Lessons from a productive week

I said last Monday,

"...as you move forward in the week ahead, think about what it means to be your Best self. Are you going to slow things down, drive more carefully, remember to think responsibly toward others, and be thankful for the goodness you already have in your life? That is my plan. That is my motivation for this week."

And this is what happened:

_COMPLETED A BOOK PROPOSAL
This project is one I'm working on with two other guidebook authors. The idea came to us at a book event, I believe, more than six months ago, shortly after we first met. And now it's done; we sent it out on Wednesday. Now, we wait for the willing publisher to grab it up and offer us a contract. The three of us really want to do this project and are hopeful it will sell.

_CAME UP WITH TWO MORE BOOK IDEAS
I am clearly in book mode lately, as I came up with two more book ideas that I pitched to my publisher. He's in China at the moment, so it'll be a few weeks before I see a response, but I think the ideas are good. I realize the book industry is in a flux right now, but I think these kinds of books are still a draw. I cannot imagine a day where I walk into a visitor center only to discover there are no books available about the area. That will be a very sad day for me, as my shelves are filled with books I buy at visitor centers across the country and beyond. I still like books, in print, and I still read them.

_SOLVED AN EDITOR'S DILEMMA AT END OF WEEK
A misunderstanding left an editor with whom I'm working without important detail she needed for the story I turned in last week. She hadn't told me she needed this detail when I received the assignment, and after checking prior issues of the publication, I even e-mailed her to be sure. We got our inquiries crossed, because, for some reason, there was a misunderstanding. I didn't turn the information in because I thought she didn't want it. Turns out, she did need it and notified me about this at 3 p.m., Friday. Of course, I thought I wouldn't be able to get to it till Monday. Luckily, I finished something else quickly and managed to gather the information she needed and get it to her before 5:30 p.m., just in time for me to get ready for my son-in-law's surprise birthday party and not be late for that. She got what she needed. I felt like I saved the day. And everyone had a great time at the party.

SOLD 90 BOOKS
But they weren't my books. As part of the same trio of authors mentioned above, I am the main contact for any leads that might come to us, should someone want to work with our alter egos, the Arizona Authors & Adventurers. Lo, and behold! Someone did. I received our first lead last week from a woman who was planning a conference here in Phoenix in October. She was looking for a Phoenix-themed travel guide to send out to her 90 members as part of their marketing campaign for the conference. I understood she needed a response right away, as she wanted to purchase the books the following week. She had a two-week time frame and a budget to maintain. I saw it as an opportunity, of course, to possibly sell my books.

So I did what I do and responded right away. She e-mailed me back. She wanted to know the names of the books and to see a color photo of the covers. I faxed her the postcard our publisher created for us--it has all three of our books on it, and two others. By then it was Thursday evening. On Monday, I followed up, asking her if any of these books might work. She hadn't received my fax, but she had received my e-mail. She asked for me to try it again, or to send a PDF. I didn't have a PDF but did retry the fax, and sent her a link to our Web site, as well as links to each of our books via the publishing house Web site.

Affirmative. She wanted one of the books and told me exactly what she needed to make the decision.

I next contacted my publisher to let him know what was going on and if they could help. There were several e-mails back and forth. When I got an answer with all the pertinent details, I sent them to the contact. The publisher also volunteered to overnight a copy of each of the books to her office in Virgina.

Two days later, she'd made her decision. She bought one of our books--90 copies--but it wasn't mine.

I won't lie and tell you I wasn't disappointed. I had hoped like heck she'd buy 90 copies of mine, and I know the other author would have loved the same. All of our books were available at her budget price and could be shipped out in time. But, I knew going in what this woman wanted (a Phoenix-based book) and only one of ours is that. Each of us authors were aware of this, as I was copying everyone on all the important e-mails (both to update them, and to educate them on one way to handle any future inquiries like this).

Still, it felt great to be able to make this happen, to help the woman get what she wanted, to help my fellow author sell 90 copies of her books, and to not get overwhelmed by the rush and details. The whole experience provided a few lessons from which you might benefit:

_When it's necessary, multi-task. I was in the middle of several other projects, at the end of a pitching contest with other writers, and dealing with the finalization and deadline to get that book proposal out. But I still managed to make things happen with this inquiry. Follow-up was key.

_Follow-up is key. I stayed focused on the goal: to help this woman get the 90 books she wanted for her members. By doing that, I was able to follow up with specific questions and be persistent without being annoying.

_Provide what the customer wants. Though I wanted to, I didn't try to sell her what she didn't want. I showed her what was available, solicited help as needed, and made sure her needs were met. That's what made her happy and helped her make the purchase.

_When working as a team, work together--even if it means one of you won't get something tangible out of it. If you can make something happen, and you know you can, why wouldn't you try? It's the karma that will pay off in the end. And, in actuality, I did get something out of this transaction. I owed this author for which I sold 90 books some money for a dinner meeting; she said I'm paid up now. Nice!

_You can accomplish the impossible. Before last week, I couldn't say I'd sold 90 books in one single day. Now I can, and that's pretty darn cool.

_Win-win situations mean just that. Everyone wins. The client got her books and gets to make her marketing vision happen. The author, who is in royalty stage with her book (now in it's 3rd year) earns a little extra cash. And my publisher is very happy with me and willing to help further our promotional work over here. In other words, he's going to help us out more. So, we'll all sell more books in the end. Despite how much I wanted to say, "Please, buy MY book!" I didn't do that. If I had, we might have lost the sale altogether. No one would have won. In this case, we all won.

The final lesson for you: Find the motivation to do good and good things will happen. That's karma. That's good business. And it's certainly about being your Best self.

Next week, we'll focus on Inner strength. I have a few goals I need to work on in that area. How about you?

Meet Kathy Murray, tomorrow's guest blogger

The WordCount Blogathon Guest Blogger Day is tomorrow. And for this year's event, we decided to add a Q/A interview the day before. It'll allow us to fully introduce you to our guest blogger, and give you a sneak preview of what's ahead.

Tomorrow, here at BIKE WITH JACKIE, you'll be hearing from the inspiring Kathy Murray. She blogs over at OUTANDEMPLOYED, where her focus is to help ex-offenders re-enter the workforce. We thought, because we both reach out to women and people in transition, we would be able to swap posts and provide another viewpoint for you to think about on your road to recovery--no matter what the recovery is. Remember, I've said before, truly, we are all in some form of recovery at some point in our lives.

But first, here are few things you might want to know about Kathy before she shares her thoughts with you tomorrow:

_Can you tell my readers a bit about your background and how it relates to the thoughts expressed and discussed here at BIKE WITH JACKIE?
Hmm….how much time do you have? No really, like a lot of writers, I guess I’ve had a pretty varied background... I grew up a shy, rather sheltered kid in a small town in the Midwest, but I’ve been fortunate to live all over the U.S. and overseas in London and Beijing, which has been life-changing. I’ve done stints as CPA, a magazine and newspaper reporter, an editor, journalism instructor, Chinese language assistant, a volunteer probation officer and most recently as a crazy sports mom (I’m in recovery now, hopefully).

Right now, I do mostly business writing for work, and spend my free time working on my blog OUTANDEMPLOYED, which grew out of a course I teach ex-offenders at the local jail in Fairfax, VA. Like the students I teach, I consider myself a work in progress. I think that’s one of the reasons BIKE WITH JACKIE resonates with me. So little of my life has turned out the way I expected. And yet, I’m excited about where I am and really grateful for all the experiences, good and bad. Along the way, I’ve become better at accepting that my BEST SELF isn’t about being perfect and relying on my INNER SRENGTH, but listening to my KILLER INSTINCT and trusting my EXPRESSIVE VOICE are daily challenges. Good thing you say this is a lifelong process.

_We discussed this on the phone briefly where you told me that you became involved in the volunteer work that you do with ex-offenders (as as well as offenders inside the jailhouse) because you were looking for a way to get outside of your comfort zone. Can you address any fears you might have had going into this work and how you addressed them?
Yes, I’d recently moved back to the U.S. after nearly 9 years overseas, where I got used to being around people who didn’t think like I did. It really made me stretch. I mean, in China, just doing the basics like buying food at the grocery store was an adventure.

Then suddenly I found myself back in a lovely but fairly homogenous suburb. I don’t want to give the impression that I decided to work with offenders out of boredom, it’s just that I needed to find a way to challenge myself again. I’m not a big organizer, so helping out the PTA wasn’t doing it.

I guess my initial fear – or maybe my husband’s was, couldn’t you find a safer way to get out of your comfort zone? I had worked with offenders as a volunteer probation officer in the past, but that was really before I had kids. Going back into a jail again spooked me at first, with the guards and all those clanging doors. But once I went into the classroom and started getting to know my students, that changed. My bigger concern became, how can I best help them? From that point on it’s really been a matter of asking the right questions and really listening. Even after working with offenders in the past, I still had some misconceptions about who would be in jail, which needed to be corrected. I’ve met people there who could have been my college roommates. They have advanced degrees, seemingly perfect lives, but still made a mistake.

_You mentioned that the other volunteers you work with have generally come from the system themselves, meaning, they've had a son or daughter who's served time in jail who then moved beyond their troubled and youthful days. This work became these mothers' calling. How did you arrive here?
That’s always a challenging question and one I’m not sure I’ve found the answer to yet. Or maybe I don’t want to know it. An editor I worked with early in my career on a fraud story, once said to me, “C’mon, you think like a criminal, you can figure this out.” I’m sure it was a throwaway line designed to inspire me, but I’ve always been haunted by it. No one in my immediate family has ever been arrested or in prison, thankfully, but I am descended from a long line of Black Irish stock, so I’m sure if you go back far enough with all that drinking and angst….I guess the bottom line – and this has become even more true as I’ve gotten to know more offenders – is that I can relate to people who cross the line and make huge mistakes. And I really like to hope they can find their way back. That we all can, I guess.

_We also discussed on the phone that you look for a common ground with those you might be working with inside the jailhouse, something aside from the fact that they are serving a sentence together. What is it that you've discovered? What are the other commonalities, and what can the general population learn from them?
Again, as I said in my answer to your previous question, we all screw up at one point or another in our lives. Offenders have made huge, sometimes irreparable, life-destroying mistakes that have landed them behind bars. But they’re human and like all of us struggle with frailties and weaknesses – and maybe more than most of us, with addictions, mental and emotional illnesses and really horrible upbringings. And yet, people are people, and in every session I get someone who turns out to be the leader, somebody who’s the peacemaker, the complainer, the talker, and those few who will only tell their stories privately, but when they do reveal incredible talents and strengths. If I didn’t meet most of them in jail, I wouldn’t know they’d ever broken the law.

_Can you tell my readers a bit about your blog and what your readers take away from your posts?
Sure. Right now OUTANDEMPLOYED is a couple of things, since I’m really still developing the blog. For ex-offenders who read it, I’m hoping first of all, that I’m giving them good information. I also hope they take away a sense that they’re not alone and that they can start their lives over if they’re committed to it. For other readers, I’m hoping that they maybe gain more of a sense that there’s no such thing as typical ex-offender and that most people who have committed a crime regret it deeply. Like anyone who’s made a mistake, they want to know how to make it right, serve out their punishment and move on.

_Since we're focusing on INSPIRATION this month here at BIKE WITH JACKIE, you'll be blogging about that topic for me as my guest blogger tomorrow. Can you give us a little sneak preview about what you'll have to say to my readers?
I’m going to concentrate on the EXPRESSIVE VOICE part of your equation. On what inspires my voice and my writing, and, by extension, how I live my best life. Ironically, it’s actually other people’s voices – the more different from mine the better. Whether I'm trying to understand people in a different culture like China, or in very different circumstances such as my students serving sentences – hearing someone else, or listening well pulls me out of my own head into – for lack of a better way of explaining it – the feeling, or heart place. Seeing the world from another person's point of view forces me to find that common connection. That always results in being not only more expressive, but more authentic and human. As writers working alone, I think we all run the risk sometimes of falling in love with the words and ideas in our heads and then getting stuck when what comes out doesn’t seem to work. I think this can also affect how we live our lives in general. It can be so easy to get caught up in our own stuff, when the antidote, the inspiration we're looking for, is outside of us with everyone else.

Thank you, Kathy. I look forward to sharing your thoughts tomorrow and hope that my readers will gain something new from your insights. See you then.

By the way, you'll find my Q/A today with Kathy Murray at OUTANDEMPLOYED. Check it out. If you have any questions for Kathy, be sure to come back tomorrow when she'll be checking in to answer them.

Recovery: Accessing your Inner strength

I've only met one person in my life who thought he'd never had a bad day. Nothing ever hurt him. He wasn't bothered by anything. Neither did he express a whole lot of emotion. That was my ex, and I thought it impossible to live like that.

Even after he fired someone at work, even when the day came that he found out his own job was expendable, he still never talked about it and certainly didn't give off the impression that he was hurting inside. He kept it all to himself, no matter how much I encouraged him to share. He just didn't.

I'd tell him things like, "Some day, you're going to explode," because I don't believe a person can hold stuff in like that. I don't believe it's healthy. And I was right. Turns out, he was releasing his anxiety in other ways. The things that did hurt him or bother him was all hidden in behavior he didn't want anyone to know about--till it suited him.

And on the day that it suited him was the day my life changed forever.

I'd had my Inner strength tested before. After all, I'd married as a teenager. I'd become a single parent in college. I'd become a widow afterward. I knew I could survive terrible times. I'd done it before. I had "experience."

But the day my then-husband announced his famous line to me at our kitchen table--"Jackie, I've been lying to you. I've been living a secret life. I think I'm a sex addict"--was my real test. His were the words I did not understand. His choices in life were the choices that left me reeling in a pain I could not stop. That was the only time in my life when I was no longer sure how much I could handle.

So my short lesson for you today is this: Know that you can handle a lot!

You'll have to dig deep to find all that Inner strength within. You'll have to trust it's there. And some days you won't. You'll have to keep digging. You'll have to believe you can go deeper when you need it. You'll have to rely on your natural instincts. You'll have to have faith that you can move those mountains. You'll have to know that it's possible if you expect to overcome the really bad stuff.

Oh, trust me. It's natural to feel otherwise, to think you're broken beyond repair. But as long as there's even the tiniest part of you that knows otherwise, that is where you'll begin. You'll take it one second at a time if that's all you can muster. Because to fall prey to victimhood will not be the right answer in this multiple choice game of life. That response will only allow you to fail at life. But you can rise above the fall.

You may not come out on the other side the same person that you were--Hopefully, you'll arrive on the other side a better person--but you will come out of your challenging times. You will if you let yourself, and if you find the guide you need to get you there.

As you know now, my guide was my bike. It was divine intervention. It was very symbolic. And it worked.

Your guide might be something else entirely, but it is still the same process. You must still believe, have faith, and see beyond the pain. No one else can do that for you.

So just know that you always have the ability to access your Inner strength. It is there and will be there at precisely the moment when it's needed. To gain some of that believe or faith, practice accessing your Inner strength today while making that phone call you don't want to make, or having that conversation with a friend you've been avoiding, or somehow feeling stuck in a situation that feels uncomfortable. Make the call. Talk to your friend. Get past the situation that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Do whatever is is that you may have thought impossible, and you'll see that the other side isn't so bad. And you will feel better because of it.