I’m pretty interested in sustainability, as my energy is pretty yin, and, as Mark says, I get pulled into the yang spend-it-beat-it-push-push mentality, but it only leaves me doubting my own way.

Then I read Mark, and Jen, and Havi, and you, and feel more validated and quiet.

Twitter/social media naturally pulls us towards a bright burning. I wonder if there is a way of using it in a sustainable way…

Food for thought. Thanks Charlie.

The idea that people who aren’t out there pushing to the limit everyday are somehow weak, confused or not living their passion is a dangerous one.

In nature, rest and dormancy is part of the process – yet somehow this has been lost in the new entrepreneur/life coach/big time blogger/lifestyle design set.

Who is to say what is right for one person is right for everyone? I hope that this critical look at this mindset, represented by the book Crush It, is just the start of a change in general in the blogosphere for a more open and honest look at how people can succeed at their own pace and in their own terms.

“How many of you have read Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think” book? Virtually all hands go up. “How many of you have ever seen him speak, followed him, *friended* him?” All hands go down.

Then I give them the reverse test… using a wildly popular/loved blogger/tweeter/presenter you all know, whose superbly and heavily-promoted book still failed.

Not to discount the value in social media for helping us discover what WILL be helpful/useful/meaningful for those who choose to read/follow us, but we should never forget that it’s really not *our* use of social media that makes the difference to the success of what we deliver… it is the social media use of our readers/customers/users. It’s always about what THEY say to one another, and the only true, *sustainable* way to affect that is to deliver something they find meaningful and useful and–for them and those they recommend it to–”worth it”.

When I left Twitter, sure enough — people tweeted, “But how will she ever promote her books now?!” Thankfully, my husband reminded me that we’d sold nearly a million print copies in our series *before* I had a Twitter account, and that I’d written all of my books *before* I even had a blog or had ever spoken at a conference. Again, I’m not dismissing the deep and lasting value of social media–especially for learning what DOES matter for our users–but some of us need to slightly shift or rebalance our perspective on what it’s really about.

Thank you for this post.

That said, yep, we’re in agreement and I love the way you’ve expressed this.

Yes, Charlie, of course these elements are part of all of us. I was describing the energy/feel of the overall online conversation – and as I said above, this energy is put forth by men and women.

Here is something a friend of mine wrote after the Vancouver Olympics that I think may help illuminate what I was saying:

Following the adrenalin rush of speed, we would honour the desire to slow down and sit by the window, breathing deeply and savouring the freedom simply to be alive in each passing moment. Having scaled the Olympian heights, we might sink back onto the ground and lay there awhile, feeling the earth’s heartbeat and the reality of all that nourishes and sustains us. Having demonstrated our strength, we would cherish the gentleness and vulnerability in ourselves and others that make us human. 

After focusing long and hard on outer goals, we might turn our eye of longing inward to illuminate the dark glow of our own unknown depths. The thinking heart and the feeling mind. The dancing soul and the yearning body. Poetry and passion in our everyday lives. A grounded, reality-based, earth-loving honesty, and a wise and humble sense of who we are. 

And this ties back to the ideas I suggested in my comment on the Launch Fatigue post. I was trying to move from Launch as a big thrust with lots of energy that doesn’t last very long (we were partly talking about the 24 hour offer, right?) to something that is bigger than that, something that is about connection and poetry. What if your saw your launch as a chance to add beauty and love to the world. What if it was not just a big thrust but also a slow, romantic dance. (you’re seeing the metaphor here, right?)

And how about the same for your life.? Not just pushing, pushing, pushing but also some enchantment, some romancing of your soul?

I think this doesn’t get heard much in the current conversation, which is why I’m so pleased you wrote about it.

I’m so glad this message is starting to filter through to the men folks. Jen has been saying it for 18 years, and many other people have been saying it for a long, long time. I heard even the Buddha said it once.

I definitely have a visceral reaction to messages like ‘crush it.’ On one hand, I want it, like I want five pints of ice cream when I’m feeling out of sorts.

On the other hand, my stomach tightens, and my heart cringes. I know it’s not the way.

Thanks for including my video in the post. I want to make a pitch in favor of Jen Louden’s Satisfaction Finder, whose idea of Conditions of Enoughness has been a wonderful anchor for me recently: http://www.comfortqueen.com/satisfactionfinder/

That concept alone, coming up with conditions of enoughness… what a heart-saver.

Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but when that is all there is it lacks depth and humanity. All yin and no yang does not equal wholeness.

100% agreed.

I prefer to think that comfort, peace, sustainability, and compassion, as well as discomfort, violence, depletion, and dominance, are basic virtues and vices of sentient beings rather than manifestations of a gendered reality, though. If observation will be theory-laden no matter what we do, better to have a theory that allows us to see people as unique beings first rather than people as members of a normative group. (Of course, you could just be saying that there are elements that are part of all of us, regardless of our chromosomal makeup, in which case, set aside the schema-tweaking. )