Big Aaron Update: Overload, “Bursting”, Create a Profitable Business in 4 Hours, and more
March 3, 2009
Overdoing enjoyment
You know when you’re so busy that you lose track of time and days? And not in a good way, but in a mentally overloaded way? Because that’s how my head’s been the past several days/week, because my main businesses and projects (PebbleStorm, CEOFlow, DataSalad, ColdCalling2.com and Nitro.la) are all gelling right now, in great ways, and need real attention. Which, because there’s a traffic jam of goodness, is becoming a pain in my azz.
For example, Yanik Silver’s hosting my first PebbleStorm webinar (“Here’s an Uncommon Way to Discover Your ‘Unique Genius’ – Combining What You Love with Real Satisfaction and Financial Independence”) in two weeks, on March 17 (register here). I’m also holding CEOFlow events in both Southern and Northern California, organizing a Nitro.la event, and will also be updating the content on ColdCalling2.com, among other things…
March is going to be a month of overload, a big ol’ bite of the apple.
Extremes of any kind aren’t sustainable
The thing is, I love all these businesses and the people I’m doing them with! Yet things go wrong when we go to extremes, even with enjoyment, and get outside of our sustainable pace. I feel like a glutton at the dessert bar, stuffed from eating too much, but unable to stop…
So of course rather than meditate, play Wii, go for a walk or a motorcycle ride, I decide to do a blog post about all this and add some gas to the fire! Yep I’m laughing at myself. Ah, what I won’t do for my readers 
Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it
The first inspirations for PebbleStorm came to me back in July/August 2007, when I was at the VC firm Alloy Ventures in Palo Alto, CA (I will do a dedicated blog post on the ‘origins of PebbleStorm’ sometime). After doing about three months of research into the b2b lead generation space, I had 10-12 ideas for projects or businesses that I wanted to do. They all seemed so interesting to me that I didn’t want to have to pick just one. I mean, if you had 10 children, could you choose just one you wanted to keep, and then leave the rest behind?
I got my bunch of businesses
Trust me, I am not complaining. This is a great problem to have, and I love all this stuff – again, so much so that sometimes I can’t stop, even when I should. One of my habits, which I’ve gotten MUCH better at since starting PebbleStorm, is overdoing things and going to extremes. Sort of like when I ran myself into a hyponatremia coma in a triathlon in 2001.
Of course, that pattern is also what led to me creating PebbleStorm (“I want to work on what I want, when I want, with whom I want, from where I want”), which is a seriously extreme way of thinking about work, in its own way!
80% patience, 20% bursts
As much as I counsel patience, babysteps, taking things slowly and more patience, it does make sense to regularly turn on the juice and burst for a few hours (fun!), days (ok) or weeks (yuck). Patience gives you the clarity of exactly what you need or want to get done; bursting gets it done very quickly. You gotta know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em, and how to balance the two modes. I burst for 1-4 hours at a time, and preferably with one of my business partners. I’ll break longer bursts into 1-hour chunks with their own goals.
What I mean by “burst”
When I use the term burst, I don’t mean just working on random stuff for a few hours. I mean sitting down with a very specific goal (launch a website, draft a webinar, publish a blog post, draft and send an event invitation…), for a defined time period (1 hour, 2 hours…), shutting out distractions, and getting it DONE. For example, I might budget an hour to publish a blog post, or two to revise a Sales Success Kit document – and the time limit keeps me focused on getting it done.
This is really the first time since starting PebbleStorm that I have a good reason to burst for a few weeks/a month. I’m not sure if this will lead to changes in my ongoing routines or not, but I’ll pay attention to it.
The burst that created a profitable business in four hours: ColdCalling2.com
Here’s an example of how I burst: a couple of weeks ago, Onna Young (CEO of ColdCalling2.com) and I created a profitable product and business/website in about four hours, after doing some basic preparation and goal-setting. We had fun with it, and made it into a game: “How can we create a site and sellable product in just four hours?” In that time, we created the ebook, Success Kit and website www.ColdCalling2.com.
(Well, technically we lost, since it took us 4 hours and 15 minutes. But don’t tell anyone.)
It wasn’t magic, just the application of PebbleStorm’s principles and PebbleStorm’s 5 Stages. I’ll discuss it some more in the March 17 PebbleStorm webinar.
On the personal front…meditation, exercise, a home in Santa Monica
Meditation: It’s been about three months since I attended a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat (“A lifetime happiness and focus enhancer: Vipassana meditation”). I’ve been meditating about every 2 out of 3 days – sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for 30 minutes. It’s a bit of mental calm. I’m still playing with my practice, but I’m feeling like 30 minutes most mornings, and 10-15 at night, is where I’m heading to over the coming months.
Exercise: I’ve noticed how exercise affects my mood positively that day, even many hours after the workout. If I don’t exercise, I’m not as centered (not that anyone else would notice). Normally even I wouldn’t notice, because I’m good-natured in general, but I’ve been paying attention to this. I’m really enjoying both Yoga and mat pilates.
I just moved to Santa Monica: I finally found a great place to rent in Santa Monica (video) as a home, after 2.5 years of bouncing around Northern and Southern California communities! (I was doing the taster’s menu approach in order to figure out exactly where I wanted to land long-term.)
It’ll be fun organizing some PebbleStorm groups here in the coming months. A core part of PebbleStorm includes connecting fellow PebbleStormers, and creating a network of trusted people that can work together very easily. Santa Monica’s ground zero for the core group now.
I’ll continue to visit the SF Bay area about once a month, to see family, friends, clients and to host the CEOFlow sessions.
How much do I want to proof this before publishing?
Not much. Time to hit “publish”, eat something and rest my brain…I have more bursting to do tomorrow! Although I joked in the beginning about making the overload worse by blogging, sharing is fun, and one of my core enjoyments (as it is with many people).
Using the Economic Trouble to Your Advantage
February 23, 2009
Below is an article I wrote for Christopher Lowman’s Moving Towards Peace newsletter, on why I think the current mess will be healthy for us all in the long run – even if it’s incredible painful in the short run.
———————-
Americans are dealing with the worst financial and economic trouble in decades–and, unfortunately, it’s going to get worse 
before it gets better (sorry!) Why then, you might ask, will this ultimately be a good and healthy thing for us, i.e., the ‘us’ that decides to take advantage of it?
The path to business success is shifting from one based on ‘promotion’ (i.e., selling to anyone, anyway, for the sake of making money), to one based on ‘attraction’ (i.e., growth based on making customers successful, which then attracts more customers). This latest meltdown is a necessary part of this shift, as it’s causing us to shed toxins and unhealthy habits … ultimately teaching ‘us’ that the old paradigm of business isn’t the path to happiness, success, and independence that we were trained to think it was.
Whether you’ve been laid off, had your compensation cut, or are suffering from a real estate hangover–these are all situations that can force you out of your mental ruts and cause you to reexamine what you really want to do with your life. As painful as it might be, this is, in actuality, a blessing-in-disguise … a unique opportunity to reevaluate and make a positive change in what you’re going to do with your business life.
Many of the millions of people who have and will lose their jobs will end up starting their own companies, ending up happier and wealthier for it.
This is how you can use the financial and economic trouble to your advantage. If you were assured of success and could do anything, what would be your dream business? Start by reflecting on what adds meaning to your life and what you enjoy doing or sharing. How can you practice those enjoyments in ways that are meaningful to others? How can you mash your enjoyments up (say old cars, travel, teaching, video and …?) into a dream business that combines several of your passions, so that you can make a living by doing the things that you love to do?
It can take two or three years to generate steady income from a new business, so maintain a day job for income while you work on your ideas a few hours a week. Just don’t stop taking baby steps in the direction of manifesting your dream business!
You can do it. I escaped corporate America to realize my dream business, and am now helping others to do the same. I’ve dedicated my work to helping people ‘make money through enjoyment’ and my dream business, PebbleStorm, is the vehicle for my personal mission. Click HERE to register for my launch webinar on March 17th.
Updated 03.04.09: The New York Times published an article with some examples of people doing just this:
Tired of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own
Aaron Ross founded PebbleStorm to help people “make money through enjoyment.” Prior to founding PebbleStorm, Aaron Ross was an EIR (Entrepreneur-in-Residence) at Alloy Ventures, a venture capital firm with over $1 billion under management. He is an Ironman triathlete, graduate of the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, and volunteer mentor at SCORE, “Counselors to America’s Small Business.”
[CEOFlow] New CEOFlow sketch: “Revenue, Space & Enjoyment”
February 15, 2009
As I wrote about in My original notes on frustrations with the way work, uh, works, PebbleStorm: CEOFlow is like “advanced PebbleStorm”. I’ve been playing with my CEOFlow circles for awhile, and finally this morning they really clicked:
That’s actually the whole post, but if you want to see the original, it’s here
My original notes on frustrations with the way work, uh, works
February 12, 2009
I’ve almost always been frustrated with our traditional expectations of how work and corporate jobs should function (even when I was the CEO of my own company). Back in the summer of 2006 I wrote down some different thoughts around my frustrations. These trains of thought helped crystallize PebbleStorm (“make money through enjoyment”) and PebbleStorm: CEOFlow (“grow revenue through enjoyment”). These thoughts started me down the path of wondering “how could I create environments without these frustrations?”
By the way, about PebbleStorm: CEOFlow… imagine you’ve already created your dream business and are making money through enjoyment. You’re about to be an accidental CEO with a whole new set of issues, employees and partners to deal with…fun fun fun ☺. CEOs have special needs. The intention behind CEOFlow is to help you continue to evolve and grow your business, but without losing your enjoyment of it.
Here are the original (almost unchanged) notes from 2006 that I wrote to myself…
——————————————————-
Why can’t we take the work out of work?
A few people live their dream – why can’t more? I don’t buy it when people assume intelligence or drive is what’s needed for success. Why are so many people, including lots of very innovative, smart and ambitious people, trapped in the rat race? Example: the NYT article on “In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich“
Why can’t we take the work out of work?
A few people live their dream – why can’t more? I don’t buy it when people assume intelligence or drive is what’s needed for success. Why are so many people, including lots of very innovative, smart and ambitious people, trapped in the rat race? Example: the NYT article on “In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich”
Why can work be so unpleasant? When it’s bad…
Yes, a great manager can be an amazing mentor and coach….but all too often manager-employee relationships often feel more like parent-child relationships, and put too much artificial power into people’s hands. Why do so many workplaces not only tolerate, but promote controlling managers?
Working all the time in a corporate environment just feels so unproductive (not to confuse activity with productivity). There’s so much work for so few results, in the scheme of someone’s life. You’re trapped there in “face-time” (as opposed to space-time ☺)…waiting for other people to get back to you…producing lots of ‘stuff’ to look good just because your manager’s manager’s manager asked for it…”Um, about that TPS report…” Back to the trusty 80/20 rule: 20% of the time people can be productive, 80% of the time they’re doing things that don’t really affect the company’s bottom line or their own happiness.
As a rule of thumb, the nature of a corporate hierarchy structurally creates conditions for fear, wasted time and politics. With a limited number of slots available to people, everyone competes for them. This is often made worse by CEOs who want to see competition between their people, thinking it will bring out their best, when really it just helps create an environment of fear and control.
The past strategy of economies of scale might have been beneficial, but what about the benefits of leverage and nimbleness? Can’t a company increase its profitability and impact, without losing its soul or flexibility?
Innovation requires speed, thought, freedom and a lack of constraints – not resources, size or economies of scale.
More Frustrations
I never felt like I could be completely productive whenever I wanted to be. In a single job, you always end up waiting around for things to happen or people to get back to you, which is non-value-added time. So people fill that time with busy work.
The classic hierarchy, while useful in organizing large groups of people, ends up creating unnatural “parent-child” relationships between managers and reports. Just like Zimbardo’s “prison guard-and-prisoner” experiment at Stanford, in which the students playing as guards starting abusing prisoners, managers frequently abuse employees without even realizing it. They’ve lost their context. CEOs can be the worst offenders, being the most out of touch.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. So how can you organize groups of people, without dangerously concentrating power? In the short-term, power gets things done. But over the long-term, it eats away at a culture.
In one job, you can only make incremental increases in productivity per year – it’s very rare that you can multiply your productivity or make big leaps.
Corporate structures inherently treat people as cogs in a machine, and this worsens as the organization gets bigger. Especially once the org is past 150 people, and people can’t know everyone well, employees tend to become names on spreadsheets.
People attached too much of their own self-worth to their titles. While titles can be helpful in the short-term in identifying someone’s function in a company and place in the pecking order…over the long-term titles end up putting people in boxes. People get defined by their title, and every person is much more than their title! It also creates a reward system in which people end up politicking just to get titles, when titles are used as part of the rewards system.
Most people are put into functional roles/groups that focus on a particular area: sales, marketing, development, etc. Sometimes people are happy with this (for awhile). Oftentimes, people end up being frustrated because they get blocked when they’re ready to make a move to another role or try something new to expand their experiences. Companies don’t like it when people move from one function to another – it’s ‘too risky’. “You’ve been doing sales here for 5 years, what makes you think you can do product management or marketing?”
Biggest bottlenecks in business? Why is work so unproductive?
Lack of trust creates long sales cycles, complicated contracts, dysfunctional corporate cultures, politics, hoops to jump through both inside a company and between companies.
Carrying costs: you rent space, hire a bunch of people and invest in all kinds of fixed costs…creating beast you have to feed. Work and growth become and obligation, not a choice. Now you gotta feed the beast!
“Selling” is incredibly inefficient compared to “attracting” through word-of-mouth. Also, selling is just a pain in the ass. Most business owners don’t like to sell, and most salespeople aren’t very good at it (and don’t like it either). It’s just a paycheck to them.
Contracts: most contracts, and the bulk of what’s in contracts, are crap. Yes, you have to have them in this legally paranoid world, but is there a way to recreate a system in which you don’t need 80% of this stuff?
Lack of trust & integrity is what causes the bottlenecks, waste and frustration in business. It’s why we need selling, HR, contracts…
Is there a way to bring trust and integrity back to business?
——————————————————————-
Yep. That’s my intention here, even if we might have to start from scratch in a bunch of areas. Shortly after I wrote these notes down (and processed a few other things), I came up with PebbleStorm and its mission.
Fun with “word clouds”
February 4, 2009
Wordle.net is a fun site that can take a bunch of text or your blog, and create a beautiful word cloud. Here’s one it created from PebbleStorm. It’s no accident that “Unique” & “Genius” are the biggest words!
And for more fun, here’s one from my sales blog www.BuildASalesMachine.com…
And for CEOFlow, although this will change quite a bit with some upcoming plans I have for the content…
Sneak Peak of the first PebbleStorm Webinar with Yanik Silver (your chance to contribute!) and…Elvis?
February 1, 2009
Now’s YOUR chance to contribute to PebbleStorm
I’m still shaping this presentation so now’s your chance…what doesn’t make sense or could be improved? What would you like to see? It will be a webinar with audio, but I’d also like it to be intelligible even standing alone. I’m sure it’ll evolve quite a bit in the coming month, so you can have a real impact on it. Leave a comment or write me at aaron at pebblestorm dot com!
Yanik Silver & his blog
Yanik and I hit it off right away, and he felt his audience would benefit from exposure to PebbleStorm’s story. For my part, I really liked how Yanik makes fun and meaning a part of business (in fact, his creed is “Make more money, have more fun, give more back”). Yanik also designed his latest venture, Maverick Business Adventures, in the PebbleStorm way: he literally took a blank sheet of paper and designed his ideal business…and then went out to create it. Here’s a note about it from his bio:
“As a self-described “adventure junkie”, Yanik has found that his own life-changing experiences such as running with the bulls, bungee jumping, sky diving, exotic car road rallies and Zero-Gravity flights have not only brought a profound sense of accomplishment but also led to breakthroughs in ideas, focus and business thinking. That’s why he combined both his passions to found Maverick Business Adventures™ creating the kind of “club” he’d want to be part of.”
Yanik’s blog: www.InternetLifeStyle.com. He has a great style of weaving in a combination of fun, success and contribution to most of his posts. Here are a couple heavy on the fun side “The Non-stop 35th Birthday Party (and an important marketing lesson on ‘Conversation’)“, or “Viva Baltimore….The King Krawl Hits Charm City (And a story of stellar service)”.
I have this weird craving now to get me an Elvis outfit…
A blog worth reading: “Illuminated Mind”
January 27, 2009
People either tend to love the way I think or they look at my like I’m an alien – “Make money through enjoyment? That does not compute; it is illogical; that is not how the world works;…yadda yadda yadda…” And yes, PebbleStorm’s not the standard way of thinking about work …yet But – you can’t beat the system by staying in the system! If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll get what you’re getting. You have to think and act differently in order to get different results.
Someone else that thinks my kind of different is Jonathon Mead, who writes the blog “Illuminated Mind, and wrote an ebook “Reclaim Your Dreams“. I haven’t found that many other thinkers that align as closely to my thinking as he does. It’s really worth reading. Here are a couple of tidbits…
“Reclaim Your Dreams, It’s Time To Come Alive”
Following your dreams is scary. I get it.
What’s more scary is spending much of our lives searching for the illusion of security. What dreams would you have left behind if you didn’t live tomorrow? Would you regret not following your heart?
Beyond the grind.
The daily grind leads us to believe we should live by the rule of Panem et Cicenses, the Roman concept of bread and circuses; meager games and food to keep the populace entertained whilst powerful men do cruel things behind closed doors.
The monotony makes us think that we should keep our feet on the ground, heads down, mouths shut and our noses to the grindstone. We call this making a living. It’s more like a dying.
I think otherwise; I live by my dreams and can teach you how to do the same.”
“Sometimes it’s Better When You’re a Giant Mess”
It seems that there’s two divergent camps when it comes to strategies for living.
Camp one says: get organized, get clear, set goals, be concise, and dream big.
Camp two says: give up, stop caring, kills your goals and reclaim ownership of your mind.
The Intersection of Meaning, Money & Enjoyment
January 26, 2009
Do you ever have so much to say or share, it paralyzes you? Sometimes that’s how I feel with everything I have to share with PebbleStorm. Ironically, the longer the time periods between blog posts, it probably means I have more than ever to share with people. Even I have to take my own advice, and practice babysteps…even as ’small’ as posting a new sketch (from December 08). So -
I’ve always been drawn to the idea of three intersecting circles…but what does each circle stand for? Finally I feel like it clicked, and I had:
What is your “Unique Genius”?
December 23, 2008
One of PebbleStorm’s core ideas is “Unique Genius”. I believe that everyone, and each company, has one, whether or not they know what it is or can harness it (yet).
Your Unique Genius inspires you. It is a special mashup of your talents and enjoyments, done in a way that adds meaning to your life by making a difference for others. For example, all the things I’m great at and enjoy doing (coaching, writing, sales, etc.) combine into “helping people make money through enjoyment”, which inspires me!
What are your favorite ways to put your strengths to work in ways that help people with their problems or make a difference? Once you have at least some direction on this, you can begin to build a business around it. Yes, it will take time, likely longer than you want, but how will you get there if you don’t start in the first place?
By the way, I find the most common roadblock to people tapping into this incredibly powerful source of inspiration is the phrase “but I could never make money at that…”. Don’t worry about the making money part quite yet.
Why it’s so important
Your Unique Genius inspires you, intrigues others, and gives your Dream Business (or Dream Work) resonance and direction. If your Dream Business was a car, your Unique Genius would be the limitless fuel that powers it. So unlocking your Unique Genius is a key part of manifesting your Dream Business.
The resonance of your message should attract other people to you, either as customers or champions. Keeping it simple is important, because you’ll use it to introduce your work to people. When you share your Unique Genius with someone who’s relevant to what you’re doing, they should be intrigued by it, even if they don’t understand what it is yet. You don’t need to explain what you do first – just get them interested enough to want to know more.
Finally, a clear Unique Genius is something that keeps you on track, like a compass, even when things are hectic or you’re feeling lost. I know that if I’m stressed with work, I can’t be making money through enjoyment, so something is wrong and I’m not following my own advice!
Unique Genius and life purpose
A Unique Genius is similar or the same as a life purpose, but I specifically like “Unique Genius” because it emphasizes that 1) everyone is unique in their own way, and brings their own “voice” to life and work, and 2) people do have a form of genius, even the ones that don’t recognize it yet.
The more clear you can get on your Unique Genius the easier your path will be to creating your Dream Business. Things will flow more easier – ideas, projects, customers, audiences, income…
Why it pays to be unique
Rather than thinking about how broad your talents and passions are, instead, ask what is a specific purpose in life to which you can apply them, meaningfully? A purpose brings focus and meaning to your enjoyments and talents. It’s not an easy question, but when you start asking this question, answers will come.
When describing your business and genius, try it in terms of “the result you create for others” rather than “what you do.” People care more about what you can do for them than what you do. Here’s a personal example: “I do sales consulting” versus “I help sales organizations create predictable revenue” (www.CEOFlow.com/advisory).
How you know when you’re in the zone
There is no “right” answer to what a unique genius is or how it’s described. However, here are some guidelines:
- It authentically inspires you
- It offers direction as a guiding principle or compass
- It intrigues others
- It is simple
These are also roughly in order. For example, first figure out what inspires you before trying to simplify it or to inspire others.
Note that “it is clever” is not on the list – it doesn’t have to be tricky or clever. Start simple and meaningful, such as “help people express themselves through sculpture”, “motivate children to learn” or “bring happiness to seniors with pets”. Expect it to evolve over time.
Real examples
- Aaron Ross: “Make money through enjoyment”
- Salesforce.com, “No software”
- Yanik Silver, www.MaverickBusinessAdventures.com and his blog: “Make more $, have more fun, give more back”
- Steve Pavlina, www.StevePavlina.com: “Personal development for smart people”
- Tony Wong, www.DigitalOnionInc.com: “Create the possibility of a world that works”
- Max Simon, www.GetSelfCentered.com: “Instill some stillness in the world”
- Amy Applebaum, www.BootcampForYourMind.com “Help people create lives they can’t wait to wake up to”
- Kacy Paide, www.TheInspiredOffice.com “Creating the Centerpiece of Your Success”
Sample questions to help you crystallize it
I’d suggest taking a blank page, picking a single question, and starting to brainstorming without trying to think about it too much. There’s also a link at the bottom of the post to a worksheet with more questions. Because your Dream Business is the manifestation of your Unique Genius (which in turn inspires and powers your Dream Business), the same questions are useful to reflect on them both.
- If you could do anything for work, what would it be? (Including the “I could never make money at that…” things)
- Assume you have plenty of money and don’t have to work, but wanted to do something meaningful with your life…what would that be?
- What are your favorite things to do?
- How would you like to mash them up?
- If you could help any kind of person, who would you help?
- What did you want to do when you were 8 years old, and why?
- What is your superpower(s)?
- What do people come to you for real advice on?
- What are your hobbies?
Don’t worry about other people
The future of work is about collaboration rather than competition. Even if two people seem to have similar Unique Geniuses now, over time they both will evolve in different directions, and are more likely to end up helping each other than competing.
Also, your Unique Genius isn’t just what you do for people – it’s also how you do it. Let’s say two people both describe what they do as “motivate children to learn”. One might do it through videos with puppets, another through creating fun learning games. There are infinite ways to be unique in what and how you do!
More: Unique Genius worksheet
A lifetime happiness and focus enhancer: Vipassana meditation
December 1, 2008
(By the way – my first video is at the bottom of this post…)
It’s good to be back ‘online’ here! I just returned from an amazing 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat in North Fork, CA (near Yosemite).
There were 120+ other people there, evenly split between men and women and ages from 20s-60s. Dhamma.org, describes Vipassana as: “This non-sectarian technique aims for the total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation. Healing, not merely the curing of diseases, but the essential healing of human suffering, is its purpose.”
And a booklet from the retreat continues:
What Vipassana is not:
- It is not a rite or ritual based on blind faith.
- It is neither intellectual nor a philosophical entertainment.
- It is not a rest cure, a holiday, or an opportunity for socializing.
- It is not an escape from the trials and tribulations of everyday life.
What Vipassana is:
- It is a technique that will eradicate suffering.
- It is a method of mental purification which allows one to face life’s tensions and problems in a calm, balanced way.
- It is an art of living that one can use to make positive contributions to society.
How I benefit from regular meditation
Even before this retreat, I’d been meditating for about a year (simple observation of my breathing, not Vipassana) because:
- Meditation enhances my ability to focus. It creates mental ‘space’, helping me distinguish “activity” versus “productivity”. Ever feel like you’re so busy doing ‘stuff’, but when you look back, none of it felt like it mattered? It doesn’t matter how hard you’re working to climb that mountain…if you’re climbing the wrong mountain.
- It opens up my creativity – I’ve had some great ideas come through!
- It enhances my happiness and contentment
- It’s enjoyable – calming and relaxing, like a mental massage
How I got started with meditation – slowly; babysteps!
I started about a year ago, after beginning to work with an Ayurvedic nutritionist (which is also when I stopped drinking coffee and alcohol). I started with just a few minutes at a time in the morning, and slowly built from there. Even now I don’t meditate every day. For the past six months, it’s been about 3-5x per week, for 10-30min, and slowly getting more consistent over time. I am increasing that now after the retreat.
Attitude makes all the difference
I’ve found my attitude makes a huge difference. When I started a year ago, meditation felt like more of a chore, as if my conscious was a mom saying “eat your peas, dear”. OK ok…grumble, grumble. However, once I got the hang of it and stopped resisting, I began to look forward to it as an enjoyable, relaxing mental space, like a mental spa break ☺ Do you look at going to the spa as a chore? The kid grew up and realizes they not only like peas, but even looks forward to meals full of them! (Please ignore this analogy if you don’t like peas as an adult.)
I heard about Vipassana from a friend about three years ago, and even though I wasn’t meditating at the time and had no idea what Vipassana was, I immediately had a feeling of “I want to do that!” (someday).
The retreat: 10 days of silence to calm the mind and enable the study
It’s called “Noble Silence” – no communication during retreat with other students or the outside world, either by voice, glance or gesture. The purpose is to calm the mind, to enable one to really learn and apply the technique. You can see ask the teachers questions, and their is instruction, so it’s not totally silent. I found the silence actually very easy, and it did make the practice easier to learn.
Walking into the retreat, and leaving behind iPhone, camera, etc., and knowing I wouldn’t have access to email or my phone for 10 days, my mind immediately calmed down…
How it went & what I got (including an unintended addiction)
We had a suprisingly busy schedule, beginning at 4am, of meditation, breakfast, meditation, lunch, meditation, evening tea break, meditation, and then evening discourses. I was asleep by 9:30p each night. During the long meal breaks, I’d nap or take walks on the walking paths. The food was amazing! I became addicted to Celestial Seasoning’s “Bengal Spice tea“, a form of chai without black tea or caffeine. Yum!! Don’t worry, caffeine addicts – they had instant coffee there too.
Although some people had a really tough time in the first couple of days with the silence and hours of meditation, I found it was surprisingly easy; a piece of cake. I had some tough days (Day 8 was a low one for me), but it was all worth it. I was surprised that it was harder physically than mentally for me, because I wasn’t used to sitting like that for so long. Many other experienced meditators brought their own cushions and backrests. For novices like me, the Center had a ton of cushions and benches there for people to try out and use. It took 3-4 days to figure out my ’seating system’.
Here are some of the specific things I got from the retreat:
- A practice that will increase my happiness, calmness and awareness in all situations in my life
- Clarity/confirmation that what I’m doing with PebbleStorm is exactly what I should be doing with my life
- A GREAT image for PebbleStorm, using a tree to illustrate four levels of happiness, and how PebbleStorm helps people tap into the most enduring, meaningful forms of happiness. It’s only sketched in pen now, I’ll have to play with it before I’m ready to post it here. First a Sun, now a tree…I sense a trend here in using natural images in addition to my circles…
- A shift in my thinking of the balance of buddhism/happiness thinking and capitalism in PebbleStorm (a topic for another day). I used to think it was 50/50, but really the mix is more like 80% buddhism/happiness and 20% capitalism. By the way – if you’re unfamiliar with buddhism, its core isn’t religious at all, though sects have added rites and rituals. It is simply a system to help people achieve lasting happiness (“enlightenment”).
Did I mention the 10-day retreat was free? It’s 100% donation-supported.
And by the way, the course is free. Yes, lodging and TASTY meals for 10 days. They do ask for a donation at the end, “to pay for others”, but it’s by no means required and there is really no pressure at all. The entire worldwide organization, in 120 countries, runs on a donation and volunteer basis. This is how strongly people feel about how Vipassana has impacted their lives!
A worldwide non-profit driven by genuine, passionate commitment
Both the practice itself and the non-profit organization teaching it at more than 120 centers around the world are fascinating. Run by volunteers (even teachers aren’t paid), it’s a worldwide, well-oiled machine. The retreat ran like The reason the organization works so well is because of people’s passion for the benefits they receive from Vipassana…and they want to help others receive the same benefits.
Now: integrating it to my (daily) life
They recommend, as a minimum, an hour of meditation in the morning, and an hour in the evening. Rather than start out strongly and probably have some discouraging breakdowns in the practice, personally I know I’ll be more successful with a gradually building practice (this is me – what you need to be successful might be very different). It’ll take me some time to figure out my routine and to really make it a part of my daily life. For the next three months, I’m going to do it as much as possible, at least once a day, but realize that I have some experimentation to do. Especially since I’ll be traveling and moving quite a bit between San Francisco, Los Angeles and Buenos Aires…and any kind of travel plays hell with my routine.
“I could never meditate, my mind is too busy/I have ADD…”
I’ve heard this from so many people. If your mind is so agitated, isn’t that exactly why you should work to tame it, to put it to work for you rather than being at its mercy? Jumping into a 10 day silent retreat might be too much at first, but there are plenty of ways to try it out in smaller steps.
Suggestions? / Future updates
Do you practice? What works for you? Leave any suggestions in the comments! And I’ll share updates on my practice monthly as it builds.
Subscribe to the PebbleStorm blog by email
Sketch evolution + a prototype “PebbleStorm Tree”
November 29, 2008
1) Imagine: Sometimes an image comes to me while I’m trying to think of a visual way to represent an idea. Sometimes it just comes, like the sun one When an image comes to me, I jot it down in pen in my notebook:
2) Prototype: I usually let the image sit for a few weeks or even months. I might sketch it out in pen several times, before I redo it in colored pencil…
3) Finish: Again, the image sits for awhile, days, weeks or months…before I resketch the image in black ink, and use the pastels for bright color:
And here is the final product!
One I’m cultivating now: a “PebbleStorm Tree” image
‘Cultivating’, get it? Ha, sometimes I crack myself up
In the Vipassana meditation retreat I just attended, this image came to me, outlining four different types of happiness (fleeting, enduring, lifetime, universal/mindset). Most people spend all their time focused on happiness at the leaves/fleeting (get a promotion/bonus) and branches/enduring (job/career/salary) stages, without applying themselves to determine their trunk (lifetime work purpose) or retrain their roots (mindset/awareness/attitude).
PebbleStorm’s strength is helping people with their “trunk” (building a business around a life purpose), which in turn creates healthier branches and leaves (more money, better career), and an easier connection to ways to enhance fundamental awareness/happiness at the mind level.
I’m only in the prototyping stage now, and don’t know when the final sketch will crystallize…
UPDATE Dec 23/08…here’s the tree I sketched while at a cafe in Buenos Aires (text and labels to follow…)
The PebbleStorm “Sun” visualization
November 10, 2008
Sketched yesterday while hanging out at the Manhattan Beach Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf…
Click to expand…
Your Unique Genius powers your dream business, creating the outcomes you desire. I just put some examples in
Subscribe to PebbleStorm by email
3 lessons learned from feeling funky (as in “blech”)
November 2, 2008
For about the past two weeks I’ve been feeling funky. You know that feeling of unspecific, background anxiety that you can have, but that doesn’t have a clear source or cause? That’s what I mean by funky. Sort of an ongoing buzz of low-level anxiety and reduced motivation.
I don’t have anything particularly evident to point to as a cause. Even the economic junk hasn’t directly personally affected me as much as many other people; it affects me more through family and friends. Perhaps I’m absorbing it from the environment?
Actually, writing this post helped me clarify where I feel it comes from, a light form of burnout…keep readin’…
The irritation of trying to fix it & traditional self-help wisdom
As a good ol’ American problem solver, I’ve been trying to fix this “problem” (in parentheses, because it might not be a problem). I’ve been doing yoga, running, prioritizing, meditating, sharing with people, blah blah blah blah…and I’m still feeling funky. In fact, it I just get more irritated because although those activities do help for a few minutes, or an hour…nothing’s really changed!
Also, traditional wisdom in the self-help/empowerment world is that you need to “get into action! Live life every day! If you’re not living powerfully today then you suck!” (Gah, sounds exhausting.) Anyway, that traditional thinking just adds to my irritation. Also, I do now have a theory about my funkiness, including why, ironically, the harder I try to “do stuff to fix it” the more it persists (heard the phrase “what you resist, persists”?)
Overdoing it as a well-trained capitalist; a natural action-recovery cycle
I also went through a similar funky anxious/demotivated period early in the summer, and now realize it’s happened regularly in the past, although I wasn’t paying as much attention at the time to myself and my moods, so I wasn’t as aware of it.
Now, I feel that it’s part of a regular action-recovery cycle. I, as a good as-yet-unreformed American capitalist, overdo my ‘action’ for long periods of time without enough mental or physical rest, and I always pay for it at some point with periods of that background anxiety and lower motivation. Like now. Theoretically, if I could perfectly tune my daily action and rest, I’d never have the funky downtime, but perfection’s a journey, not a destination.
The low energy, funkiness, was a way for my body and unconscious mind to try to slow myself down and force myself to rest, recover and re-energize.
Weekly/monthly cycles
My natural inclination, i.e. cultural training, is to be ‘in action’ for months or years without enough daily or weekly rest. I remember days that I’d work 8-12 hours straight through (by choice, including when working for myself), forgetting even to take a lunch break, leaving me “brain-fried” at the end of the day. Nights or weekends often became more about dead-rest (uncreative, just plain tired) than active-rest (being creative, ‘nice tired’ or going out & having fun).
At some point the intense exertion at work over several months catches up with me, and I’d get tired or funky for a couple of weeks as a recovery period (if I let myself recover). I didn’t notice it at the time, but now it’s clearer, looking back.
A clue from Ironman training
Another clue that led me to my current thinking comes from my time training for an Ironman triathlon in 2002, during which we’d sometimes swim/bike/run for 15-20 hours per week. About every six weeks, I’d wake up to some day totally physically exhausted. I’d stay in bed for a day, and then would feel ok again – so I thought – and would keep going. Until six weeks later. And after the Ironman race, I was wiped out for a month+, as the year of training and the race all caught up with me.
Yearly cycles
At an even higher level, I used to work intensely for 2-3 years and then would need to take a year off before I was ready and excited to commit to a full-time, long-term career move again. I think there’s something to that ratio. Maybe I need to spend about as much time recovering as I do working (including during each day, week, month, year, decade…) That’d imply several hours of space-creating time per day, meditating, drawing, napping, seeing friends and the like, which is a routine I’m working on now.
It’s like fractals. I’d bet people with enough decades could see a decade-ish cycle too.
“Healthy Hyperproductivity“
I have been paying attention to this in more carefully in a rough way for more than a year, and keep sporadic notes on my pebblestorm wiki at “Healthy Hyperproductivity“. It’s a search for a sustainable (as in decades, not years) productivity-health-energy pace and routine. I’m not anal enough to measure my daily or weekly activity levels, energy and moods, to see if there’s some sort of regularity or seasonality to my periodic funk cycle, but it’d be an interesting experiment I’d volunteer for if someone else ran it!
Meditation Retreat
I’m testing out a rest routine to see if it fits within a yearly cycle. On November 12 I head out for a 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat in North Fork, CA, which will be an interesting adventure! No talking for 10 days…“Noble Silence means silence of body, speech, and mind. Any form of communication with fellow students, whether by gestures, sign language, written notes, etc., is prohibited.” Now that they have cel and internet even in the small towns of Africa, It’ll be the first time in years that I’ll be totally without phone/email, since I did a 28 day survival trip in the Utah desert with the Boulder Outdoor Survival School. Cool.
Just be with it – sometimes there’s nothing to fix
So, sometimes when you’re feeling down or low energy, it’s actually a sign to pay attention to that you should slow down and rest. Do less. And it’s not just resting for an hour, it might be for two weeks. Or a year Everyone’s different, but fundamentally, the more intense and longer your work, the longer the recovery you’ll need.
There’s a judgment call here as to whether you need to be active or rest during these periods. I do agree that smiling, getting into action, taking charge, etc. can be very valuable when you’re in a rut. But getting into action all the time can distract you from being aware of what you really need – such as rest!
How do you know what to do? There’s no ‘answer’ – start with awareness
Practice awareness. Pay attention to yourself, listen. First let go of what you “should” be doing, so that you can get a better sense of what you need to be doing – or not. What’s your intuition say? Also, activities like meditation, writing, play or sketching could help your discernment.
Three lessons in avoiding burnout
1. SLOW DOWN: it’s impossible to be self-aware if you’re rushing around all the time.
2. CREATE SPACE: Before immediately reacting to a feeling or state of energy such as tiredness, sit with it first. Do you feel like it’s something to move through, or something to be with? Create some room for this in time and space, either through meditation, play, creative activities, travel…
3. FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY: Pay attention to the longer cycles of your energy and productivity / lack thereof. What is a sustainable pace or routine you can establish keep up your energy and creativity? Which will be different for your than for others.
Free PebbleStorm Conference Call: “What is your Unique Genius?”
October 26, 2008
What is that special, unique combination (your twist) of talents that you enjoy practicing, are great at, and are framed in a way that is meaningful to others? What is your Unique Genius?
Come join us this Wednesday, October 29th at 6p-7p PST if:
- You’re simply curious as to what this whole crazy PebbleStorm thing is about
- You’re searching for inspiration or meaning in work.
- You’ve worked through the Unique Genius handout, and have questions about it or would like to discuss it.
- You’ve participated in a past PebbleStorm event, and have follow up questions.
1. Introduction (15 minutes)
* What is a Unique Genius, and why is it important? How do you uncover yours? What do you do with it? How can you build your dream business around it? Also see below for a link to download a worksheet.
2. Discussion, Q&A (45 minutes)
* Interactive discussion between myself and attendees about the prior topics.
* If you have questions you’d like me to answer on the call, you can email me any ahead of time at aaron (at) pebblestorm (dot) com.
* Otherwise, feel free to just join as a listener.
Updated Unique Genius Worksheet
I updated it as of 10/21/08. Email me for a copy at aaron at pebblestorm dot com. You don’t need to get this prior to the call, but I’d recommend it and at least looking through it.
Conference Call Details
Date: Wednesday, October 29th
Time: 6pm PST
Dial-in: (605) 475-6006
Access Code: 366946#
If you’re new to PebbleStorm, here are two links you can explore ahead of time:
About PebbleStorm
A Pebblestorm Overview – From HUB
A regular schedule of conference calls
Two weeks ago, we had a conference call on “Discovering your dream business,” with about 10 active participants and a half dozen listeners. One of the requests that came from it was for me to create a space to continue the conversations we started, say every couple of weeks.
After the call on this coming Wednesday (29th), I will put together an ongoing schedule of future conference calls (and create a dedicated page here on PebbleStorm for the schedule of events). For now, they’re free, and all that I ask in return is that if you attend, please tell 10-20 friends about PebbleStorm. At some point, perhaps December, perhaps after the New Year, I’ll revisit/redesign what’s free vs. fee-based. I’m always looking for requests of what YOU would want, so don’t be shy in sharing ideas or asking for formats/help at aaron [at] pebblestorm [dot] com.
The current turmoil is a symptom of a larger business shift from “pestering” to “attraction”
October 10, 2008
Below is an email I recently sent to a group of inspired entrepreneurs in Washington D.C., organized by Klia Bassing of www.VisitYourself.net. I feel this note could help others see a new perspective on what’s going on with these financial and economic earthquakes. As painful as they are now, they’re helping us in an important transition in business, from a “pushing/pestering” energy to a “attracting” energy. For most PebbleStorm readers, even if you don’t understand exactly what I mean by this, I’ll bet that idea or those words resonate for you. This isn’t an overnight change, and it will take more years to fully realize. Meanwhile, the harder people and organizations hold onto the ‘prior’ way of doing business, the more painful it will be for them and their communities…
———————
Hi Seedbed’rs!
I hope everyone is weathering both the literal storms and financial market storms. The financial market problems are one symptom of a massive change in how business works, from one of promotion (driven by a hunger for money and prestige), to one of attraction and receiving (driven by a desire for enjoyment and inspiration). This will be, it is, a very painful shift for many people and entire organizations.
I’m sharing here a v1.0 handout I created for the PebbleStorm Open House event I had recently in Los Angeles. The intention of the handout, and the idea of “unique genius”, is to help you or anyone reflect on what kind of dream business you would create for yourselves. Once you have a vision of it…you can begin to make it! Even if it might take years…better to start now than later
Download the Unique Genius Handout – 090308
Here is one other exercise around pausing to reflect on “what do I really want for myself?”
http://pebblestorm.com/2008/04/17/the-original-small-pebble-big-wave-self-manifesto/
All the best,
Aaron Ross
aaron (at) pebblestorm (dot) com
PebbleStorm.com: “Make money through enjoyment”
CEOFlow.com: “Make money through enjoyment” (for organizations)
BuildASalesMachine.com: “Create predictable revenue”
Patience messages on my wall
October 5, 2008
I have a bunch of reminders up on a wall near where I work. I believe that PATIENCE is a vital part of making money through enjoyment. The “urgency addiction” we’ve all been trained to believe is so important just gets in our way of 1) creating a truly unique, resonant dream business, and 2) our enjoyment in creating it.
Do more by doing less – 80/20 rule
It’s not the quantity of stuff that you do that matters, it’s the quality or resonance of what you do. 80/20 rule: 20% (or less) of what you do will create 80% (or more) of the results. So focus on finding the 20%!
Patience is important in helping you sift the “gold from the fool’s gold.” It’s easy to come up with a bizillion ideas for your business – blogs, products, features, events, content, lead generation ideas…blah blah blah. Time, even a few days or weeks, helps you sift through the ideas worth doing from the ideas to leave behind. What would really be meaningful to customers? What kind of dream business do you really want to create?
It’s tempting to think “if I just get more of these ideas done, it’ll help my business, right?” But – you and your business, no matter how big it gets, will never have the capacity to execute on all your ideas. Even if you become a billion-dollar company. So instead of trying to do MORE, focus on finding the idea nuggets, the diamonds in the batch, that will truly make a difference (which takes patience).
It’s quality of experience, not quantity of features or marketing programs, that draws customers to you. For example, customers won’t care, use or consume most of the features, content and marketing efforts you produce. Before doing much marketing, be patient in tuning your business, testing your product/packaging/messages. Do you still have to ‘push’ people into buying, or do people connect with it and come to you? If you still have to push or pester people to get their attention or to buy, it’s a sign you haven’t tuned your product or messaging enough yet. When people get excited and say things like “I want that!” or “That is so cool!”, then you know it’s time to start investing more in getting the word out!
Create ideas, but then sit with them to see which ones truly deserve your attention, and then pick out the few best ones. Do more by doing less.
Impatience steals your enjoyment
Impatience = unhappiness. “I’m not happy with what I have, so I need to get these other things, fast.” Impatience implies a need to be somewhere else, a dissatisfaction with what you have. So by definition, when you’re feeling mpatience, you’re enjoyment and happiness is less. How can you smell roses when you’re moving too fast even to see them?
Patience creates time
When you realize that most of what you do (80/20 rule) isn’t a true contributor to your dreams and success, and that patience is one way to help distinguish “activity” from “productivity”, then consider that patience creates time for you.
How long will it take to create your dream business?
It’ll be years, not months. For a normal new business that isn’t based on consulting, it usually takes 2-3 years to get to self-sufficiency. So if you’re always impatient, thinking “if I just get to that next goal…”, you’re going to be unhappy for quite awhile 
Focus on enjoying the ride – find ways to make money through enjoyment, including enjoying the path of creating your business
[CEOFlow] First batch of CEOFlow sketches
October 4, 2008
I put together and uploaded a bunch of new sketches this week for CEOFlow. Preview them at:
www.flickr.com/photos/aaronross
Full set (includes some PebbleStorm sketches too):
http://flickr.com/photos/aaronross/sets/72157605840085105/
An example of priceless gratification
September 29, 2008
I was in San Francisco last week, and last Sunday my sister hosted a potluck dinner at her house, with about eight of us – including my mother (Mom, did you enjoy it??)
Here’s an example of what makes PebbleStorm, including these kinds of events, so gratifying for me…below’s an (unsolicited!) note from Erin-Marie Driscoll, a budding entrepreneur:
“Hi Aaron!!
Thanks again for hosting the PebbleStorm event tonight. I am totally re-energized and now have a few more reserves of courage to move forward with my dreams! I really can’t thank you enough. It was great to hear from other people about their experiences, discuss the process and ideology of PebbleStorm/ entrepreneurship and to have the enthusiastic support from those in the group! This is exactly what I needed to move forward, and I am truly grateful for that.
-Erin”
How can you tap into your talents and enjoyments, to create something that adds this kind of value to other people? And then create a business around it? That’s what I’m here, through PebbleStorm, to help you do.
New PebbleStorm page on recommended business tools
September 28, 2008
I’m always looking for cool apps to use and recommend, whether for business or personal productivity. With Maria’s help (PebbleStorm’s intern), we published a list of some favorites. You can find the link in the PebbleStorm navigation bar, or click on “Great tools”
Any other recommendations or suggestions? Email me or leave them in the comments!
Do it now
September 19, 2008
“I’ll do that…someday”
Sound familiar?
When I’m busy, it’s easy to put things off. I admit to regularly doing that with blogging. I’ll get to that tomorrow / next week / someday…
Yesterday I wrote an email to a friend that included the phrase “I intend to add more about my personal journey to my pebblestorm blog” (the ’someday’ was implied). I’ve thought that and even noted it to myself, but writing it to someone made it that much more real. And within an hour I drafted and posted Using rocks and babysteps to dodge the fear.
Speaking of babysteps, a well-designed one is something small enough to accomplish in 1-4 hours.
Sometimes I put a task/project off, and it works out well because later I realize the task/project would have been a waste of energy to do anyway
Sometimes I just have to do it now.
Look, I’ve done it again!
