Welcome, Thought Leaders!

I had the privilege of hanging out with a lot of great thought leaders this last weekend, and it was terrifying exciting to be in a room full of people who didn’t know who I was. I wanted to take a take a chance to give my new friends a shortcut to content that they might like to read. Even if you’ve been reading and supporting for a while, you might want to scan this post, too, as there might be gems here that you didn’t catch when they came out.

What a lot of people didn’t know is that I design planners that help people build some flexible structure around their creative mojo. I also didn’t talk a lot about it because that’s not my way – but if you’d like to see what’s available, head over to the Free Planners to learn more. They’re pretty popular with creative types and freelancers.

I’ve categorized the posts below to make it a little easier to figure out what you’d like to read. You might consider bookmarking this post, too.

On Entrepreneurship

• Rebirth of Entrepreneurialism

This post is the start of a longish series on the changes in technology and society that allows for an alternative form of capitalism in which we thought leaders can thrive. I have a lot more that I’m going to be adding to this thread in the future, so if you want to see the background, here you go!

• Aligning Strategy and Compassion

There’s a belief out there that strategy and compassion are opposites of each other. This belief both justifies destructive forms of entrepreneurship and stifles healthy forms of entrepreneurship, and the fact of the matter is that the belief is simply misguided. The real point of the form of entrepreneurship that we want to be a part of is to align strategy and compassion.

• Why You Might Not Want To Be A Chai Wallah
  

We live in a society that loves specialists, and while that might be good for some people, specializing may be one of the worst things that a thought leader can do. This short video post explains why you might not want to be a specialist.

• What The Information Age Means For You

Remember the “Did You Know?” video we watched? I posted it and another version that contained other relevant information last year, but I had some ideas on what it all meant. I think you’ll agree.

• Why You’re Undervaluing Yourself (And How To Stop)

This is a guest post by Ali Hale – who’s a thought leader herself, even though she won’t claim it (yet) – that really gets to the heart of why you’re undervaluing yourself. It’s definitely worth a read if you’d like to interrupt those thoughts.

• Should You Be A Tour Guide or Expedition Leader?

This is a guest post by Cath Duncan – yes, the very same one that attended the conference – that discusses two distinct approaches to entrepreneurship. As thought leaders, you’re probably much more of an expedition leader, but this is troubling when your audience is wanting a tour guide.

On Meaningful Action (Productivity for Creative Folks)

• Create, Connect, and Consume

We talked a lot about breathing in and breathing out, but another critical feature of creative productivity is connecting with other people. The ideas in this post were a game-changer for me and put that final piece in the puzzle.

• Do Epic Shit

You saw the shirt and heard Pam’s talk, so you know what epic shit is all about. This short post says a little bit more about the phrase that launched a thousand ventures.

• Demystifying the Creative Process

While the creative process might seem mysterious, it can actually be broken down into 4 discrete steps. Are you giving yourself enough space to get through the fourth one?

• Getting To Good Enough

How many times have you stopped working on something because you couldn’t get make it perfect? Instead of questing for perfection, think about what it takes to get it to good enough so you can share it with the right people who’ll help you make it excellent. Perfection doesn’t exist, so let’s let it go.

• Stop Shuffling and Start Creating

So you might have a lot of ideas from the event, and there’s a natural tendency for us to jump from idea to idea – but that’s a momentum killer. Rather than shuffle through a bunch of projects, focus on pushing projects to done before you build momentum on new projects.

• A Frog A Day Keeps Your Anchors Aweigh

One of the things that causes a lot of Stuckness is the action items that we don’t want to do. Rather than handling them early, we let them build up until they overwhelm the hell out of us. Instead of going that route, a far better technique is to try to catch a frog a day.

• How to Mindmap Your Way Through Stuckness

Being Stuck and stalled on a project often times has very little to do with what’s going on in your head and instead has a lot to do with what’s going in your heart. Let’s get those feelings on the map so you can sort through what’s really at play.

A Side of Inspiration and Comfort

• The Change-Maker’s Creed

I’m here to change the world, and this is my sword and shield for those who think I can’t or won’t. Stand with me.

• Do You Have The Weirdo Syndrome?

This is the other phrase that Pam mentioned in her talk. The Weirdo Syndrome is the love/hate relationship some people have with their own uniqueness, and one of the worst things about the Weirdo Syndrome is that it makes you hide your unique gifts from the world.

• The World Will Always Begin At Your Feet

This super-short post is a reminder that no matter where you are, the world will always begin at your feet. Focus on what you can do from where you are rather than what you’ll be able to do once you’re there – wherever there is.

A Couple of Thought-Pieces

• What We Gave Up When We Gained Abundance

In the midst of all the technological changes and subsequent social changes, we’ve lost ourselves. It’s not that we can’t reclaim ourselves, but rather that we don’t take the time to know that we’ve lost ourselves in the first place. This is a long post, but it’s worth a read if you sense that somewhere along the line you lost track of what it means to be human.

• Idea Nodes, Opportunity Chains, and Hypernetworking

Ideas, opportunities, and people are no longer just connected – they’re hyperconnected. The rules for operating in a hyperconnected environment are different, but when you *get* it, you’ll thrive. This post seems fairly theoretical, but after looking at it, I recognize that it’s been a key ingredient to my success.

If you’d like to see where these ideas are going, subscribe to the blog by RSS or by Email to walk with us. You might also want to sign up for the newsletter using the form on the sidebar to your right.

I’d love it if you’d introduce yourself in the comments so other people can find out more about what you’re doing or if you’d just let me know if you found this post helpful.