Virtual Moxie - The Cure For The Common Virtual Assistance Practice

Trust your knowing

When I first started AssistU in '97, I did a daily (well, five days/week) email blast called Daily Assistant. Back in the day, I used a majordomo to send it out, the only option was text, and there were no scheduling tools. That meant that I had to send it manually, so I had to be around to DO this thing every day.

It took three years, but I finally burned out. And when I did, I let the subscribers know that I was burned out, but after a break, would be back. 

What I did that day was, in essence, walk away from a list of close to 11,000 subscribers.

In reality, I never made it back. Well, not till I started VMoxie 5+ years ago. But that was five years after I'd told them I'd be back after a break, and I'm not sure that half a decade really counts as a "break," if you know what I mean.

I think I knew, the day I wrote that, that the chances that I'd be back were slim. And I think I said what I said to them because it felt like the appropriate thing to do, and because some part of me wasn't at all sure that I wouldn't be back after a break. 

But I knew. My body knew. I was SO exhausted from creating content every single day (this wasn't short, pithy content, either), from being there to write and post every day, from finding someone to post FOR me when I traveled for vacations and such. It was just hard.

And when I let it go, I just let go.

But the content is still in a directory on my hard drive. I was reading through some of it this weekend, and decided to tell you this story as an intro to reprinting something I wrote in 1997.  

As I read it just two days ago, I realized how applicable it still is today, and how glad I am that I let Daily Assistant go when it was a Problem, rather than waiting for a Crisis to happen (read below and those terms will make sense). I wish I'd let it go sooner. I wish I'd listened more carefully to my body, and to my heart. I wish I would have taken my own advise ;)

In case it's helpful, today's Bit O’Moxie is as follows:

Over the last several days, people have come to me with a personal or professional crisis. They wonder why these things happen to them.... why they find themselves in such uncomfortable places in work or relationships. 

And I believe that those things happen when we're not paying attention to signs and signals we see as we move through life. 

I believe in a four-step model about this. Here's what it looks like: 

Message ===> Lesson ===> Problem ===> Crisis 

Things show up in our lives first as Messages. These are the gentle rumblings inside which make us uneasy, or give us a sudden flash of intuition that something just isn't right. 

Usually, we ignore them. 

When we do, they come back to us as Lessons. A bit of a stronger message -- usually with some consequence involved, and something to learn. 

Sad to say, we often tend to ignore the Lessons as well. 

Lessons come back to us as Problems. When we have Problems, however, we try to manage the symptoms... find a fast fix for them, rather than looking at the root cause. 

Unfortunately, when we do, the fix isn't long-lasting, and the Problem turns into a Crisis. 

And it's only then.... when we're exhausted, or very ill, or distressed beyond measure, that we actually do something about it. 

Of course, it's in the middle of a Crisis that we look tearfully at friends or family and say something like, "You know, I knew that was going to happen! I just knew it." And we begin to recall the Messages and Lessons, and even the Problems which came before this Crisis which showed it was on the way! We look back and can see clearly the warning signs that we chose to ignore. 

And why? Why don't we tend to pay attention to signs and signals and act on them at the point at which they appear? Why do we have the tendency to let things get out of control in our lives before we're willing to pay attention? Why do we need an actual "wake up call" before we're willing to stare reality in the face? 

Because we're not taught to honor our own knowing. We're taught that unless there's hard evidence of something, we can't know anything. 

We're taught that things have to be seen to be believed. I believe that there are some things which need to be believed to be seen. This knowing of yours is one of them. Each of us knows things.... it's instinctive, and we know them as sure as we know our own names. 

So the reality is that we just don't pay attention. We're asleep. We receive Messages, and we shrug them off, or poo-poo them away. Until, that is, we're in the middle of a Crisis, and we can't postpone the inevitable anymore. Then we pay attention quickly! 

So my challenge to you is this: 

Wake up! 

In all things professional and personal, begin to pay attention to that little voice inside you which whispers Messages to you. It's never wrong. When you hear it, act on it! 

Imagine how much heartache and suffering you could spare yourself if you acted on that first Message, rather than waiting for the Crisis! Imagine how great you'd feel if you acted on a Message, got yourself out of a bad situation, and later could look back and say "Wow... am I glad I didn't have to go through that," rather than, "Oh Noooooooooo! This is horrible! I can't believe I let things get to this point!" 

Trust your knowing. Even when it's not clear why you should. Believe your self when it gives you guidance. It'll always be reliable!

Life's too short to tolerate...anything!

Life is long and wonderful, and there are countless opportunities for incredibly fabulous experiences. But life is absolutely too short to tolerate...anything.

What I mean is that if this is the only life that any of us knows for sure she’s going to have, then it’s crazy to spend any of its precious moments putting up with things we don’t like.

And you know I talk about this all the time in my work—I’ve been writing about it here on VMoxie for 5+ years. Zapping tolerations is one of the absolute best things you can do to help yourself move ahead in life (and biz).

I’ve just zapped a HUGE toleration of mine, and I thought I’d share it with you here.

My full first name is Anastacia. I’ve always been known as Stacy. And, of course, all of you know me by that name, too.

Several years ago, in fact, close enough on the tail end of my 40th bday that I thought maybe I was having a mid-life crisis, it started becoming important to me to use my full name.

I halfheartedly tried to get people to call me Anastacia. I say halfheartedly because I didn’t push the issue. I was grateful for those who did it, and didn’t fuss with those who didn’t. I loved when people would use Anastacia just because I’d asked, and tried not to care when it didn’t stick.

With Stacy being so much shorter and easier in so many ways, if a new friend, knowing me as Anastacia, met an old friend calling me Stacy, it took the new friend less than a nanosecond to pick up the Stacy flag. Again, I didn’t push it.

Over the past few years, the voice inside me that said it’s important has grown stronger. I wondered what, if anything, I should consider before deciding whether to use it in business. And finally, I decided to consult some folks smarter than I am. And those experts advised me to not change a thing.

They warned that “Stacy Brice” was a brand, and the change would screw with that.

They warned the people would think me snooty for moving from a “simple” name like Stacy to the likes of Anastacia.

They warned that people wouldn’t be able to spell Anastacia, much less pronounce it.

They warned that it was a baaaaad idea, all the way around.

And I listened.

I kept straddling the fence—using Anastacia in my personal life, and Stacy in business. And as time went by, I found myself growing increasingly unhappy.

And then I reached out to the only person I knew who had changed her first name and lived to tell the tale (from a biz perspective). The lovely Baeth Davis was a wonderful sounding board, and what I realized was that it—my fence sitting—my vast toleration—had grown into something absolutely untenable if I wanted to live my best life. If I wanted to impact the people around me. If I wanted to love myself and the world. If I wanted to be wholly authentic. And of course I do want those things. I’m all about that, and always have been (and it's all in my hands, by the way).

Once there, in that space, I knew there simply was no other option. Experts be damned ( I get that this sounds a bit dramatic, and trust me, it really was!), I needed to step up and step into the name of my heart, and stop screwing around!

It took me literally one day to start telling the world that I was going to be making this transition. Less than two weeks later, and despite the fact that I’ve made the changes in about a bazillion places, there are still more changes to make. I have to say that you’d never realize how many spots your name shows up online until you do something like this. How lucky am I to have an amazing VA, huh? :)

And I feel amaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing. The moment I made the decision, I felt like I’d lost another 110lbs! And I’ve been met with such kindness, and such joy from people who, instead of finding me snooty, are asking me how to pronounce my name (it’s ana-STAY-zha, in case you’re wondering!), and why it has a “c” instead of an “s” (because that’s how my mother spelled it!), and whether I’m Greek or Russian (I’m neither), and how hard was it to get my new name as my Twitter ID (surprisingly easy!). TONS of really great questions and encouraging notes. That’s the reality of it.

Zapping tolerations is very much like cleaning out a closet. In the doing of it, something happens to make room for more amazing stuff, and the less than amazing fades to the background. And that’s what makes it worth doing. This lesson has taught me that in new and powerful ways.

Bit O’Moxie: Life (including biz!) really is way too short to tolerate things. In order to love your life (and biz), it had to be the way you want it. What have you been tolerating that you’re ready to stop? Leave me a comment and let me know when you do it so I can celebrate with you!

Are you keeping your kids safe on Facebook?

While suspecting that most VAs who read VMoxie are pretty social-media savvy, and probably use SM—including Facebook--to their own, and their clients' business advantages, I wondered how many are savvy when it comes to keeping their own kids safe (and helping their clients keep their kids safe).

I recently had the lovely opportunity to guest host a radio show—Solo Talk--for my friend, Donna Amos, who owns the International Association for Solopreneurs, and where I happen to be a contributing expert.

I interviewed my friend, Kathryn Rose, who recently released the book, Facebook Guide for Parents, and we talked about this very topic. Along the way, I learned some things I didn’t know, and so I thought I’d do a few of things today:

1. Tell you where you can listen to the show, if you would like to. It’s right here if you care to stream it, and here if you want to download it.

2. Tell you where you can buy the book. You can get that here, or from Amazon (both are affiliate links). If you buy the book from Amazon, you get the book, as it is, today. Buy it from Kat’s site, and you get free updates through the end of 2010. With the rate that Facebook changes things, that’s a genuine value!

3. Share some of the take-aways that Kat shared during the show. Here those are:

• One in five kids between the ages of 8 and 12 have accounts; Facebook’s TOS stipulates that the min age is 13. Kat thinks the minimum age for a kid to really be deep into Facebook should be 17.
• The “everyone” privacy setting lets everyone on the Internet see what’s posted (potentially) because Google indexes these. The problem with that is that what they post now can prevent them from getting into good schools, or getting good jobs.
• And notice that even if you have your child’s privacy settings set for Friends Only for just about everything, you need to think about whether you want anyone (literally) to be able to send your child messages (which is the default). If not, you can change that, too. Here’s how: Privacy -> Basic Director Info Settings -> Send Me Messages -> Click drop box, and choose Friends Only.
• Be collaborative with your child as to how Facebook should be used and managed. Don’t be a dictator. If there’s a problem, have your child make the changes—don’t do it yourself. And be very careful what you post to your kid’s profile. And if your kid unfriends you, get over it. Your kid has that right.
• Cyberbullying is a big deal. Kids need to learn Stop-> Block -> Tell so as to effectively make it stop. There are also now cyberbullying laws in place—make sure your kids know not to do it for any reason. It’s not funny or a game. It's something that could ruin the rest of their lives.
• Regardless of your child's age, as long as they're minors, you probably should monitor their online reputations--and an easy way to do that is to set up some Google Alerts.
• It's really a fine line to walk between letting kids learn/grow on their own, and making sure that they're safe on Facebook.

Bit O’Moxie: Self-care begins at home, and there’s probably nothing more precious in your life (or your clients’ lives) than the kids. Be sure to learn what you need to know to keep them safe, and to help them learn how to keep themselves safe on Facebook! Facebook Guide for Parents can help!