Author: Bobbye

Bobbye Middendorf, MA, partners with evolutionaries as mystic-catalyst, healer, and poet -- evoking experiences of hope, self-grounding, self-trust, resilience, and joy. Spoken Word Alchemy opens portals for Yin Arising via mentoring; she offers inner wisdom guidance and word altars. With WayMakers, this award-winning wordsmith regenerates their clarity and expansive expression to live life as a work of art.

Missive from Shangri-La

Lake Geneva, WI — Just across the Wisconsin border from the greater Chicago area’s suburbs, the spring-fed Lake Geneva beckons summer vacationers into a delicious playground amid idyllic small towns and groves of 100-year-old trees. Dotted along its 26-mile circumference, resorts, summer homes, conference centers and camps abound. A public path circles the lake, so that all can enjoy its pleasures close-up.

On June 22, I was heading into the third night of my retreat with the Dreams Alive and Relax-Online partners, Paul Bauer and Susan Castle, along with their Hawaiian friend and co-leader, Keahi. We convened a sacred circle of like-hearted fellow-travelers on a path of growing ourselves, our consciousness, and our ability to flow from the heart with whatever life tosses in our direction. (Think curve balls.)

On Solstice Monday morning, three of our heart-full friends departed, making our intimate group even more so. During the week-long retreat, I entered deeply into the magic of the moment, a serene setting and powerful teachers moving internal energies that have been stuck seemingly for lifetimes.

I’ve gotten  myself off schedule for the blog challenge. I realize that I didn’t even finish editing the post that I automatically posted on Father’s Day. I cringed when I saw that it had published. “Oops,” I thought.

Lesson: Make sure you’ve completely cleared /cleaned the post before you schedule it!

Trying to put this retreat experience into words is a challenge and beyond. The transformations are so profound that to write about them somehow diminishes the power in the moment. Words that embody the essence of the experience simply can’t do it justice.

For pragmatic business people, doing personal growth and development work at deep levels like this is both crucial and yet seemingly impossible. It appears to be the opposite of practical.

Yet I suggest that this process of finding the essence of your life purpose and clearing the obstacles that have kept you from living fully into that purpose is among the most practical and foundational work imaginable. It opens the door for the right business relationships to grow from the rooted heart of who you are and why you are here.

The retreat was all-consuming for seven delicious days. The internet connection was something that, if used at all, had to be mindfully approached. Although it was available, it was not convenient and ever-present.

So, I got off track.  I didn’t manage to pre-write the posts either. This is coming to you a week after I wrote it. I want to express my appreciation to each of you for your love and support.

From my heart,
Bobbye Middendorf
The Write Synergies Guru

Fathers: Live Your Legacy

Writing has been my lifetime path, vocation, avocation, and the way I’ve processed everything that happens. While not everyone is on this same path, I love the idea of living a legacy, and in this case, leaving a legacy with your words. Sure, actions speak louder than. But you can create things with words that will live in a different way.

[Side note #1: What I talk about here is writing. I save a draft of the post and see that my daughter has left me a mother’s day video link. So, yes.  You can use this same process if you record audio or video, if those are your chosen forms. Or do all of it. The technology is here to serve you, not vice versa!]

For mothers, fathers, and others who want to begin to write a legacy, I suggest following five simple steps. Don’t make it hard for yourself. Give yourself credit for every little bit. Be kind to yourself in this, and it will show up in all sorts of unexpected ways and places.

Your regular practice will enhance your results.  It will show you things  from a different perspective as well as creating your legacy in writing. If you can do five minutes daily, great. If longer, great. If not daily, great. This is an open-handed, open-hearted, and flexible companion. It’s not one more thing to do, then beat yourself up for not doing.

[Side note #2: OK, if you have been with us in the #blog30 challenge, you KNOW the power of the daily practice. Need I say more? And maybe your blog IS part of your written legacy. That is fine. You don’t have to have something extra. Well, maybe you do, but don’t beat yourself up about it. Just write that little something extra to give the kids the context.]

1 Love the process.
You’re doing this for love. Start with that. Always start with that, no matter what you write (or film or record or dance or cook). Center yourself in the love you have for who you are writing to. Love yourself as you write, and love the loved ones who are the intended recipients of your legacy. Even if they are people you have never met.

2 Wake up.
It helps to be fully present  in your body and with yourself. Make a commitment to follow through. Set your intention to record some small bit of your life — times, work, emotions, thoughts, questions, answers — in this way. Give it your full attention when you are doing it. Bring your body with you into the process.

3 Observe.
Start wherever you are. It often helps to get grounded in the physical world as part of your practice. Like the incomparable Geoff Hoff advised recently, bring in details from all your senses to make the surrounding environment come alive.  Experience my kitchen and the Minneola, above. That’s just one small example.

4 Record.
Just write. Write with your mind on what you are doing. Write with love. Write with exquisite detail. Write your questions. Write the answers to questions not even asked yet. Write your dreams –  daydreams, night dreams, siesta dreams. Even if you don’t know where you are going with the words or exactly what you want to say, if you approach it with love in your heart, awareness in your mind, full senses attuned to your environment, and gratitude for the process, no matter what specific words you say, your intentions will shine through with clarity.

5 Cherish with gratitude.
Bring a full heart to the process and express gratitude for every step, every nuance. Make it gratitude a constant companion on your journey.

How Attractive — Marketing from the Inside Out

Some time ago, my colleagues in an entrepreneur support group asked me about Attraction Marketing. It really comes down to marketing from the inside-out.

I’m convinced that that the inside-out way is the most powerful way to do anything!! (Start with BE-ing first, then the DO-ing)

The writing projects, workshops, coaching conversations, Vision Quests, and mapping I do are all about taking  that Inner Journey first.

I wanted to share the following questions with you so that you can start making your own Strategic Attraction Plans. Who are your perfect just-right people (tribe)? Who do you envision inviting,  joining you in your circle?  Who are the people you want to cross the bridge of your words?

This Strategic Attraction process will help you clarify and specify so that your light will be attractive to the people who are most perfect for your services and products.

Start by identifying WHO is the first relationship you are focusing on attracting with your 4-part Strategic Attraction Plan.

Do a separate Attraction plan for each of the different relationships you want to attract. Write each of the following four questions on a separate sheet of paper to give yourself plenty of room to expand your plan and NOTICE what comes up.

This plan is to attract MY perfect ________.
Select whom you want to attract:
MY perfect __________
[Sweetheart, employer, employee, customer, coaching client, reader, business partner, vendor, Virtual Assistant, investor, relationship partner, mastermind, teacher, coach, agent, publisher, donor, student, neighbor, etc.]
The process can work for whomever you want to attract, any and every kind of relationship — both business and personal.

LIST #1       DESCRIBE     The QUALITIES of your perfect _____________.
What are the attributes, qualities, characteristics, values, beliefs, and visions of your perfect __________ ?      [fill in whatever relationship you are attracting]
This one can literally fill a notebook. Or two. This is not the place to be stingy! EVERYTHING that you notice that is a perfect quality goes on your plan.

List #2     IDENTIFY        “The TICK”
What makes my perfect  [fill-in-the-blank] __________  tick?
(By the law of attraction — that like attracts like –  answer this by answering for yourself, “What makes me tick?”)
This may eventually be honed down to a very brief and powerful statement that gets at the core of who you are and why you are here.

List #3       SPECIFY         What YOU WANT them to EXPECT of you?
What do I WANT my perfect [fill-in-the-blank]  __________   to expect of me?
This is where you decide what it is you really want to experience in the relationship. What YOU WANT … to do or experience in the relationship.

List #4      DECLARE        Your BE-ing
Who do I need to BE for me to receive what I say I want?
(Another way to ask this: Who do you have to BE in order to be able to provide what you want your clients to expect of you in #3?)

Process: Notice what comes into your field in relation to the perfect relationship you are now attracting. NOTICE. OBSERVE. Make additional notes to your plan. (Even people you don’t like can be fodder for the plan. Turn it around to write down what you DO want based on experiencing what you DON’T want.)

Secret question to shift your energy of BE-ing when things don’t look/feel great:
What Would Be More Perfect?

The above attraction plan is adapted from: Jan Stringer and Alan Hickman’s BEE-ing Attraction: What Love Has To Do With Business and Marketing
Plus you can click here to  Learn more about Attracting Perfect Customers!

I am so excited to report that I am  getting certified as an Attraction Strategist (Also known as a BEEing Attraction Wizard), and going more deeply into learning this 4-question Strategic Attraction process so that I can  share it.

I invite you to play in this field of attractive magic! As one of my colleagues reported, you too will be shedding your invisibility cloak!

Last Night with the Linchpins

On 6-14, Linchpins gathered in local cafes, bars, and bookstores across the globe. Inspired by Seth Godin and his latest book of the same name, the gatherings were a way to connect with like-minded people ready to make things happen — things that matter.

The Linchpin Meet-Up was billed as “… the first ever unofficial official Seth Godin Linchpin worldwide Meetup.  A completely non-commercial chance to find and connect with other members of Seth’s tribe, an opportunity to talk, challenge, and inspire your fellow travelers.”

Read the write-up from Sandra Walker about the Linchpin event in Chicago on 6-14. (There were others happening locally too. Suburbs split off. The Chicagoland metro area covers quite a bit of territory.)

When I find people on Facebook or Linked-In or some flavor of a Ning site, I usually comment that there are so many ways to connect.  There are membership sites growing like crazy. I awoke this morning in a panic about all the circles that I have chosen to belong to, all the classes that I’m still committed to completing. The overwhelm is palpable.

With so many ways to connect, online conversations and tribes can be in some ways easier to manage. You can draw from the entire world to attract your people who resonate at the same frequency.  I was pleasantly surprised by the Linchpins event. People self-selected, people who like Seth Godin’s work, who think like Linchpins, who are determined to do work that matters. It was nice to connect face to face for a change.

It’s Not Bragging

If your family was anything like mine, bragging was discouraged. Do you remember being admonished not to brag? Not to be too full of yourself? And now here we are — many of us — entrepreneurs, soul-preneurs, professionals in private practice, the tribe of Conscious Creators, caregivers, healers, writers, authors, artists.

Everyone is being asked to market — not only products, services, but ourselves!  With the old family tapes running in the background, it’s not easy. How are you supposed to talk about yourself, your services, your projects, creations, ventures, and businesses without what sounds suspiciously like “bragging” — at least to those old critical deeply internalized voices?

And some of us are pushing the envelope even more: We are determined to stand fully in our power and presence, to finally shine our light full on. Now that’s something those internalized voices of yesteryear really perceive as over the top. It’s like an internal thermostat. Nope. Not THAT visible. “That’s even worse than bragging,” the internalized critic seems to say.

What to do? How do we work around the critic? How to come out with the work and be able to stand in our own power and possibility?

What if that inner critic is doing its best to  protect you? Based on the old programming, of course, but doing its best nevertheless. What if we could enter into a conversation with that inner critical voice? I can hear the guffaws already.

Here’s an excerpt of what I told Ronna Detrick over at her Renegade Conversations site. It’s all about an approach that befriends those troublesome inner voices.

In Ronna’s post, she wrote: “…far more about my deepest, age-old insecurities. They rear their ugly heads in times of fear. They are familiar. And I fight to keep them at bay.”

What I suggested is:  “What if you didn’t? Fight to keep them at bay? What if you were simply able to  be curious? What if you had a conversation with them? What if you sat with them and let them sit with you? What if you said, “Thank you. I’m curious. What are you trying to protect me from? You’ve done such an amazing job of protecting me. Can we talk about this?”

Open a dialogue. Put it on paper. Say thank you to the parts who are doing their best, perhaps based on old programs or instructions. And talk to them. Take your strength and your gift, (and yes, Ronna is amazing at nurturing deep conversations) turn it on that part of yourself that seems so troubling. Bring it into the conversational circle. Let it have its say.

Your protectors are there to protect you. You don’t have to squash them or get rid of them. You just have to talk to them, get them to work WITH you and your dreams and your purpose instead of against it. I know…it’s a lesson I have to keep learning over and over again. But it merits consideration I think.

This advice is inspired in part by the True Purpose and parts work of Tim Kelley and Jeffery Van Dyk over at True Purpose.
There’s also a Parts work workshop. To find out more: Audios from Aligning Your Psyche Teleclass 6/11 & Understanding Your Psyche Teleclass 5/25

Claim It with Love

Own Your Greatness. Claim the name of your being and purpose. Why you are here. Your gifts. Your vision. Your greatness. Maybe it’s sleeping or lying dormant. And the way to claim it is in the name of love. Wake it up. Wake up the power and capability sleeping within. Claim your name. It is time for Owning Your Greatness.

Do whatever it is at the root of your being with great love and care. Do it with love for the words you use in the creation and about and around the creation. Do it with love for the backstory behind the creation. Do it out of love for the challenge you address. Love the problems you solve, because those “problems, issues or challenges” are the gifts that have tested you through the fire to create the person you are today. And love the solutions and answers and suggestions and approaches you can offer to others out of the fire of your own experience.

Of course you do it out of love and care and compassion for the people in your circle and community, the ones who can only hear it from you. You love your peeps! They are the reason you do all that you do.

Awaken yourself. Claim your own true self that emerges from your deepest love and compassion.

Goldilocks Comes to YOUR Business

You remember Goldilocks,
the girl who was looking in the Bears’ house
for the “just right” porridge, chair, and bed?

What will Goldilocks find if she comes to
your home or business? When she looks
at your client relationships, will she see
the people who fit “just right?”

Who Are Your Just Right People?

The first 30-day blogging challenge
again brought me face to face with an ongoing
question that most of us self-employed folks
grapple with regularly:

Who are my clients who fit just right?
Who are the people in my just-right tribe?

Do you ever ask yourself similar questions?

With so many ways to package ourselves and our
services, so many venues and outlets, so many
ways to communicate and connect, how do we
decide where to start, what to do first, and most
importantly — WHO to connect with?
WHO most needs and benefits from our services
and products?

Need Just Right Clients? Check in with Goldilocks!

I recently finished Molly Gordon’s Goldilocks
Strategy class all about getting clients who
fit just right. I came out with a clear picture of
my just-right client, the words those just right clients say
when looking for services like mine, and stepping stones through
the many ways my clients can choose to work with me.

Molly has repackaged her particular brand of
gentle magic and has a special D-I-Y [Do-It-Yourself]
Home-Study version of the Goldilocks Strategy
for Getting Clients That Fit Just Right course —
the one I just completed this past spring.

If you’ve ever longed to be able to identify
who are the “just right clients” (or readers,
or customers, or circle, or tribe, or audience,
or buyers, or viewers, or participants in your groups…)
then this program may be a great fit for you.

You can read about it and get the details at:
Get Your Just Right Clients

OR go to this link. Just copy and paste it into
your browser bar:
http://budurl.com/JustRightClientsBJM

I’ve gotten great results from my work
with Molly in this course. And if you’re
anything like me,  if you’re a conscious creator,
an artist, healer, writer, or coach who is looking for ways
to authentically connect with “just right clients,
I bet you will too!

The Goldilocks Strategy shows you
step-by-step how to:

*Recognize your just-right clients
so you can focus on them and not
on some amorphous “public.”

*Find out exactly what they
want so you can honestly and
simply address their needs.

*Design products and services that
practically sell themselves.

And you’ll know how to do all
that and still be yourself.

You CAN learn to consistently get clients,
and not just any clients.
Clients who fit just-right.
Clients who hire you or buy your
products again and again. Clients who
tell other people about you.
(Can you say “word of mouth”?)

The Home Study Version of “Goldilocks”
ships on June 21. Check out this link:

http://budurl.com/JustRightClientsBJM

I so believe in Molly, her Authentic Promotion approach,
her business philosophy, what she teaches and how,
that I give my strongest possible recommendation.

Full disclosure:
As an affiliate, I will receive
a referral fee if you click my link
and you do choose to purchase.

You can read more about it and get the details at:
Get Your Just Right Clients

Or copy and paste:
http://budurl.com/JustRightClientsBJM

Here’s to all of us attracting an abundance of our
clients who fit just-right!

Marketing According to Tolkien

I originally called this post “Writing and Weaving Your Marketing Bridge,” because that follows the theme of several of my posts so far during this 30 day blogging challenge.  Instead, I want to give credit to the source of my inspiration. This is also a post in the occasional series “Wisdom from unexpected places.”

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s  The Lord of the Rings Trilogy,  one of my favorite sections is in Volume 1, of the Fellowship’s visit to Lothlorien, the treacherous land of the elves, under the care and protection of the Lady Galadriel.

To get there, the men, hobbits, and a dwarf (along with the elf in the Fellowship) must cross a cold and rushing river on two strands of hithlain, the uncanny strong rope woven from all that is beautiful and loved by the elves.

Not sure I could have done it! But picture that bridge of two thin ropes, seeming not much stronger than a spider’s gossamer, created with the immense love reflected in the quote below.

More wisdom from unexpected places, something I want to share from this book. Consider this quote, spoken of the elvish cloaks, gifts to the Fellowship travelers, “Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.”

That is what to aim for, writing and weaving your heart and light into the message that will make the connection between your creation and your community. It may be as thin as the elvish rope, but it is made strong from the essence of your heart woven into the words.

That’s marketing, and it’s using words to weave the bridge out of all that you love. It’s at the heart of Write Synergies: The Words that Bring Heart to Your Marketing and Soul to Your Business. These are the Write Synergies you need to generate results, (communications, connections) greater than the sum of the parts.

Wouldn’t writing from the heart be helpful here with this marketing task? And is there a way to make writing bigger, expansive enough to encompass these Cs?

*Your Creation
*Your Commitment
*Your Community
*Your Connections
*Your Communications
*Your Content

Is there a way to  put some juice into the words, to get results that are bigger than just word + word, greater than the sum of the parts?

Tomorrow: You do what you do, you do what is yours to do. But how do you put your particular gifts and magic and greatness into the words to build that bridge?

Daybook for a Conscious Creator

As creators, especially conscious creators, it’s important to get out and feed the imagination regularly.  Julia Cameron calls this taking yourself out on an Artist Date.  So tonight, I took myself out and reconnected with my past — those years ago when I was an Interdisciplinary Arts student at Columbia College.

Tonight was the opening of the Retrospective exhibit of paper and book artist, Marilyn Sward at the Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts.  I went down to 11th Street @ Wabash in Chicago to see the opening and reconnect with some old friends, including the brilliant and ever-delightful artist/educator/curator Suzanne Cohan-Lange. Bestselling author Audrey Niffenegger was there, also a former colleague of Marilyn’s.

The late Marilyn Sward was one of my teachers when I was getting my grad degree at Columbia. She was utterly passionate about hand-made paper and the book arts.  Jeff Abell, another of my Columbia teachers, is putting together the catalog, coming out later this summer.

From her early sketchbooks to her late aerial photographs, with paper installations, hand-made books, and everything in between, Marilyn was profoundly engaged as both artist and teacher. It is good to be reminded that creations come in many shapes and sizes, and that artists contribute in many ways.

As I stood on the Roosevelt Road elevated platform in the early evening sunset, to the West, the towers of St. Ignatius reared up, at least a mile away. Closer by, the glass high rises along South Michigan Ave. glittered in the waning sunlight. Away to the East, across Lake Shore Drive, I was looking right in the front door of the Shedd Aquarium. Chicago stood awash in its most gorgeous light.

In a different vein, as I write this, the firecrackers are still popping all around me and horns still blare periodically, as Chicago celebrates the Stanley Cup win for Chicago’s own Blackhawks.

Jeanne Kolenda wrote this evening about the seeming inability of people to notice beauty even when it’s right there in the subway, playing a Stradivarius. So this is a sort of time-out post to acknowledge, appreciate, and be conscious of the complex fabric  of life fully lived all around me — at least today.

There will be time enough for more bridge-building tomorrow.

Creation and Commitment

“Love is the continuous birth of creativity within and between us.”
–John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

On the near side of the bridge, where you are looking across and seeing your circle or community across the gap of where the bridge needs to be, there with you, on your side of the bridge, is your creation.

How is it doing? How is your book coming? How is your business thriving? Are the paintings being painted? Are you teaching the classes, connecting with the clients, creating from the heart?

Does your creation have your full commitment behind it?

Yes, it’s two more Cs for the near side of the bridge. Are you creating your creation, your creative project? And are you fully committed to creating it and imbuing it fully with your gifts?

Fully committing to your creation means nurturing it with love, with passion, and with dogged determination sometimes.

I just watched  The Road this evening with my son. It’s a dystopian future as envisioned by Cormac McCarthy.  It is love clothed in a dogged determination of the father to care for his son, even when all else  fails.

Somehow the sense of commitment to his child, even in the midst of a flat, colorless and sometimes horrific world, is the level of commitment that we too are called to bring to our creations.

We create out of love, because creation is the nature of love. We commit to create, then we love and nurture our creation into manifestation. The act of creation strengthens us, as creators. It strengthens our community. It draws forth the creation itself, as it sings into the world something new.

Have you measured your commitment to your creation today?