” for a while about a year ago but no one got it, obviously. Yes, I get that being clever is never a good idea. But I also don’t want to be lame. And “store” and “products” are kinda lame.

This is not about ‘improving sales”. Sales are fine. There is always room for improvement — such is the nature of business — but I’m certainly not complaining.

Yes, two people have written to me to say they couldn’t find my products, but coincidentally these were also two people who wanted me to consider switching to their shopping cart system. Grain of salt, yes?

I talked this over with the usual suspects (colleagues who do web consulting and copywriting) and they all said the same thing which was: “Whatever. ‘Stuff’ works for your audience, and you use it consistently. It’s the vernacular of what you do.”

But I’ve done some hard thinking.

And I really do want to be as clear as possible that hey, if you’re already looking for the place where you get to buy useful things that let you take this work home with you, here it is.

So … for now it’s the “store“. With what would be “airquotes” if we were “speaking”. (If that didn’t make you laugh, you need to spend more time at the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks.)

And just so you know, in the “store” you’ll find my Emergency Calming Techniques package, the Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic, a Starter Kit for hard-core yoga brain training work, and some amusing commentary from me.

I’ll be creating more good stuff for the “store” as time goes by, though I doubt there will ever be so many things there that it will lose its “quotation marks”.

Issue #4: “Habits blog”

And the last bit of navigation I was unsure about was the link to the blog.

Lastly, “Habits Blog” could use another title too. “Good Habits Blog” might be a better choice, as habits in themselves have a negative connotation and association.

This was interesting — and a good idea. I just don’t want to use it.

And here’s where I can finally draw on expertise rather than gut feeling, because now we’re completely in my area (habits) and not their area (websites).

There is no such thing as a good habit. I teach about how habits work and how to rewrite them, but I don’t teach about “good habits“. As far as I’m concerned they aren’t ever good or bad.

This is really a theme that deserves its own post, but let me just note that any habit that is unconscious and automatic, even if it’s a “healthy” one, needs some love and attention. I also have no interest in helping people kick their habits (ow!).

It’s not about good habits. There are no good habits. It’s about making the patterns behind your habits conscious so you can shift them when you want to.

I don’t know how to say all that in one word. Hence: habits blog. Yeah?

Bottom line: I don’t like “Good Habits Blog” one bit, but I do get that Men With Pens have a valid point about not confusing people.

Luckily, this is now a non-issue, thanks to a technical quirk. Having changed “Working together” to “How we work together”, there isn’t any room up there to qualify the blog. Which is fine. Blog it is.

The Men With Pens mantra: “Be clear, never be clever.”

I’m working on it.

It’s not that I want to be clever so much as that I want to be a. personable (in a real-live Betty Boop way) and b. not annoying.

These suggestions from our Men with Pens have given me lots of nutritious food for thought, and I will absolutely let you know where I go with this.

But for now … ideas? Suggestions?

A way to say “Is this you?” that’s clear and non-cliche? What about the “store”? Do I need to rename the blog or does it work as is?

And yes, I will feel as free to consider and then maybe ignore your wonderful, well-intentioned, thoughtful, insightful advice as I did with that of Men With Pens. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the hell out of it, because I do.

Feedback: totally welcome and appreciated.