Resourcing the Revolution

hell yes

The Simple Stress-Buster Every Entrepreneur Needs

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Everyone who is out doing big things in the world experiences “it”.

That moment where uncertainty rolls in like a thick fog. When you start questioning everything. And when you start comparing yourself to others… resulting in the mother of all entrepreneurial stresses:

Imposter syndrome.

In my experience, there’s nothing more stressful. Nothing that overwhelms me faster. And it’s usually a surefire way to suck every last ounce of motivation out of me, to leave me wanting to curl up on the couch and binge Netflix for the rest of my life. Because, really. Who needs that kind of stress in their life?

But, rather than succumbing to the fetal position, there’s a sure-fire way kiss this kind of stress goodbye.

Stress. Busted.

Let me tell you a little story.

Last week, I was stuck. I was in what I’ll call really crappy headspace. Questioning everything. Feeling totally overwhelmed.

I sat at my computer for a while, staring at the list of priorities I wanted to tackle. And I couldn’t motivate myself to do anything.

So I sat there, feeling sorry for myself. And… I may have cried a little bit, too (if I’m being totally honest).

But the last thing on my to-do list was simple. I wanted to clean up the house. And it felt like if I couldn’t accomplish anything else, I could at least do a little dusting.

So I forced myself out of my chair, grabbed my phone, pulled up Pandora, and put on one of my favorite playlists.

And then, something remarkable happened.

The Magic of the Perfect Playlist

Pandora served me up a big ‘ole smack in the face of musical inspiration and awesomeness. I finished up the dusting, and decided I also wanted to vacuum. And by the time I was done cleaning the house, I had worked my way out of my funk.

You may not know this about me, but I was a music major in college. I’ve listened to and played music for most of my life, and yet I still manage to occasionally (okay, regularly) forget the power of music.

It’s a totally individual experience, and everyone will have a slightly different type of music and general vibe that’s their perfect mix. But I truly believe that everyone who’s out there in the world trying to make a difference needs their own “resilience” mix.

(Side note, I find that randomly shuffled playlists have the tendency to play just the right song, at just the right time. Maybe I attribute it to lucky coincidence. Or maybe I attribute it to signs from the universe… #nojudging)

Either way, music is a powerful – and ridiculously simple – tool we can add to our entrepreneurial toolbox.

Curate Your Mood

So how do you curate your list? Simple. Pick music that makes you want to shake your booty. Music that inspires you, and leaves you with a smile on your face.

If you’re still having trouble getting started, I’ve curated a list of a few songs you can start with to build a playlist of your own, including the lyrics that speak to the entrepreneurial journey.

Here’s a taste of what your stress-busting, imposter-syndrome-overcoming playlist might include:

Rachel Platten: Fight Song

Like a small boat
On the ocean
Sending big waves
Into motion

I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion

My power’s turned on
And I don’t really care if nobody else believes
‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me

X-Ambassadors: Renegades

Long live the pioneers
Rebels and mutineers
Go forth and have no fear
Come close the end is near

It’s our time to make a move
It’s our time to make amends
It’s our time to break the rules
Let’s begin

Phillip Phillips: Home

Settle down, it’ll all be clear
Don’t pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear

The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found
Just know you’re not alone

American Authors: Go Big or Go Home

I’m thinking life’s too short it’s passing by
So if I’m gonna go at all
Go big or go home

Sheppard: Geronimo

Well we rushed it
Moving way too fast
That we crushed it
But it’s in the past

We can make this leap
Through the curtains of the waterfall
So say Geronimo!
Say Geronimo!

Shakira: Try Everything

I messed up tonight
I lost another fight
I still mess up but I’ll just start again
I keep falling down
I keep on hitting the ground
I always get up now to see what’s next

I wanna try everything
I wanna try even though I could fail
I won’t give up, no I won’t give in
Till I reach the end
And then I’ll start again

American Authors: Best Day of My Life

I had a dream so big and loud
I jumped so high I touched the clouds
I’m never gonna look back
Woah, never gonna give it up

But all the possibilities
No limits just epiphanies
No, just don’t wake me now
This is gonna be the best day of my life

Andy Grammer: Good to Be Alive

I’ve been grinding so long, been trying this shit for years
and I got nothing to show, just climbing this rope right here
and if there’s a man upstairs, he kept bringing me rain
but I’ve been sending up prayers and something’s changed

I think I finally found my hallelujah
I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life
Now all my dreams are coming true, yeah
I’ve been waiting for this moment

Feels good to be alive right about now

Eminem: Lose Yourself

Look
If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you capture
Or just let it slip?

Journey: Don’t Stop Believin’

Do I really need to explain this one? (Yeah, didn’t think so.)

Get Up Off That Thang

So my challenge for you today? Go create your own “get outta this funk” playlist.

Open up Pandora (you can sign up for a free account with just your email address), search for “Shut Up and Dance“, and create a station from that song. Then go to station details, and “add variety.” Add the other songs above, or some of your favorites.

Then, any time you’re feeling stuck or otherwise questioning everything in your life, open up the station, crank the volume, and dance around your house like no one is watching.

Here’s to rising above the funk, getting inspired to do big world-changing things, and celebrating the small things in life. Including booty-shaking playlists.

And if you’re feeling like you could use more than just a little booty shaking to cultivate all-around resilience and flow in your life and business, sign up for the Resourcing the Revolution newsletter. Every edition delivers a mix of soul-level insight, somatic tools, and playlist-worthy inspiration — designed to help you ground your energy, reconnect with your purpose, and keep showing up for what matters.

We Are Power Shift (and the Leadership Team)

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power-shift_640You may have noticed that I have alluded to being selected for a national Leadership Team for the We Are Power Shift online community in a couple of my previous posts. Well, this week marks the official launch of the team, and the point at which I can start sharing information about what I’m up to!

We Are Power Shift is a grassroots-driven online community that seeks to empower and serve as a hub for the youth climate movement. The site offers activists a forum for discussion and a platform to share resources, swap stories, strengthen relationships, and showcase our diverse movement to the media and the world. The community we create helps us to build political power, harness our collective energy, amplify our message and advance our vision of a clean, just and sustainable future.

The Leadership Team started meeting back at the beginning of the year, and even got together in Washington, DC last month for a long weekend of team building and brainstorming. During that time period, we have laid the foundations for the work we’ll be doing, including putting together our vision of what the team is about.

We’re here to make sure that the batteries are charged and the volume is turned up on our movement’s megaphone. The We Are Power Shift Leadership Team supports the development of this grassroots community and ensures that the site provides the space, structure, tools, and climate (no pun intended) for the growth of our movement. We work with the community to keep the site as dynamic, agile, and engaging as this movement’s leaders. By responding to the community’s needs and providing resources, references, and training, we hope to catalyze activism and solidify an online foundation for future victories.

Any time I blog over at the WAP site, I’ll be cross-posting here. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t go visit the site – you definitely should! What you’ll find there are lots of great, motivated and empowered young folks who are kicking ass and taking names (environmentally speaking).

My introductory post can be found here:

http://www.wearepowershift.org/blogs/meet-jessica-can-one-person-really-make-difference

And, more about my other superstar teammates can be found here:

http://www.wearepowershift.org/leadership-team

Until next week, happy world-changing!

Uncle! (or: when enough is too much)

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too-much_640If you’re anything like me, you tend to take on new, cool and exciting projects fairly often.

One at a time, they find their way to your plate. And one by one, you find time in your life for each of them. You move something here, and squish something there.

All of a sudden, you find yourself with your arm twisted behind your back. Sometimes, you just have to admit defeat. Admit that the pain is too much, that if your arm gets twisted any further, it might just pop out of its socket.

(I had a guy as a best friend when I was little, and we used to beat the crap out of each other – fighting until the other cried “uncle!” – “enough!”)

It doesn’t hurt so much right at this moment, but then it happens: one more project drops into view, one more thing to try to squeeze into your already packed life, one more thing that’s just so awesome, so right, that you can’t turn it down.

You find yourself stuck, caught at that intersection of “ouch” and “holy-crap-you’re-breaking-my-arm”.

What do you do?

Where do you find the balance between the stuff you want to do and the stuff you have to do?

Do you push through the pain, and take on just one more thing?

Do you clear some of the other, not so perfect projects, say goodbye to them?

And, what if all the perfect projects aren’t paying your rent? Do you settle for paying the rent with crappy work, or do you scrape by on passion projects?

More than anything, it comes down to what’s right for you.

At this moment in your life, what do you want to be doing? What is your hell yes?

And, if for some reason you can’t pay your rent with your hell yes right this moment, how can you point yourself in the right direction?

That’s where I’m sitting today – and if I’m telling the truth, it’s actually where I’ve been sitting since the beginning of this year. I’d be a big, fat liar if I told you I had all the answers, had it all figured out.

Is there anyone who really does have it all figured out? I would like to think that life is all about finding our answers, finding ourselves.

If you need to find me this evening, I’ll be out there in the world, finding my answers.

Say Yes More (or: how to step outside the skin you’re in)

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say-yes_640When I was a senior in college, one of my roommates and I made a pact.

Given the post title, you might be imagining some crazy blood-brother style, spit-and-shake agreement; we were in college at that point…

Alright – enough with the crazy ideas. It wasn’t that kind of pact!

We were both newly single and tired of business as usual, and needed to break out of our respective ruts. We were both upperclass music majors, so we were up to our ears in school obligations. But, despite our otherwise full calendars, we made a decision.

For one whole month, we would both accept every social invitation we were offered.

Every. Single. One.

Now I know that you’re thinking that the two of us were nuts. There was a high likelihood that we would have some negative experiences, and there was a lot of uncertainty as to how the experiment would turn out.

(To be clear, we drew lines – this was more along the lines of saying yes to a date with a guy who wasn’t really our type. Axe murderers and homicidal maniacs need not apply. We weren’t stupid about the way we proceeded with things, and we were sure to take our safety and health into account.)

The result of our month long social experiment?

My first required “yes” was the random non-student at a party who asked for my phone number. I hoped that he wouldn’t call, but he did. We went on a date to a pizza place in town; he had a suspended license, so I had to pick him up; the date was mediocre.

There were a few more instances like this between the two of us, but we also expanded our horizons. We had experiences that we wouldn’t have otherwise.

We attended concerts that we might otherwise have skipped. We joined friends for meals that might have been passed over. We connected with people who we might never have met.

Yes, we both had a few bad dates. However, what we really took away from that month was the power of saying yes.

When we say no all the time, we close ourselves down – seal ourselves away from the world – and we never experience anything new.

While sometimes it’s nice to put on my pajamas, fix my favorite meal and re-watch a movie I’ve seen multiple times, it’s not what I want to spend my life doing.

I usually advocate only doing the things in life that are a “hell yes” – but there’s a caveat.

You might be missing out on a new “hell yes” without even realizing it, if you say no too quickly to an untested idea or experience.

Where is all this going?

My challenge for you this month:

Go out and say “yes” to more new things in your life. If you want to recreate the “month of yes”, I would encourage you to do so (mindfully), and I would love to hear about your experiences.

And, as always, feel free to share your stories with me. I would love to hear how an unexpected experience had an impact on your life!

Surrounded (or: why not to go it alone)

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surrounded_640I decided some time ago to wipe the word “busy” from my vocabulary. It conjures up this vision of days filled to the brim, of doing “things” just to say that we have done them, of a life filled with “should”.

No more!

Part of the motivation behind choosing to live life on my terms was to dig deep down, to uncover the things in life that I am passionate about, and to allow my days to be filled by those things. No “should”. Just “hell yes”.

November has been a crazy month; too many things on my to do list, and not enough time to accomplish them all. Has some “should” gotten into the mix? Yes, but it’s par for the course.

I knew that adding in an absurdly difficult 30 day challenge this month was perhaps going to be too much, but that’s part of the fun of NaNoWriMo – you set a lofty goal, you push like hell, and hopefully at the end you come out a winner.

Rewind to just around one week ago, and I was ready to throw in the towel. NaNo just wasn’t feeling fun anymore, and I considered giving up. I had passed the 20,000 word mark, and something kept me hanging on, kept me pushing forward even though it felt a little bit like pulling teeth. I think it was probably a mixture of guilt and “should”.

And then, this crazy thing happened.

Every year, our local group of Wrimos hosts what is called a “Slump-erparty”. It’s more than just a traditional write-in. It’s one of the greatest motivational tools ever.

Picture the following:

It’s mid-month.

You drag your weary self into Writer House, word count sadly lacking, motivation almost gone.

You sigh (heavily) about your pitiful word count.

You laboriously pull your laptop out and get set up, usually procrastinating as much as possible along the way.

You start writing. Surrounded by these other writers, ordinary people just like you, who are pregnant with their first child, or writing their novel while also working full time and going back to school, or any of the other stories that lurk within the people behind those laptops and notebooks, you pick up where you left off.

Before long the pace of your writing picks up and you start laughing and joking during writing breaks. All of a sudden your novel starts looking less like the tired piece of crap that you came in with, and your characters start to take an interest in their roles. Things start looking up.

Then, out of the blue, you remember why you do this every year. You remember why this is a “hell yes”.

Suddenly, you have just written 10,000 words in two days, you have laughed so hard that you cried because of a late night word game, and you’re *thisclose* to being back on track.

So what happened? What caused this seismic shift in your perception?

It’s about the people.

This could be any situation anywhere, whether for work or fun (or a combination of the two). Life is made or broken by the people you surround yourself with – if you are surrounded by smart, motivated, positive people who are on the same path as you (and maybe even cheering you on) think about the difference it will make.

There is a lot of talk about finding your tribe online, finding the people who really matter, who really care. I think that the concept of tribes is fantastic, and can be applied online and off.

So, my challenge for you during this holiday week is this: think about who you want your tribe to be, and go find them. Surround yourself with people who personify what you want to be, and then go be it.

May your journey be filled with amazing, inspiring traveling companions.

And, Happy Thanksgiving!