I needed a break, I needed to stuff the coffers, I got a great offer. I’m happy, but I can’t blog from work. I’m working A LOT and can’t manage more than I already have. I’m rarely on Twitter and only hit Facebook via the iPhone most days.

Don’t let my break discourage you. We’re all on different paths. I have no idea what the future holds. Just that this was right for me right now. I still support some clients. I still love to share. I will always believe in authentic, relevant, organic business growth.

In the meantime, follow my favorites, would ya? You know who they are, right?

Namaste’.

Enjoy!

What makes you and your work relevant?

I think my clients could give you a way better answer to that than I could.

Not because I’m trying to sidestep the question. But because I think the community/tribe/fellow fabulous folks can give the clearest feedback about whether what we’re doing is relevant or not.

Here’s what I do know.

I do something pretty unconventional for a living. I spend my day helping people to get unstuck and awesomize their life and their business through sound. Which means I bang drums and gong gongs a lot.

And I totally don’t fit the mold of someone who does this sound-ey thing. I don’t get into the woo-woo stuff or listen to panpipes or go around wearing all white. I’m a huge fan of punk rock, Doc Martens and reality TV.

So what I do is kind of wacky. And I’ve ignored the way people usually do this stuff. And I’m doing ok.

I’m not broke, living in a cardboard box under a bridge or scarfing down cat food for dinner. I’m doing better than I’ve ever done. And I’m tons happier too.

And if that gives someone else hope that they can do the thing they love and do it their own way, on their own terms, then right on.

Because I think that’s absolutely, totally possible. Even when your thing happens to be something that seems completely kooky.

Who are your online/offline heroes?

Man, there are a ton of people online who I respect like crazy. I started making a list and got to 27 before I realized the list was just going to get longer and longer.

I feel really lucky to be surrounded by a ton of smart, creative, seriously cool people who are doing amazing stuff in the world. And a lot of them are actively involved in helping other people do amazing stuff too. Which is awesomeness squared.

One of my lifelong heroes is Joey Ramone.

Joey was this wildly shy kid who grew up to be a total rockstar. Literally. He was in one of the greatest bands of all times – The Ramones.

And what I love about The Ramones is that they didn’t let anything hold them back. They weren’t the most technically skilled musicians in the world. And they had plenty of personal stuff to deal with.

But they did their thing anyway. And they pioneered a whole new style of music that changed the music scene forever.

They loved what they did. You could feel that fire in every single song they played.

What’s a book that changed your life?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach.

I bumped into this book when I was a teenager. And it really rocked me. It’s an awesome book. I still have my original copy that’s totally yellowed and ragged.

It’s a cool book about life. And fear. And the ordinary and the extraordinary.

I’ve got a bazillion books. But I reread this one at least once a year.

Fabeku does everything right. Ok, his wife probably doesn’t agree, but in the world of authentic, relevant, organic networking, you bet he does. He is 100% without artifice.

I was lucky to have a sit down chit-chat with him over drinks this spring and found him to be as genuine and engaging in person as he is via Twitter or his blog/vlog posts. We debated social media, consistent blogging, and our parenting while I fell spell to the twinkle in his eye.

Aside from being one of his ‘taters and a neighbor, I’m an ardent admirer of his conviction to live life his own way (generally with a chunk of chocolate, a cup of tea and a kitty at his side) and how he treats his community. Drummer extraordinaire, soother, connector, intuitive, he simply rocks with conviction and joy.

Because of his generosity in giving of himself, I’m going to divide this particular interview into 2 -TWO-(two) JUICY PARTS. I will confess to having cried when I first read his responses.

In part one, The Fabulous Fabeku lets us in on his thoughts on fearlessness and authenticity:

Where’d your fearlessness come from? Especially in business?

I totally wish I could say I was fearless. But I’m not.

I mean, I have moments where I feel fearless. And those are delicious.

But a lot of the time? I’m scared out of my mind.

I’m getting way better at not letting that stop me or influence my choices though. So, for me, it’s more about learning how to deal with the fear versus not having it in the first place.

Another thing that’s been totally helpful is disillusionment.

I’ve bumped into places in my life – personally and professionally – where I was just totally over it. Where pretty much nothing was working and I was so completely not digging it.

When you get to that place it’s easy to make big changes and do big things. Because you almost have to at that point. It’s like your survival instinct kicks in and you have to leap.

But I think that’s a rough way to live.

So I’ve tried to dissect those nothing’s-working-totally-over-it places to figure out how I landed in the suck in the first place.

And it all goes back to fear.

Being afraid to make changes along the way to keep things from getting to that saturated-with-suck point. Being afraid to make little course corrections, which leads to being wildly off course. Being afraid to be who I am because I was scared of being rejected.

I ended up disillusioned when I let fear call the shots.

So I’ve had to switch it up a little. It’s not that I’m not afraid. I just can’t make decisions based on that fear anymore.

What are your thoughts about online authenticity? How naked do you want to be?

I think authenticity is crazy important.

Being authentic is about being you. Feeling free to be as much you as you can be.

And there’s a spectrum there. Everybody has to find what feels right and doable for them.

I don’t think being authentic has to mean being naked. I mean, it can. But it doesn’t have to. You don’t have to drop your drawers to be real.

I’ve been through the whole OMG-I-can’t-be-me thing. It sucks. And it’s hard. It’s a miserable way to live. And it’s miserable way to do business.

It’s also not sustainable. How long can someone keep not being themselves? That takes so much energy. Eventually you just run out of gas.

Being able to be who I am is one of those cornerstone kind of things in my world.

But it can be scary. There’s a lot of talk about being authentic which is rad. But people don’t always talk about how that can be seriously scary.

So, circling back to the fear thing, knowing how to work with the scary can be super helpful.

Making the decision to be me has pretty much been the best thing ever. Not just for my business, but for me personally.

Part 2 in two days. Off to find a hankie. Again.

At GalaDarling.com, she’s turned off comments and gives a nice explanation for why she’s doing it, but also how you can still interact with her.

Honesty, Space & Staying True: Why I Turned Off Comments

I’m beginning to think that turning off comments is the new way to say “I’ve arrived!”.

And a divider between the haves/have-not’s, bigs/littles, popular/geeky kids with acne who are in the band and play chess. Wait! There is a show for them now and it is doing pretty well.

I’ve voice my opinion on the blog comment debate repeatedly but I think this is a good space to keep talking about it.

I know. You don’t expect to see a naked man on THIS blog. Naked Maggie Gyllenhaal is far more likely but I’m a bit enamored with Colin Wright (and Adam Lambert) so here he is.

Colin is living life, both on and off line, the ARO way: authentic, relevant and organic. He’s the man behind Colinismy.name sustainable design studio and Exile Lifestyle, his vagabonding, location-independent lifestyle blog.

I’m a whore for people who live non-traditionally. If they can mix it with business, it is an ARO moment.

Some things Colin and I share:

1. He whittled down his possessions to 50! (I want to!)
2. He lets his readers vote every 4 months on his next travel location. (I have readers!)
3. He’s a Capitalist and a Humanist (caps his), and more. (I’m a humanist!)
4. He loves sustainable design (me too!).
5. He also runs an e-publishing design firm called ebookling (I LOVE THAT NAME) that he has big dreams for.
6. Clearly he likes to be naked. And so do I.

Here’s the interview:

Where’d your fearlessness come from? Especially in business?

Part philosophy and part experience.

I’ve got a good deal of Stoic in my personal philosophy, so the idea of lows being just as valuable as highs plays a big role in my decision-making.

On that same note, I’ve had several businesses fail in a very epic fashion, and after you’ve been on starvation rations and had your name dragged through the mud a few times for your failures, there’s not a lot left that’s too terrifying; just different degrees of uncomfortable.

I guess in a way I’m comforted by the fact that I know I can make a 6-figure income, and no one and nothing can take that away. So what if I make a huge miscalculation and lose everything? I’ve worked my way up from $4/hour before, and I can do it again.

What’s the worst that could happen?

What are your thoughts about online authenticity? How naked do you want to be?

I’m all about authenticity online, though I’m a brander so that should be expected.

The ideal brand is all you, not a fabrication. Branding merely organizes what’s important about you so that you can communicate your ideology to others faster. To NOT be authentic is just bad practice (and unfortunately all too common, online and off) and results in a confusing message and less impact.

I’m willing to be as naked as I need to be (in some cases, quite literally) in order to surround myself with the most brilliant, ambitious, game-changing people possible. This is why I started my blog, and to do otherwise would really be shooting myself in the foot.

And, to be perfectly honest, I’ve tried doing it otherwise and I just can’t…it’s not how I operate. I can’t get excited about projects that my name doesn’t have a stake in. I like the idea of constantly investing in my personal brand so that whatever I want to do in the future I’ll always have a head start. To not be transparent in my dealings and activities online would be to not reap the benefits of my actions as completely as I could be.

What makes you and your work relevant?

I think that’s a question for my readers!

That sounds flippant, but it’s really true. To me, my work is something I do for fun and in order to improve myself; to expand my horizons and gain new insight and to have an excuse to do crazy stuff that I would have trouble explaining to people otherwise.

I’ve had readers email me and say that I’ve helped them change the course of their lives, while others have insisted that I’ve expanded THEIR horizons and opened up some new path they didn’t even know was there.

I personally think that the role I play is the same role so many people have played for me: a catalyst. Just knowing that I’m doing what I’m doing has led people to make decisions and changes in their lives that they’ve known they should make all along (or opened their eyes to options they didn’t realize were there, but needed a kick to notice), and I’m thrilled to play that small part in their lives. I’m honored, actually. Every single email I get like that makes my day.

Who are your online/offline heroes?

Let’s see….

My parents have played a huge part, of course. They’ve always encouraged me and made sure that I knew if the worst should happen I’d have a place to come home to, not to mention the fact that my love of reading was instilled by them.

There are numerous philosophers and writers who have influenced me; way too many to list here, but books in general have taught me so much.

Seth Godin’s work has definitely helped me come to the realization that you don’t have to play dirty to succeed in marketing and branding.

Richard Branson’s entrepreneurial methods are inspiring. As someone who delves into different industries with each new business, I am absolutely fascinated by his overarching business methods.

I also tend to surround myself with these really brilliant people. Some are bloggers, some are entrepreneurs, some are just really brilliant folks living normal 9 to 5 lives. Regardless, though, they all keep me on my toes, keep me thinking and questioning, and keep me sane, knowing that there are other people out there who care as much about having a life worth living as I do (whatever they might do with that life).

What’s a book that changed your life?

Atlas Shrugged. The Objectivist philosophy that’s being conveyed is imperfect (as philosophies tend to be), but through this book Ayn Rand put into words so many things that I’ve always felt but didn’t know how to convey. A big part of who I am now came to be after reading this book.

If you just want to do what you do best, but you know you need to reach out to your subscribers, just deciding WHICH of the many newsletter/email services to choose from is overwhelming. Aweber, Constant Contact, Emma, iContact…and a lot of smaller ones I’ve never heard of all offer essentially the same things:

• Templates to more easily build newsletters and graphic email messages
• Templates for sign up forms so people can “opt-in” (i.e. sign up) for your communications (required by law)
• Templates and systems for auto-responders (those routine messages you get immediately after subscribing OR the various automated messages/lessons/reports that you’ve requested)
• Ways to build and manage your list of contacts
• Ways to get these messages out via Twitter and Facebook (or more)

I’ve used all of these for clients. I use MailChimp for myself.

I admit. I’m smitten with the little monkey and that’s part of it. Plus their web content is witty and fun. I should be an affiliate but I’ve been lazy and haven’t signed up. I love them for all those reasons,

But mostly it is because it is FREE for 500 subscribers or less!

That’s right. For most of us sending out our early newsletters and email promotions we don’t pay squat until we get big and famous (and have more money).

MailChimp also offers (in my own damned opinion):

• the easiest interface and explanations for anyone who is new to doing these things
• easier templates (you have to fight a bit with all WYSIWYG dashboards so be patient-even graphic designers can struggle)
• an easy-to-find link to your recent newsletter (not so easy with others) so you can share any way you want
• an easy-to-find link to sign up for your newsletter (not so easy with others) so you can send to whomever you want
• good tutorials and videos

Probably the most complex, thus frustrating to noobs, is Aweber. My guess is it has way more power and features than you will ever need.

All of these sites allow for custom forms, emails, newsletters if you or your graphic designer want to build from scratch in HTML.

And, for the record, can I just say:

Don’t abuse your subscribers.  Don’t hammer them to death with email anything!

Make them hunger and long for a new newsletter!

P.S. You can subscribe to mine here.

This blog is about being authentic. But it is also about business. And thus, I split it up again.

The decision has been hard. Very hard.

I’m glad to put my personal stuff back over here because I don’t have to think so hard over there. I love just popping on and saying “read this”, “watch that”, or “let me bleed emotionally in front of you in the hopes that you will learn faster than me!”. It’s how I started blogging.

But then I built an online business and how much ME to share got confusing. How to divvy it up got confusing. Frankly, my highest traffic has been split between business and personal posts. But, after consulting with the Queen of Red Shoes and Her Knight-in-Wordpress armor, I decided to reside in two distinct locales.

And then I had lots of conversations with Josie, who is training to be a therapist, and who was (rightfully) worried about just how transparent to be online. So then I started worrying about that too because I’m studying to get into grad school for the same damned thing.

If you Google me, I am in an odd assortment of places. I don’t mind this but some of these places would be off-putting at best to a therapy client (!).

Before I combined blogs, I consulted (via quick emails, comments) with Danielle LaPorte and Colleen Wainwright, two ladies that I felt had mixed the personal with the professional well. They both understood my concern:

I’m a bleeding heart liberal. My dad calls me a communist. I remind him I’m a socialist. Some of my clients are, or might be, incredibly conservative. And I have to earn a living.

And they said it was a personal decision.

I would NEVER hide my politics, gender, partner, etc. for money.

The question came down to interest.

Are the people who want to hire me interested in my love life?

Probably not. They might be interested in my writing ability (that is a big might) but are far more interested in how I can save them the pain of the behind-the-scenes tech stuff.

And even as I write this, I feel a bit sick. Because many of my most loyal readers and friends come here, not there, for my thoughts on these human foible issues. That blog is more “me” than this one because it encompasses the many things I care about: design, spirit, sex, love and Mad Men.

So bear with me friends. I would imagine in the next 2-3 years, this whole thing will be completely different. But hell. Will we even be blogging then?

POSTSCRIPT: Today, the day after I published, I found these two posts via Twitter:

vlog post via @fabeku: You can be all of it

post via @jmoriarty: Bland Romance – Losing a client but regaining some perspective

Clearly this topic is one that many, many of us (judging by comments elsewhere) struggle with and, well, some just don’t. So. These two boys have just caused more head spin for me. Thoughts?

Can you really keep up with 3000 people, or more?

I’m a huge Twitter fan…but that fan-dom was threatened when I realized I was increasingly “selling” myself and not having an authentic conversation with people. And that they weren’t having one with me. People I had promoted heavily and believed in, who had responded with a retweet or direct message here or there had never returned my follow.

That means they’ll never see this post. They’ll never get involved in a conversation with me. They can’t…

Companies I’ve called out to on Twitter repeatedly with questions have never responded. Even when they are Twitter apps! They aren’t having a conversation with me…they can’t.

Why? Because of the simple numbers of people we follow on Twitter. Mine is la little more than 1000 (and I review my followers and who I follow about monthly). But try to “listen” even casually to 1,000 people.

Sure you can look for @YOURNAME HERE but this is like being at a dinner party just waiting for someone to holler your name!

Hollah!

I don’t think that’s what all us authentic engaged folks intended to do when we started getting excited about Twitter.

But I’ll be honest. That’s where I go first. Who has mentioned me? Partly vanity, yes, but partly to see if someone is shouting out for me at the party. But what about that great conversation that two of my best friends are having off to the side…I can’t see it. There are two many people at my party.

I can’t genuinely follow 1,000 people. I’ve been trying to shrink the number via “lists” and groups on Hootsuite, but even then it feels too hard and too clique-ish to keep track of.

Facebook’s newsfeed is becoming more attractive (there. I said it).

Then, of course, there is the hard cold reality that Twitter still doesn’t seem to have a plan to monetize and they’ve flatlined in signing up new members.

What will YOU do if Twitter goes bye bye birdie?

Ok. So I was a PayPal dummy once too. It’s no big deal. We all are.

But let me tell you. Adding the ability to pay for your services (this post is not for selling products) on PayPal could hardly be easier. I just did it this week for the first time. You can do it too! (This is for Wordpress and other users that know how to easily embed code into a blog post or widget).

Because you want money in your bank account and this makes it easy to get it there.

1. Make sure you have a PayPal account. This is E-A-S-Y. If you aren’t going to get a PayPal debit card (also easy), then connect your account with whatever bank account you will use to withdraw the funds.
2. Once registered and logged in, go to the tab: Merchant Services.
3. At this point, I probably don’t even need to walk you through more because the Buy Now buttons are the first thing you will see, but I will.
4. Choose your button type (Buy Now is most common but there are others you’ll be interested in: Donations, Gift Certificates, Subscriptions, Automatic Billing and Installment Plan.
5. Name your item and give it an ID (if you want). Customers do not see this. It is for your reference only.
6. And then customize the button if you need to. You can see that I used a custom button with the drop-down pricing here.
7. Add text field. I recommend this. You can put something witty or something that will clarify what is being purchased in this field. Customers WILL see this.
8. This lesson is for services so there should not be a shipping or tax amount.
9. I use my primary PayPal email address under Merchant Account ID’s.
10. I do not use Steps 2 or 3 on the PayPal setup but go directly to Create Button!
11. Copy this code and a) if it is going into a blog post like mine did, choose the HTML tab in your Add New Post section of Wordpress or b)if it going to show up on your home page, add a widget to your side bar (Under Appearance to the left in Wordpress) and paste it there.

Seriously. It is THAT easy. But if you need help, as a freebie, send me an email: kelly@kellylivesay.com or find me on Twitter: @kellylivesay and I’ll see if we can’t walk you through it!

Call me insecure (I’m not) but my feelings are getting a bit hurt. Judging from the comments on Charlie Gilkey’s response post, I’m not alone. My micro-heroes seem to be dissing on communicating via their blog comments and, well, I don’t like it.

I respect them so much. I want to get it. I really do. And I just don’t.

Most big bloggers are using a form of WordPress which has spam filters and most have VA’s who could easily screen out/highlight various comments as inappropriate or send them up the flagpole (gag, corporate speak) as thought-provoking. I fail to see the “creative drain”.

Most big and other bloggers started blogging to build a community of followers who would one day want to buy their products, their events, their services or later, their books. And we have. Yet, when they have that community, they want to stop “talking” to them at the very source they were found?

I know. They’ll continue engaging via social media which is even more of a time-suck and less topic-focused than blog comments. It just doesn’t make sense.

Judging from the input here and on Charlie’s post (via comments, irony intended), I think we can deduce a few things:

• Readers like comments and the ability to locally interact with other readers of a particular blog and, periodically, the author
• Early, small-following bloggers love comments
• Famous (i.e. highly followed) bloggers can find managing blog comments overwhelming OR
• Famous bloggers feel like “mission accomplished”-people know me (i.e. I’m a BRAND) and now I can stop reading their input about my posts

It’s the same reason bigger names don’t return follow on Twitter or build a fan page only versus a personal Facebook page.

This could be cured with good comment management (a good online business manager or VA-and I could not bring myself to link to myself here, Kelly and Dave!) or, with Facebook and Twitter, by return following genuine readers, but using a tool like Hootsuite to manage lists effectively (I can’t manage 1000+ Twitter followers fairly. THAT is not possible).

Lots of people have chimed in that turning off blog comments is a personal decision. Of course it is. That was never the debate. I support anyone in managing their business life as they see fit, and by their gut, just like I do their personal life. The debate, really was about the wisdom of it.

So, do bloggers, writers, entrepreneurs, speakers, coaches, consultants owe the community they worked so hard to build the time and attention required to allow and routinely review comments?

Yes. I think they do. And, it appears, so does most of their community.

Related Post:

Loving and Respecting Your Tribe

More Wise Words from Danielle LaPorte

Postscript:

Charlie Gilkey pointed out a post he wrote in April. It is a wise must-read prequel to this post of mine.