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5 Quick Learning Tips Gleamed from Being a Student ‘Knitter’

September 25 Dawn

Knitting.

Do you? Don’t you?

I don’t. But I’m learning.

My chosen teacher is the lovely lady who works in the shop two doors up.

On making my decision to pick a teacher. She was the right person to ask.

Highly experienced and I know she is capable of great things.

She has shown me shawls and tiny jumpers she makes for teeny people (commonly known as babies) who really won’t appreciate the hours she puts in, but at least they have handcrafted good to dribble glop. on

#1 Pick the right instructor…

I could’ve asked my mum, my Granny taught her. However, she wasn’t the right person for this experiment.

My mum likes to knit, but she’ll admit she’s not passionate about it, unlike my current Knitting Master.

It’s become a family joke when my Mum says, ‘”I can knit you that” as I look at a jumper while shopping, or “I’ll run it up on the sewing machine for you”, hilarity follows because she has an item belonging to each member of the Barclay clan who are still waiting on it stuff being ‘run up’, some from 1982!

So, I had to be sure that my knitting instructor was committed to the learner.

#2 When choosing the right instructor ensure they practice what they preach

In her defence my mum has knitted a few classic … um … pieces over the years.

I remember one Christmas she went on a knitting frenzy.

Every child under 3ft tall got a Barclay Classic Piece of Luxury Knitwear.

She called them hats and scarves.

Debatable.

This is the closest picture I could find to one of these pieces (not me):

Barclay Classic Knitwear — One word. Wrong.

The small village where we lived were over run with Children of the Knit-One, Purl-One that winter.

If Harry Potter had been a knitter and not a wizard, our village was Hat-warts.

It must’ve looked really odd to village outsiders, 20+ children all in the same gear wandering the streets. In fact, it must’ve been really fecking scary. Have you seen the Wicker Man? This was pretty similar, except with wool.

Anyhoo, learning to knit.

It’s going really badly. I suck at knitting. And I’m finding it tediously boring.

A great teacher inspires.

#3 Apply your learning anywhere you can

Although, I’ll confess the implements required for knitting (known as needles … I’m teasing!) were great at unblocking the kitchen sink on Saturday. Reaching parts of the drain that the fondue sticks never have.

However…

#4 Set yourself learning goals

I shall continue until the 31st December*. That’s my date for evaluating my new not-a-passion-yet-hobby-thing.

I’ll decide then if it will be continued or ceased.

Why on earth am I carrying on with something that I:

Can’t do.
Is boring.
Is painfully slow.

Because.

I can’t do it, yet.
It’s boring, right now.
It’s painfully slow, at present.

The desire to say, ‘I made that‘ is greater than the excuses I’m thinking of using for quitting.

Like everything really.

#5 Perspire and Persist

When you feel like quitting, ask yourself why you started.

If you can still connect to the ‘why’ – sweat it out and keep going. If you can’t, it’s time for crochet or origami!

Me? I can’t wait to give my mum her present.:-) Hiya Mum!

*Update: I didn’t continue, this was written in 2012. But Jan 2015 I’m trying again.

That Girl You Used to Know

September 11 Dawn

Art Credit: Tassa Bitsanni on Pitify

“Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.” – Dr. Dale E. Turner

You didn’t want to just settle.

Who knows how it happened. It just did.

At what point to did you make that bed and lie down in it?

When did you decide to sink and submerge into a life that you never planned for?

Like many other women, who’s so-called truth did you believe that at some time, ‘you’ll have to settle down and make a life for yourself’? What were you doing before, not living?!

No, that’s not true.

Some nights do you wake at 3am, unable to sleep do you get up, keeping silent so as not to disturb anyone else, do you make yourself a drink and find yourself alone talking to the girl that used to know?

A picture keeps appearing before you.

You’ve seen it before, it comes often in these moments when you are asking in the darkness ‘is this it?’, or ‘where have I gone?’ but it’s so foggy and unclear, you’re not sure if it’s an actual memory belonging to you.

Do you really want to look back on your life and see how wonderful it could have been had you not been afraid to live it? – Caroline Myss.

In the frame you can see a girl: she looks like you, she speaks like you and she’s begging you to remember her.

She reminds you of the dreams you once swore to live, the aspirations that nobody or anything were going to get in the way of you creating and the passions you once had and spoke about for endless hours.

She begs you to take another look at the picture, to stop just settling and remember the you that you used to be and the world that was available to you is still open for you, if you want it.

She wants you to know it’s possible to retrieve part of what it is to be you without wrecking all that you’ve built up.

You want to pay attention to her but you also think she has no right reminding you.

You question and fight her, telling her that those times and that person are in the past, this is who you are now, you made your choices, you decided on the paths taken.

She leaves, only just to return another night when you are quiet enough to hear her, another day when you are questioning, another moment when you are totally aware of yourself.

She won’t leave. She can’t. She only wants you to remember. To give her some thought every now and then. She knows you are different to her. She doesn’t want you to go back and be her. She just wants you to hang out with her every now and then.

She makes you cry, often. Days, months, years have passed since you last allowed her to be truly free.

And sometimes that hurts. Really hurts. Because free is what you crave. You have no desire to turn your back on the responsibilities you love, that’s not the freedom you really want, the freedom to be you does not have to come at a price.

Some nights you think need to contain that girl. If you didn’t who knows what might happen. You don’t want to be rocking any boats:

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

I won’t do any better, so I’ll stick with what I know.

I might not make it, so I won’t start.

Better not to risk and look foolish.

Anything is better than nothing.

When she knew you well, you didn’t say these words.

It’s been such a long time since she heard you really laugh.

“Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.” – Wendy Wasserstein

She knows that you have been bending to accommodate others. She knows that you had to modify your behaviour and adjust to the roles you willing accepted and the responsibilities that became yours, but she can see the price that this has cost you.

Some days, she’s there when you look in the mirror and her worst fear is that sometime in the future when you look she won’t be there, the sparkle will be gone completely, and all that is left is regret behind the eyes.

She knows you are lost. She knows.

She is the one who can remind you of all of the possibilities and opportunities. She wants you to experience life like how you used to show her life was to be experienced: curious, enquiring, new and fresh.

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.

Mary Anne Radmacher

She’s not asking you to give anything else up, not if you don’t want to, all she’s asking is for you to remember her once in a while and let her out to play.

“The strength of a woman is not measured by the impact that all her hardships in life have had on her; but the strength of a woman is measured by the extent of her refusal to allow those hardships to dictate her and who she becomes.”

Lots of love,

How to Embrace Your Inner Fool

August 31 Dawn

There will be times when you make mistakes that matter, it’s probably best you admit responsibility sooner rather than later for these whoopsicals.

I’ll go first…

I’m sorry that if you signed up for the confidence course on Sat/Sun you got sent to a duff page on the website. I was updating the course and forget to hit save. I think I’ve sorted everyone out now. Have I?

Or like the time I dropped a can of sugary coke down a companies complete telephone system thingy-me-do-dah-box that wiped out all the communication between departments for three days. I can’t believe I wasn’t sacked for that, instead I had a Drinks at Desk Company Policy named after me.

Some have streets and schools named after them once they do great things, I have a policy.

Of course there will be moments when you screw up, the easiest words to say here are ‘I’m sorry’ and mean it.

At other times you will just lose all thought and common sense. Fleeting moments of just being urm, a fool.

I remember (because I heard they were pregnant), saying to an acquaintance at a wedding, ‘Congratulations, when are you due?’ and they replied, ‘I had the baby in March’. As it was then September, I felt ever so foolish.

Or at my first catholic wedding when I thought the words were, ‘Pleased to meet you’, as we went round shaking hands with everyone but they were actually ‘Peace, be with you.’ Fool.

Or the time I gave a presentation with a toilet roll tail. Fool.

Or when I waved at a group of people and jumped up and down like an extra on Glee because I thought I knew them, only to realise I didn’t and then carried out the ‘this is how I scratch my forehead for real action’!

Interviews: how many people have come out of those slapping the palm of their hand against their forehead screaming, ‘What did I say that for? Fool! Fool! Fool!’

How do you handle your moments of foolishness?

Embrace?

Or with disgrace?

I’ll leave you with these before you answer:

“Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos. Before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish in the crowd.”

“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”Colette

“Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great.” Cher

Don’t sweat them.

Not a drop.

How Not to Use Facebook Events, Tagging and Groups for Your Business (A Teeny Rant)

August 31 Dawn

You all know that Facebook is my preferred procrastination strategy and Internet addiction of choice.

Where I used to say ‘I’ll stop for a ‘cuppa’, I now say ‘I’ll stop for a cuppa and a wee 5 minutes stalking session on Facebook’.

Stalking?!

Hell, yeah! You mean that’s not what Facebook for?

No? Darnit.

On more than one occasion I’ve caught myself looking at holiday pictures of somebody I don’t even know and saying to myself ‘that’s a nice villa’ or ‘wow, that looks tasty’ as I clap my eyes on their holiday eats.

I think, ‘why are there no photos of me’, and then it hits I wasn’t even there. Quickly I get the hell out as I’m invading a space where I have no right in being. So yes, I would class that as mini-stalking.

We both know that stalking is unwanted and/or obsessive attention by an individual or group towards another.

But let’s reverse that, let’s talk about…

Little business owners using Facebook to market their business and who are obsessively trying to grab attention by unwanted means.

In particularly let’s hash out the attention that some seek via the Facebook events/groups and tagging features.

You.

Know.

Who.

You.

Are.

Names (at this stage) will be spared.

But for the sake of this post we shall call you Curly. (Curly?! I’ve no idea, it’s the first name that popped into my head, I don’t even know a Curly!)

So ‘Curly’ here we go…

Upfront-i-ness: The other weekend I accidentally invited everyone to an event I was taking part in my home town (Edinburgh). If you and I are connected through Facebook you may have thought ‘Dawn, I’m in South Africa!’ or ‘Yeah, like I’m going to travel 3000 miles for that tomorrow!’ or worse you may have thought I’d skipped over to the dark side to join you.

Unlike you Curly, I do try to treat people with the same respect I would show them off-line. So, I apologised…

Why?

Because the Facebook features of events, tagging and groups has made it mighty easy for little biz owners like you and I Curly to engage in a new level of spam. Personally I don’t like spam being one of those vegetabl-tarian people ‘an all.

I know you may be thinking ‘that’s the way that Facebook is done’.

If you do think it’s okay to carry out the behaviour below Curly can I recommend this course? I attended in 2010 and it was one of the best courses I have taken on using Facebook for Business.

Curly, you may not realise it but you are using Facebook and drawing negative attention to yourself.

Let me explain…

Events Feature

It appears you have developed a common condition called face-y-book-biz-owner-lazyitist-zilch-etiquette when it comes to creating events Curly.

You create an event and invite everyone whether or not the people are interested and/or in the geographical area (if it’s an in person event).

Not content with that, you then use the event you created to email everyone again x10+. And then you add status updates that have nothing to do with the event to the actual event page.

Why do you do this?

Is it because you know every time you update or comment on the event, this is displayed in the 4999 people you invited? Do you think that their connections will see what you have posted and sign up for your event?

You could spare us all Curly and use the Facebook list feature to separate your friends, erm, into lists. And yes, it will take a while because you do have 4999 friends.

See, I’ve got lists called: Edinburgh Peeps, Social Media Chums, Courses (various lists of people I have attended programs with), Blogger Peeps, Friends + Family, Personal Development Peeps, Careers Peeps and so on.

I know that if I’m doing something in Edinburgh, I would only invite people in Edinburgh. And I would say on the event page something along the lines ‘I’m inviting Edinburgh peeps to this event, if it’s not for you, apologies for intruding but if you know someone who will love, please share’.

Why do that? Because at least the people who have no interest in the event will know I considered their personal space, it’s polite Curly.

Tagging Photos

I know you love this feature Curly, I observe when you upload a photo, you write a status update and then tag (using the @ symbol in Facebook) a wheen of people so that your picture, name, product, service is seen by the person tagged and their friends.

Don’t you think this is just rude unless the person is in it, or it has something to do with them, or you know they will love it and it will be of interest?

Worse for business though Curly is tagging a picture that has feck all to do with you and your business. WTF? Pictures of quotes and cute kittens or the ‘motivational quote of the day; usually involving a beach or some big text just to grab attention, come on. It’s annoying. Stop. It.

Earn your attraction stripes.

If you’re going to tag people at least tag them in something that would interest them, is of value, or you know they would like.

Make them smile, not seethe.

‘People don’t have to approve the tag’, you may say.

The majority of people aren’t aware of all the strategies and tactics little business owners use for their business marketing on Facebook Curly.

I’ll assume you know this. Therefore the responsibility is yours to stop being so darned lazy and learn how to engage with people so they want to share your information without you facey-booky-spamming them.

Why should you expose people to crap and expect them to clean up your dirty work? Would you stand outside screaming ‘oh, look at me, look, look, look, looky at me, see me, see me’? No? So what makes it acceptable anywhere online?

I’m teaching people how to censor your tags you Curly, I’m telling them that if they are sick of being tagged in crappy photos and want to approve them first they need to do this:

Go to Home and Click on Privacy Settings

Use these settings or choose your own preferences

I hope you don’t mind.

Moving on to Facebook Groups (or the misuse of)

Curly, belonging to groups is lovely.

Being invited is wonderful.

Being added to a group without permission. Meh.

It’s like being stolen from my house, blindfolded, thrown in a car, and then dumped in the centre of a party where I know nobody and have no idea what the hell is going on. I didn’t ask to go, I maybe didn’t want to be there. I may have no interest whatsoever in the theme of the party.

It’s wrong. Ask people if they want to join the party.

Is that so hard Curly? I mean you’re connected, right? You would be able to send them a quick email, yes? Or did you add a a few thousand friends just for social proof and know nothing about them and what they would like? Mmm.

‘But people can leave’, you may say.

Why add people in the first place Curly?

Come on. Without their permission?

Did you get taught no manners?
Did you ask if they wanted to belong to the group?
Did you enquire if the group would be something they would be interested in?
Sure people can leave. But again why would you not ask for permission in the first place?

And lastly Curly

Please quit stealing email addresses and adding them to your email list. This is rude, illegal, and unacceptable. Spend some money and time learning how to build a beautiful, meaningful, responsive list and quit making a fool out of yourself and your business.

Treat people online how you would treat them offline. Here’s a class from the same guys who do the Facebook Course: WEBINAR: 9 Businesses Doing Facebook Right. Enjoy!

Your Turn

Is this just my experience? What has been your experience of these features on Facebook?

Okay, this event is very good. Promise.

Web’s Biggest Facebook Marketing Event
Join 20 experts (including Mari Smith, Amy Porterfield, Dave Kerpen and experts from Campbell’s Soup, Autodesk and Intel) as they help you master Facebook marketing at Facebook Success Summit 2012. Fully online. Click here for sample class.

A Post About Anger, 50 Shades of Red + Forgetting to Breathe

August 24 Dawn

This morning I got myself into a public quarrel.

A verbal exchange of the swear-iest proportions.

Don’t judge too quick…

Usually when conflict arises in my world I’m generally good at:

assessing and diffusing
looking at the big picture
evaluating
gathering information and facts
taking time to work out my role
and acting in the best way at that time.

Anger is not normal behaviour for me. It’s rare. I don’t do anger very well. I can’t be doing with it. It’s too painful. Not to mention the sweats, heart-rate and stress.

Not today. It started, heightened and ended in a flash.

Here’s what happened…

I was walking down my street (not just for the fun of walking up and down, I had been somewhere. I mean I don’t go out and just walk randomly.<– oh, see what I’ve done, used flippant humour to take the eek away from sharing this with you.)

Start again…

I was walking down the street, coming up the road was a man with a dog on a lead. The dog was pulling and just as I was thinking, ‘Thank goodness my two walk to heel’ I witnessed the man yank the dog back, lifting him/her the air, till all paws were off the ground and then kick him/her in the rib area, at the same time screaming to the dog, ‘Walk fucking properly’.

Insert nice quotes about reacting:

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

I sooooooo reacted.

There aren’t many things in my life that still push those seeing-a-definite-shade-of-red-let-me-have-it-button, but any abuse or mistreatment of animals (or anything that breathes) is one.

Well. Today I pushed them.

I told him that his behaviour was abusive.

He told me to F-off.

I told him he was well out of effing out of order.

Same reply.

I told him he was a cruel b-word.

Same reply.

I told him that instead of abusing, how about some training.

Same reply. He then got up close. Really close. In the moment I did think I was going to be bopped.

So the anger turned to fear. I looked down at the dog and thought to myself this is not a time to back down. Stupid of me? Yeah. Well. Maybe.

Have you ever had a moments when you just come back into yourself regardless the intensity of emotions?

The moment when you cease to be in ‘it’ and observe it?

This became one of those moments. I’ve no idea where the anger went but when I could see right into the whites of the owners eyes, I said ‘you know it’s wrong, you just know’ and then I turned and walked away.

Fight done. Nothing achieved. Chaos over. Breathing again.

Shaking, yes. But pleased I didn’t start crying until I got in the house. (That would be where the energy of the anger went then.)

Could I have handled it differently? Of course.

Can I see where this came from? Totally.

Could I have ignored what I witnessed? Of course. But why should I look away when the dog couldn’t (oh, I see I’m still angry).

Why am I sharing this with you?

I’m not really sure, I had planned a post about Facebook spamming for today but since you’re here:

There will be times when all the learning and theory goes out the fecking window. There is a massive difference between knowing something and just knowing.

Being who you really are also includes those parts of you that you don’t see or (want to) recognise are part of you. We all have them so don’t worry.

That there will be some events that take you to places emotionally that scare the begeez out of you. Breathe.

That we can’t possible grow unless we know what we’ve already cultivated.

That we all have triggers waiting to be pushed.

Tears are a release. Use them.

Anger brings nothing.

Breathe.

I’m so human.

Here’s what went out the window today:

Breathing.
Not listening first to what my body was telling me before I reacted. Forgetting to ask myself ‘what do I feel right now?’ Working that out first and then acting.
I didn’t tell myself to ‘Get In The Boat’. Huh? A great technique (today I forgot about it, was it because it happened too fast?) Basically think about the times in the past when you have reacted and regretted. Did you feel flooded with emotions? Overwhelmed? Drowning? See these feelings as a fast flowing river, carrying you with them. When you feel them, tell yourself to ‘Get In The Boat’ and visualise yourself doing it. Usually works for me, so give it a go.
Not consciously controlling the emotions I could’ve controlled. And trying to control that what I can”t.

Your Turn

Got any tips or ideas for this one? What would you have done? Please share them in the comments, see you there.

PS: I did report them.

5 (Tiny) Ways To Show Website Visitors You Do Care

August 22 Dawn

Today I received an email from someone with the subject heading ‘Urgent’ — they had used my contact form to send me details (telephone number included) of a friend.

They believed that the contact form was public, therefore their friends’ details would be all over Google in a few hours, hence the urgency for any correction to be made.

What if other people haven’t sent a message or used the contact form because they thought the same thing?

The fix? This one was easy I just added a line of text right before the form reading ‘your inquiry is private and sent to my inbox only’ – a small thing to do, but these small things make the difference especially online.

Why?

What we think is obvious or apparent may not be to others.

Here’s a few more, and I’m inviting you to go to your website as a visitor, or ask someone who has never been to your website before to head over and ask them for feedback.

Better still, sit with them and watch their behaviour. Where do they go first? What do they click on? What are they asking? Do they like flash?

Payment for goods: I use PayPal. Some people don’t have a PayPal account so underneath your ‘buy’ button add a quick line of text ‘you don’t need a PayPal account to purchase’. You may also want to add ‘orders are processed by [insert name of merchant], we don’t store your payment details’. What does your say? Does it make people feel super safe to buy from you?

Tell people what will happen next. A few months ago another email from an angry person saying I sent to many emails. They had signed up for the updates (3 emails the first week) and all the free resources. Yes, I agree they got bombarded. Probably about 23 emails in the first week.

The free resources on this site are auto responders, all set to go out at a certain time, of course, people can sign up for them all. But I needed to tell people what to expect.

The solution was easy I added to the sign-up areas ‘if you have signed up for all the resources on the website, expect plenty emails the first week, it calms down after that!’

Tell people what to expect from you, even if you can’t do it at the point of sign up, do it in an email or on a thank you page. And then do what you promised.

Not receiving information. Sometimes my email provider shows a delay in sending out automatic welcome/hello/how you doing messages. Tell people on your thank you pages ‘there may be a teeny delay. If you haven’t got what you asked for in 10 minutes, please try again, or tell me so I can help you out.’

What would you expect to happen? Break down your processes into stages and take people by the hand each step of the way.

Accessibility: Is your website easy to read? The text on this website used to be size 12 — far too small. Yes, someone told me. Change made.

About Page: the second most viewed page on your or any website. Can people find yours? As you ask someone to go through your website, say nothing but watch how they interact with it, did they go there? Make it visible.

Note to self: need to add mine back in the sidebar.

A FAQ page: (and writing this, I can’t see the link to mine anymore. Whoops. Needs found.) A FAQ is a great page, here’s one from my firewalking website – again think about users to your website and what they will be asking, what do people typically ask you about the work you do?

This page is also a great place to start to own your own voice in your website content.

Give it a call to action. A submit question box would be great on this page.

Final thoughts: websites are never finished, they always need tweaked and worked on. I see so much on my own. Don’t get overwhelmed, make the amendments as you go if needed.

Your Turn

Do you have a quick tip that you want to share? One that someone pointed it out to you? Feel free to share below.