“The Buddha taught that flexibility and openness bring strength and that running from groundlessness weakens us and brings pain. But do we understand that becoming familiar with the running away is the key? Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but from getting to know them well.”
~ Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
Here are two unique but related concepts that I think are worth sharing with you.
“To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.
A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce. These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free youtube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month. If you have roughly a thousand of true fans like this (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.
Here’s how the math works. You need to meet two criteria. First, you have to create enough each year that you can earn, on average, $100 profit from each true fan. That is easier to do in some arts and businesses than others, but it is a good creative challenge in every area because it is always easier and better to give your existing customers more, than it is to find new fans.
Second, you must have a direct relationship with your fans. That is, they must pay you directly. You get to keep all of their support, unlike the small percent of their fees you might get from a music label, publisher, studio, retailer, or other intermediate. If you keep the full $100 of each true fan, then you need only 1,000 of them to earn $100,000 per year. That’s a living for most folks.
A thousand customers is a whole lot more feasible to aim for than a million fans. Millions of paying fans is not a realistic goal to shoot for, especially when you are starting out. But a thousand fans is doable. You might even be able to remember a thousand names. If you added one new true fan per day, it’d only take a few years to gain a thousand…”
To read the whole article, click here.
The Smallest Viable Audience: Seth Godin
“The media and our culture push us to build something for everyone, to sand off the edges and to invest in infrastructure toward scale.
But it turns out that quality, magic and satisfaction can lie in the other direction. Not because we can’t get bigger, but because we’d rather be better.
One of the three best restaurants in New York only has 14 seats. With the right fan base and technology, that’s enough to allow the chef to build an experience he can be proud of. Down the street is an extraordinary cafe that pays a tiny fraction of the rent that a midtown neighbourhood would require. It’s not about getting found by everyone. A focus on experience creates something that (some) people want to look for…
…The strategy of the smallest viable audience doesn’t let you off the hook–it does the opposite. You don’t get to say, “well, we’ll just wait for the next random person to find us.” Instead, you have to choose your customers–who’s it for and what’s it for. And when you’ve identified them, the opportunity/requirement is to create so much delight and connection that they choose to spread the word to like-minded peers.”
To read the whole article, click here.
When I was travelling in Europe this past spring, I discovered that many credit card issuers charge the consumer a foreign transaction (FX) fee on top of each purchase. Any purchase made at a store, restaurant or other vendor outside of Canada or the United States may be subject to a FX fee.
It typically ranges from 1% to 5% of the transaction. These charges are often buried deep in the terms and conditions of your credit card agreement; and in the case of Canadian credit cards, the fee is wrapped into the original charge, so you will not notice it unless you do the math.
In addition to FX fees, many tourist establishments offer the option of paying in your home currency. Be wary of this option, as the currency conversion rates are almost always worse than the rates you would get if you simply processed the charge in local currency and you will still be charged a FX fee on top of it.
A good rule of thumb is to have the card charged in the local currency to avoid conversion fees and to choose a card that does not charge foreign transaction fees for all purchases made abroad. You can learn more about this issue and your options through the following articles:
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/foreign-transaction-fees/
I am a planner. I like to organize, decide a course of action, and create forward motion. It helps me to feel ‘in control’ of my life. As I get older, however, I am realizing that there really is no such thing as control. Hard work and effort are certainly essential and valuable; but these actions will not necessarily take you exactly where you want to go.
Sometimes we set our minds on obtaining the ‘perfect’ job, relationship or opportunity; but if you really pay attention, you will notice that no matter how hard you push, or how certain you are, it will not come together unless it is meant to be. You cannot force it. And when it is the right fit, there is almost nothing that you can do to stop it from it gaining momentum. It is so easy and effortless.
I continue to dream and plan and organize but I know that when I meet enough resistance, it is not the right fit, and I must change tactic. This does not mean giving up, but it does mean that I must consider another route, or investigate a different approach; and if it still does not work, I begin to open my mind up to new possibilities, and pay attention to where there is more ease and flow: then I go in that direction. Sometimes you discover the most delightful surprises and opportunities in the most unexpected of places.
Today is the second annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day in Canada. It is both a day of mourning and reflection, as well one of action and hope for a better future ahead. I am honouring this day, in part, by highlighting a poem, “Wild West”, written by an Indigenous author, Cobra Collins.
Cobra is a Mohkínstsis-based mixed Indigenous and Metis poet. She has represented Vancouver on a national level at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, as well as collaborated with artists of different backgrounds for dance (Fluid Movements Arts Festival) and performance festivals (IKG 1 ! Live Performance Festival). She currently sits as Indigenous advocate on the Writers’ Union of Canada’s (TWUC) National Council. Cobra was also honoured to be shortlisted as a nominee for Calgary’s 2016 & 2018 poet laureate.
“Use this rule if you’re often over-committed or too scattered.
If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say no.
When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” — then say no.
When you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to really throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HELL YEAH!”
Every event you get invited to. Every request to start a new project. If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about it, say no.
We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying yes to less is the way out.”
~ Excerpted from “Anything You Want” by Derek Sivers
Mr. Money Moustache is the alias of a Canadian expatriate named Peter Adeney, who saved enough money in his twenties, working as a software engineer, to retire at age thirty. He calculated a way to make these early pay cheques last using a strategy of sensible investment, and a rigorous, but manageable, frugality. Living with intention is his life’s work. “I’ve become irrationally dedicated to rational living,” he says.
Mr. Money Moustache defines retirement as the freedom to do what he wants when he wants. He retired in late 2005, with six hundred thousand dollars in investments, and a paid-off house worth two hundred thousand. He figured he could rely, conservatively, on a return of four per cent per year. He determined that the family could live on twenty-four thousand a year in expenses: so he needed to save twenty-five times that amount.
“Ten Bucks is a lot of money,” he writes, “So you need to respect it. It is a critical brick in the early retirement castle you are building. If you save $796 per week, for ten years, and get a 7% compounded investment return, after inflation, you’ll have $600,000 sitting around ready to party for you. . . . Let’s say you’ve got two income earners working together. Now each one has to save only $398 a week. There are 112 waking hours in each week. Each person has to make 40 successful $10 decisions each week—or one $10 decision every 2.8 waking hours.”
In his blog, his goals are to: 1) To make you rich so you can retire early; 2) To make you happy so you can properly enjoy your early retirement; and 3) To save the whole human race from destroying itself through overconsumption of its habitat. You can learn more about his work through listening to this great interview hosted by Tim Ferriss.
I am interested in attachment theory, especially as it relates to relationships and dating. It is really helpful to understand your own attachment style, as well as how to identify the style of a potential partner. According to the theory, there are three major attachment styles: secure, anxious, and avoidant. Secure people assume that they are worthy of love, and that others can be trusted to give it to them. Anxiously attached people assume that others will abandon them—so they cling, try too hard to accommodate others, or plunge into intimacy too rapidly. Avoidantly attached people are similarly afraid of abandonment; instead of clinging, however, they keep others at a distance. Attachment is a spectrum, and it can change over time; it is common, for example, to exhibit more insecure attachment when stressed. But we each have a primary attachment style that we demonstrate most often.
An attachment styles is based, in large part, on our early relationships with our caregivers. If our caregivers were warm and validating, we become secure. If they were unresponsive or overprotective, we can develop insecure attachment, as we believe that others will desert or harm us. To protect against anticipated mistreatment, we act anxiously or avoidantly (or both). Although early experiences with caregivers establish expectations about how we will be treated, these expectations evolve in other relationships, and they shape those relationships in turn.
There are three primary, underlying dimensions that characterize attachment styles and patterns. The first dimension is closeness, meaning the extent to which people feel comfortable being emotionally close and intimate with others. The second is dependence/avoidance, or the extent to which people feel comfortable depending on others and having partners depend on them. The third is anxiety, or the extent to which people worry their partners will abandon and reject them.
Secure: Low on avoidance, low on anxiety. Comfortable with intimacy; not worried about rejection or preoccupied with the relationship. “It is easy for me to get close to others, and I am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.”
Anxious: Low on avoidance, high on anxiety. Crave closeness and intimacy, very insecure about the relationship. “I want to be extremely emotionally close (merge) with others, but others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t love or value me and will abandon me. My inordinate need for closeness scares people away.
Avoidant: High on avoidance, low on anxiety. Uncomfortable with closeness and primarily values independence and freedom; not worried about partner’s availability. “I am uncomfortable being close to others. I find it difficult to trust and depend on others and prefer that others do not depend on me. It is very important that I feel independent and self-sufficient. My partner wants me to be more intimate than I am comfortable being.”
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
“When people show you who they are the first time believe them. Not the 29th time. When a man doesn’t call you back the first time, when you are mistreated the first time, when someone shows you lack of integrity or dishonesty the first time, know that this will be followed many many other times, that will some point in life come back to haunt or hurt you. Live your life in truth. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. You will survive anything if you live your life from the point of view of truth.”
Created by Mel Robbins, the 5 Second Rule can be used to break any bad habit, interrupt self-doubt and negative self-talk, and push yourself to take the actions that will change your life.
Here are a few podcast episodes that I really enjoyed. Let me know if you check them out!
Richard Schwartz began his career as a systemic family therapist and an academic. Grounded in systems thinking, Dr. Schwartz developed Internal Family Systems (IFS) in response to clients’ descriptions of various parts within themselves. He focused on the relationships among these parts and noticed that there were systemic patterns to the way they were organized across clients.
He also found that when the clients’ parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, the clients would experience spontaneously the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion that Dr. Schwartz came to call the Self. He found that when in that state of Self, clients would know how to heal their parts. A featured speaker for national professional organizations, Dr. Schwartz has published many books and over fifty articles about IFS.
Jim Collins has introduced a range of new concepts and terms to the leadership lexicon. These include “level 5 leadership”, where leaders put the cause of their organization first, and inspired standards – rather than inspiring personality – become the motivation. He also created the “flywheel” principle of sustained momentum, demonstrating that the building of any human enterprise is not about one single defining action, or one killer innovation; instead, it is a process that resembles relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel, gradually building momentum.
“One way of posing the question of who ‘we’ are … is by asking whose lives are considered valuable, whose lives are mourned, and whose lives are considered ungrievable.”
~ Judith Butler, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?
Both the Canadian government, and the Province of BC, have declared September 19, 2022 a one-time Day of Mourning to mark the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. The swift and unified response demonstrates the immense value that our elected officials place upon the monarch’s life and legacy. It also reveals the ongoing strength of colonial ties between Canada and Great Britain. What this day highlights for me how our country continues to devalue Indigenous lives and how we are failing to live up to our promises of meaningful reconciliation.
September 30, 2021 marked the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report, with 94 Calls to Action, in December 2015. It took almost six years for the federal government to respond to Action #80, which called upon the federal government, in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples, “to establish, as a statutory holiday, a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour survivors, their families and communities, and ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.” Six years. In that time, the remains of more than 1,000 people, mostly children, were discovered in unmarked graves on the grounds of three former residential schools in two Canadian provinces.
On the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, Prime Minister Trudeau chose to surf with his family in Tofino, rather than spend the day with survivors and their families. Conversely, the Prime Minister immediately flew to London, England to attend the Queen’s lying-in-state; and on the National Day of Mourning, he will attend her funeral. The respect and reverence that he shows for one day over the other speaks volumes.
On this Day of Mourning, I will respect its intention to honour the legacy of a woman who gave her life to public service; and I will equally reflect upon the violence that colonialism continues to inflict upon Indigenous lives. I will read the 94 Calls to Action, and the Calls for Justice, in the Final Report for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. I will think about how I can, as a Canadian, do my part to move forward the calls to action and honour the thousands of lives lost.
Breath by Breath 