Anyone interested in an Apple iPhone App Exchange party?
Yesterday, a fellow Oberlin Alum turned me on to the Ocarina app on the iPhone. There are so many cool apps out there and it's so fun to share them with friends. Wouldn't it be a great idea to have an iPhone app exchange party?
Cheese, wine and iPhone Apps.
Wine, chocolate and iPhones.
Perhaps we could even raffle off an iPhone or the top 25 apps as prizes!
Do you ever find yourself resisting doing something? You know…that thing that you say, “oh I’ll get to it tomorrow” or “I know I need to do it, but just not right now” or “I just can’t find the time to get it done?” There are several excuses for not doing that which we resist, most of which can be traced back to some sort of fear. Often what we resist most is the thing that is most important, the thing that would bring the greatest benefit, the biggest relief and/or provide the greatest feeling of accomplishment.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the past few days and I have to chuckle at myself. You see I get myself in a mobius strip like mental game, because there are two conflicting ideas going on that make absolute sense and yet seem to be at odds with each other simultaneously.
What you resist persists means you will continue to resist that which you are afraid of disinclined to do for whatever reason, and it will persist being something you need to do. That’s the first part.
The second is another old saying that goes: “Persistence pays” or “Nothing pays off more than persistence.” I.e. if you persist you will succeed. If you persist you will win. If you persist you can get anything you want.
Being persistent however means having courage. It means picking yourself up when you’re losing or feeling down. It means continuing to pursue your goal when you feel like you’re not making any progress. It means fighting and pushing yourself as hard as you can. Remembering when Winston Churchill said: “Never, never, never give up?” Persistence means being that barracuda that never lets go, it means showing up day after day despite no sign of success, it means pushing through the dip even when you don’t know you’re in one.
So, if what you resist persists
and persistence pays,
then if you just persist at doing that which you resist,
you will succeed at that which you were resisting and it will be done so that you can move on to resisting something else.
Are you smiling yet? If not, don’t worry, here’s a better way to think about it:
I am a big fan of Brian Tracy’s “Eat That Frog” book, which my good friend Jonathan Dann turned me onto a year or two ago. The concept is to do the thing that is the least appealing, the thing that you fear the most, or the thing that will be the hardest thing to do first. If you complete the biggest, hardest, most difficult thing to do as your first task everyday, then everything else you have to do after that will be easy. I.e. if you eat that frog, then everything else will be a delight, because there is nothing as challenging as eating the frog.
So my request to you (and to me) is to accept that what you resist persists. And, be persistent at conquering every resistance you find yourself presented with.
The class is Saturday, May 2nd at 355 First Street in San Francisco and tuition is $50. Brandon is donating 80% of the tuition to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Please sign up today. If you know of people who may be interested in the class, please print this flyer and give it to them.
Today I received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service saying that they had received the application fo exemption from federal income tax. There are three groups into which applications are separated:
1) those that can be processed immedialy base on information submitted,
2) those tha need minor additional information to be resolved, and
3) those that require additional development.
If our application falls into categories 1 or 2, we should hear back within approximately 60 days. If our application goes into the third group, we are assigned an Exempt Organizations specialist. Then there is a determination- either exempt or not and if not we'll receive a letter as to why not and how to appeal.
Knowing that the application has been received and is being processed feels great. Not knowing the decision brings a little anxiety, but at least the application is in and being reviewed. We thank the IRS for doing their work and feel lucky to have the opportunity to serve.
We're Classes for Causes - where teaching and learning means giving. We're connecting people with causes and providing a new way to give. Give to your favorite cause through teaching a class about something you love. I'm teaching a Marketing with Search Engines class on April 30th for Women's Initiative. What will you teach? And what do you want to learn?
Community and social media guru, Chris Brogan announced recently that he was shaving his head for charity. He promised someone that if he reached number one in Advertising Age's Power150 he would shave his head and I wonder if he really believed it would ever come true. Well it did and in a tribute to my favorite author and blogger, Seth Godin, Chris shaved his and posted about it on his blog. Fun right? Yes, but Chris took it a step further by making it into a story and raising money for a charity. His goal is to raise $10,000 for Giving Kids Laptops. I wonder if he is partnering with One Laptop per Child?
So now I'm wondering..... What shocking or interesting or funny thing should I do to raise money for Classes for Causes? Any ideas?
A few posts ago I mentioned Jonathan Atleson's class coming up on April 30th and it has been postponed until May 28th. If you are a teacher or presenter or just someone who needs to organize content in such a way that it is easily digestable and more importantly results in the audience actually learning something, please sign up for Intuitive Instructional Design for Teachers and Presenters.
Today is a day that I have been putting off for a long time. A day that I have been trying to reach, but just haven't been able to pull it off. It has taken me at least nine months to feel comfortable to finally complete the project, copy it and put it in the mail and it is finally done. I can't believe how happy and relieved I am to not be carrying that burden with me anymore. "Whoo-hoo!" is an understatement.
Sometimes you really do need a little help from your friends and usually it's not the kind of help you expect. I am honored to have such special friends who push me when I need to be pushed, encourage me when I need encouragement, challenge me when it is time for a challenge and rejoice when we accomplished something together no matter how big or small.
Relationships are the theme of the day and with all this social media buzz, it's about time. If you know anyone who would like to teach a class or people who are interested to learn cool and hip things, please send me a note or DM me on twitter and we'll start the journey, one step at a time.
I spent a bit of time at City Hall today too. What a beautiful day it was in San Francisco and what a great city hall we have. Here's an interesting pic that I took on my way to doing some business.
I am wearing my teacher hat more and more these days and loving it. Twitter is my new best friend, the next big thing and Susan Boyle is an inspiration to us all on YouTube. If you haven't seen it, here's a link because they have removed the embed option which makes the fact that it has such a huge following even more of a big deal.
It's so great to see that people are finally starting to appreciate normal people that do extraordinary things. You don't have to be super tall and skinny to have talent, you do have to have courage and believe in yourself. Dream that dream whoever and wherever you are and it will eventually come true. Ask, believe and receive.
"Energy flows where attention goes." -- M. Beckwith
If you haven't seen this Sprint ad, it's worth a look from the perspective of numbers and playing in the social media space. I learned about it from a fabulous web designer/social media guru in Nashville Tennesse called Mitch at StudioNashVegas.
What fun! Two presentations on tax day. I was fortunate to present to a client on social and start my first Internet Marketing Now class at SFSU this evening. I am loving my life right now. Being able to teach and learn on my own time is a real privilege and I am having a blast. Why didn't I start this sooner? Sometimes the small quiet and personal accomplishments are so much more valuable than the large loud public ones.
Jonathan is an experienced Instructional Designer and Multimedia Project Manager. He holds a Masters Degree in Information Technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology, with concentrations in Instructional Design, Multimedia Application Development, and Web Programming. An accomplished musician and composer with degrees from leading Conservatories of Music, Jonathan credits music and canine companions with showing him how to merge left-brain received skills with right-brain intuitive imagination. Jonathan lives in San Leandro, CA, with his wife and two holistically-raised herding dogs.
Instructional Design is the art and science of transforming information into the most audience-appropriate form. Too often, however, this process is "expert-driven" not "student-driven." Design follows a linear path, processing raw information into a somewhat more digestible presentation. This results in a passive, often boring, learning experience that may convey a broad awareness of the subject matter, but rarely transfers practical knowledge or skills, or changes behavior.
Intuitive Instructional Design is Jonathan's approach to breaking out of the "expert-driven" linear production process. Participants in this workshop will bring (or discover) a topic they would like to teach or present. We will then apply techniques as well as industry best practices to (re-)envision the design of the material into active learning.
Sorry for my long hiatus from the blog. I have started my own company and am now self-employed. I thought that would mean I would have more time to spend on Classes for Causes, but alas I have been focused on paying client work in order to get my for-profit business off the ground so that I can also work on the non-profit. Wouldn't it be wonderful, if there were no bills to pay.
I'm back from the future in the sense that I have been doing a lot of planning, learning, taking care of business and pretty much working every spare moment getting organized on the new venture and also doing a little bit on Classes for Causes here and there. I think of the hard work as preparation for the future in anticipation of even more work (and fun) ahead. I am very much inspired by @kanter (Beth Kanter), @sloane (Causecast) and @sairy who I am following on Twitter and I energized to be starting something new and learning from such forward thinking, socially conscious, smart and prolific. Speaking of which, I just started the @classes4causes twitter feed, so follow, @reply, RT and #hashtag away.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the past few days and I have to chuckle at myself. You see I get myself in a mobius strip like mental game, because there are two conflicting ideas going on that make absolute sense and yet seem to be at odds with each other simultaneously. 
Jonathan Atleson