by Tara Joyce | Apr 24, 2012 | Cultural Creativity
Christine Dionese and I are Peer-to-Peer Mentoring each other. Here’s what we’ve been asking each other about lately…
Christine’s Question
“Generally I’m the one handing out relationship advice, but looks like I need a fresh take on this one! I have always had great success working with friends. I’m in the beginning stages of a new project with a friend and I’m already thinking I may need to dissolve the business side of it. I move fast and work fast… and they don’t. I can appreciate every effort a snail makes, but not in this case. How can I continue to move ahead, pursuing the project, but solo? Any advice for tactfully going about this with my friend?”
Read my answer here
My Question:
“You have multiple skills and talents that you bring together to shape your unique service offerings; in the face of this diversity of skills, do you have techniques for clearly articulating each offering (and how they might fit together) to someone who is not familiar with your work? What is your approach when (and if) your offerings are not clearly understood by that person?”
Christine’s Answer:
Great question and one I work toward answering on a regular basis. My main hub christinedionese.com tells my multi-faceted story so I tend to readily refer strangers there all the time… in the about section I start off in the first person by saying, “Everyday I straddle the dimensions of multiple worlds.” Right from the get-go I’m letting folks know that I offer multi-faceted skills and services. But, what I think you’re asking about is when people inquire face to face. I can answer this question best with personal experiences!
The answer that I offer inquiring minds, while at the core is the same, is shaped depending on my audience at hand! A little linguistic shuffle is my technique I suppose. For example, a few weeks ago I spoke to a psychopharmacology class, so my answer was tailored initially to the western sciences. If I’m in a health care & wellness setting I always pull it together by sharing that at the heart of what I do is offer people a glimpse of what total health can be like. When I’m consulting to socially conscious businesses I let them know I’m helping create tangible tools for modern living. Luckily, having been asked this question countless times, the answers seem to flow!
I think it’s important to ask yourself, what is that I do, provide, create, write, serve, invent, etc. The deeper you get, the better you can self-describe, and when people ask, the more genuine and authentic your descriptions will sound. What resonates about design to an artist will be different than to say a packaging engineer.
There will always be someone who flat out asks, “what does that mean?” or “I don’t quite get it, can you tell me more?” Remember, it’s easier for people to subconsciously bring in information they are already aware of to finish coloring in the lines. Occasionally I’ll pipe out my answer and the reply will be, “so you’re a this” or “so you do that.” I don’t mind using people’s own thoughts to help act as a familiar resonation, but I definitely take the “I don’t get it” folks and turn it into an opportunity to help my new audience build awareness of what I really do.
I’ve had to troubleshoot the question so many times that I tend to have all the answers on-deck by now. Hearing, “I’m an integrative health care specialist” is part of my answer and not everyone gets that or some people have an idea of what that might mean, yet not fully. I take this opportunity to fill in the blanks for them- instead of letting the audience pick the colors, my answer fills in the lines for them.
When you think about it, if my answer was, “I’m in health care” or “I’m a consultant and a writer” that sounds boring and not particularly unique. Those answers tend to leave it at that- my audience isn’t intrigued and doesn’t care about asking more.
The answer fully, “I’m an integrative health care specialist, medical journalist & food writer and involved in socially conscious business development” is the most intriguing answer to people and gets them asking more curious questions. You asked how I might explain these facets fitting together. Following up with, “each of these endeavors is an extension of the other, always helping each one to evolve.” And, hopefully, you will further captivate your audience with a comment like that (I am not patting myself on the back right now, it just works!) to get them asking more!
Anecdotes offer visualizations- I always try to color the story vividly. Explaining how the private practice is multi-faceted and not like others is always helpful. Talking a bit about how my writing and journalism is diverse is an effective tool. Letting people know that the consulting I’m involved in is to raise human awareness on a local and global level always intrigues.
When you’re actually out and about, practice talking about yourself! The more you do, the more genuine will your connections become! And, take that opportunity to hand out your biz card or invite someone to enter into a discussion at your website. A simple, “I would love to continue the conversation, definitely email me your thoughts on this” brings more people to your website. Here they get to absorb you and fully understand what you’ve just talked to them about. And boy, from there, they will visit your blog and be hooked! I know I was!
Authentic, creative, audience-driven, heart-felt, genuine and spontaneous are the ingredients to helping people organically engage with you!
by Tara Joyce | Apr 9, 2012 | Self/Business Growth
In business and in life. I can’t possibly know what is best for you more than you do.
You are your own best adviser.
You have all the answers you’ll ever need inside of you. There is no one you will ever meet that you will learn more from than your Self. You may need support in asking the questions that will move you in the direction of your answers, but ultimately, what is right for you is a question only you have the answer to.
Do you trust that the guide inside you knows what’s best?
All the things you don’t know.
I have moments where the idea that I might actually know what’s best seems completely idiotic. After all, what do I know? It definitely seems far more sane to think that someone ‘smarter’ could know better what to do next.
When I find my balance, I remember why, inherently, I trust my inner guide — she helps me to expand my view of business to see that it is so much more than the external world and reacting to it. In aligning with my inner truth I can see that my business is about internally determining what is meaningful for my work and pursuing that single-mindedly — and subsequently observing how that internal drive shapes the external world.
I may not know a lot but I do know what is meaningful for my life.
What you can trust.
In listening to your inner direction you are shaping a business that is an external reflection of your inner wealth.
In practicing the valuing of your feelings you are working on growing your business.
In taking the risk of loving and understanding yourself more, you are creating a situation where you can better act in line with your values, and serve others.
Think with your heart, feel with your head.
Your intuition, it may not be an expert on every subject but when it is valued, it contains more truth than you’ll ever need — or any external guide can ever provide.
photo credit: hellojenuine.
by Tara Joyce | Mar 30, 2012 | Self/Business Growth
Perhaps you’re like me and you find yourself yearning for the completion of your dreams.
I dream of the day when my current “struggles” are behind me. I dream of the day when my first book is written and published, and my second is hot in pursuit. I dream of visiting space.
The word ‘dream’ can have a pie-in-the-sky quality to it that makes me uncomfortable though. It’s not that I think dreams are unrealistic to have. I truly believe that our dreams can come true. But we have to be realistic about achieving them.
My dreams can only come true when I am true to them.
Only thinking about my dreams and not doing, I am simply dreaming. There is no coupling of the dream with a firm intention to manifest it.
I get lost in dreaming when I start thinking I need to know how to get to the end result. I scare myself into inaction by the hulking picture of the goal realized. I start to think I need to know how to GET THERE NOW, and of course I have no fucking idea how.
My success can’t be guaranteed… especially if I haven’t committed to it.
The thing is, I do not need to know how to get there. I do not need to know each step to my dream realized. I only need to be willing to act in the direction of it.
To manifest my dreams, and to move from dreaming to goal achievement, I only need to couple the largeness of my dream with small, concrete and strategic steps.
My dreams can not come true over night. But each small step I take does bring the bigger dream a notch closer, and knocks it down a size.
It’s the aching yearning for completion, as painful as it can be, that drives me to act, and commits me to achieving the dream. That is what it is there for. To drive me in the right direction. It is not to be the final destination.
My true destination, I bet, will be beyond my wildest dreams.
“Whatever you think you can do, or believe you can do, begin it, because action has magic, grace and power in it.” – Goethe
by Tara Joyce | Mar 15, 2012 | Cultural Creativity
I don’t believe in plans. I believe in planning.
I believe in understanding the general shape of something. I believe in knowing where you are and where you want to go.
I believe that measurable goals drive accomplishment. I believe the better you can express your vision and mission with great specificity, the easier it is for you to outline the steps needed to realize it.
I believe that once you’ve determined where you want to go, what comes next can not be determined, and likely won’t be in any plans you’ve made. I believe this truth can free you from the fear of starting and create a trust in your ability to fill in the gaps later.
I believe that starting with a blueprint, a sketch, of your dream is enough. I believe in having faith that time and experience will help shape the details, as you need them.
I believe that you know how to get you where you want to go. I believe you can get there if You believe you can get there.
I believe in you starting and I believe in you growing from there.
by Tara Joyce | Mar 8, 2012 | Cultural Creativity
Style
We’ve all got it. Sometimes we just need support in expressing it.
Your Style lives in how you do things, in what attracts you; it lies in every choice you make each day. Your Style is you doing what you do, uniquely.
And when you can express your Style clearly, it holds something amazingly powerful in attracting what you desire.
Success
If Success is the realization of your personal dreams. Style is the expression of your personal dreams. They’re partners.
Your personal Style, the expression of it, is critical to your Success. Your personal Success, how you define it and the realization of it, is critical to your Style.
Style & Success are synergistic partners whose whole is greater than the sum of their parts. Working together, they enhance your life and provide you with that which you intrinsically deserve.
photo credit: Daniel Lee
