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.

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?

I’m interested in the fact that your average person has no idea what an amazing, miraculous creative era we are living in! Growing human ears on mice? Building walking dog-style robots? Moving things with your brain waves? The question isn’t “what is possible” but what ISN’T possible?

I’m a diehard reader of Wired and Fast Company magazines, but I am hardly an early adopter tech geek.  I have an iPhone because it was a gift and just enough tech knowledge to be stunned and awed by the collective mind’s capacity for invention and reinvention. Home is TED.com where reasons to be “rationally optimistic” abound:

MakerBot (a 3-D printer???), Maker Faire, etsy, crowdsourcing, open source…. Almost all done for the love and joy of creating than a profit motive. Dan Pink talks about this at length in his new book Drive which then takes me down the rabbit hole of  thinking about all of these amazing “business” books and the ideas within them: The Long Tail, Blink, Freakonomics, A Whole New Mind, The Art of Possibility.  They are not only informative but enjoyable (a completely separate form of creativity, eh?).

Never, in history, has the opportunity to be AUTHENTIC and RELEVANT been so accessible to all of us ORGANIC? It moves at the speed of light these days. The challenge, I think, is in learning how to harness and trust it. I absolutely DO NOT have the answer to this, but I’m learning.

(This post was inspired by Chris Anderson’s amazing article in Wired)

[FULL DISCLOSURE: After years of following her and often quoting/linking to her, she recently became a client. THAT is a whole other conversation. But long before that happy occurrence, she was a significant part of the inspiration for my blog's focus: authentic, relevant, organic business practices.]

Not everyone I talk to here will meet all three of those attributes but Jeannette most certainly does  and is the reason I ALWAYS wanted her to be my first interview.

• Authentic: she is up-front and clear about her struggles with relationships…and foster animals
• Relevant: she started Law of Attraction coaching a year or two before Oprah broke The Secret and made LOA common terminology
• Organic: she built her incredibly loyal following by caring, by interacting, through incredible generosity

In addition to coaching, Jeannette has a variety of popular information products (e-books, cds). This year saw the unveiling of Good Vibe University: a full-service membership site that is crammed with content and every day reveals what a brilliant and loving group of individuals have chosen to interact with Jeannette on this mission of hers.

So, let’s talk!

Hey Jeannette! How long have you been The Good Vibe Coach?

Was there a period of time that you were working a day job while you built your online and coaching business?

That was the original plan, but it didn’t work out too well!  The job was so exhausting and time consuming that I didn’t have the energy (and certainly not any positive energy) for building my coaching practice.  So while I did go through two coach training programs while I was still employed in the corporate world, I didn’t take building my business seriously until I actually gave notice.  And that’s when good things started to happen.

How long have you been blogging? How has that impacted your business?

It’s funny, because I used to swear that I would never blog.  Ever.  Mostly because it seemed everyone else already was, and I didn’t want to just follow the herd.

But I did start Law of Attraction Playground on Blogger in spring of 2007, soon migrated to Good Vibe Blog on WordPress, in which time blogging has become one of the favorite parts of my business!  It satisfies several personal core values, including connection, authenticity, passion, freedom and fun.  It’s allowed me to connect with other like-minded folks and to build a community around the topic I’m passionate about.  Not to mention it is becoming, over time, a nice vehicle for highlighting products and services, too.

Was there a particular moment or post where you thought “uh-oh, I may have something here?” (jump in followers, increased rank, etc?)

I have had a few ”Yay, this is working!” moments when there would be a new record number of comments (or in the beginning, even a comment from someone I didn’t know would get me excited!), or when someone would ask for paid advertising space, or when the incoming links started growing.  Mostly, though, it’s been a gradual evolution of success – no obvious or overnight milestones or wins.  I think that’s part of the trick to staying engaged, because the success isn’t always easy to spot.  It kind of sneaks up on you over time – at least, that’s been my experience.

How many hours per day/week do you spend building your online presence?

I’ve got a feeling that actual number might surprise me.  I don’t formally track it, but my best guess is, between the blog, Twitter, and Facebook that it probably averages under an hour a day.  Some days more, some days less.  I don’t have any set rules about how often or when to check in, I just follow inspiration and do what feels good.  I will say, though, it took me a while to get in my good groove with twitter.  (I used to live there after I first discovered it!)  So I’m feeling much more balance with it all.

If another solo practitioner of some sort asked for some of your lessons on using social media as a business tool, what would you say?

Don’t do it if you’re only engaging it to make something happen for your business.  If you don’t genuinely enjoy spending time on social media, it will come across to others and won’t help as much as something else would that you enjoy more.  People are attracted to passion and enthusiasm and authenticity.  If you can’t be that with your social media, don’t waste your time.

If you were starting over, what would you do differently?

I would be less afraid of making mistakes; in fact I would embrace doing something wrong in favor of not doing it at all. I wouldn’t have worried so much about how it’s “supposed” to be done, relied less on the “experts” and more on my gut.  And I would make a point of enjoying the whole journey more.  It really IS the best part – It really is the best part, you know.  The building of it, the part where you’re not sure what – if anything – is coming from it all.

In the online/social media/blogging world, what are your pet peeves?

Someone trying to convince me they know what’s best for me.  Being “sold” to and fear based and scarcity-based marketing.  Turns me off every time.  I probably miss out on a lot of great content because they’re relying on traditional methods to make the sale.

What do you love, love, love about what you do?

That I’m in charge!  That I get to make my own mistakes, I get to try out something different and do it my way, I get to talk about whatever I want, and that I get to do it alongside other brilliant, fun and inspiring creators!

What do you think it means to be authentic?

For me it means not pretending, not saying or doing something just because it’s what’s expected or what I’m supposed to do or what sounds good to others.  It means honoring my intuition, telling it like it is even when it’s not pretty, and not succumbing to external pressure to do it different.  It’s a real-ness that allows for the kind of genuine connection that just can’t be beat. 

Follow Jeannette on Twitter @goodvibecoach.