If, like me, you’ve been a solo professional services provider for a decade or more, you may be ready to do some manual labor, to work with your hands, not to replace, but to inspire your practice.

I’m not talking about a hobby although a hobby you love could be a gateway to your trade. My hobby was flower gardening but I’d done very little of that after selling my house in the mid-90′s. But on an impulse I responded to an ad for garden center help and that led to my own gardening services “trade“.

There was discomfort: a nagging sense that I was giving up on my core work and purpose, that I was over-diversifying and unfocused. I rationalized that it was temporary work and provided great cross-training for my rowing. But those were half-truths. Over time I realized that The Truth was believing that my work was highly specialized and intellectual although I’m equally kinesthetic. And I don’t think I’m unique in holding this contradiction.

Now I’m clear about loving my work: both my trade and my professional services both of which are expressions through work, of body mind integration. Body and mind are one whether we recognize that or not. How could we not expect to hunger for more if we cut ourselves off from one or the other?

So it seems that my blogging sabbatical is officially over. For that, I thank the dirt and the flowers and the sweat.

In rowing, one of the calls that coxswains and coaches make is “let it run”. That means the rowers stop rowing and the boat continues to move through the water on its own momentum, until it stops. Pause drills are similar. Rowers stop rowing and start again at different points in the stroke in order to feel balance, synchrony and flow.

Speakers can use these techniques because the need to “run-on” and never, ever pause completely prevents them from connecting with or relating to their listeners.

This stems partly from fear of being interrupted and losing air-time. Interruption is rampant in the attention economy. Politicians interrupt, commentators interrupt and celebrities interrupt each other even if it means hijacking a major award show:
Roger Ross Williams / Elinor Burkett at the 2010 Oscars.
Taylor Swift / Kanye West at the 2009 VMA’s.

Those aren’t the only kinds of interruptions. Others include the streams on listeners’ devices as well as on the backchannels that are now being integrated with talks and presentations. Anonymity gives cover to troll-like, negative behavior that can spread through the audience, sometimes turning it against the speaker.

These changes present new kinds of challenges for facilitators and moderators. But what can a speaker do other than try to outrace, drown out or crowd out interruptions, multi-tasking and waves of unfavorable reaction?

Stop, feel and accept the individual, collective and spatial energy in the room.

Connect with one person at a time on the deepest possible level through the pauses, letting the message resonate. Its better to be in relational presence with a few listeners by holding the space rather than to desperately or forcefully fill it up.

Rowers practice letting the boat do the work for them by allowing it to glide under them as they take their rest. In the collaborative, connected world, the lines between speakers and listeners are blurred and the dynamic has shifted. To attempt to control and resist those changes is a missed opportunity to “let it run”.

We had an interesting and provocative discussion this week at Samadhi about the intersection of the evolution of media and the evolution of consciousness. It also turned out to be one of those times, when out of the blue and unexpectedly I got what I describe as “jacked up by the Field”.

I’ve found that philosophical discussions and meetups requiring rigor, have huge benefits for professionals and content creators in the change business, including:

• Linking and integrating ideas, solutions and content that seemed mutually exclusive.
• Bringing unconscious beliefs contradicting ideas, solutions and content, into awareness.

As I developed the post, the “enlightened idea wiki” came up and I think it has a lot of potential as a both a practice and content structure and model.

This is how it evolved. I’d recently spent a lot of time developing a presentation about models for professional service providers and content creators. The focus of the presentation is: The Credit. So when I read this NYT article, Author, 17, Says It’s ‘Mixing,’ Not Plagiarism, it brought up a good deal of righteous indignation that I was happy to share with others in my social communities who felt the same way, especially about her specific quote:

“There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,” – Helene Hegemann

It felt so good and so right to rip into this with so many people who agreed with me.

Flash forward to the meetup. The discussion was preceded with a meditation and then a reading of an EnlightenNext Magazine column, Awakening to the blob, inspired by Mediated, Thomas de Zengotita. A quote from the book via the reading:

In a mediated world, the opposite of real isn’t phony or illusional or fictional—it’s optional. Idiomatically, we recognize this when we say, “the reality is…” meaning something that has to be dealt with, something that isn’t an option. We are most free of mediation, we are most real, when we are at the disposal of accident and necessity. That’s when we are not being addressed.

My unexpected lesson from the Field was hearing this young, intelligent writer’s honest expression of her vantage point with respect to de Zengotita’s work.

I discovered that terms and concepts actually exist to describe the experience of growing up in the postmodern era. I discovered that we are living in a mediated world, and I am a mediated girl.

Suddenly my righteous indignation about the 17 year old “mixing not plagiarizing” author seemed out of whack from the vantage point of my greater self who “meets” people where they are and without judgment. I realized that How Dare You! was my ego’s voice, justifying my resistance to a vantage point that threatened mine. That was an important shift.

A wiki post is a lot of work but I recommend creating one, maybe once a quarter. Here’s why. Like a great visual it takes a lot of seemingly disconnected, linear, small things and gives them form and expression in a way that adds dimension and artistic expression to your ideas, solutions and content.

Isn’t that a better use of your time than a quarterly plan?

I confess. I rarely comment. But since I want to participate more I thought Google Buzz might be a good sharing and discussion platform.

So this is what I’ve observed after a few days experimenting with Buzz: very few tech/business people, often referred to as celebrities, dominate the public discussions. The vast majority of those who follow them race to make comments, agree or disagree, troll, rail against, offend, self-promote, cross-promote, ask for something, spam, praise and sometimes add value. This of course, is nothing new in public discussion groups.

What’s different and dramatic now is the scale…something like 10 million Google Buzz posts the first few days. So I followed a few of the celebrities, and observed how they engaged an almost instantaneous swarm of tens of thousands of followers. My sense: a collective need arises that I can only describe as: “Do You Care About Me?”. And I thought…do they care? How? And what does care even mean?

I can’t think of a better starting point for any brand (including global microbrands) to grow and develop in the Web 2.0 and beyond world, than to ask those questions. This is my first pass at a framework to facilitate that process. I followed a model that I created years ago for knowledge awareness, and its been valuable.

Why do it? Because to care is the natural state and point of power. Its also a state tremendously negatively affected by contradicting and limiting complex belief systems that inhibit growth and development.

“I Care” – is there a better way to change the status quo?

I have strong feelings about that statement after attending awesome WordCamp Boston, #wcbos, yesterday. It inspired me to respond to the many variations of a statement I often hear and see:

“Enough with the content, its action that really matters”.

Content and action aren’t mutually exclusive. Content is directed movement (action) in form: written, audio and video.

I can’t think of any action that doesn’t correspond with content, including:

• communicating – stories
• meeting – recaps
• directing – strategy
• sharing – posts & comments
• teaching – course work
• designing – visuals
• preparing – notes
• helping – feedback
• marketing – web pages
• systematizing & processing – applications
• searching & researching – aggregated information
• presenting – shows
• entertaining – scripts
• playing – toys

I think this is very important for anyone just starting out, or struggling with content creation. Don’t buy into the myth that you’re sacrificing action for content. They’re hand in hand.

Photo credit:
Title: hand in hand
Artist: Lumatic on flickr

When my granddaughters Sam and Em were little they loved to play “Mrs Meanie” with me. I’d pretend to be the mean school teacher who would not allow freedom, fun, laughter or any frivolity. Of course this would send the girls into paroxysms of giggle fits at which point I’d pretend to go into conniptions and chase them all over the place with threats of dire punishments as they’d yell “ha ha Mrs Meanie!”. It was pure silliness that when on literally for years. The minute I’d walk into the house they’d beg “Nano, do Mrs Meanie pleeeeeeze!”

I think of that character often lately with respect to professional service providers and their client relationships. This accelerated change environment that includes rapid technology and business model innovation, increasingly compressed project time frames and downward pressure on fee structures, beautifully lends itself to the emergence of the consultant version of Mrs. Meanie. The challenge is making it as desirable for clients as it was for the kids.

Clients sometimes need it for the following reason: they don’t know what they don’t know. If that’s the case there’s no straight and clear path from their problem to your solution. Its more like a jungle of unconscious and hidden assumptions and expectations.

Some solo psf’s deal with the jungle by ignoring and denying it. Why? Because they want the work. Others deal with it by trying to manage it with lengthy contracts and processes. There’s even a large body of content addressing “firing the client”. These methods are about setting boundaries and not surprisingly, have a high likelihood of failure because every boundary is a battle line to cross. In the old ways of work boundary protection was built into fees. Forget about that in the new ways of work.

So how can you decrease the likelihood of project breakdown and failure? Through the discipline of rigor (the “R” in DRIVE).

Simply stated, through every step of the project, in real time, you honestly express and inquire about the contradictions and internal conflicts you’re hearing, observing and sensing. These aren’t judgments or things you fix, unless of course you ask permission and the client is willing. They are, however, as much of the truth and rationale for the project as are the desire and need for the project.

Clearly, facilitative skills and your own self-awareness will support your rigor discipline. Clients can react very negatively to your shining a light on what they don’t know they don’t know. Remember that argument, hubris and defensiveness from you will only strengthen the boundary lines of protection. Conversely, your consistency, non-judgment and acceptance create a space for both your clients’ and your own growth and development as well as create the cornerstone of your solo professional “Meanie Manifesto”.

I recently met some good friends, at a funky diner loved by rowers, for our annual holiday breakfast. One of us noticed a new menu item “Albanian Omelet”. We laughed about what it could be and I told them I was reminded of the great movie Wag the Dog about the government’s staging a fake war with Albania to distract the public from a presidential sex scandal.

Come to find out we all loved the movie and started to discuss the characters, actors and quotes. I talked about how my favorite was Dustin Hoffman as Hollywood producer Stanley Motss who, despite insane obstacles and setbacks, successfully creates just enough faked footage, music and hype to accomplish what he was hired to do: get the president re-elected. He considers it his finest work but when he discovers that he’ll never get the credit for it, he threatens to go public with the scheme and he’s assassinated.

Conrad ‘Connie’ Brean: Stanley, don’t do this. You’re playing with your life here.
Stanley Motss: F*** my life. I want the credit.

I told my friends that I think of that line all the time when I’m involved with emerging social business models, collaboration and sharing. How do you deal with “who gets the credit?” One of my friends, a biotech analyst, described how critical and challenging that exact question is in her company, industry and in the scientific community at large. It was great to get her insights. As soon as I got in my car I wrote a few notes about it on an index card under “blog idea”.

So why is this important? Because so many people think that they don’t have some mysterious “what it takes” to create unique and original ideas, solutions and content. I hear it all the time: “I’m missing the research, the talent, the skills, the time, the experience, the clients, the degree, the influencers…” Not true. All it takes is natural curiosity, conversations about anything and everything with everyone, love and excitement about how its all connected, playing around with metaphor, and a $2 pack of index cards.

Is it hard work? Sometimes, except when its fun and easy and you can stop pushing to make it happen and just let it happen.

Embodiment: the “E” in DRIVE

One of the 5 elements of the RedShift DRIVE Self-Awareness and Change Leadership Model, and key to shifting identity in the emotional/neurobiological dimension, is Embodiment.

Huge change shifts can create the perfect storm of heightened unwanted feelings combined with an increasingly perceived need to refute emotions. But to put on a false front is to live in conflict with oneself, blocking the motion of being and diminishing creativity, natural influence and personal power. The result is unhappiness, frustration and resistance that spreads when what is denied and can no longer be contained, is projected onto others. In extreme cases, it escalates to a toxic environment, self-harm, abuse and violence.

Feelings freely expressed, on the other hand, are valuable pointers to what people believe, and how they perceive themselves, in relation to change in their personal, professional and organizational lives. Awareness of those beliefs means they can be examined and replaced if they’re not aligned with what’s desired or with a new direction. Its a mistake to create an environment in which change must take place in mind only. That’s because identity, as well as the moment-to-moment choice to protect or grow, is embodied at the cellular level. Awareness includes body awareness. Expression comes through the body as well as the brain. Organizations can unlock institutional culture (collective beliefs) as well as institutional knowledge.

Social tools, computing and networks support an environment in which lasting, multi-dimensional change can occur; in which creative power is unlocked through participation, inclusiveness, authenticity, and transparency and in which leaders will continually sense and re-align the levers of growth and protection.

Vigilance: the “V” in DRIVE

One of the 5 elements of the RedShift DRIVE Self-Awareness and Change Leadership Model, and key to shifting identity, in the mindful/practical dimension is Vigilance.

A while back I talked with 2 women who worked, under incompetent managers in a toxic culture, for the same very large and continually reorganizing financial firm. Both hated their jobs, but although their perspectives on the day to day experience were similar, their feelings were different. One woman was seriously depressed, stressed, anxious and negative. The other was cheerful and easygoing. Those respective feelings reflected how each of them responded to her work situation based on what she believed about her work situation.

One identified with “My job is killing me.” and the other with “I can still find ways to be valuable and feel good about what I do in a rapidly deteriorating work environment.”

Mainstream advice is typically about taking action and changing the external. Get out of there and get another job. That may work out fine but in the example, the woman who believed that her job was killing her would likely find herself repeatedly at the mercy of intolerable workplace conditions because she’s not practiced in realizing that her beliefs shape the experiences that result in her misery, stress and suffering.

Cultivating vigilance chops isn’t difficult when there’s willingness to accept personal and cultural creative power and to have faith that what results is always right, even if its unexpected, not understood or maybe even unpleasant. Its not about putting on a cheerful face when what you’re really feeling is rage at the moron you work for and then responding by spending the rest of the day bad-mouthing the jerk. That’s the kind of response that leads to the dead end that completely inhibits individual, cultural and organizational growth and development.

You develop the vigilance habit through non-resistance to life (including work) experience, wanted and unwanted, moment to moment. When you’re open to it, you receive the incoming feedback you need about going the right way and avoiding dead ends. When you’re open to it your outgoing self-expression is naturally influential and non-toxic, even when it challenges the status quo.

How and when do you start? In any moment in which you want to feel less bad. Allow yourself to be still. Remind yourself that this moment is your point of power. Breathe in the incoming and breathe out the outgoing. Notice the inner shift. Smile, thank yourself and continue on your way.

I read Creating You & Company in 1999 when I was planning to leave my last real job and start my professional service firm as a solopreneur.

It was a great influence because it validated my sense that “having a job” was a worn out concept, signally that huge, disruptive shifts would take place in the world of work. It also supported my business model idea which was to offer services as products, which I call programs.

Recently, its occurred to me that professional service “products” need merchandising just like any other product. I know quite a bit about merchandising because I work part-time doing garden center merchandising as the liaison between the grower and the big-box stores.

Three fundamental merchandising concepts in garden center merchandising can be effectively applied to professional services:

Display – One of the first things I do when I take on a new store is to scan what product is out front in the main aisles and benches, and to look at what product is in the lot and in the back of the carts. Typically, there’s old stale product where people are shopping and fresh new product languishing where nobody can see it. Are you displaying your best solutions, ideas and content where your clients are are looking and shopping?

Consolidation – In the garden centers, I’m continually maximizing shelf space while at the same time grouping products for maximum appeal. The more I do it, the greater the capacity I develop for quickly scoping out very large areas, visualizing the end result, and figuring out the most efficient way to get that result. What are your opportunities to continually consolidate and group together your solutions, ideas and content so they “pop” when your clients are looking and shopping?

Culling – I’m surprised how difficult it is for people to get rid of product that’s no good. I think its mainly because they can’t make culling decisions by putting themselves in the customers’ shoes and asking themselves: “will I buy this?” Its a no excuses point of view. Prolific author Stephen King is a great culler and strongly advises that aspiring writers pay strict attention to culling:

..kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings. – Stephen King

Are you hanging on to boring or outdated solutions, ideas and content that are spoiling the overall appeal, and are holding back the growth and momentum of your professional service practice?

If these fundamental merchandising concepts make sense, and the questions hold some truth for you, this may be a good time to put aside the latest and greatest tools and technologies and merchandise your professional services. Inspiration is always available at your local garden center. If you need a good system, I love WordPress.