Table TIME

I refer to Charlie Rose a lot- maybe weirdly too much. But some people don't know his PBS Show so I describe the gentleman sitting at the table and they instantly know who I'm talking about. Sure Charlie is delightful at his morning gig but his real element is the long slow interview where he actually has a conversation with someone and is not limited to 5 minute segments. This is the format that he has perfected and it's brilliant. And though it's 99.9% Charlie and his mastery of asking questions and steering the widest ranging conversations from politics to culture to brain-science-- there is that table.

Last week Charlie was finally interviewing Louis CK on his morning show (see previous post) but it was just starting to get interesting and he had to go- boo! Not only would I love to see Charlie talk to Louis for the hour (that's what he calls it when he has the guest for the full hour segment) but I also thought I would love to see Louis at the table talking to his idol Bill Cosby. How amazing would that be? I KNOW!

So this got me thinking... why not give Charlie a few days break a month and let some stars interview the people they admire ala Charlie-style at the table? Genius, right?

Table TIME: Star on star interviews at Charlie's table sponsored by TIME magazine. In return for sponsoring the show they would be able to promote the best of the interview in a few content segments on TIME.com. This would promote PBS, TIME, and the interviewees... win-win-win.

No one could ever replace Charlie but part of what makes him so respected is that he took a table and some lighting and made it the modern day interview gold standard. To give some interesting folks a shot at the table is a great tribute to what Charlie has built.

Louis, Mr. Cosby would you like to talk some TIME at the table?


[Other pairings I would love to see: Louis CK & Steve Martin / Jon Stewart / Billie Jean King ; Amy Poehler & Tina Fey; Sarah Jessica Parker & Anna Wintour; Paul Rudd & Albert Brooks; Justin Timberlake & Sting; Mindy Kaling & Shonda Rhimes; Robert Downing Jr. & Elon Musk; Keith Olbermann & Jeff Daniels; Ben Stiller & Ron Howard]

Capturing And Creating Your Genius

About every month or so I get asked what's the best way to get a book published? I am a published author sure but I have merely one book and I am the first to admit I was very very lucky in timing, idea, and most importantly getting signed with an awesome agent. That's to say, I'm not a publishing expert by any means. The second book I wrote instead of being published turned into a workshop- but the process I follow for any project I've worked on for the last 15 years or so starts the same way: Index Cards & Sharpies!

Above is what I refer to as my Writer's Kit, it consists of: a pack of 4x6 of index cards, an extra fine point Sharpie, a metallic package envelope from The Container Store, and super simple instructions: write. I give these out anytime I meet with someone who wants to talk about becoming a writer with the directions to just start jotting down any idea you have about your book/project. What stops people from doing anything in life is keeping things in their head and not capturing and working with their ideas. I can't tell you how many times someone has told me they really want to write something and then I see them a year later and they tell me the same thing having not even written one word. First step: get all ideas down in writing. 

The great thing about index cards is that you can write ideas on the front and sketch images on the back, they fit anywhere, are cheap, and you can shuffle and easily rearrange them. And the key is that you don't need to sit down and write everything all at once- just make notes as ideas hit you and eventually, even if it's a decade down the road, you'll have all the raw material you need to write something great (or at least concrete proof you shouldn't be a writer ;) ). 

I keep index cards and Sharpies with me at all times- they are in my purse, my nightstand, my car, etc. And whenever I come across anything that inspires me I write it down. Words, phrases, notes on articles I read, stick figures drawings, maps, all ideas go down on a separate card unless closely related. You'll also need a convenient and fun place to keep them- thus the funky envelope. I use a box but you'll get intimidated to fill a box so start with filling an envelope with ideas and then you'll be really excited when you're ready to expand. 

Next step is sketching out or combining ideas- for this I use a Canson hard cover artist sketchpad. I use the larger version for ME Mapping my life, but for my book and any other projects, including designing my workshops, I use the 9x12 size. I've diagnosed myself as a frustrated artist who really wanted to work with art supplies but didn't have the skills to draw so instead use them in any capacity I can even while I was working in business sales and training capacities. I've come to think of getting our ideas and life down in beautiful sketchpads as itself a form of ART. 

Once you have sketched out your ideas (or as in my workshop: your life) you are ready to use them as a blueprint for action and planning strategic next steps. Capture, sketch, plan, execute.

That's my process and so you can imagine how tickled I was when I saw the above video of Louis C.K. talking about his (@ 4:25). I adore him for many reasons but that he is a fellow i-card & Sharpie lover makes me swoon ;)

So no matter your idea or how it will be executed the small investment of a pack of Index Cards & Sharpies and in the words of Louis: 

LCK to Charlie

Now get going the world needs your GENIUS and all you need is a trip to Target to get started!!!!

______________________________

Update 10/11/2017: 

For the Love of Louie ...

💡OWNing TV Programing

Brene Brown & Oprah on Super Soul Sunday

Super Soul Sunday, Lifeclass, Oprah's Next Chapter, Our America... this is some of the best programming on TV. Oprah's OWN network has created a place where people can nourish their mind and spirits and it is a great space for the conversation of living our best lives. Well, mostly great. I know it is still in its start-up-ish stages and it takes time to build on ideas and there is the pesky issue of turning a profit and all, but I'm concerned.

I pay extra for the cable package that brings me OWN and it is well worth the price just to see the above shows I listed. But that said, as soon as I saw Life With La Toya as a featured program in an ad in this month's O Magazine I was taken aback. Oxygen was suppose to be a women's empowering station and now veering towards trash-tv. What kind of programming is OWN after?

My own OWN idea: Consider broadcasting high quality, well produced, online-originated, best life programming. My perfect example is what Jonathan Fields is doing with Good Life Project videos. In each 40minutes or so offering he interviews a successful author, business leader, or creative about how they're living a successful life. The videos are beautiful quality and really good content. Same thing with Marie TV with Marie Forleo who is helping people create businesses and lives they love. And it is amazing what Chase Jarvis is doing with creativeLIVE which hosts free online educational programming.

How could this work? Well bear with me I'm not a TV producer (but open to offer Sheri Salata :) ) but how about testing, with a profit sharing arrangement, already produced segments edited by OWN for time. Instead of running continuous Dateline six hour blocks try a Tuesday daytime schedule and expand from there. The content providers submit content that is keeping with living our best lives tone and Harpo Studios edits it for commercials and time.

Huffington Post became a huge success because it curated articles from outside sources. Think if OWN could be the go-to place for curating quality lifestyle content. And think of all the amazing conversations and video that is being produced by everyone from TED and the 92nd Street Y to Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. I'd watch that!

I would be so bold as to suggest that nothing should be on OWN that Oprah herself would not watch. I recall her mentioning she wants to be held responsible for the energy she is bringing into the TV landscape (ala: Jill Bolte Taylor). And although I understand that OWN needs money coming in to keep itself healthy I would suggest that quality best life programming is ultimately the way to do that and keep OWN the place to nourish our minds, hearts, and spirits.

Money & Power Aren't Enough; We Need The 3rd Metric.

Huffington Post

We've all bought into this male definition of success, money and power, and it's not working. It's not working for men, and it's not working for women. It's not working for anyone. ~Arianna Huffington

Arianna burnt herself out a few years ago- literally collapsed at her desk broke her cheekbone and required 5 stitches on her eye- so she was forced to look at what she had been doing to herself. She started a sleep movement and now is expanding this thought that life is more than power and money. Wellbeing is the missing element(s) that makes both men and women more joyful and therefore more successful in the end.

She recently held The Third Metric: Redefining Success Beyond Money & Power to introduce the idea and has been speaking and writing about it a lot lately and I applaud her message. My own burnout and that of many of the people I care about is the main catalyst for my work today. Exhausted whether we work inside or outside the home and even if we're successful in many areas of our lives we're often too depleted to appreciate the good fortune. And it's not just that we are doing this to ourselves, which would be bad enough, it's that we are parenting our kids that it is normal to be constantly busy and frantic. What kind of life is that for us let alone kids?

The graphic above was part of an infographic that was posted regarding this topic and what instantly popped out at me was how the new definition resembles a ME Map. Yup, I made The 3rd Metric about ME ;)    And while some might poo-poo the idea as fluffy and a luxury they should note how 8 out of 10 employees are experiencing workplace stress and it cost businesses $300BILLION a year. Gallup recently did a study that said only 30% of the US workforce is engaged with their jobs and that the cost is closer to $500B, but you get the point.

Something tells me this is going to be the hot new topic of conversation in business. The economy is starting to get better and whether next year or 5 years from now employees are going to start exiting companies that burn them out. The attraction for talent is going to include how they thrive and not just on the power and money that is offered up. If businesses brush this off not only are they holding back the engagement that could profit them now, they will be left with a stale and numb bench to work with then.

Loving Twitter & Busting Bullies

Dick Costolo is a good guy and the perfect CEO for Twitter. He's witty, smart, and uses humor he honed in his improve days to disarm and charm folks. And so it comes as no surprise that when I sent him my last post about Tom Peters' troll issue he quickly responded. But it did make me feel kind of bad that in only 140characters I didn't have room to address issue, make a suggestion, and tell him how great Twitter is... so let me remedy that:

I dare say Twitter it is one of the most important tools created in the last decade. Yes, some people use it for mere amusement which is still worthwhile but it also helped facilitate the Arab Spring and other political movements. It is priceless in weather, national crisis, and natural disaster situations when people are trying to get information and connect with their loved ones; I myself used it to find out information on a friend who was running the Boston Marathon. And for political and breaking news it beats all other media for speed and diverse points of view to pull from.

Whack-A-Mole! Now I knew when I alerted Dick to Tom's troll that it was an issue that is already top of mind for his team. And with all that is going on with running this company and expanding the service into other parts of the world Tom's little annoyance was not going to be a top priority but I sent it as a tangible example of how trolls can drive even the most accomplished folks away. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for the Twitter team to have to deal with spammers and trolls popping up all over the place and as soon as they kill one account 5 others pop up. Kudos for what they are already doing behind the scenes that is no doubt a huge effort.

I would like to suggest an unorthodox idea though... as good as the Twitter security folks are they are probably in-the-lines kind of people and some times we need to fight hacker with hacker or troll with troll. So, my idea is to put a bounty on an useable idea to stop trolling. Open it to anyone who can send Twitter a workable solution and heftily reward them, maybe $100K, for their efforts. Not sure if this is a realistic idea or if you'd need to know Twitter's code or other factors, but I tend to believe most every problem has a solution. And to clarify, I'm not talking by nefarious means but more out-of-box, non-corporate type thinking. If you have better ideas please list them in comments.

Tom sent me a nice tweet thanking me for my post and it's too soon to tell but it looks like his troll might have actually decided to move on to more useful and positive endeavors- fingers crossed. I want to thank Dick for all he is already doing to make Twitter great and thank his team for all the work they do behind the scenes. And to Tom: I hope this stands as a tiny example of the effort people are willing to go through to thank you for all you've done for us. You and Twitter are so great together so tweet on :)

Tom's Twitter Tainted By Troll

I love Twitter and adore Tom Peters so you can imagine how disappointed I was when last week he almost stopped tweeting because he was being harassed by one kooky follower. When he posted his intention to leave I along with many many others chimed in: why didn't he simply block this jerk? Seemed too simple of an answer and apparently it was. Turns out this stalker was setting up multiple accounts for the sole purpose of hassling Tom, as soon as he blocked them another would pop up.

Aside from the annoyance that one unbalanced person was going to ruin the rest of our fun interacting directly with Tom, it made me wonder what kind of person has this kind of time on their hands and what's with all the hostility? Then I realized, as did Tom, that it doesn't matter- there are some nutty people in the world and it would be a shame to let them spoil all our fun.

But that said, this is a real issue that social media sites are going to need to step up and handle better. Blocking, un-friending, etc are all good for the casual annoyer but for a persistant pest or heaven forbid a more menacing scary threat there needs to be a way to address the situation more proactively. Twitter and the other sites are going to need to implement a stronger harassment barrier. I'm not sure of the legality of it all but there should be a way to block the IP address so that even if someone makes up another email or account attempt it would block them from signing on to the service permanently.

If Tom, a fully grown accomplished adult, can be worn down by this sort of thing I can only imagine what a teen or more vulnerable person would have to deal with. There are obviously reasons people want/need anonymity and privacy for certain types of interactions on the web but there should be a way to control who comes at us too.

To Catch a Predator caught and hopefully made online child predators fear they would be arrested and exposed - maybe it's time for the same treatment for these trolls and expose and shame them into stopping the bullying. There have been many cases of teens being bullied into suicide so it is not a victimless annoyance. And even if they are not life threatening in nature, we should be able to go online and interact without being driven away by a few badly behaved bullies.

Some Seeing With The Saying

Publishing is changing and will look completely different in the decade to come with multimedia experiences and the switch over to digital devices, but no matter what you read or what format you choose- business and self development books will need to include visuals. Take the video above- three minutes spent watching this or even flipping through the book's images alone and you'll get more than you could reading the plain text version for 30minutes.

People don't read. Ok, some people read but they make connections and think ideas through more thoroughly when presented good images to go along. Text is ok, but text and visuals are twice as good.

When Dan Roam introduced his book Back Of The Napkin a few years back he attempted to merge the verbal and visuals worlds by teaching people they can get their point across more fully with simple drawing basics. Anyone interested in selling ideas or solving problems- no matter the industry- could benefit from incorporating back of the napkin techniques.

Michael Port wrote Book Yourself Solid a couple of years ago but then took the same concept and cut down on the text and added illustration with Book Yourself Solid Illustrated (see video). The book is beautiful thanks to the work of Jocelyn Wallace, his co-author who is a visual strategist.

I just went through Book Yourself Solid Illustrated and I'll tell you I loved it! The exercises were so much more fun and helpful with visual cues to spark my thinking.

I felt the same last year when I read the personal growth book The Tools (by Phil Stutz & Barry Michels). Phil started using little simple sketches to explain the concepts he uses in therapy sessions with his clients and includes these simple images in the chapters of the book. I liked them so much I made up my own little cheat-sheet so I now have the whole book summarized in one double sided sheet. Can't tell you how much clearer the ideas hit when added to something as simple as a stickman drawing.

I think there has been a separation of "real" books and "artistic" books and even "academic" books for too long. If we want people to understand what we write we need to use a visual when it fits. Even as speaking has gone beyond using bullet point and canned clip art in Power Point, non-fiction books need more of the seeing with the saying. 




Here are a couple other gifted visualists to check out if you are thinking of going beyond just text:


Sunni Brown: Who is starting a Doodle Revolution:




Brandy Agerbeck: Who teaches others how to visually organize information for maximum impact.

ME Mapping: The Basics & Worksheet

ME Mapping is a technique I developed to look at our lives- the good, the bad, and the ugly- and then sort out what's working from what's not. Check out the basics but you won't really get it until you create one for yourself. You can map on a simple blank piece of paper or below you'll find the worksheet I use when I give quick introductory talks- try it out, it's free and virtually painless ;)

ME Mapping from Joy Meredith

[WORKSHEET]

This is a brief taste of how it feels to get started with ME Mapping- this slide-deck makes up about 25% of my workshop- so if you like it... you'll LOVE joining me for the full workshop.
Next event June 1st: CREATING2013

Mini-ME Talk: If you'd like me to come speak to your group and present ME Mapping Basics please contact me by email with the dates and details for consideration.

Happy Mapping!