Talent is a myth

Litemind has a good article about why talent is a myth. We mentioned this in The Usual Error when we were talking about rephrasing limiting words like “can’t”.

How to recover from a communication landmine

Liz Strauss (the Successful and Outstanding Blog chick) wrote a great post about how to recover from a communication landmine. She gives a different approach to coming to terms and what did you intend?

The problem of context in communication

Iris of Pegasus Librarian writes about the problem of context in communication. How do you know how much context is relevant when trying to communicate an idea? In the absence of shared context, what will the other person assume? Will it even make sense, or will communication be completely flummoxed by the usual error?

Only say things that can be heard

A communication gem nestled in a wiki of software design patterns: only say things that can be heard. If the listener isn’t able or willing to hear what you’re saying, there’s no point in saying it. Either forget it, try again later, or try to say it in a way that the other person can really hear.

The tale of the slow elevators

The lovely folks at 37 Signals recount the tale of the slow elevators. It’s a cute example of the importance of asking “What problem are you trying to solve?”

Have you got any?

If you have any interesting communication-related stories that you’ve experienced or read, let us know in the comments, and maybe we’ll use them in a future Community Update!

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Hi! I’m Pace. I’m a bi poly kinky pagan gamer geek.

Now I say:

Hi! I’m Pace. I’m a spiritual idealist entrepreneur.

I’m still bi, I’m still poly, I’m still kinky, I’m still pagan(ish), I’m still a gamer, and I’m a geek. I still identify with each and every one of those labels.

So why the change?

It’s because of marketing. And since marketing is communication, it’s about communication.

The point of communication is to successfully convey what you want to convey. What you intend to convey doesn’t matter as much as the actual result of your communication — what the other person ends up understanding.

What does this have to do with your online profile, Pace?

How you identify doesn’t matter as much as the actual result of what you write about yourself. What kind of people will it resonate with? What will the outcome be?

In my case, I already have oodles of cool friends who are bi poly kinky pagan gamer geeks. When you co-lead the Freak Revolution, you can expect that. (: But I don’t have many friends who are spiritual idealist entrepreneurs, especially not in Austin. So that’s what I want to focus on.

Of course, honesty is paramount. If people feel baited and switched (regardless of whether you intended to bait and switch them), no one wins. But even among the true stories, there are millions of different true stories you can tell about yourself. Each of them will resonate differently with different people.

What story do you want to tell?

Wait, this isn’t just about online profiles?

Can you see how this applies to everything?

• Your website
• Your blog
• Your business
• How you dress
• What you talk about on a first date
• How and where you spend your money
• How and where you spend your time
• How you live your life

In everything you do, you tell a story. Sometimes with words, sometimes with actions. Usually, we think self-consciously, “What does this story say about me?”

Today, I want you to think about this question instead:

What outcome will result from this story?

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Imagine this.

Alice and Betsy are emailing each other in an attempt to make plans to meet. Betsy initiated the attempt, they’ve already agreed on a location, and now it’s gotten down to picking a time.

Alice volunteers, “I’m free every Saturday and Sunday, from morning until 3:30 in the afternoon.”

Betsy replies with, “I’m available every evening after 8, and all the time on weekends.”

What, if anything, would you assume about Alice and/or Betsy based on this reply? What might you guess about their intent, reliability, level of personal responsibility, or desire to actually follow through on these plans?

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We are thrilled to announce that, after much work, many laughs, and long anticipation, the Usual Error audiobooks are here at last! If you liked the Usual Error book, e-book, or our series of Usual Error blog posts, you’ll love the audio book.

We only ordered 100 copies for our first run and after that we’ll be back-ordered, so grab yours now if you don’t want to wait. (:

We (Pace and Kyeli) take turns reading the book to you, with some of the example dialogues acted out by our talented friends. They come in a beautiful 6-CD set – one disc per section of the book, plus a bonus CD of outtakes, including a full two minutes of Kyeli losing her shit and laughing her fool head off. The outtakes are hilarious, people. They also include some awesomely funny interactions between a couple of our guest stars.

Why do you care?

I don’t know. We can’t read your mind. (: But we can tell you why we care.

We care about The Usual Error, in all its forms, because communication is a form of connection. Practicing communication leads to deeper connection with others and also with yourself. It’s a great way to start changing the world! (See page 28 of the Freak Revolution Manifesto for more on the how and why.)

We care about the audiobook in particular because it’s a fun way for you to learn and practice communication. You get to listen to the two of us read to you, and you can lean back and soak it all up. You get to listen to our friends (who also happen to be talented voice actors) act out some of the dialogues from the book. And on the outtakes disc, you get to laugh along with us as you listen to all the times we messed up or broke into giggle fits while recording it. (:

Here it is!

Click here for more information, including streaming audio samples from the actual audiobook and the outtakes reel! We hope that it will make you really happy. (:

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I went through every comment and email that y’all wrote and I sorted them into a few broad categories. I know some of these are not a perfect fit for what you actually said, so I apologize if I rounded your comment too roundily. (:

9: Shyness / intimidation / fear

9 people said “I’m reluctant to ‘put myself out there’ because of shyness, intimidation, or some other reason.”

This was the biggest one, and I totally underestimated it. It’s a really embarrassing case of the usual error, because the exact same thing happened to me with the Revolutionary Tuesday videos! I had a ton of discomfort about ‘putting myself out there’. And I totally forgot. I totally forgot how scary it was for me. I’m sorry about that.

8: Too busy

8 people said “I’ve been super busy with other stuff / procrastination / apathy / not a high priority”

It’s all good. (: We aren’t under any illusions that the Freak Revolution is the #1 priority in all your lives. Remember that we don’t want you to feel guilty or that you’ve let us down for not entering the contest. Our goal here is to make you feel awesome, not crappy.

8: Who, me?

8 people said “I couldn’t think of how I’m changing the world / I figured I wouldn’t win”

*nods* That’s what yesterday’s post was about, so I don’t have anything new to add here.

7: I can’t, or don’t know how.

5 people said “I don’t have access to a webcam or camcorder.”

2 people said “I don’t know how to produce/edit/submit a video.”

This was the usual error again on my part. I’m sorry. I overestimated how many people have webcams or camcorders, and I also overestimated how many people know how to produce, edit, and share them.

5: I’m just not into you. (Where you = video)

5 people said “I’m not into videos.”

*nods* Now that we did expect. I remember from when we were doing Revolutionary Tuesday and Freaky Thursday that some people just aren’t into videos. We knew this contest wouldn’t be for everyone.

3: I’m just not into you. (Where you = prizes/contests)

3 people said “I’m not motivated by prizes and/or contests.”

*nods* Cool. We knew this wouldn’t be for everyone.

1: Onesies

1 person said “I figured nobody would even watch my video, so why bother?”

We did say that we’d post all the entries, even the ones that didn’t win. Next time we’ll be sure to communicate this more clearly, because it sucks to feel like you’re putting a lot of work into something that no one might even see. (Kind of feels like being a blogger sometimes.) (:

1 person said “Perfectionism.”

I hear you, sister! (: As an aside, have you seen Michelle Russell’s site, Practice Makes Imperfect?

1 person said “Too busy changing the world to make a video about how I’m changing the world.”

Ha! You rock. For some reason, that reminds me of the Chinese proverb “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.”

We miscommunicated. A lot.

Everyone we heard from assumed that we expected you to film yourself giving a speech about what you’re doing to change the world. As an eternal student of communication, I’m curious to discover how you got that impression so I can learn how to communicate more clearly with you in the future.

In the first contest announcement on the Freak Revolution newsletter, we said:

“We want videos, approximately one minute in length, telling us something about what’s wrong with the world, how you’re making changes, or what you want to see more of in the world. Something along those lines.”

In the first contest announcement on the blog, we attempted to clarify a bit and said:

“Submit inspirational and uplifting videos, approximately one minute in length, telling us something about what’s wrong with the world, how you’re making changes, what changes you plan to make in the future, what you want to see more of in the world, or something along those lines.”

When we realized that people were generally getting the impression that we expected you to film yourself giving a speech about what you’re doing to change the world, we attempted to clarify further, saying:

“Be creative! You can sing an inspirational song, talk about your philosophy, share an uplifting story, use sock puppets… whatever!”

We actually miscommunicated twice. Firstly, we accidentally gave you the impression that we expected you to film yourself talking. How did you get that impression? In fact, we would have been totally great with you creating a video of a funky Flash animation, a bunch of text scrolling by, or even filming a tomato with eyeballs. (:

Secondly, we accidentally gave you the impression that the entries must be about what you are doing to change the world. We actually intended the range of topics to be much broader than that. If, for example, you wanted to talk about your philosophy about changing the world in general or share an inspirational story about some other world-changer, that would have been totally cool with us. How could we have communicated that to you more clearly?

Thanks for any insight you can give. We always love learning to communicate better.

How we will do better in the future

In addition to communicating more clearly in the future, we’re going to listen to your suggestions and have our next contest be a writing contest! I’ll talk to Kyeli and we’ll work out the details.

If you have suggestions for the upcoming writing contest, for example what sorts of prizes you’d be most excited by, please let us know now!

Thanks very much for your feedback. We appreciate you a lot!

Related posts:

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So now what?

Well, you can get the entire e-book for free as a downloadable pdf file, complete with illustrations. You can get the tree book from Amazon.com. And if you ask Kyeli really, really sweetly, you can get a special, autographed copy of the tree book directly from us.

In the meantime, we’ve now got Wednesdays free for other interesting posts here on the blog. Exciting! And in September, we’ve got Manifesto Madness, so we’ll need all the extra space we can get.

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Chapter 34: Endings

What if we told you that there is a simple, extremely effective way to make your days better, your relationships smoother, and unpleasant experiences more bearable? What if we said it doesn’t require any willpower or study and very little practice? Wouldn’t that be a great way to end the book?

…and here’s the rest:

• Read The Usual Error ebook, Chapter 34: Endings (web page)

That’s it! That’s the entire book!

34 weeks, 34 chapters.

You’ve read along for two-thirds of a year, and now, at long last, it’s complete. As we promised 8 months ago, we’re releasing the PDF version of the e-book today! This is the exact file that was used to create the tree book.

Here’s the present! Download the free Usual Error e-book!

Download, share, and enjoy! (PDF, 10MB)

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Chapter 33: Teasing

Teasing is a common element in communication, even among adults. Let’s take a closer look at teasing and find out what is actually going on.

Stephanie’s Example: Don’t Tease My Hair!

Stephanie gets a perm. It looks odd and frizzy. She asks her friend Alice’s opinion, and Alice says, “It looks like you stuck your finger in an electrical outlet!” She laughs, then says, “Just kidding.” But despite that, Stephanie’s feelings are hurt. Alice gets annoyed; after all, she was only teasing. “What’s wrong with you, Stephanie?” Alice retorts. “Can’t you take a joke?” Alice turns to her other friends for support and they band together to defend Alice. “You’re so sensitive, Stephanie! Alice was just teasing; she didn’t mean anything by it!”

---

…and here’s the rest:

• Read The Usual Error ebook, Chapter 33: Teasing (web page)

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]]> http://freakrevolution.com/2009/08/26/book-bonanza-wednesday-chapter-33-teasing/feed/ 0 http://freakrevolution.com/2009/08/19/book-bonanza-wednesday-chapter-32-rephrasing-things-positively/ http://freakrevolution.com/2009/08/19/book-bonanza-wednesday-chapter-32-rephrasing-things-positively/#comments Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:30:32 +0000 Pace and Kyeli http://freakrevolution.com/?p=1346 Each week we give away the next chapter of our book for free. We hope you enjoy it! Here’s this week’s chapter:

Chapter 32: Rephrasing things positively

The words we use to describe our lives affect how we perceive our lives and thus the quality of our lives. You can improve the quality of your life by choosing to rephrase things positively. In particular, we’ve found that rephrasing obligation words, limitation words, and violent words has significantly improved our happiness, and we’re going to show you why and how.

---

…and here’s the rest:

• Read The Usual Error ebook, Chapter 32: Rephrasing things positively (web page)

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]]> http://freakrevolution.com/2009/08/19/book-bonanza-wednesday-chapter-32-rephrasing-things-positively/feed/ 7 http://freakrevolution.com/2009/08/12/book-bonanza-wednesday-chapter-31-knowing-is-half-the-battle/ http://freakrevolution.com/2009/08/12/book-bonanza-wednesday-chapter-31-knowing-is-half-the-battle/#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:30:57 +0000 Pace and Kyeli http://freakrevolution.com/?p=1344 Each week we give away the next chapter of our book for free. We hope you enjoy it! Here’s this week’s chapter:

Chapter 31: Knowing is half the battle

You can’t solve a problem unless you first know it exists. Often when we discover a problem, we react with dismay. We say, “Oh no, now there’s this new problem!” and feel worse than we did before we discovered it. That’s not the whole story, though — you can’t solve a problem unless you identify it first. Knowing is half the battle.

Take a look at the illustration. This is what we call the Hill of Discovery. On the far left are the Flatlands of Stagnation. The steep drop at the end of the Flatlands is The Cliff, which leads down into The Pit. After that is the rough climb up the Hill of Discovery, leading up to the Plateau of Happiness.

---

…and here’s the rest:

• Read The Usual Error ebook, Chapter 31: Knowing is half the battle (web page)

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]]> http://freakrevolution.com/2009/08/12/book-bonanza-wednesday-chapter-31-knowing-is-half-the-battle/feed/ 1