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.

The New Follow Friday Round-Up — Blog Challenge Day 7 Post 8

Heart-based, community-building mentors and coaches: all people worth paying attention to. On Twitter, it’s called Follow Friday, or #FF. These are a few of the people on my list–for starters anyway!

Connie Ragan Green’s 30-Day Blogging Challenge has gotten me to step deeper into the fast rushing river that is Twitter.  So in addition to doing the posts, I am tweeting them out — finding ways to let people in the social media universe know about the content I am creating. So, my first #FF (or “Follow Friday”–It’s a twitter thang) recommendation is Connie Ragan Green.  #FF  @ConnieGreen

I met Connie in 2008 at Judith and Jim’s Bridging Heart and Marketing Conference for soft sell marketers. As founders of the Soft Sell Marketers Association, Judith and Jim are on my #FF list too. Their association offers exceptional value. And I want to highlight Judith and Jim’s tagline: They say “It’s all in the connection.”  This rings a resonant bell with me!  #FF  @JudithandJim  (and hugs!)

I’m taking a course with Molly Gordon, founder of the Shaboom County community, to learn the process to finding clients who fit just right. Molly is a #FF resource. Totally outstanding.  Molly’s coaching is bringing us to a foundation and structure for listening for the words of clients who fit just right (or in my case, “write,”).  Molly, like the other folks I so appreciate, really walks her talk over on Twitter   @Shaboom  (and elsewhere too!)

I learned about the Chris Brogan’s latest post from @ToddTemaat who had created his own #FF blog post at his interesting site, http://www.winyourlocalmarket.com.  Todd, you might be interested in a Facebook group all about shopping local: Over on FB I just became a fan of the 3/50 Project. (They’re at the350project.net)

It was such a good idea that Chris Brogan introduced @ his blog.  It inspired Todd in his first #FF round-up today on his blog. Todd reported that he heard about it from @HelenRappy.  Scope out the original inspiration:   http://www.chrisbrogan.com/turn-twitters-follow-friday-in-blog-traffic/   So #FF love to all of you, and it’s so much fun playing together in this social media river and on #blog30

There’s additional thanks to Molly Gordon  @Shaboom  who retweeted this link (below) to an inspiring piece from Anne LaMott. I mentioned her book, Bird by Bird in blog post #6. So it’s synchroninstic to see a link to one of her recent essays today — well, it’s just this amazingly connected universe that we are playing in.

http://www.sunset.com/travel/anne-lamott-how-to-find-time-00418000067331/

Trying to get a little bit ahead on 30 days of blogging challenge, so it’s post 8 on day 7. #blog30

Grow the Momentum of Your Creative Project–Blog Challenge Day 7

For conscious creators: thoughts to build the momentum for your creative project and nurture your vision and your creation. Experience the synergies born out of the momentum.

Tailored and edited for a public community,
these thoughts to build the momentum for your creative project
are adapted from a piece I wrote this week to encourage a friend.

So you, my conscious creator friend,
are in a total creative mode at the moment.
Your vision and creation are being nurtured.
You are cutting to the bone of living your purpose and giving your gifts.

Consider you are in a kind of birthing process.
It’s an inner path and inner process, the river you dive into alone.

And yet…

In this deep dive, realize that a lifeline to the surface is just a best safety practice.
Do you have people in your circle, community, or tribe?
If so, let them know, especially if you’ve been out of touch.

Keep your people apprised of the new energy and excitement.
You’re sharing part of your new creative cycle.
Make it a sort of a “stay tuned” message.
Bring them into the excitement.
Let them know something big is in process.

Take your time.
Remember if you rush out with your creative brainchild, there’s a risk:
That it will not be formed enough or strong enough to maintain its momentum.
So NOW, in this pre-birth process, is the moment to take the time you need.
Ask for the support you need — so that the new brainchild can grow to its fullest potential.

Know that followers of your message really love you, your energy, your presence.
Invite your community of friends and colleagues to the pre-party.

Invite and invest  your people into the process.
Request good thoughts, mental, emotional, and spiritual encouragement.
Create safe and sacred space around you, your creation, your community.
It works on the same principle as prayers and energy healing from a distance.
There is no distance. That’s just illusion.
Best of all, this creates a true two-way community —
as you invite people to support you in this exquisite time of creativity.

Strengthen the vessel of you.
Put into practice all the good intentions for all the good new habits. Do it!
The vessel of  you–body, mind, spirit– is your means for delivering the gifts of consciousness into the world.
From the inner path to the outer expression, it is like a birth process.

Ponder the apparent “gap” between the dream-creation you are nurturing —
and the challenge of bringing it whole, strong, healthy, and long-lived into the manifest world.

And ask for the help you need.
The momentum you add will generate still more synergies — a positive spiral.

Follow the 30 Day Blog Challenge on twitter:  #blog30

Write to Live Your Legacy-Blog Challenge Day 6

Legacy, “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past,” says Merriam-Webster online: It is most commonly considered something you leave behind. It is how you are remembered. Will your words paint the stories of your purpose fulfilled, your passions pursued, your life lived fully in the moment with a presence of love?

Forget the tired old definition, and don’t LEAVE a Legacy. LIVE Your Legacy instead. Live your legacy with your words and writings as well as your actions. Writing to live your legacy: it’s a stunningly powerful way to leave something of value behind.

In reality how you are remembered is created one day and one moment at a time, through interactions, conversations, and yes, the slipstream of your written words. Those synergies make up the raw materials of your legacy. If you are writing, it’s your presence embracing the moment of the writing that creates the memorable and remarkable.

  • Have you considered, rather than “leaving a legacy” behind you, instead to live each day as you wish to be remembered?
  • Have you considered, as you write, to bring to the page the conscious presence of your deepest truest self in the moment?
  • Have you thought it just isn’t possible or it’s too hard to express your gifts as a legacy?

You create what is memorable by how you passed through this world one moment at a time. Doing it with words makes your presence all the more powerful.

Your legacy is constructed of the bricks of consciousness, of the moments of your days stacked one atop and next to the other. It’s much like a dry stone wall–one rock fitted inevitably and perfectly next to the neighboring rock. No filler. No mortar. Just rock by rock. (Similarly Anne Lamott’s famous anecdote in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
gets at this too. Bird by bird, her brother got the report done.)

Whether it’s rock by rock or bird by bird or word by word or tweet by tweet,  your legacy is created like that–day by day, word by word, moment by moment. You construct your legacy a day at a time, one moment and one interaction at a time, just as you live it. How you will be remembered? Will your legacy stand like some of Ireland’s dry rock fences, for centuries?

Follow the 30 Day Blogging Challenge on twitter at #blog30.

When Synergies Happen– Blog Challenge Day 5

Riffing off Debra Marrs‘ great blog post series (for #blog30)  about writers and procrastination, I noted:

I just realized that procrastination is rather like the shadow side of synergies. Instead of creating results greater than the sum of the parts, it’s not creating anything at all. (AKA stuck.)

What I’m noticing:  taking up Connie Ragan Green’s 30 day blogging  challenge, plus

–everything is connected. It’s  all conspiring to move me to a completely new place — a much bigger and more visible place.  All these connections are building, one on the other, and they are creating immense synergies between the book, the marketing, the clients, and the audience, and doing it all simultaneously.

This is the power and excitement of synergies. All these pieces of learning and being mentored are clicking together in a brand-new way to generate results greater than the sum of the parts.  It helps to be as intentional as possible and then just step into the flow and take action. But more than all the learning situations I’ve stepped into, it’s the 30 Day Blogging Challenge that is making such a difference. It’s giving me a container for sharing the insights and opening the space for new communities and interactions.

You might also want to stop by Debra’s blog for another installment about procrastination — a seriously crazy way to start your day that makes granola look really good.

Shine Your Light In Words–Blog Challenge Day 4

You want to make a difference. How best to do that?

Pondering this, I came synchronistically to the following quote from Neale Donald Walsch:
“Money is not the issue. Having the courage to give your highest gift is the issue.”

The Write Synergies process starts with the understanding that we all have gifts to give.  Most of us still  need to fully own (as in acknowledge to ourselves) the greatness of our being, our inner power, as well as the great contributions that we can give — via our creative projects, ventures, books, talks, web presences. We came here to make a difference, to make our corner of the world a better place by expressing the authenticity of our being. The only way we can do that is to step out of our own way. I have trouble with this too, tripping myself up endlessly.

That’s the beauty of using writing to unearth an inner process, to uncover the depths of our capabilities. Then comes the exhilaration of taking the next step and moving the writing into the outer path, following the trail of words out into the manifest world, giving birth to our creative brainchildren and helping them find their place and their people.

There are souls yearning to awaken to share their gifts and greatness.  This Write Synergies process is one path to help people get from the “in here” to the “out there” with grace and wisdom. It’s the path for those willing to use words to shine their light and share their gifts.  You make a difference just by being who you are, but learning to feel at ease telling your own story lets you magnify your light.

Shine on!

(follow the 30-Day Blog Challenge on Twitter at #blog30)

Push the Reset Button–Day 3 Blog Challenge

The Write Synergies Guru, Bobbye 6.1, finds herself scheduled to appear on Nina Price’s Blog Talk Radio Show, Push the Reset Button, on Saturday, April 17 at 11 AM Central.

Nina Price calls it “reset.” It’s that after-40 moment when the opportunity or the challenge is to recreate and reinvent oneself for enjoying the new half of life.  Nina is host of Push the Reset Button on Blog Talk Radio. Through a couple of different connections, I find myself scheduled for an interview on her show on Saturday morning.

I’m coming out of the closet on the book I’m working on, the one whose content is supposed to be unfolding right here as part of the blog challenge. That is, Write Synergies: Creating the Map for Your Journey.  [anyway, that’s the current iteration!]

And in the interview, we’re also going to talk about my various reinventions of myself, what I call Bobbye 6.1, along with the Sanskrit Factor, Interdisciplinary Arts, and how writing can be a perfect companion for finding the vision and the inner gifts waiting to be expressed. Writing is also the key to bringing that inner vision quest out into the world. The key to constant reinvention is continually learning, creating, and trusting your own inner connections. As the Write Synergies Guru, I share how to use the writing process to become your own guru and live your legacy so you don’t die with the dream and vision stuck inside.

Nina has posted the show description and my bio at her page on Blog Talk Radio. I hope you will log onto Blog Talk Radio on Saturday  at 11AM central time for a dose of reset and reinvention with yours truly.

Signing off on #blog30, day 3 of Connie Ragan Green’s Blog Challenge!

Synergies for the hopelessly right-brained–Blog Challenge Day 2

It’s Day 2 of Connie Ragan Green’s Blog Challenge! (Find it on Twitter  at  #blog30).

Note to self: figure out the automatic publishing timer on WordPress.
This is the sort of thing that I figure left brain thinkers can do without a problem.

And it’s pre-income-tax weekend. For us, there’s a head start. College Financial Aid requirements mean getting our act together sooner rather than later. Still, what’s in my face this weekend, as a solo-preneur self-employed type, is getting the package of first quarter biz details summarized and over to the accountant, Victoria Zimelis, CPA. Hands down, the money  I spend on having someone who actually knows about taxes to take care of the forms is “priceless” as the commercial says.

There are benefits to giving the left side of the brain a bit of a workout every now and then — In this case, at least quarterly.

For writers, it’s generally considered that language is a left brain function, so maybe I’m not as hopeless as I initially thought.

So, what are your writing exercises for right-brain workouts versus left-brain workouts? Share your insights!

30 Day Blogging Challenge to Jump-Start My Book

OK, so here goes: My friend Connie Ragan Green is doing another of her 30-day blogging challenges. I’m stepping up to it this time around because I have a book to develop and create.  To read more about the challenge, here’s a link to Connie’s post, along with some great tips to connect through social media for building an audience:

http://ebookwritingandmarketingsecrets.com/30-day-blogging-challenge-2010-connie-ragen-green/

So, why am I taking up the challenge right now?  In a related vein, (I’m a writer, after all!) I am starting a three-month mentoring program to get my book (long anticipated in its planning stages and long incomplete) into some serious forward momentum.  I’ve been challenged by my Book Breakthrough coaches, Elizabeth Marshall (yes, she of Author Teleseminar fame) and Janet Goldstein (NY publishing uber-consultant) to start to feed out into the universe the ideas, nuggets, processes, and philosophy that will make up the underpinning of Write Synergies, as the book is tentatively titled. (You might notice a commonality with my web site… 😉

I was pleasantly affirmed today during the monthly meeting of Entrepreneur Group (facilitated by long-time Chicago-area career coach, Robin Sheerer), to learn that “synergies” is the word that expresses the process that people experience when they work with me.

So, part of the plan over these 30 days at the blog is to continue to develop the ideas for the book and start to put them out in a more public way. Hidden away in my notebook, they aren’t especially useful to anyone. This is one way to share the wisdom — and to get some feedback loops going!

Since this dear project has been hanging around for awhile in many iterations, this new version is still finding its way and its content. Stay tuned and be part of the process!

Web Site Creation and Fun Videos

It’s been just over one year since I started generating an online presence for myself. A blogging platform seemed ideal, since I wanted to be able to share a variety of content. WordPress has been a dream to work with.

A big part of finally getting a web presence was the teaching and training I received last spring from Christina Hills’ Website Creation Workshop. She’s doing it again. As an alum, I’m going through the class again. There’s so much to learn, and Christina is constantly upgrading her course and her own personal knowledge.  It’s great to get reminders about what to do and how to do things on my site.

Last fall, she made some cool promotional videos riffing off Julia Child.  This year, the amusing video series promo is built around Alice in WordPress Land.

What follows are some of the fun links to the videos in Christina’s collection. She makes the class as fun as the promos, so it’s a can’t miss opportunity.  I’ll be there and hoping to see you too.

To check out the videos, click the links below.

http://cli.gs/AliceInWordPressLand1

And this one is Alice meeting some talking flowers
http://cli.gs/4tzbyN [oops! You can see on this one, I forgot to give it an identifying name!]

In this one, Alice comes across the Tweedles:
http://cli.gs/AliceTweedle

By the way, these links include my affiliate code. I really believe in the value of this course and strongly recommend it to those who want to take control of their online presence and be able to put up their own content without the headaches of waiting around for a webmaster.  If you do make a purchase, I will receive a referral fee.

How Can Write Synergies Copywriting Best Support YOU?

“Focus instead on how you can help people. Make your reader the center of your blog, and find ways to help your reader succeed (at whatever you’re teaching). The rest — stats and money and all that — will come later.”  So says Leo Baubata in point #13 in  Write to Done, the question, “What’s the most important blogging question I’m not asking? A: You should be asking, “How can I most help my reader?”

So for readers of Write Synergies Copywriting, all of you Conscious Creators,
Visionary writers, authors, publishers, speakers, artists, caregivers, and healers, I ask:
What can I do to support you on your journey?
What are you looking for to help get your message out there?
What would encourage you to step up in Owning Your Greatness?
(And the greatness of your book, project, or venture?)
What support do you need in expressing your gifts and connecting with your audience?
What would your life look like if you were Living Your Legacy?

Let me know!