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The Poop on My Latest Whereabouts

December 29, 2011 in Travel, Uncategorized by jensincero | 1 comment

This holiday season I decided to embark on a 30 day detox, take myself out of the binge-on-sugar-walk-around-with-my-pants-unbuttoned-feel-like-crap game.

Some people had big turkey dinners for Christmas.

I had a colonic.

I’m doing the renowned herbalist, Dr. Schulze’s 30 Day Detox.  First week is a bowel/colon cleanse, second week is liver/gallbladder, third is kidney/bladder and then the last week you revisit the bowel/colon.  Hi!  We’re back!

Cleanses are actually pretty easy for me as I tend to thrive under extreme conditions.  The discipline it requires is great for getting me in the right headspace to write (I’m working on my new book), it’s much easier for me lay off mashed potatoes altogether than merely cut down on them, and I prefer having my meals planned out by an herbalist who smiles with his mouth open than having to decide what to eat every single day.

I am Dr. Schulz. I want you to poop this much everyday.

As someone who is permanently on the road, it’s brought up an interesting question however:  Where do I want to BE while I rid myself of my innards?

When you have your own place and are pooping out the crayons that have been lodged in your small intestine since you ate them back in 2nd grade it’s one thing, but it puts a pretty serious ding on my perfect houseguest score.  So does the fact that I reek of garlic and fill the fridge up with gallons of tea made out of tree branches.

My new travel-sized blender. I love travel-sized everythings. I wish they made a travel-sized king sized bed.

Luckily my present stint in LA and my upcoming one in La Jolla is mostly house-sitting empty homes, but after that?

I had big plans to go overseas for the month of January and work on my book but feel there may be too much of an unknown food/parasite wild card thrown in.

We shall see where my kidneys lead me….

 

 

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Welcome to the NPA (No Permanent Abode)

July 30, 2011 in Travel, Uncategorized by jensincero | 3 comments

It’s been 3 glorious months since I gave my address the ole heave ho, and In honor of my big anniversary, and the fact that I somehow neglected to blog about most of it, I’d like to summarize my who, what, when, and whereabouts.

And write The Longest Blog Post Ever.  Holy crap.

But first, some critical tips on being a member of the NPA:

• Only buy one-way tickets.  Even when I’m fully planning on returning somewhere, something more fun/lucrative/sexy/important presents itself and I’m always grateful I didn’t buy round-trip.

• Seize all opportunities to do your laundry.

• Don’t buy it unless you really need/love it and it folds up really small.

 

April 21st – 29th: Rome & all over Tuscany, Italy with Mom, brother Steve, sister-in-law Jenny

This entire leg of my trip was pretty much pantwettingly hilarious because I was born into a family that snootily considers itself The Funniest Family In The World, much to the horror of the Italian population, and all populations we come into contact with, actually.

We did the usual Italy stuff – ate like pigs, visited countless villages made of stone, climbed up towers, arrived in each new town during siesta when nothing was open, drank too much, etc.

We couldn’t find a car that fit all four of our giant, American bodies and our luggage, so we heaped it on top of Mom and Steve in the back seat.

We said our good-byes in Orvieta – they headed to the airport to fly back to New York and I headed to the Roman railway system during Easter mayhem to get lost for 6 frikken hours, missing train after train, and barely making my flight to Spain.

IMPORTANT TRAVELING IN A LONG DRESS IN UNDERWEAR THAT DOESN’T FIT YOU NOTE:  If you are wearing a long dress and are also wearing underwear that is one size too big that you bought anyway because you thought it was super sexy and you are spending the majority of your day running after trains that you are missing, you will suddenly be horrified to realize that your underwear is around your knees and you have no way of pulling it up because you are in a long dress in a crowded Italian train station and your only choices are either pulling your dress up over your head or going through a grueling series of grips and hoists through your dress that is neither terribly subtle nor effective.  So…when traveling in a long dress, always err on the small side when it comes to what’s underneath it.

April 29th – May 10th: Bascara, Spain with Jason & Serge

This is one of the few parts of my journey that I actually did blog about so I’m not going to bother to here except to say that Jason is an old college pal of mine who I hadn’t seen in over 15 years and who, I’m thrilled to report, is still one of the most delightful creatures this side of Colorado College.

He told me that while he was waiting for me at the airport he was watching people get off the plane, wondering if he’d recognize me after all this time, when a gigantically tall African American woman walked off and he thought, it’s Jen, anything is possible.

To Jason Flinn, nothing is out of the question.

Spain was also the beginning of my Global Office Series:

Office #1: The Kitchen, Jason & Serge's place, Bascara, Spain

May 10th – May 21st: Bristol, England with Katharine

I also managed to blog about my stay with the staggeringly staggering Katharine Dever, but left out some key points of my visit:

Office #2: Across the table from Katharine, Bristol, UK

We got tons of work done because we’re both coaches and we’re both bossy.  I spoke at a retreat she was coincidentally hosting while I was there and constantly cracked my head on the doorways in her old English farm house built by midgets many centuries ago.  We watched “9-5″.  We fell deeper in love with Dolly Parton and entrepreneurship.

May 21st – 22nd: London England with Andriana

Andriana is a seasoned world-traveler who showed me more of London in one day and one night than most people see in their entire lives.

We ate bangers and mash at some pub that Madonna is rumored to frequent where the ceilings were also perilously midget-sized, drank wine on a roof with hipsters, went to a museum, looked at cool fountains,

ate at some shmancy, artsy restaurant where the toilets are encased in sci-fi white egg-shaped cones, went to Picadilly Square, shopped, ate more, got lost, ran around in cabs, subways and flip-flopped feet, hauled my suitcase up and down 10 flights of stairs…

May 21st – May 30th: Malibu, California with Gina and Glenn

Lovingly known as The Vortex by its inhabitants who struggle to find reasons good enough to ever leave, I found myself in a similar stupor once I arrived.  The place is staggeringly beautiful, peaceful and comfy – I couldn’t get up off the lawn furniture long enough to take a decent picture.

Gina and Glenn generously housed my car whilst I flitted around the world and give me my own wing to stay in whenever I stop by, which is extremely dangerous because I now have the capacity to never leave and there is nothing like your own wing in The Vortex to make you do just that.

Even so, I decided it was time to see my family…

May 31st – June 17th: Westchester, New York with The Family

At some point during my nearly 3 week stay in New York, it occurred to me that while I perceived myself as living a life of freedom and adventure, I was actually living with my mother.

:-/

But I was so excited to luxuriate in hanging out with my family and my 8 million friends back east instead of frantically trying to cram them all in in a weeks time as I had for the past 20 years.

Office #3: Mom's back patio, Westchester, NY

I arrived on a Sunday when my brother informed me that Dad was having a big family get together.  I got the brilliant idea to surprise him because NOBODY TOLD ME THAT YOU SHOULD NEVER SURPRISE AN OLD PERSON.

I walked into the yard and Dad froze.  For a really. Long. Time.  My brother, who was standing next to me, accused me of killing him.  Then Dad burst into tears and spent the rest of the day looking at me and shaking his head.

I saw the usual cast of nieces and nephews and friends and was cruelly ripped away from shuffling from family barbecue to family barbecue when it occurred to me that I should go to LA to shoot a video for my upcoming writing retreat that I needed to promote.

I didn’t want to leave.  At all.

I wanted to stay with my mommy.

And because of this I almost broke my strict rule of no round trip tickets but luckily refrained….

June 17th – June 18th: Manhattan Beach, California with Tory and Jacob

I’m not big on returning to LA now that I’ve cut the cord because when I’m done, I am done, but I know so many great people there.  And my car’s there.  And I can switch out the clothes in my suitcase for the clothes in my trunk.  So there’s that.

There’s also the impossibly sweet Tory and Jacob and their 47 dogs who I stayed with my first night in town.  Tory is the kind of person who would let the whole wide world live with her if she could.  She has a heart the size of Texas.  If you have a huge house, give it to her.  She’ll make great use of it.

June 18th- 20th: Venice Beach, California

I rented a house in Venice Beach, my old hood, for 2 days to do my video shoot.  I hired a professional crew, gathered my adorable clients to do testimonials for me and unloaded a bunch of clothes from the trunk of my car on everyone who showed up in order to lighten my load even more.  Overall, it was a totally successful day.  Here’s the video.

June 20th – June 21st: Phoenix, Arizona with Tania and Angela

I decided that instead of returning to my old bedroom in New York, I should drive to New Mexico and take pictures and videos of Santa Fe to further promote my retreats.

Two of my favorite people live in Phoenix, Tania Katan and Angela Ellsworth so I always break up the drive and stay a night at their place.

Office #4: The Starbucks off the I-10 Freeway somewhere between L.A. and Phoenix

Tania is obsessed with getting a puppy but the timing has yet to be right.  So instead, she pours over the websites of local pet stores to see who they’ve got in their cages (who knew?) and if they have any puppies that look like little pigs, she shows up and asks if she can, like, um, touch them.


June 21st – July 5th: Albuquerque, New Mexico with Tami and Katie, Peter and Elaine

I stayed in Albuquerque and drove up to Santa Fe for my photo fest because that’s where I used to live and that’s where some of the sweetest people on this here earth live.

I spent the first few nights with Tami and Katie and we attempted to go see some fireworks for the 4th of July, left a little on the late side, couldn’t figure out where to go, and ended up watching the tail end of them from a Target Parking lot on the side of the freeway in a gravel pit.  Woo.  Hoo.

I spent the rest of my stay with my dear pals Peter and Elaine who I take annual sojourns through the wilds of the Utah canyonlands with.  You can read about them/watch them critique some rocks I gathered HERE.

Office #5: Peter and Elaine's hammock, Albquerque, NM

I forgot how flippin hot it gets in Albuquerque in the summer time – as my great grandmother used to say, it was hotter’na half fucked fox in a forest fire!  AND the entire state was being consumed by several completely out of control forest fires which made it seem that much hotter.  And smokier.  So I had to get the hell out of there.

July 5th – July 8th: Silverton, Colorado with Michael Flowers

I scooped up my brilliant friend Flowers and we headed for Colorado, having no idea where to go, and magically stumbled across the perfect little mountain town of Silverton, Colorado.

Silverton has one paved road running through the middle of it, no stop lights and some of the best views I’ve ever seen.

Office #6: Our suite in The Grand Imperial Hotel, Silverton, Colorado

We spent quite a lot of time at the library because it was the only place with really strong wifi and I had a crapload of work to do.

And for some stupid reason I didn’t get any video or pictures of the librarian who was one of the most chipper, enthusiastic and loud people I’ve ever met.  She would holler a huge welcome to everyone who came in (99% of whom she knew), discuss the upcoming hot dog roast and crack jokes, all at top volume.  She even encouraged one woman who wanted to step outside to make a phone call to not be silly, sit right here in my chair and put your feet up for heaven’s sake!

She broke every librarian rule in the book.  Even flirted her little 75 year old buns off with the guy who stopped by to deliver the mail.  I loved her.

July 8th – July 9th: Albuquerque, New Mexico with Tami and Katie

I stopped back in for one night to drop Flowers off, get some sleep and eat a burger made by Tami on her fancy new grill.

I had no idea where I was headed next, but a HUGE part of this journey of mine is to never worry about it.  To keep moving forward, stay present, have faith, and the perfect situation will present itself.

It is such a brilliant lesson on how to live life in general, and when I really do it, the results are staggering.

I decided to drive north again to cooler climates and hang out with some dear college pals in Denver while I figured it out, when all of a sudden a call came in with an invitation from yet another dear college pal who has a place in Maine.

AND my friend in Denver told me weeks ago that if I ever needed to I could leave my car at her place.  It was a little ridiculous.  And then there was the rainbow I saw on I25 North to Colorado:

July 9th – July 11th: Denver, Colorado with Hilary and John

I arrived in Denver, exhausted and fully sweaty from my 8 hour drive the day before and my 8 hour drive that day, to a fairly raging dinner party at my pal Hillary’s house.

And a plate-full of awesome food.

And a shower.  And a cozy bed.

I slept like I’d been clubbed.

Here is a picture of their not-so-raging dry toast breakfast the next morning:

July 11th – July 15th: Westchester, New York with The Family

I flew back to The Danger Zone because my friend with the place in Maine was driving up from New Jersey and my mom’s place was right along the way.

Imagine that.

While I was there, there was a little Italian street fair in the town my older brother lives in (on the left) that my younger brother’s (on the right) band was playing at:

We ate sausage and pepper sammiches and cheered loudly and then I went to bed because Shannon was coming at 5:30 the next morning to pick me up to drive to Maine.

July 15th – July 25th: Hancock Point, Maine with Shannon and Rob

In my long list of places I’d really rather not leave, Hancock Point, Maine is right up there.  It met all my requirements:  Dear friends,

dear friends with boats,

dear animal friends,

tear-jerking beauty,

and excellent work spaces with strong wifi.

Office #7: Back deck, low tide, Hancock Point, Maine

 

Office #8: The saggy hammock, Hancock Point, Maine

Again, I pretty much had an entire section of the house to myself, but just as I was about to get my mail forwarded, LA once again reared it’s head and informed me I must return for a meeting and to give a talk.

July 25 – July 26 Venice Beach, California with Justin and Todd

I spent my first night at Chez Justin and Todd in Venice, giving them 24 hours notice, barely enough time to make me a cocktail…

July 26 – July 28 Santa Monica, California

…before heading off to my luxury suite at The Georgian Hotel to get ready for a meeting with one of my high end coaching clients.

Office #9: Suite 803, The Georgian Hotel, Santa Monica, CA

 

 

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Farewell California, Hello Suitcase!

April 12, 2011 in Inspiration, Travel by jensincero | 6 comments

Last week I put my sweet little butterball of a cat down after 20 years of spreading the love and the fur as only The Big Guy could.

The Absent Host of Sobfest 2011

Putting him down was totally surreal, ridiculously devastating and apparently very liberating because days later I found myself on the phone with my landlord giving him my notice.

On April 21st, 11 years after moving to Los Angeles, I’m putting all my stuff in storage indefinitely, getting rid of my apartment, heading off to Italy and Spain and will be officially home-free for the first time in my life.

I’ll be traveling about looking for a new home – could be Italy, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, India, New Mexico, the moon, might find it right away, might not….

I’m going to blog here about my search for home as well as how to be, ahem, a hugely successful nomadic virtual entrepreneur.

I’ve been on an incredible roll with my business and was horrified to think oh no, I’m hitting the road, I’m gonna drop the ball! Then I realized in order to not drop the ball, all I have to do is decide not to drop the ball.

So drop the ball I shant.

I shall instead continue to grow my business to be so big and mighty that it won’t be able to buy pants it’ll be so frikken big.

And I’ll share with you how I did it. I’ll be blogging about, amongst other things:

• How to come up with your own definition of home and success and how to go get it

• How to schedule your time when your schedule changes daily

• How to get work done when there are new people to have cocktails with, new mountains to hike, new languages to learn, new villages to plunder

• How to incorporate adventure and travel into your brand and offerings

• How to find wifi in Italy when they pretend to have it everywhere and barely have it anywhere

• How to live a life of purpose and compassion and service and beauty that is so in line with who you truly are that you are uncontrollably sobbing at all times

I’ll be bringing this energy and awareness and daredevilyness into my work with my coaching clients, so if this applies to you, or if you would like it apply to you, be warned….it is on, bitches!

This will be an exercise in literally living in the question, facing the unknown with open arms and trusting my gut to guide me where I’m supposed to go.

Here we goooooooooooooooooooooo!

I’m also hoping to inspire you to do the same in whatever form that takes for you – how are you playing small because you’re scared of stepping out of your comfort zone? Where are you holding back because the unknown freaks you out? What is your gut screaming at you to do that you’re ignoring?

And, um, what are you waiting for?

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How To Do It All

March 9, 2011 in Inspiration, Writing by jensincero | 2 comments

I went to a college where we took one class at a time. We basically learned a sememster’s worth of work in 3 1/2 weeks and at the end of each “block” we’d get a break for 5 days. My beloved alma mater, The Colorado College, taught me:

1.) One must take a serious vacation every month
2.) How to drink beer out of a funnel
3.) How to get a crapload of stuff done in a very short amount of time.

It really proved that old saying which I’m not even really sure is old and I’m not really sure exactly how it went but it’s something like:
If you have something to do, it will take you as long as you have to complete it.

So, if you have, oh, let’s just say hypothetically, a week to finish your book proposal, it will take you a week. If you have 6 months, it’ll take you six months. It’s like when we eat when we’re not hungry – whatever you give us, we’ll keep putting in our mouths.

As you may have picked up on, I just finished my first Book Proposal in a Week Bootcamp and even I, The Queen of Cram, was blown away by how successful so many people in the group were. And I’m going to share with you some of the reasons why.

Not only is there real power in DECIDING that you’re going to finish something by a certain goal date, no matter what, but we really tapped into some great tricks on how to get a lot done in a small amount of time. Here are some tools you can start using right now to get whatever it is that you’ve been putting off done NOW:

1. Find Your Prime Time
My sister is not a morning person. I remember when we were growing up, watching her try and crawl out of bed for school as if she’d just been beaten with a club. Meanwhile, every morning I’d wake up, my eyes would pop open, I’d spring out of bed, ready to go, chatty chatterson while Jill would fumble around like the walking dead.

Hence, I believe we are born a certain way and we all shine at certain times of the day. Figure out which is your prime time and make sure you do everything you can to get the bulk of whatever you have to do done at that time.

2. Chunk Out Your Time
If you say, “I’m gonna spend the entire day writing,” you will most likely spend the entire day:
Sitting down to write
Checking your emails
Cleaning your bathroom
Calling your mom
Writing
Making a lasagna
Taking a walk
Re-organizing your closet
Writing
Going to bed

We waste so much time when we set goals that are too big. It’s like lifting weights – if you lift something way too heavy, you won’t budge it. And if you lift something too lite, you won’t grow. Find a chunk of time that pushes you but isn’t too far out of your reality and hold yourself to it.

3. Set a Timer
When you find your golden hour and you create chunks of time to do your work, I highly recommend setting a timer, dorky as this may sound. Because here’s the thing – when looking for a distraction, we get very creative. And desparate. Constantly checking the time to see if your time is up becomes a distraction, so setting a timer allows you to focus that much more. Plus, if you get a timer that ticks, it can cheer you on and make you feel like you’re racing the clock.

IMPORTANT TIMER USAGE NOTE: Once that timer is set, you are unauthorized to get up for any reason – check your emails, answer the phone, pee, stretch, do anything that isn’t directly related to the task at hand.

4. Get Into Reality
Oh the drama we create for ourselves! I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve worked with who are completely freaked out by how much they have to do and there is no time and if only they didn’t have to blah they could blah and blah blah blah…..this is when it’s time for a reality check. Really sitting down and looking at what you have in front of you is an incredibly calming practice. Take a serious look at how long each thing on your list will take you. Then figure out what you can toss. Then figure out what you can delegate. Then put them in order of priority. Then do them. I promise you, you’ll be very pleasantly surprised. And finished before you know it.

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How to Make Your Books Bestsellers, Seth Godin Style

September 16, 2010 in Uncategorized, Writing by jensincero | 2 comments

I was going to make today’s post a little sneak preview of the call I’m doing later this afternoon where I will divulge the secrets of 3 of my favorite and insanely successful bloggers and nonfiction authors (which you can sign up for HERE).

I started by writing about one of the heaviest hitters of them all, Seth Godin, and got so sucked into his story of how he became a bestselling author many times over that now there’s no room for the others because I would like to leave the house at some point today and I’m still in my robe as I write this.

:-/

But his ideas are so interesting and different that I had to share them all with you. As you read them, you’re unauthorized to think, well, he knows about computers and he has a big list and he’s already an established writer – all of his ideas can apply to you no matter where you’re at if you get creative.

This afternoon on the call, I’ll go into some other methods that other people used, but right now, it’s Sethapalooza.

This post is taken from a video I watched of Seth’s presentation from O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference, New York City, NY, February 11, 2008 called 10 Bestsellers: Using New Media, New Marketing, and New Thinking to Create 10 Bestselling Books

TIP #1: GIVE 1/3 OF YOUR BOOK AWAY FOR FREE

After talking his publisher into letting him give 1/3 of this book away for free, Seth spent $400 building a semi-crappy website for it and told people to send him an email and he’d email them the first 1/3 of the book for free. He did this in one really long email that, in several places, said click here if you’re tired of reading this and you’d rather just buy the whole book. That’s all he did to market it and ¼ of a million people took him up on the free sample, then enough people bought it to make it a bestseller. (If you’re already freaking out that you could never reach that many people, check out my post on driving traffic to your blog HERE) In hindsight, he wished he’d said “I’ll send you something every week the rest of your life until you die,” and continued selling things to these same people, but alas, he didn’t.

TIP #2: GIVE YOUR ENTIRE BOOK AWAY FOR FREE


Because this book is all about the concept that ideas that spread that win, he decided to focus on the spreading and give it away for free. He went out and spent anoather $400 on another semi-crappy website and told people they could download the whole book for free on a PDF file. Millions of people went ahead and downloaded it for free, and loved it, but hated reading it in that format. So he printed up a hardcover copy that he sold for $40 on Amazon and in limited distribution at a few other places and it became an Amazon bestseller because everyone already knew about it. He talks about how the book was a souvenir – if people like an experience, they want a souvenir to keep. This is how he thinks you should look at books.

TIP #3: MAKE IT SUPER CHEAP AND DO IT BEFORE ANYONE ELSE DOES


This book was an ebook about website design that he sold only at Amazon for a couple of bucks. Because it was one of the first ebooks on this topic and was cheaper than anything else out there, people were willing to try it out and because it was awesome, the word spread and more and more people bought it. He talks about how volume has to be one of your goals. The more a book sells, the easier and easier it becomes to sell more because of word of mouth.

TIP #4: DON’T DO IT THE TRADITIONAL WAY
I just realized I forgot to make note of which book this was and instead of sift through the video again for who knows how long until I find it, I’m just gonna go ahead and leave it out. All you need to know is that he decided to go the traditional route with this one, dropped a wad building a fancy website, put ads on it, put up billboards in San Francisco, basically played by book publishing rules and it didn’t do that great because, as he says, he didn’t focus enough on using some of these other tools that had brought him such huge success before.

TIP #5: USE PACKAGING THAT SCREAMS “LOOK AT ME!”


This time around he decided to self-publish and get crazy with his packaging. He started by publishing an excerpt of the book in Fast Company Magazine , a magazine he was a columnist for that had 1/2 million readers, and offered everyone a copy for free if they sent in 5 bucks for shipping and handling. He stated that there were only a limited amount of copies and mailed the book out in a purple milk carton. Not in a box, just in the milk carton itself, so that when people got it, it became a conversation piece. If it was sitting on their desk at the office or their table at home, people had to ask “what the hell is that?” He mailed out 5 thousand, all of which had the URL to his website on the carton itself next to some copy explaining that if you wanted your own copy for free, you could only get them in bulk 12 at a time. So you had to send in 5 bucks for shipping and handling each, but the book itself was free. This way, people would get their copy and give the other 11 away, thereby spreading the word and starting a conversation about his ideas.

TIP #6: MAKE THE BOOK THE FOUNDATION FOR YOUR BLOG


This one was all about his blog. He built a blog talking about marketing, elaborating on the ideas that were in the book so that anyone following his blog eventually wanted to buy the book to get his original ideas. He based this on the method the Freakanomics guys were using. Today they blog about stuff that’s not even in the book, but if you get into their blog you’ll want to learn about the foundation of what they’re talking about and buy the book.

TIP #7: FIGURE OUT HOW TO BE MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL


Books sell much better when other people write about them than when the author writes about them. So if you write content that will hugely benefit people, they’ll write about it because it’ll make them look good (sort of like what I’m doing right now). With this book he decided to do this in person and go on a book tour. He posted on his blog and said he’d come to your city and give a talk if you organized it and guaranteed to get 500 people in the room. The people who set up the talks made no money but increased their status in the community by organizing the them. Everyone of them has written Seth and told him how those connections helped them immensely. With this method he helped his fans, spread the word and sold thousand of books.

TIP #8: JOINT VENTURE WITH OTHER PEOPLE AND GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE


This is one of the best ways to increase your exposure – piggyback on other people’s lists. For this book Seth hired someone to contact bloggers who wanted to host a podcast to join him for an hour long conversation. He asked them to invite all their readers, thereby getting Seth new exposure, giving valuable content to the blogger’s readers, making the bloggers look like superstars and then created another cheapo website to send everybody to where the podcasts were given away for free.

Here’s a short recap of all these ideas:
• Books are souvenirs – there’s nothing in a book that you can’t get online for free anyway so if you make the content good enough, people will want to own a copy.
• Permission is the only asset – deliver messages to people who want to get them. If they don’t hear from you and they complain, that’s permission. You want to appeal to your perfect audience and provide them with valuable content, not inflict yourself on people who aren’t your target market.
• Conversations are marketing. If you can make people talk about what you’re doing because you’re writing brilliant stuff, then you win.
• Words for readers, not readers for words. You’re not in the business of finding readers for your words. You need to find words for your readers. Once you build the permission base, ask yourself what do my readers want next? When you have a dedicated list, go out and find things they want to read about and the word will spread.
• Blogs work. It’s the nature of dripping ideas into a place where they can spread. Ideas online will spread. If you’re an author who doesn’t have an idea that will spread, you shouldn’t write the book.
• It’s not about selling books. Focus on putting out great ideas, then focus on creating interest and excitement around those ideas and the books will sell themselves.

Authors are idea merchants. Ideas that spread win. Free ideas spread faster. The way you monetize is buy selling souvenirs. This, she is the Seth Godin credo.

And now I’m going to get dressed.

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This Is SO Not About You

August 27, 2010 in Inspiration, Uncategorized, Writing by jensincero | 2 comments

I recently had a friend, a brilliant writer, call me in a panic because she suddenly became frozen with fear over the subject matter of her book and could no longer bring herself to write it.

Her book is, among many other splendid things, very personal, dark, and twisted, and my friend was concerned that it was too much. That it was crossing the line.

That she was exposing herself as a giant pervert freak weirdo.

This brings up a concept that’s SO important to have a firm grasp on if you’re going to get anywhere near reaching your full potential in this life as a writer, an entrepreneur, an artist and actually, as a fully realized and evolved human being in general:

One of the greatest, most powerful ways you can spend your time is actively practicing not giving a flying crap what anybody else thinks about you.

Other people’s opinions motivate every decision we make in our teens and our twenties, and as we age, if we’re moving in the right direction, our obsession with how we look to others slowly trickles away, but most people spend their lifetimes under its pointless grasp.

Meanwhile, the only questions you ever need to really consider are:

Is this something I want to be, do or have?
Is this going to take me in direction of my goal or purpose?
Is it going to violate the rights of others?

Yes, it is part of our survival instinct to care – get booted from the tribe and you will freeze or starve to death or be eaten by bears. But because we have big brains and the ability to manifest anything we set our minds to, there is another version that’s equally as plausible: get booted from the tribe and be forced to start one of your own, and even though you suffer through struggles and failures and fears, you prove yourself and create something that’s unique and exciting and more in line with who you really are and suddenly there’s a coin with your face on it or a rest stop named after you or something equally as awesome.

We all long for the comfort and safety of fitting in, and if that’s where you’re truly happy and fully realized, then bravo, but nobody who ever accomplished anything big or new or worth raising a fist in the air and screaming “hell yeah!” about did it from the comfort zone.

They risked ridicule and failure and sometimes even death. Take the Wright Brothers for example. Can you imagine how that whole thing went down?

Beula: Did you hear about poor Susan?
Agnes: Susan Wright?
Hattie: Such a disgrace! Poor thing.
Agnes: What happened?
Beula: Well, her two boys…
Hattie: As if Susan hasn’t suffered enough. Tiny little thing birthing three boys as big as buffaloes, then croup, shingles and now this…
Beula: Seems her two sons…oh dear.
Agnes: Her two sons what?!
Hattie: I heard she has bunions too…
Agnes: Spit it out already Beula!
Beaula: Well, this is going to sound as crazy as it is but they….
Hattie: And now her sons think they can fly. Such a shame.
Beula: …they think they can fly.
Agnes: Think they can fly?
Beula: Yes, her sons think they can fly. They talk of nothing else.
Hattie: She just had the house painted too. They’ll probably have to move out of town now….

Once you step away from the herd and let yourself be seen, you put yourself in front of the opinion firing squad, which is why so many people run screaming from the lives they’d so love to live.

But here’s the thing that’s so critical to remember: It’s not about you anyway. What other people think about you has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.

I’ve gotten emails from people telling me everything from I can’t write to save my life to I’m an insensitive jerk to, and I quote, “your last name is interesting. Some people may see ‘sincere’ but all I see is the ‘sin’ part. Your life will be nothing but pain and heartache if you keep living it this way”.

I’ve also had people write in about the very same book gushing that I changed their life, that I’m their favorite writer, that they would like to get to know me in the biblical sense, etc.

So it couldn’t possibly be about the book because the book stays the same. It’s the reactions that differ.

The trick is not only not buying into the criticisms, but not buying into the hype either because neither of them are the truth. Once you do, you hand your power over to other people’s fears and insecurities and needs and stories and spend your life desperately chasing down something that isn’t even real.

All that matters is what’s true for you, and if you can tap into that and follow it without straying, you will be a mighty superhero. Everything else is just other people’s perception of reality, and that is none of your business.

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Las Vegas Blows

June 3, 2010 in Travel by jensincero | No comments

Is it possible for a really strong wind to blow over an RV?  Because I think that’s what happened.  There were flashing lights and fire trucks and ambulances, and from my spot in the traffic jam through the wind and the dust and the dark, it looked like a giant whale with bikes strapped to its ass was lying on its side.

I was trying to get to the Red Canyon campground outside Las Vegas for a little mid-drive snooze en route to my annual camping trip in Utah, but there was such a mighty, mighty wind that things got all crazy.

Traffic lights were out, trees were cracked in half and the line of cars on the road to the canyon was ridiculous.  Within seconds I realized, what the hell am I doing?  I can’t camp in this wind, I’ll have to sleep with one hand slammed in my car door to keep myself from blowing away.

So I got a room instead and had a lovely chat with night manager at the Best Western – Jeet, from Punjab, India, who, upon learning I was a writer, told me, for about an hour, of his hidden longing to be one too.

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He demanded to know what I’d written and I managed to get away with just telling him about my one book, the novel, leaving him to google it and find out about my girl on girl sex book on his own.

Which I’m assuming he did due to the fully icy welcome his wife gave me when I checked out the next morning.  He was all excited for me to meet her because I’d been to India and loved it and she was having none of that filthy place and could I please talk to her a bit and tell her it wasn’t so bad?

But I couldn’t get her to even look at me, and when I told her that her husband wanted me to meet her, she shuddered, waved to a table full of cereal and muffins, muttered something about free breakfast and hurried into the back room.

It’s hard out there for a pimp.

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Show Me Your Badass

January 28, 2010 in Badass of the Week, Inspiration, Travel, Writing by jensincero | 3 comments

My dear pal E.J. asked me where the name Hey Little Badass came from and, once informed, suggested that it would be most Hey Little Badassy of me to not only explain it to y’all, but also to ask you to bend over and show me yours.

This blog is called Hey Little Badass because it covers anything that taps into my own little badassedness and inspires me to write – be it travel, monkey boners, transvestite Santa Clauses, people who do brave and cool things, etc.

My hope is that by writing about all the things that make me excited to be spinning around on this dear old planet of ours, I’ll inspire you to take some time to recognize, and pursue, whatever it is that floats your banana.  To tap into your own little badass (you know you have one), to whip out your ever-lovin youness, be large and in charge, huge like The Nuge, mighty tighty whitey.

Speaking of such staggering largeness, I would like to stand and salute My Most Patient and Brilliant Friend Dana Burgy Gautchi who is the kind of friend who will stay on the phone with you until 2am brainstorming names for your new blog even though you’re hideously indecisive, and selflessly offer up Hey Little Badass as yours to keep even though it came out of her brain and could make millions for her in the form of a t-shirt or maybe an action figure or something.

So there you have it.  And whilst I continue to write about badassing my way throughout SE Asia, I urge you to join me by sending in a photo of yourself in your most supreme little badassedness.

Find a picture that screams HOLY CRAP I AM SO FRIKKEN AWESOME I CAN’T STAND IT and send it to me at jen@jensincero.com.  If you’d like to ad a caption, or a brief story, we’d love to read it.

For example, here is a picture of the aforementioned E.J. letting his ass-kicking freak flag fly in perhaps my favorite picture of him ever:

I don't know about you, but this picture makes me want to run around the block about 80 times with my fist in the air.

Sorry to start by raising the bar so high, but don’t be intimidated – send me your most jaw-dropping picture of you as your most jaw-dropping self.  You do not have to be in drag with a helmet on, but you must be lit up by the big ass ball of blinding gloriousness that is you unbridled.

Can’t wait to see it!!

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My Big Fat Spiritual Spanking

August 25, 2009 in Inspiration, Writing by jensincero | 4 comments

One trip on an Indian bus and you'll learn something about yourself

 

Around this time last year I returned from a life-changing trip to India. In case you haven’t witnessed it yourself, India is heaving with humanity, full to the brim, sitting on top of you and sticking its filthy bare foot in your face while you fight for space on an overbooked train.  Your only options are to go with the flow and chat with your neighbor or grow a big fat stress-related tumor, and the thing that made perhaps the biggest impression on me was how nearly everyone I met went for option number one.  That and the fact that there are cows everywhere, even inside the train station.

 Indians will spoon you on a bus if you fall asleep next to them, roll down their windows to chat with you in a traffic jam, stare unblinkingly at your whiteness, help you if you’re lost, insist you get in their family photos at historical monuments, invite you in for tea, burp, fart and laugh in your face – it’s like the entire country is a giant kindergarten class.  It’s totally annoying.  And sweet.  And clearly knows something important that we’ve forgotten.

 I didn’t darken the doorway of an ashram or stick a dot on my forehead or partake in any of the other thousands of spiritual options the country is famous for offering – who needs them?  As far as I’m concerned you can learn pretty much everything you need to know about life by taking twelve hour bus ride through India during wedding season. 

 When I bought my ticket on the Super Deluxe Express Bus to Delhi, I was told I was paying a wise four hundred rupees extra for the luxury of a five hour nonstop ride as opposed to the ten hours and countless stops of the local.  I was so extremely exhausted from the three sleepless days I’d spent whooping it up at a camel festival up in the mountains that the thought of hunkering down on the Super Deluxe and sleeping all the way to Delhi sounded good to me.  But what I got instead was a seat next to Mr. Friendly, a middle-aged man who spoke three words of English and insisted on chatting me up, even though I was doing what I thought was a very convincing job of fake sleeping and a very real job of having no frikken idea what he was saying. 

 The bus left an hour late due to massive confusion and overbooking and took almost two hours to get out of town because it was peak wedding season. Weddings in India involve a ceremony followed by a parade through the streets complete with horses, marching band, explosives, a car with a loudspeaker blaring crackly music and important wedding announcements and a bunch of guys carrying table lamps on their heads.  Apparently some god had done some important thing thousands of years ago that made this particular week an ideal time to get married – I read there were 20,000 weddings in Delhi in one day.  My bus ended up getting trapped in wedding festivities pretty much every ten minutes which meant that everyone on the bus, every time we stopped, skipped off to join the party.  Doop de doo.

 When we finally did get out of town, we kept pulling over to let random people on and off (in the middle of nowhere), have some tea, a smoke, a chat, maybe light a fire in the brush by the side of the road and to strap giant burlap sacks full of something large and bulbous to the roof.  At some point this guy got on and stood at the front of the bus, right next to my seat, and began hollering at us in Hindi.  My bus mates responded by cheering, chanting and sitting in silence while I responded by seeing if I couldn’t find another seat farther away from his mouth.  I got up and joined the group of people sitting on rickety benches around the bus driver who was in busthis “room” behind a wall of glass.  The people huddled around him made room for me and suddenly I felt like I was watching an action movie on a screen the size of a giant bus windshield.  We were careening through the narrow dirt streets of tiny villages with crazy Indian music blaring over the speakers while people, goats and monkeys leapt out of the way.  The only time we slowed down was for the almighty cow, but I swear this guy drove our huge bus through spaces I’d be scared to ride a bike.  Then all of a sudden, in some tiny nowhere village, he pulls over yet again.  More chai perhaps?  Maybe he’s going to go visit a friend?  Has to pee?  Wants to take a walk for an hour while we all sit there?  The driver waves for me to follow and gets off, as does the entire bus.  It turns out that Mr. Yell In My Ear was some sort of holy man who was just warming up the crowd for a tour of the temples in this small, gorgeous village called Vrindavan. It is, I learned, the place where Krishna met his wife Rada and where they have over 5,500 temples in his honor. 

 So for the next two hours I found myself wandering through ramshackle temples, gaily tossing flowers onto shrines, holding hands and skipping in a circle around a statue of Krishna, solemnly listening to sermons, praying, clapping and all I could think was how fully freaked out a bus of New Yorkers on the express from NY to DC would be in a similar situation.  Meanwhile not one person on the bus was expecting this and not one person complained, even though when we finally got back on the bus it was well past the time we were supposed to be arriving in Delhi and we were still a good five hours away.  Instead they all thanked, and tipped, the holy man and spent the rest of the ride chatting away.  After that we stopped at a roadside “restaurant” for dinner, then another pee break, then I was waking up the family I was staying with in Delhi at 3am who, of course, acted like it was the middle of the afternoon and insisted I share a cup of tea. 

 Here are some things I am going to do from now on:

Talk to more strangers

Expect, and appreciate, the unexpected

Find the humor

Join the party

Share my space

Loosen my bone, Wilma

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Secrets to Self-Discipline

August 18, 2009 in Inspiration, Writing by jensincero | 2 comments

 

I used to smoke cigarettes.  A lot.  If I was out of cigarettes and the stores were closed, no problemo, I’d pick butts out of the ashtray or garbage and smoke them.  I’d smoke right when I woke up and right before going to bed.  Sometimes I smoked while I ate.  I knew it was a foul habit, one that could kill me, make my face look like an old shoe and cause me to stink like a bar rag, but I was so into it that, as with all abusive relationships, I chose to pretend nothing was wrong even though in the back of my head there was a little voice screaming, “Stop!  Please stop! We’re dying over here!”

 Then one day I was about to drive from my beloved New Mexico to Los Angeles and my love affair came to a screeching halt.  The night before I’d spent a particularly disgusting evening sitting around chain smoking with three other smoke-lovin friends.  It was kind of like how after a particularly disgusting evening of drinking you decide that you’ll never drink again.  Only unlike those losers, I was serious.  Oh yes I was.

 I got my car all packed up, put the top down and began my cross-desert road trip a smoke-free woman.  Smoke-free as soon as I finished the 6 cigarettes I still had left in my pack, that is.  “I’ll smoke one now, and another when I get to Gallup, then in Flagstaff I’ll stop for lunch and have one there…”  I suddenly realized that there I was, under a gorgeous desert sky, listening to my favorite music, top down, surrounded by warm, sweet desert air, flying, free, happily speeding, and all I could think about was when I was next going to voluntarily asphyxiate myself.  I realized I couldn’t enjoy one of my favorite things to do on this here planet because I was distracted by something that I knew I wanted to stop doing. I also realized that I was a big fat liar, that I was already pushing my quit date back since I would be arriving in town at a good friend’s party and would definitely want to smoke so maybe I shouldn’t quit until the next week when……

 I pulled the car over and threw out all six cigarettes and haven’t had a drag since.  That was over ten years ago and it was a hugely significant moment because I realized something huge that applies to everything in life – if there’s something you really want to do, the only way to get there is to stop negotiating.  Just do it NOW, not after you lose five pounds or have more money or more time or whatever you “need” to do before getting on it.  Negotiating and waffling are the mortal enemies of self-discipline.  I decided at that moment that I was not a smoker.  It became a non-negotiable fact.  I did not smoke so I wasn’t going to spend any time thinking “perhaps maybe just one cigarette” anymore than I was going to spend any time thinking that maybe I would snort horse tranquilizers.  I’m not a horse tranquilizer snorter, nor a smoker.  Next topic please. 

 This mentality works with everything – if you want to lose weight, decide that you’re a person who doesn’t eat sugar.  Ever.  Or who only has one cookie at a party instead of ten. Or who gets up at 6:30 and exercises.  Or if you’re a writer, decide that you’re a person who writes every day at noon for a half an hour.  Or who writes two pages a day.  If you begin negotiations, you open the space for failure.  If you make it a fact, you just do it, no questions asked, and move on to something else.  It’s a doozie, it really works, I promise.

 Here are my top 5 tips for cracking the whip and disciplining yourself:

 Stop Negotiating. 

More on this all-important topic can be found in Twyla Tharp’s awesome book, The Creative Habit.  She is a machine of self-discipline and this book is one of the best spankings I’ve ever gotten. 

 

Set Realistic Goals. 

Don’t decide that you are a person who runs 20 miles a day when you still consider walking to the pizza parlor around the corner a day’s worth of exercise.  Start with running one mile a day and add more as you get stronger.  Discipline is a muscle, you have to build it at your own pace.  If you bite off more than you can chew at the start, chances are excellent you’ll get discouraged and give up altogether.  Set attainable goals and slowly build from there. 

 Remember Your Why. 

When that sexy piece of chocolate cake is giving you the eye, remember how much better it will feel to be five pounds lighter than it will during that two minute, chocolatey roll in the hay.  If you’re writing and are tempted to get up and do the dishes, make a phone call, do ANTYHING but write, remember how awesome it’s going to feel having a real live book with your name on it that is going to help the world.  Make your “why” your mantra, keep bringing it back to the front of your mind when temptation flashes her sexy smile at you and you will be a mighty, unstoppable force.  It will keep your excitement level up too which will keep you motivated and help you get the job done.

 Note Your Accomplishments. 

Keep track of how well you’re doing and give yourself a hearty bravo on a regular basis.  Self-discipline is all in your mind, so making your mind a happy, focused place is key.  The more you notice how well you’re doing, the more you’ll be inspired to keep the ball rolling. 

 Make a Bet With Someone Mean. 

If you’re someone who really thrives on accountability, this can be a great way to keep yourself in line.  Make a bet with someone who will hold you to it, someone who won’t coddle you or “understand that you tried your best,” who will not take excuses and who will show up at your doorstep if you stop answering their calls.  And make sure you bet something that’s painful enough to lose but not too unrealistic.  For example, you could bet someone $100 that you’ll have the first chapter of your book written by a certain date.  Make it a payable amount that you really don’t want to pay.

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