Remabulous

Stakeout #2, family style...

This year, I went to the mall. On Black Friday. With my family. Don't worry... it was for a stakeout. I decided I wanted to try another one with the new computer now that the lovely eyeball camera was working and so we went out in spitty Boston weather to take on the joy of the mall.

So I have now gone on two stakeouts! I am killing goal #32. Excellent. We did go in the mall afterward and peek around. We were astounded at how deserted the place was. I guess this downturn thing is really hitting us. Also, we were way too lazy to get up and go to any 4am madness. Nothing is worth that much effort. Not even cool gadgets and whatnot. I restricted my sale shopping to online, thank you.  

So, if you'd like to support the project by checking out the episode, please do so at www.stakeoutgirl.com. The chatroom was quite silent this time versus the first episode. Granted, there was no cool trailer or lead time for promotion for this episode. We did get one viewer about five minutes before the end who said "Damn yerr ugly." All three of us were visible on the screen, so we decided not to try to figure out who was being referred to. I do have a bit of a zit outbreak at the moment, so it might be me. Boo. More on other items on the list below...

image: francisco osorio

32 for 32 Vegas Edition

Hello all!

I am writing this post from my almost frighteningly large suite at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Through a crazy series of events I find myself here for a David Neagle seminar. When you get one or two signs you are supposed to attend something, it's still possible to say no and get on with your usual life. However, I just had far too many signals that this was an essential experience for me.

I can't entirely say why that is, but in the 31 for 31 list, I said that I would say yes to more adventures and so I have built that habit from last year.

It is an amazing thing to look over all that has happened since last October. I was just into my new apartment then, just getting used to the east side and getting to know new friends there. And now these friends are some of my favorite people. I have met so many wonderful people in the last year: mentors, clients, friends an colleagues.

I feel so lucky!

So now I get to lie on a gold couch and watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer- I never watched it when it was on TV, but now I am hooked. Hooked enough to bring the season 3 DVDs with me on a business trip that I borrowed from my friend Amy.

Hi Amy! Your Buffy disks are on a trip. I think they are happy to be here.

As am I. I am not entirely sure what I am in for this week, but it feels exciting. I'll keep you all posted.

ps- I made an amazing version of Madeleine cookies that is wheat and sugar free. I am really excited about it! I'll post it as soon as I am home this upcoming weekend as I don't have the original recipe I modified with me on this trip.

It will be my Halloween present to you all.

Today, I will go to dance class.

Given that all I have been focusing on the last week or so on the list has been stakeouts, I decided it was time to give some attention to other items on the list. #4 is "take a ballet class." Now, I have found a proper ballet class, but when I was at my knitting group last week, I heard about this.

I think this might be the most terrifying ass I have ever seen in my life.(click on the image of the lady in yellow when you first land to see what I am talking about.) It's hypnotic really, in its tiny green shorts and wrist bands.

Rest assured that I will not be dressed in the same outfit while attending this experience, so please don't start a stakeout of your own outside the class. I will be in sensible yoga attire and just trying things out.

The woman in my knitting class who told me about it was about my age and making a beautiful twisted stitch cardigan, so I feel I can trust her judgment. She says she goes about three or four times a week. If it's that good, I might actually get enough exercise to be able to run around the reservoir! Without actually having to run. Especially in the rain we've been having lately. I prefer to stay inside and read. Perfection.

So... I will dance, sculpt, lift weights with, and generally stretch myself all over the place this evening at this class. Will report back. I am not giving up on the proper ballet class, but the promise of this ass was too good to give up. If mine ends up looking like this one, I will absolutely be photographing it. But as for right now, no dice.

Send me strength!

image: popphysique.com gallery.

@garyvee and me on stakeouts.

I met Gary Vaynerchuk today at a seminar I'm attending this week. If you don't know who he is, search his name on YouTube. He signed a really big book deal this year and his book is coming out in a few days in October.

I have to say, I am now a huge fan. I liked him before, but not only did he make us all laugh for over 2 hours, stay until we all got to ask him a question directly, but he is into my stakeout thing.

So, as you all know, I put stakeout on the birthday 32 for 32 list. It's #32 and I have been excited about it for a really long time. I have wanted a show, I have wanted to find a way to stake out LA- I even bought the url, but I was worried it would be a weird thing for a business coach to do publicly. I was very lucky that my neighbor had her own flip and was therefore willing to film me with mine so we got Gary and me live in the video above.

Stakeout, here I come! Look for a dedicated stakeout blog soon.... very soon.

A new era...

This image is a poetic representation of where we are now at Remabulous. A big new story is going to start playing out on our screen. I am excited to announce that we have a new website! It has been a labor of love these past few months and the product of collaboration between me and my amazing designer, Jessica Krewson, my web people at Full Partner, and my brother Tim Donahue who shot my video segments on the site.

I am really proud of this shift in look and design. And at the same time, I feel a bit of nostalgia as the old look goes away, and as the purpose of this blog will be changing.

I am going to move my business-related content and blog articles over to the blog at the new site. All articles that were originally published here will stay here, but from now on newsletter articles, Ask Remabulous, the podcast, and the business vlog will be over there.

So what's happening here? I am really excited to say that I am changing the blog here to focus on the 32 for 32 chronicles. I am hoping to bring you even more valuable content and stories over here for that part of the blog: I am going to be adding video, a podcast, and all kinds of new items. This is going to be my fun blog where I get to play again. I am so happy and hope you will enjoy both sides of the story from now on.

Look for a new design, coming soon, and all kinds of new goodies. If you have ideas, please share them below...

image: Klearchos Kapoutsis

Why reading totally unrelated books is one of the best things you can do for your business.

I am a library junkie. I can admit this right out in the open. One of my favorite tricks these days: browsing in a big box bookstore with my iPhone at the ready and open to the LA Public Library page. When I find something I want to take home, I just type the ISBN into the search on the library site and request it. I can pick it up at my local branch, it's free, and I still get to browse in bookstores. It's my favorite game lately.

However, I was falling prey to a deadly disease for the entrepreneur. It's one people don't talk about nearly enough in the business world. It doesn't have a name yet, so I will call it the "Reading Far Too Many Business Books Disease." This disease is deadly for a number of reasons.

Let's go through them one by one and discuss the cure...

image: eseering.

Update from the trenches of expanding a business.

I wrote the title of this post three days ago. I wrote part of a body of a post and then lost it from the browser being rest without saving it...

There comes a time when you start to see business pick up. There comes a time when you cannot get everything done by yourself.

That time is now. It's exciting, and it's scary, too. I'll be sharing how I navigate it and hopefully you will learn something as well.

Things are changing- there will be a new site soon, a new blog and there will be a new role for this one. The old features will be on the new site, but I am thinking there needs to be a place for behind the scenes work.

I think that I will share those moments here. The "It's midnight and I am still on the computer and... oh yes. It's SATURDAY night and I did go out and have fun tonight, but work still called me back when I got home."

Being an entrepreneur is a funny thing.

Stay tuned.

Monday Mindfulness: Seek beauty every day.

My time in Spain was a great reminder: that I love travel, that I love seeing new scenery and art, that I love a good siesta with a book, and that I love to look at a beautiful view. 

 

I was reminded of a bio-feedback monitor I got to play with a few months ago on a weekend away with friends. We each got to watch the beeping light of our heartbeat as we learned to relax and turn the red light indicating stress to blue and then green, indicating relaxation. I wonder how much of the ease of arriving at green had to do with the view my friends and I had of the ocean through the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of the living room. I was reminded of this as I spent time looking at other beautiful views in Spain like at Montserrat monastery, pictured above.

 

Beauty keeps us sane, but the wonderful thing about it is that it is so subjective. I am often delighted, when driving around LA, with the shapes of the power lines and their towers. I can barely stop myself from pulling over and sketching them. They look like robots or statues. Normally, I blow right past this sort of mundane element of a long highway drive, but as I am on a check-in call on Mondays where we talk about the art we are working on, I try to look with different eyes these days.

 

This week's tip is simply this: what if you were to imagine that you had on a pair of goggles that allowed you to see everything as beautiful? 

 

Would that change your day? Your approach? Your life?

 

Give the world around you a chance to be beautiful today. It will show up for you.

Brief hiatus to go on an adventure...

Hello all! I am off to my college reunion this weekend... can't wait to play and visit the place I loved so much after graduating ten years ago. I have lots of tricks up the Remabulous sleeve and so I must take a little break from the blog until next Monday when I return...

I wish you all a magical week and cant' wait to share about my time in Ohio!

Expand your horizons.

Any of us who work in creative fields know that it's important to stay inspired. From Julia Cameron's Artist Date concept (taking yourself out on a creative outing once a week) to the creative person's love of travel, seeing new views is essential to keep producing meaningful and valuable work. 

 

As a creative entrepreneur, I have often noticed that working at home on the computer all day for long stretches of time is the worst thing I can do for my business. We all want to move forward and have many projects going. I know you end up still in pajamas coordinating e-mails and meetings at 6pm not knowing where the day went, too.

 

We all go through this, and even need those days, but in order to come up with new art or projects as an entrepreneur, we need to keep feeding the well. 

 

Can you remember a time when we went to contact a client or business associate and could not for the life of you call up passion about your work? Ever feel like your elevator pitch or your artist statement is like a dry cracker in your mouth? That's the time when you waited too long for a dose of expansion.

 

What's a dose of expansion? It's breaking out of your habitual comfort zone and looking at the world from a different perspective. I had a big dose myself while attending a Hindi wedding this past weekend: it never occurred to me that a long ceremony could be very comfortable and enjoyable for guests if its acceptable to chat, enjoy food and drinks, and get up and stretch during the proceedings. Very different than the western approach of no talking and get the ceremony over and done with asap, isn't it? I would never have gotten this shot from under my parasol across the lawn at a western wedding, and I am so grateful for that new view.

 

This challenge to my everyday thinking reminded me that often a creative rut is simply a blind spot where we are unable to get out of our own heads and look at the issue with fresh eyes and a different philosophy.

 

How to do this? Here are the 3 simple steps to break out of a creative culture rut:

 

1. Think of a culture you know very little about. This could be a different country or religion, or it could just be a community in your own city you've never connected with.
2. Attend an event, rent a movie, read a book, or buy a music album from this culture.
3. Look at all the places where you are currently stuck in your work or creative process and ask yourself what suggestions someone from this culture would make for you. Get out a pad of paper and two separate colors of pen and ask questions of someone who is part of this culture what ideas they would have for you- like an imaginary coaching session.

Repeat as needed. We are so often unaware that we simply accept certain concepts as truth or "the way it's done" when there are many many approaches to any situation. Often our way isn't the best way at all, and we never even realized this. Connecting with different cultures and their philosophy can open us up to richer relationships with the rest of the world and with ourselves. 

 

Try it out and let us know what you think! I'll post this article on the blog as well, so please share comments with me and each other there.