The Art of the Ask

The Art of the Ask

The Art of the Ask
Value-For-Value
Pay What You Want
Pay What You Value
Gift Economy
Pay What It’s Worth

Collections of words. Collections of words that intend something similar, and yet different.

They all describe a concept. That you trust your customers to determine the value they receive from your work, and to give accordingly.

You can describe this concept, and your belief in it in many ways.

Value-For-Value
Pay What You Want
Pay What You Value
Gift Economy
Pay What It’s Worth

The words you use are a choice in how you design your communications. It’s your brand. Your experience.

What do you want and need to be valued in the exchange? How do you communicate your intent and the result you desire?

Value-For-Value
Pay What You Want
Pay What You Value
Gift Economy
Pay What It’s Worth

In the end, these terms may differ in their meaning but they describe one truth in their action. That you are a business that is choosing to create it’s own economy.

You’re criticizing the current economic system by creating your own system for valuing products and services. And it’s changing things.

Just as your life choices are creating the world you live in, your business choices are creating the economy you work and exchange in.

In trusting me to value you fairly, we’re creating an economy together where we step out of lack, and into a fair exchange of value, respect and love.

Value-For-Value
Pay What You Want
Pay What You Value
Gift Economy
Pay What It’s Worth

To start creating your economy, it starts with the ask. The intention of your action.

What do you intend to build with the economy you are creating? And how can you best express it?

What lies within the art of your ask?

photo credit: Iwan Gabovitch
for an inspiring talk on “The Art of Asking”, please watch: Amanda Palmer’s TED talk

Me vs. Me

Me vs. Me

photo credit oscarandtara

The most noble competitor I have ever encountered is within Me.

I suppose I could look externally for my competition, seeking people out there to better and beat.

I could spend my time and energy determining how I could excel in the ways they do.

I could focus on how they are better, and how I could be like them… And diminish Me in the process.

I could spend my time and energy identifying where their weaknesses lie, and how I could benefit and better from them.

I could focus on how they are worse, and how I am not like them… And inflate Me in the process.

I could focus on the other, rather than myself.

What I’d rather do, however, is be the most fierce competitor of myself. Always challenging myself to be the best Me I can be.

I don’t need to compare myself to anyone external to me. I don’t need to be better than You.

I only need to be the best Me.

When I allow myself to be the best Me, I become free to let you be your best You. I don’t need to compete or compare with you, for I don’t feel like I am lacking.

I am recognizing my own special unique energies, and the value they create. I am feeling okay with me, and that leaves me okay to be no better, or worse, than you.

When I allow myself to see Me completely, I stop fearfully focusing on what is external to me, and instead focus on my truth — that I am totally equal and unique to You. There is no competition.

If I truly want to improve and grow, I need only look inside for how that can be achieved.

And to You, I can look for support.

photo credit: oscarandtara

Playing With Plenty

Playing With Plenty

Plenty

It’s taken me a while to see it. And how it limits me.

I’ve always wanted exactly what I need. Nothing more.

I didn’t necessarily get enough as a child, despite their being lots around, and getting exactly what I needed seemed like a decent (and perhaps lofty) enough goal.

Exactly what I needed. Nothing more.

Love. Money. It didn’t matter. Never too much. Only what I needed. Never more than I needed.

Or thought I needed.

I wanted what was sufficient, not ample. Nothing extra. Just enough.

Plenty of Love, Plenty of Money

But here’s the thing. What I actually need is to have more than what I need. What I need is to have plenty. To be ample.

Ample in money, ample in love. I need to swim in it. I need to flow with it.

To accept anything less than plenty is to deny my true wealth. To want exactly enough is me restricting it.

To be truly wise with money and with love, I must learn to receive them with grace.

Supporting the Flow

I’ve been playing with plenty and how I can support this flow of expression and energy in reaching me — and how I can be more conscious of when I am restricting it.

This led me to my relationship with Rise of the Innerpreneur, and how I receive from it. And by playing with plenty I saw that there was more space for it within the value I create here.

In light of this, you now have more options for expressing the value you receive from Rise of the Innerpreneur.

As always, you have the option to share your love with your words by writing me. And now you have the option to share your love with a value payment.

I’ve created an option on ROTI for you to make a single Pay What It’s Worth payment if you feel moved to express to the value you receive, and for loyal readers, I’ve also created a Pay What It’s Worth monthly subscription option.

I look forward to playing with plenty with you.

photo credit: francescobellu

inspiration credits: Brain Pickings by Maria Popova (got me thinking about reader giving), Wild Money by Luna Jaffe (got me thinking about needing more than enough)

Paralyzing Thinking

Paralyzing Thinking

photo credit: crashmaster

What stops you dead in your tracks?

One thing that stops me is thinking about my performance. Whether it is before, during, or after an action in which I want to perform and do it well, thinking about my performance paralyzes me.

For what I am really doing in that moment is judging my performance, but more specifically, what I am really, really doing is jumping to (very negative) conclusions about my performance.

I am deciding I know exactly what You think about it.

Except every single time You are actually Me, as my worst version of myself.

Quick, what’s the absolute worst thing you could say about this totally piece-o-shit performance? Ha ha, nice! Burn. And so true!

Is it any wonder I find myself paralyzed?

What’s cool though is now that I see how my reaction looks — how I jump to conclusions and paralyze myself — I can begin shifting my thinking around this behaviour.

In recognizing it, I now have a choice if I want to continue engaging with it, or if I want to respond to my mind, and it’s harsh paralyzing judgements, with an understanding awareness and a willingness to let them pass. I don’t need to hold on to them. They aren’t helping.

I like the power in this, and with practice, I trust I can create the mental freedom I desire. Because in the end, I perform because I need and want to, and nothing, not even my own harsh judgements, are going to stop me from doing what I love.

photo credit: Crashmaster

Hello 2014!

Hello 2014!

photo credit challiyan

Happy New Year to you! I hope you’ve had a restful and lovely holidays.

I love the potential of this time of year, an old year ending and new one starting.

Being a naturally introspective person, and combining that with a cultural attachment to reviewing the year that has passed, I’ve often found I’m pressuring myself as the calendar year comes to a close to UNDERSTAND something about the time that has passed.

This year I decided to let that go. My attachment to UNDERSTANDing. I let the year just be.

And when I did, I found myself naturally, on New Year’s Eve, seeing the year behind me. I saw a year where I had transformed my relationships.

If there was something for me to UNDERSTAND about 2013, it was about relationship. My relationship with …attachment …release …my mind …my heart …creating …criticism …sharing …authenticity …perspective …recognition …authority …shame …and so much more.

2013 taught me that when I allow myself to change my relationship with something, I allow myself to let go of something holding me back.

I suspect you may have learned something similar.

Now we find ourselves starting 2014, and we are more centred in our self, and in turn, our relationships. Our structures have been fortified.

I don’t dare to guess what 2014 holds for us. For I know whatever I do dream up will fall short of reality.

But I do dare to plan. To continue growing more into me. And the power and love of what I am creating in this world.

For 2014 and always, I wish the same for you.

love,

photo credit: challiyan