Well, hello there! I’ll bet you thought this blog was dead. I thought so too, because I couldn’t decide what to do with it after I moved on to other things. But I finally figured it out, just this morning.

Think of The Complete Flake as my sandbox. This is where I’m going to play with new ideas.

This morning, I started a new routine. I meditated for ten minutes, did a few yoga stretches, and wrote for fifteen minutes. I can do more if I feel like it, totally up to me.

I’m doing this because I want to establish a new daily routine that supports both my health and my writing. If I start off the day positively and proactively instead of giving in to my food and internet addictions, the rest of the day has a much better chance of being productive. This way, I can build my self-confidence and self-respect.

Because thinking of myself as a hopeless flake at the mercy of my own bad habits is just a habit itself, after all. I don’t HAVE to see myself that way. I can CHOOSE a different self-image — like say, someone who loves to write, meditate and do yoga every morning, first thing. (And someone who loves healthy food and – well, loving exercise will take more work.)

And my first thought now is, Hmm, I wonder if yogawrite.com is available? Ha! Another habit! Because I love me a brand new website to start from scratch. During yoga this morning, I was also thinking about starting a new Twitter hashtag for daily practice. But I must resist, not because either idea is bad. It’s only a question of mental bandwidth and whether I have any to spare. And I know that I don’t.

I’m questioning everything right now – decluttering my day and deciding where to put my focus. I know I can’t stop getting excited about new ideas, but how can I explore them without making public commitments that are embarrassing to back out of later, when I lose interest? (Sorry, but I told you I’m a flake.)

Well, that’s where The Complete Flake comes in handy. Now I can flit about from idea to idea as much as I like.

I like that. Hope you do too. :)

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I’ve been trying to figure out what to do here on The Complete Flake ever since — oh, I don’t know, forever? But really, since I decided to move the #customerlove challenge to its own site. Because I gotta say, I fell in love with Customer Love — not just the concept but the people, the excitement, the idea that businesses (and lives) can be changed by such a small thing.

It’s magic, I tell ya.

Soon after the end of the November challenge, I got an email that made me cry:

“I wasn’t sure how the mortgage was going to get paid this month, and now it’s COVERED, so this has been a HUGE boon.”

This Customer Love challenger grabbed the opportunity, jumped in wholeheartedly and worked her ass off to achieve a big success. Customer Love didn’t do that for her — she can claim all the credit — but it gave her a place and a format within which to spread the word and build excitement about her product.

I have never felt so fucking USEFUL in my life.

This is what I want to do from now on, to help even more struggling entrepreneurs kick-start their businesses so that they can make those mortgage payments and take care of their families.

I am working with Jonathan Wondrusch (@bybloggers) to create an amazing course — that I have to keep my mouth shut about, dammit. I WANT to shout it from the rooftops. Just trust me, it’s gonna be good. And I’m pretty sure it’s gonna help cover some more mortgage payments. But more about that in a month.

Right now, I’m wondering how to integrate Customer Love and The Complete Flake in my life. I don’t want to ignore my dear flakes, but I’m just not passionate about procrastination any more, you know? It’s a problem I will always struggle with, but I don’t find it fascinating AT ALL. I just don’t want to write about it any more.

What I’ve learned from Customer Love is that flakiness can be overcome with motivation.

If you want something badly enough, you will find a way to get it done.

It might not be neat and organized, it might be at the last second or even late, but it will get done.

If you have to force yourself to do it, maybe you need to look at your reason for doing it. Do you really WANT to do it, or do you feel like you HAVE to? If you feel boxed in and without a choice in the matter, I’d say take a look at that and see if there’s any way you can give yourself a choice.

That’s it, the sum total of my advice about flakiness, resistance, procrastination — whatever you want to call it.

Am I going to abandon The Complete Flake?

No, but I’m not going to focus on flakiness any more. I think it will just be my personal blog and I’ll talk about whatever without feeling the need to teach you anything, which seems to bring up all sorts of resistance in me, lol.

I’m not going to waste any more energy trying to make myself do what I don’t really want to do.

So let’s relax. Let’s just be ourselves here. What do you think?

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There is no point to this post, other than silliness – which is point enough, in my book. I have been asked to share the fabulous story of the day I “interviewed” Robin Williams. [I put that in quotes for reasons you will soon see.] I love taking a ride on the memory train, especially this one.

It was 1976. I was a student at the KISS-FM Broadcasting School in Los Angeles, where we learned how to spin records, splice tape and read news straight from the teletype machine. [What, you never heard of these things? Why yes, it WAS ancient history.]

And one day, we had a class in How to Host a Radio Talk Show. Apparently, it’s harder than it looks.

The school had hired an unknown actor to play various characters as ‘guests’ while we each took a five-minute turn in the glass booth. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only female in the group to fall in love with the actor when he was introduced: a mass of curls, a sweet, innocent expression, and a long coat that made me think of The Little Prince.

He was adorable. And when he spoke in his soft voice, he had a lovely British accent.

We were told that each guest character would present a common problem that talk show hosts have to face. Of course, we weren’t warned in advance what our problem would be – or that our sweet-faced Little Prince was FUCKING CRAZY.

We found out soon enough.

Imagine a world where Robin Williams does not exist, where there is no such thing as stream-of-consciousness, GENIUS comedy. That was the world of 1976.

The first student walked into the booth full of confidence. Robin metamorphosed into a fast-talking hipster who turned his host into a gibbering idiot in ten seconds flat.

Next!

The next character talked even faster – a foul-mouthed pimp who sexually harassed and even fondled the breasts of the poor young woman who had the bad luck to be his host.

Next!

My turn. Gulp.

My ‘guest’ was an old man who represented the Arthritis Society. Phew! After a few wheezing words, he dropped dead – in my lap. [Yes, Robin Williams' head was in my lap - that's my claim to fame.]

What do you say on live radio when your guest dies?

“Is there a doctor in the house? I think he’s dead.” Brilliant.

Robin’s old man character popped back up.

“No, I’m not! I just wanted to show you how serious arthritis can be!”

And so on. It was a crazy, terrifying, hilarious day, as each of us was tormented by another facet of Robin Williams’ genius. At the end, he turned back into his sweet Little Prince with the British accent, and I wanted to leave my husband and marry him.

A few months later, when the TV sitcom “Mork & Mindy” became an overnight smash hit, I recognized the Little Prince. I thought, “What talent – a Brit who can do an amazing American accent!” It took me another year to find out that I’d been had, and Robin had been faking the British accent for our class.

Which made me admire him even more.

That’s my brush with fame – what’s yours? Tell us in the comments below!

My friend, Birdy Diamond, is writing a daily column for the new #customerlove site, and she wanted to know how I put the photos above the title there, and here at The Complete Flake.

So I made a quick tutorial that I thought you might like as well. Obviously, if you don’t use Thesis, it won’t be helpful, but there’s a nifty tip for finding images you can use on your blog [with attribution, of course].

Hope you like it!

~~~

]]> http://completeflake.com/tutorial-how-to-add-a-photo-above-the-post-title-in-thesis/feed/ 2 http://completeflake.com/natalie-peluso-ashley-sinclair/ http://completeflake.com/natalie-peluso-ashley-sinclair/#comments Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:40:45 +0000 LaVonne Ellis http://completeflake.com/?p=2118

Does this sound familiar?

You’ve been learning lots of great marketing lessons from the pros, and you’re starting to get that stuff down, so now it’s time to sell a great product — only you don’t have one.

Or you have two or three products, but you want to kick your business to the next level with a kick-ass product.

That’s what Action Studio is all about, and that’s why I wanted to interview the amazing women behind it, Natalie Peluso and Ashley Sinclair. I feel very lucky to be able to take the course, because I’ve been really struggling to figure out what kind of product I could offer my people.

In our conversation, Natalie and Sinclair talked about:

• What’s an archetype, and what does it mean for your business?
• How big companies like Coca Cola use archetypes to create meaning for their products.
• How knowing your archetypes can help you decide who to partner with.

To discover your archetypes and apply for the scholarship [!] head over to Action Studio — go!!!

One week from today, we start another four-week round of delightful insanity. Except the #customerlove craziness has already begun Chez Flake.

First: Welcome, Ittybiz peeps!

My guest post about the first #customerlove challenge just went live. Can I just say, SQUEEE? Naomi Dunford has been so incredibly generous and kind — promoting the first challenge on Twitter, doing an interview with me, writing an introduction to the Customer Love eBook, and now publishing my guest post. Makes me a little verklempt just thinking about her. :sniff:

Thank you, Naomi!

Now: BIG NEWS! [In case that wasn't big enough.]

The amazing Chris Anthony, aka @etherjammer the Delightineer, has graciously agreed to join me in running the challenge! That big sigh of relief you hear is me. Because these challenges are a LOT of work — that I love, don’t forget, but the chances of something going terribly wrong or me winding up in a quivering heap on the floor are now much less.

Thank you, Chris!

More BIG NEWS!

We have a new website, just for #CustomerLove! [So many exclamation points!] It’s a bit of a mess over there right now, but this is your sneak peek. Feel free to drop in during the next week to watch our progress. Lots of fun stuff in the works! We officially launch the site next Monday, November 1st.

In the meantime, you can sign up for the #customerlove challenge here. You’ll get all the updates that way, no matter where we are in the site transition, as well as the Customer Love eBook.

[And if you can't take part in the challenge this time, go ahead and download the ebook right here: Download -- you don't even have to opt in. See how much I love you?]

That doesn’t mean the Flake will be abandoned during the challenge, btw, just that #customerlove sorta took over this place last time and I worried that my flakes were being neglected. So I’ll still be blogging here about flaky goodness, though just once a week during the challenge.

Continuing the neglect [but not for long]…back to #customerlove news:

I’m going to hold one-hour tweet chats on Tuesdays at 5pm Pacific time during the challenge. It starts tomorrow, so we can all do our pre-challenge planning together. Hope I see you there.

One last thing, if you’re new here, you may not know about the Stuckbuster Sessions. They’re a great way to get unstuck at whatever you need to be working on — like that Thing you’ll be launching at the end of the #customerlove challenge? Don’t forget that part!

So if that sounds intriguing to you, go on and take a look. I’ll be holding extra sessions just for you challengers. :)

Phew — it’s going to be a busy month! Have you started planning for #customerlove yet? Tell me all about it in the comments below. :)

A lot of us flakes have a secret feeling that we’re not very smart about some things. Maybe it’s math, or being organized, or tech stuff. We see someone else who’s better at something and we can’t help comparing — and feeling like shit.

Flakes aren’t the only ones who fall into that trap.

My weak spot is organization, but I have a strong spot: I love fiddling with websites. AND I love making screencast tutorials. Handy!

So I thought I’d share tips with you now and then, in case tech stuff is your weak spot. No need to feel bad about it. If you’re not interested in something, why should you compare yourself to someone who is? Take what you need and leave the rest, right?

So here’s a little tutorial to help you make simple changes to your WordPress website, without having to learn CSS [all you need is a few simple tools, listed below]:

• Firefox browser with Firebug add-on installed.
• Free CSS editor called TopStyle Lite.
• Free color-picker program called ColorPix.

Now, you’re ready to rock CSS!

Sorry it took a little longer than expected, but David Crandall has worked his ASS off to make the CustomerLove eBook truly awesome — you’re going to love it.

But before you download it, a little announcement [in case you missed my tweets]:

There’s going to be another #customerlove challenge in November — yay!!!

Sadly, David won’t be able to participate because he has other commitments, but that means I’m going to need more guest posts — from you! I want to showcase as many challengers as possible, so if you’re going to take part in the challenge and you’d like to write a guest post — or be interviewed –  just click the Contact tab up at the top of the page and let me know.

Sign up for the challenge and get the ebook here.

Or, if you won’t be participating this time, you can download the ebook here — no need to opt in: Download And I hope we’ll see you in a future challenge. :)

Otherwise, hang on — lots of fun stuff in the works!

Are you taking part this time? Tell me in the comments below.

Okay, confession time: I don’t get out much.

I put on a good show online but in real life, I’m a bit of a recluse. I like to stay home and do my socializing on the computer — it’s so much easier that way.

There’s that, and a maddening tendency toward migraines triggered by fragrances and chemical fumes. So I’ve been hanging out in this apartment [with my son and his fiancee] for several years, only going out for groceries and to visit friends and family once in a while. It’s a quiet life and I like it.

But lately, I’ve been feeling the urge to meet people.

Thanks to nudges from Naomi Dunford and Catherine Caine, I got a prescription I hoped would help me deal with the fragrances, and scraped up enough cash to go to Las Vegas during BlogWorld 2010 — though not enough to attend the actual event.

Luckily, the prescription worked. I had expected at least a low-level headache during the entire four days, but I was fine. #win

I read Naomi’s advice about how to be broke at a conference almost in time — before the words, “I can’t afford it,” had come out of my mouth more than once or twice. I drank club soda with lime at all [okay, both] social functions and avoided not only the embarrassment of being publicly broke, but publicly drunk as well. #win-win

I told myself that I would push through and network in spite of my social anxiety, but in the end, I couldn’t make myself get out there as much as I wanted. I spent a lot of time tweeting from my hotel room. Some of that was because my recently-healed broken foot wasn’t ready for all the walking, but I have to admit I was always relieved to get back to my room. #fail

That’s not to say that I didn’t make some happy connections. I loved meeting Naomi, Jen Gresham, Nathalie Lussier, Pace Smith, Elizabeth Potts-Weinstein, Johnny B. Truant, Catherine Caine, Nathan Hangen, Jordan Cooper, Jeanie Witcraft, Lisa Johnson, Wendy Cholbi, and many more. #totalwin

They made the trip totally worth the parts that weren’t much fun.

The not-fun parts:

• Those hotel-casinos are freaking HUGE! The pain of walking got to the point where I just wanted to stay in my room where I could at least get an internet connection and try to arrange meetings — which, for the most part, didn’t pan out because of communication problems.
• I finally rented a motorized scooter for the last 24 hours and was able to meet a few more people that way — but I was embarrassed, even though everybody was very nice.
• I had a lovely allergic reaction to something [soap?] and was itching like crazy.
• I had a hard time venturing out alone. My roomie, Catherine Caine, was lovely about hanging out with me but it wouldn’t have been fair to expect her to spend all her time babysitting me. After coming all the way from Australia, she needed to make the most of her time.

All of which motivates me to make some long-term changes in time for next year:

1. Save up for the full access pass to BlogWorld 2011. I really wish I could have attended this year’s keynotes and panels — partly to soak in the knowledge and partly because it’s a more natural way to meet other attendees.
2. Make arrangements with another introverted buddy [or group of buddies] to go to functions together. Much as I like being alone at home, in a crowd, I want someone to talk to.
3. Buy a gizmo that will allow for easier communication on the fly. [iPhone? Laptop?]
4. Start exercising now to have the energy to take full advantage of the conference and networking opportunities. Also to feel more self confident.
5. Plan ahead for any health issues. Bring the right medications, rent what you need to get around, and don’t push yourself beyond your limits. You know what they are.

There — that should keep me busy for the next year! :)

What about you? Are you going to any upcoming networking events? Tell me more in the comments below — maybe we could meet up!

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While I’m in Vegas for BlogWorld, how about a lesson in money management from my favorite mathematician, Colin Beveridge?

I’m not saying things are bad, but I just got an email from a Nigerian widow saying General Abacha had died penniless.

I don’t want that to happen to me — or you.

One of the chief causes of money worries is not knowing where you are and where you need to be. I understand that, I’m terrified of checking my bank account, way behind on my bookkeeping, and a great big baby when it comes to dealing with my finances.

But I do it anyway. And you can too. Here are seven ways I trick myself into getting the money stuff done.

(1) Get a budget buddy

You are not the only person who’s afraid of checking the numbers. Set up an internet date with a friend once a week where you can force each other to log into your internet banking, check all your numbers, complain about how much of a chore it is, and share each other’s successes. Having someone to hold you directly accountable is a huge motivator – and helps you get it done.

(2) Set yourself a concrete target

Almost all the life coaches will tell you about SMART goals. That stands for Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Reasonable and Timed. Something like “Make some extra money” isn’t much good as a goal; “Make an extra $1,000 from selling online services by the end of the year” is much better. “Clear all of my credit card debt by Christmas” is another good one.

(3) Treat it like a game

Everybody loves games, right? It’s not you against your finance buddy, it’s you against the world. The world wants to take all of the money you don’t have, and needs all kinds of persuasion to give you any of its cash. Which is hardly fair, since it has a lot more than you to begin with. Luckily, the world doesn’t have the focussed goal that you do, so you can beat it with a bit of effort. If you have a day where you take more from it than it takes from you, you win. See how many days you can win in a row.

(4) Keep your targets in plain view

Eyes on the prize, people, eyes on the prize. If you want to meet your goal, you need to have it in front of you. Get a red marker and a yellow sticky, get writing and get sticking. Update it every time you get closer. Watching your target get closer and closer is a great motivator.

(5) Break your targets down

Now, it’s a bit intimidating to say “I need to make $1,000 by the end of the year” and have that number staring you in your face all the time. I prefer instead to break it into a daily goal. I could work it out by hand, but I prefer to go to Wolfram Alpha and ask: “How many days until new year?” It thinks for a moment and says 86 days. $1,000 divided by 86 is $11.63. A thousand bucks is a lot of money. Twelve dollars isn’t. You can make that, right? Go to.

(6) Remember that fear of the picture is always worse than the picture itself

The main reason I’m terrified of checking my accounts is that I’m always sure a monster will have swooped in and eaten all of my available funds. This generally isn’t the case. It might not be as bright a picture as you’d like, but you need to know where you are before you can decide what you need to do. It’s like housework: the longer you put it off, the longer it takes. And then you find it wasn’t actually all that bad, and the nice clean house makes you feel better.

(7) This isn’t quantum physics — reality doesn’t change because you look at it.

Looking under the bed doesn’t change whether there’s a monster there. It just tells you “there’s no monster and I can happily and safely go to sleep” or “actually, the monster situation might need a little bit of work.” If you don’t know about the monster, it’s much more likely to bite you. If you know it’s there, you can sedate it for the night and make a monster-proofing plan in the morning.

Either way, you’ll sleep better knowing instead of fearing.

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