Sometimes the freedom of the Twisting Road means you get to try a new route to see how it works. And sometimes the freedom of the Twisting Road means you get to take the route off your plan when it doesn’t work out for you.
I have been using an autoresponder for several months now to send out my newsletter, now titled On The Twisting Road. During that time I’ve seen a slow but steady trickle of new subscribers coming in, which seemed great, considering I have not used any pay-per-click advertising or search engine optimization to get potential subscribers. Heck, I don’t even have a free give-away to entice people to sign up!
I noticed recently that some of the new subscriber names were things like “Casino Nights,” and later they were the names of – how to be prudent? – enhancement drugs for men. So I finally paid more attention to my autoresponder and what’s happening.
It turns out most of the new subscribers never actually opted in the second time. That means a name and e-mail address were entered and put on my “waiting list,” which shows dozens of people, nearly one hundred. But they don’t go on the list to receive the newsletter until they click the link to confirm their subscription. That list is just a dozen.
Looking carefully at the list of unconfirmed names and e-mail addresses, it appears they are the equivalent of S-P-A-M. For example, the name might say “Dave” but the e-mail address is “Tony@provider” where the provider is something like “Mail.com.”
I’ve been spending two dollars and fifty cents per actual subscriber per month (about thirty dollars) to send out e-mail using an autoresponder. The first lesson I learned is: pay close attention to the information on new subscribers to see if they are real. I assumed they were real until they started being named after pharmaceuticals.
The second lesson I learned: don’t get an autoresponder and then sit around waiting for people to sign up. I didn’t need an autoresponder to send out my e-mail until I got to around fifty names. I’m not there yet, now that I checked the list carefully. I could have sent the newsletter manually until I was ready to focus on building my list. Money wasted.
The third lesson I learned: automated nonsense garbage comes to you in many forms, including sign-up forms and contact forms as well as blog posts. I have gotten increasingly more responses through a contact form on my web site. They are either nasty ads or meaningless gibberish with links to web sites. I have started getting the same kind of nonsense as comments to my blog posts. They say things like, “I agree. Couldn’t have said it better!” where such a comment is not related to the post, and there are imbedded web site URLs.
I’m going to pull down the contact form from my web site – as soon as I figure out how to do it! I know how to change a page, but I have to figure out how to remove one. I have the blog comments on “moderate” so I see things before they go public, which keeps these nasty ads and garbage off the blog site. And I have decided I’m going to shut down my autoresponder account so I can save the thirty dollars per month until I’m ready to build a list.
Didn’t I write a post somewhere about doing things in the right order? And didn’t I write, in that same post, about the difference between having a plan and just using tools with no clear plan?
Absolutely I did! And absolutely I got sidetracked and detoured by jumping in too soon to an autoresponder.
Hopefully this will keep one of you (and there are more than a dozen who read this blog – it’s not just my confirmed newsletter subscribers!) from wasting money paying for a service before you need it.
But you know what? If you do start using a service or a tool before you have a real purpose for it, you’ll be learning and growing and figuring out what’s right for you. That’s a big part of the fun anyway.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Monday, August 25, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
I’ve Got To Stop Reading!
I set aside the three (or so) books I’ve been reading consecutively after I spent a little time at Barnes & Noble evaluating another book. I’ve heard about it for years, even picked it up a couple of times, but never read more than the flaps and maybe a chapter introduction. But once I committed to looking closely and started reading, I was mesmerized. Two days later I was deflated and, well – forlorn.
The seemingly innocuous book is The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
by Michael Gerber. I first heard about this book a few years back. I was told it was groundbreaking, even revolutionary, for people who wanted to run their own business (this might even have been before it was “Revisited”). The problem is, the people telling me it was revolutionary misrepresented it.
They described it as a book that smashed the belief that people have to have an entrepreneurial nature to be successful at business. They told me it showed that most successful business owners aren’t really entrepreneurial. It doesn’t take special vision or a knack, they said, just good planning and management.
When I skimmed the book back then, I couldn’t make much sense of it. Turns out that’s because the people who were excitedly describing this book didn’t have a clear idea of its theme. The “myth” is easily misunderstood.
As he develops his ideas, Gerber proposes that people start businesses when they have a burst of entrepreneurial inspiration, but they quickly fall into an employee mindset. He doesn’t use that phrase, which I picked up from Barbara Winter. I prefer her way of explaining it. Because they think like employees, they get an idea to start a business and wind up building an overwhelming collection of jobs.
As the ideas in the book develop and solutions are offered, it seems that the myth is that entrepreneurial innovation makes businesses work while the truth is that mundane activities make businesses work. There is a section where the solution to business development difficulties is…. (drum roll)… to be like McDonald’s!
That’s when I became forlorn. To have a successful business, the books seems to say, I have to develop carefully crafted, routinized operations that can be taught to any willing person. Creativity and variation must be supplanted by regimentation. This is shockingly close to my view of hell, so I wanted to shred the book.
But that doesn’t actually capture the myth. To be successful developing a business, Gerber says a person has to balance entrepreneurial innovation with a mundane, orderly management mindset and the technical skill of the worker. Successful business developers are entrepreneurial, but they are not only entrepreneurs. Thank goodness I kept reading!
In fact the stages where the business is designed on paper, where each step is planned and then implemented and experimented to get it right, is a creative process. Once every detail is defined and specified, ongoing innovation is used to test better and better ways to provide a more satisfying experience to customers and more clearly express the business owner and developer’s underlying mission.
And there, finally, is the myth explained. The myth is the belief that most businesses are started by entrepreneurs who risk money in order to make a profit. The truth is most businesses are started by people with an entrepreneurial, innovative spirit who are trying to express something about their view of the world and how it can be. They just don’t know it! So they unconsciously try to put their signature on every aspect of the business by doing everything themselves because they don’t believe anyone else can do it their way. They burn themselves out.
The solution, it seems, is to make the unconscious expression into an intentional purpose, put the attention to detail in designing and planning how the purpose is expressed in each function of the business, and then share the vision with others and train them in the system.
Once the theme got back to self-expression and creativity, I was greatly relieved. I just never thought of the perfect crispiness of McDonald’s French fries as creative self-expression before!
Now I understand the myth and the solution. This process of business development makes perfect sense for someone who wants to create a business that other people will run. The developer expresses himself or herself through the system developed with such specificity and detail that his or her vision can be implemented by other people in a consistent way.
But I can’t get it to connect to the idea of solo entrepreneurs, those of us who are self-employed and work directly with our clients. When you personally work with clients you don’t really have a business you can sell. You have a practice, into which you can bring a partner or from which you can make referrals or to which you can add associates. But that is not something you can sell outright. It is something you may be able to transition slowly and carefully from one primary provider to another.
In coaching circles, new coaches are told often that we have to remember we have a coaching business, especially those of us who have had therapy practices. The distinction is meant to increase a focus on marketing and customer service. However, since I work with people who are self-employed and people who own small businesses, and with people considering becoming one of them, I have to make a finer distinction.
Coaching is a practice. Selling information products is a business. I can pour my vision into the details of operating a business that develops information products, finds products created by other people, offers them in carefully targeted marketing, and makes the experience of buying and receiving the products consistently pleasing to customers. And that is something I could sell, because it would be a system other people could run.
But a coach is the product. Once I have enough history to have dozens of former clients who have completed coaching and have a full schedule of ongoing clients, I can’t sell that to someone else. This helps me evaluate marketing and business development ideas and sort out what applies to a coaching practice and what doesn’t. I’ve been frustrated with some of the ideas because they just don’t fit, but I hadn’t understood why. Now I do. It’s just a little more light on the twisting road ahead.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
The seemingly innocuous book is The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
by Michael Gerber. I first heard about this book a few years back. I was told it was groundbreaking, even revolutionary, for people who wanted to run their own business (this might even have been before it was “Revisited”). The problem is, the people telling me it was revolutionary misrepresented it. They described it as a book that smashed the belief that people have to have an entrepreneurial nature to be successful at business. They told me it showed that most successful business owners aren’t really entrepreneurial. It doesn’t take special vision or a knack, they said, just good planning and management.
When I skimmed the book back then, I couldn’t make much sense of it. Turns out that’s because the people who were excitedly describing this book didn’t have a clear idea of its theme. The “myth” is easily misunderstood.
As he develops his ideas, Gerber proposes that people start businesses when they have a burst of entrepreneurial inspiration, but they quickly fall into an employee mindset. He doesn’t use that phrase, which I picked up from Barbara Winter. I prefer her way of explaining it. Because they think like employees, they get an idea to start a business and wind up building an overwhelming collection of jobs.
As the ideas in the book develop and solutions are offered, it seems that the myth is that entrepreneurial innovation makes businesses work while the truth is that mundane activities make businesses work. There is a section where the solution to business development difficulties is…. (drum roll)… to be like McDonald’s!
That’s when I became forlorn. To have a successful business, the books seems to say, I have to develop carefully crafted, routinized operations that can be taught to any willing person. Creativity and variation must be supplanted by regimentation. This is shockingly close to my view of hell, so I wanted to shred the book.
But that doesn’t actually capture the myth. To be successful developing a business, Gerber says a person has to balance entrepreneurial innovation with a mundane, orderly management mindset and the technical skill of the worker. Successful business developers are entrepreneurial, but they are not only entrepreneurs. Thank goodness I kept reading!
In fact the stages where the business is designed on paper, where each step is planned and then implemented and experimented to get it right, is a creative process. Once every detail is defined and specified, ongoing innovation is used to test better and better ways to provide a more satisfying experience to customers and more clearly express the business owner and developer’s underlying mission.
And there, finally, is the myth explained. The myth is the belief that most businesses are started by entrepreneurs who risk money in order to make a profit. The truth is most businesses are started by people with an entrepreneurial, innovative spirit who are trying to express something about their view of the world and how it can be. They just don’t know it! So they unconsciously try to put their signature on every aspect of the business by doing everything themselves because they don’t believe anyone else can do it their way. They burn themselves out.
The solution, it seems, is to make the unconscious expression into an intentional purpose, put the attention to detail in designing and planning how the purpose is expressed in each function of the business, and then share the vision with others and train them in the system.
Once the theme got back to self-expression and creativity, I was greatly relieved. I just never thought of the perfect crispiness of McDonald’s French fries as creative self-expression before!
Now I understand the myth and the solution. This process of business development makes perfect sense for someone who wants to create a business that other people will run. The developer expresses himself or herself through the system developed with such specificity and detail that his or her vision can be implemented by other people in a consistent way.
But I can’t get it to connect to the idea of solo entrepreneurs, those of us who are self-employed and work directly with our clients. When you personally work with clients you don’t really have a business you can sell. You have a practice, into which you can bring a partner or from which you can make referrals or to which you can add associates. But that is not something you can sell outright. It is something you may be able to transition slowly and carefully from one primary provider to another.
In coaching circles, new coaches are told often that we have to remember we have a coaching business, especially those of us who have had therapy practices. The distinction is meant to increase a focus on marketing and customer service. However, since I work with people who are self-employed and people who own small businesses, and with people considering becoming one of them, I have to make a finer distinction.
Coaching is a practice. Selling information products is a business. I can pour my vision into the details of operating a business that develops information products, finds products created by other people, offers them in carefully targeted marketing, and makes the experience of buying and receiving the products consistently pleasing to customers. And that is something I could sell, because it would be a system other people could run.
But a coach is the product. Once I have enough history to have dozens of former clients who have completed coaching and have a full schedule of ongoing clients, I can’t sell that to someone else. This helps me evaluate marketing and business development ideas and sort out what applies to a coaching practice and what doesn’t. I’ve been frustrated with some of the ideas because they just don’t fit, but I hadn’t understood why. Now I do. It’s just a little more light on the twisting road ahead.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Monday, August 11, 2008
When Discovery Is The Destination
I’m reading The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Families
by Stephen Covey. Since I’ve been a proponent of personal growth and development for most of my adult life, it surprises even me that I haven’t read a complete Covey book before. I think it’s due in part to my suspicion of “quick-fix gurus” and I mistakenly thought Covey slid into that category. Also, since I heard about him in a corporate management context, I wasn’t very interested. I wasn’t thinking creatively or expansively. Yeah, I know.
One Covey theme I knew already was “begin with the end in mind.” I embrace that approach when I ask one of my favorite questions, “To what end?” In this book he uses analogies of trips without maps and construction without blueprints. If you don’t know where you’re headed, you’re not going to get there. Fair enough. But lately I’ve been hearing people’s struggles as they try to figure out the work they’re born to do. They’re ready for change but don’t know where to head yet. How do they begin?
There are real and compelling stories about people who were working, often pretty successfully, at a job that was unsatisfying and unfulfilling. So these people made radical changes in their lives, changed careers, often to something unique and creative, and are now enjoying what they do and feeling more alive. These stories resonate in the hearts of those of us who believe in fulfillment but think ours feels like a faint memory of a dream. We think, “I want that, too!” And we look for the path to get to it.
The path is laid out. Take time to remember what naturally intrigues you, the things other people can tell are your gifts; think about ways to offer that to other people as products or services; come up with a reasonable plan to gather information and start doing the new thing part-time; and then grow it so it can replace your income and you can do it full-time.
It sounds reasonable. It makes perfect sense. And then a lot of us get stuck on the first step. While other people are in some sort of Mastermind group or other support format to keep them moving forward as they plan and then start a new career, we’re watching from the sidelines as they carry their certainty and enthusiasm thinking, “How’d they do that?”
The discussions I have with other people in this same situation point to something missing. Coaching is available for people who have a vision and maybe a goal in mind but need help developing a plan and implementing it. Therapy is available for people who are so overwhelmed by stress, depression, or self-defeating doubts that they don’t think they can make any changes at all. But what’s available for the people with normal anxiety and normal doubts who just don’t have any idea what kind of work they would enjoy?
As my wordsmith friend Darcy put it, “I wish there was someone who could just help me talk my dream out of myself.”
And this, alas, is my conundrum. What do we call that field?
As I went through the self-discovery process to find what work was a natural fit for me, I realized this is what I most want to do – help people rediscover their dreams and make them real. I thought that would be counseling. Counseling is broadly about promoting healthy growth and development. Many of the techniques of counseling were developed to help with insight and self-awareness, from the belief that increased self-awareness increases opportunities and personal control, leading to greater ability and mastery and freedom. It’s the path to self-actualization.
But counseling has become mostly psychotherapy. The guidelines for Licensed Professional Counselors in my state are written almost solely around the practice of therapy, so much so that when I called to ask questions about how to practice counseling that is not reparative or based in assessment and diagnosis, the people at the licensing board didn’t have clear answers and weren’t sure. The questions were new to them, which tells me the idea is pretty rare.
I'm still enthusiastic about coaching and am studying it because it includes a lot of personal discovery and self-awareness, but it is biased towards achieving goals so much so that the insight and awareness are almost by-products, not a primary focus.
The resolution? I don’t have a clear one yet. But I plan to struggle with the definition of a career that includes activities and steps that are focused on self-discovery and expanding insight. In a world where we are cautioned that we are more often “human doings” than “human beings,” it should be possible to make it a priority to become better at being. It should also be possible to honor the value of expanding self-awareness and insight through a process of self-discovery.
I’m certain there are a lot of people who need this, including all of us who have struggled or are still struggling with figuring out our natural work. There is an intersection of personal growth coaching and personal growth counseling. But there aren’t any streetlights here. I’m going to have to get out my flashlight and sketch what it looks like.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
by Stephen Covey. Since I’ve been a proponent of personal growth and development for most of my adult life, it surprises even me that I haven’t read a complete Covey book before. I think it’s due in part to my suspicion of “quick-fix gurus” and I mistakenly thought Covey slid into that category. Also, since I heard about him in a corporate management context, I wasn’t very interested. I wasn’t thinking creatively or expansively. Yeah, I know.One Covey theme I knew already was “begin with the end in mind.” I embrace that approach when I ask one of my favorite questions, “To what end?” In this book he uses analogies of trips without maps and construction without blueprints. If you don’t know where you’re headed, you’re not going to get there. Fair enough. But lately I’ve been hearing people’s struggles as they try to figure out the work they’re born to do. They’re ready for change but don’t know where to head yet. How do they begin?
There are real and compelling stories about people who were working, often pretty successfully, at a job that was unsatisfying and unfulfilling. So these people made radical changes in their lives, changed careers, often to something unique and creative, and are now enjoying what they do and feeling more alive. These stories resonate in the hearts of those of us who believe in fulfillment but think ours feels like a faint memory of a dream. We think, “I want that, too!” And we look for the path to get to it.
The path is laid out. Take time to remember what naturally intrigues you, the things other people can tell are your gifts; think about ways to offer that to other people as products or services; come up with a reasonable plan to gather information and start doing the new thing part-time; and then grow it so it can replace your income and you can do it full-time.
It sounds reasonable. It makes perfect sense. And then a lot of us get stuck on the first step. While other people are in some sort of Mastermind group or other support format to keep them moving forward as they plan and then start a new career, we’re watching from the sidelines as they carry their certainty and enthusiasm thinking, “How’d they do that?”
The discussions I have with other people in this same situation point to something missing. Coaching is available for people who have a vision and maybe a goal in mind but need help developing a plan and implementing it. Therapy is available for people who are so overwhelmed by stress, depression, or self-defeating doubts that they don’t think they can make any changes at all. But what’s available for the people with normal anxiety and normal doubts who just don’t have any idea what kind of work they would enjoy?
As my wordsmith friend Darcy put it, “I wish there was someone who could just help me talk my dream out of myself.”
And this, alas, is my conundrum. What do we call that field?
As I went through the self-discovery process to find what work was a natural fit for me, I realized this is what I most want to do – help people rediscover their dreams and make them real. I thought that would be counseling. Counseling is broadly about promoting healthy growth and development. Many of the techniques of counseling were developed to help with insight and self-awareness, from the belief that increased self-awareness increases opportunities and personal control, leading to greater ability and mastery and freedom. It’s the path to self-actualization.
But counseling has become mostly psychotherapy. The guidelines for Licensed Professional Counselors in my state are written almost solely around the practice of therapy, so much so that when I called to ask questions about how to practice counseling that is not reparative or based in assessment and diagnosis, the people at the licensing board didn’t have clear answers and weren’t sure. The questions were new to them, which tells me the idea is pretty rare.
I'm still enthusiastic about coaching and am studying it because it includes a lot of personal discovery and self-awareness, but it is biased towards achieving goals so much so that the insight and awareness are almost by-products, not a primary focus.
The resolution? I don’t have a clear one yet. But I plan to struggle with the definition of a career that includes activities and steps that are focused on self-discovery and expanding insight. In a world where we are cautioned that we are more often “human doings” than “human beings,” it should be possible to make it a priority to become better at being. It should also be possible to honor the value of expanding self-awareness and insight through a process of self-discovery.
I’m certain there are a lot of people who need this, including all of us who have struggled or are still struggling with figuring out our natural work. There is an intersection of personal growth coaching and personal growth counseling. But there aren’t any streetlights here. I’m going to have to get out my flashlight and sketch what it looks like.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Monday, August 4, 2008
Humbled By The Twisting Road
Since the theme of my articles on creative work and self-employment is the “Twisting Road,” imagine how humbling it was for me to be driving on twisting roads for the first time in several years during my recent trip. It wasn’t very much fun, and it seemed like a huge nuisance.
My sons and I left a week ago this past Thursday and returned home this past Friday afternoon. It was a whirlwind trip that included college campus visits, four days of soccer tournament, a trip to the beach, and a long drive home. And it included stretches of driving through the Great Smoky Mountains.
Portions of the highway through the Smoky Mountains twist and turn a lot. They are not as severe as the roads in Arizona around Sedona and Jerome, or the roads in Arkansas around Fayetteville and Eureka Springs. But driving a Suburban full of luggage and soccer gear through the twists and turns while trying to stay on a schedule brought to mind my previous twisting road drives.
On the way to North Carolina I focused on the negatives of driving twisting roads. On the way back to Tennessee I focused on the positives. Here are what I remembered from driving twisting roads that apply to creative work and self-employment. I knew these things intellectually but hadn’t incorporated them fully into my work life. I hope I learned them at a deeper level this time so they “stick.”
• Mountains are annoying obstacles when you’re focused on a deadline.
• Mountains are beautiful and majestic when you slow down and focus on them.
• Twisting roads seem threatening and risky when you see them as something to confront.
• Twisting roads are enjoyable and perspective-changing when you look forward to them.
• Rain added to twisting mountain roads on a deadline generates anxiety.
• Rain added to twisting mountain roads with no deadline adds to the majesty.
• I automatically see twisting mountain roads as a gauntlet and get anxious.
• I have to make a conscious choice each time to see twisting mountain roads as an opportunity for a special experience, but when I do I am greatly rewarded.
The Friday we arrived in North Carolina for the soccer tournament I had just a few minutes to think about what I would write for this blog, and immediately my mind returned to the drive through the mountains. At that point I only had the anxious obstacle view of the road. I thought about the fact I named my newsletter and this blog after the Twisting Road, and for a while I felt totally foolish.
The whirlwind of preparing Friday night for Saturday’s game set in, and I didn’t have time to think about this blog again until we were headed home from the beach. Part of the reason was the good play of my son’s soccer team. They advanced to the semifinals so they were playing soccer for four days. We left for the beach shortly after their final game.
On the way back my mind picked up the self-deprecating thoughts about the name Twisting Road and I started haranguing myself again. What were you thinking? You drove tight mountain roads for a year and a half and know it can be nerve-wracking! But I thought about the reasons I chose the name, including the glorious views and breathtaking moments of rounding a corner and seeing a valley open below and mountains rising in the distance. The last leg of Wednesday’s drive was into Asheville, North Carolina in the dark and in occasionally heavy rain, through tightly twisting highway. It was hard to keep positive expectations up, but I resolved to enjoy the drive into Tennessee the following morning.
I did, although we had some heavy rain and a little light rain along some of the twistiest portions. But my sons were excitedly looking for hillbillies, and then trying to identify nuts growing densely on trees lining the ridge, and then spotting homes built near the many rivers and streams. Just before we left the twisting pass through the Smokies, we saw mist rising near the top of one mountain that was so dense it looked like smoke. I had been explaining to my sons that the haziness and blue cast of the mountains in the distance gave them their name, and had tried to explain how mist and clouds played a part. When we saw the dense rising mist after the rain no more words were necessary.
Following your calling is difficult. Being self-employed is challenging. Trying to have an authentic life is not all sweetness and light. It’s intimidating, it’s anxiety-provoking, and sometimes it’s lonely since it’s hard to connect with people down in their ruts. It’s a daily conscious choice to take the more difficult path, or to create a new path, and it is slow going. It is very demanding. But it’s also vibrant. It’s creative and it’s exciting. Taking on this challenge helps work be fulfilling.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
My sons and I left a week ago this past Thursday and returned home this past Friday afternoon. It was a whirlwind trip that included college campus visits, four days of soccer tournament, a trip to the beach, and a long drive home. And it included stretches of driving through the Great Smoky Mountains.
Portions of the highway through the Smoky Mountains twist and turn a lot. They are not as severe as the roads in Arizona around Sedona and Jerome, or the roads in Arkansas around Fayetteville and Eureka Springs. But driving a Suburban full of luggage and soccer gear through the twists and turns while trying to stay on a schedule brought to mind my previous twisting road drives.
On the way to North Carolina I focused on the negatives of driving twisting roads. On the way back to Tennessee I focused on the positives. Here are what I remembered from driving twisting roads that apply to creative work and self-employment. I knew these things intellectually but hadn’t incorporated them fully into my work life. I hope I learned them at a deeper level this time so they “stick.”
• Mountains are annoying obstacles when you’re focused on a deadline.
• Mountains are beautiful and majestic when you slow down and focus on them.
• Twisting roads seem threatening and risky when you see them as something to confront.
• Twisting roads are enjoyable and perspective-changing when you look forward to them.
• Rain added to twisting mountain roads on a deadline generates anxiety.
• Rain added to twisting mountain roads with no deadline adds to the majesty.
• I automatically see twisting mountain roads as a gauntlet and get anxious.
• I have to make a conscious choice each time to see twisting mountain roads as an opportunity for a special experience, but when I do I am greatly rewarded.
The Friday we arrived in North Carolina for the soccer tournament I had just a few minutes to think about what I would write for this blog, and immediately my mind returned to the drive through the mountains. At that point I only had the anxious obstacle view of the road. I thought about the fact I named my newsletter and this blog after the Twisting Road, and for a while I felt totally foolish.
The whirlwind of preparing Friday night for Saturday’s game set in, and I didn’t have time to think about this blog again until we were headed home from the beach. Part of the reason was the good play of my son’s soccer team. They advanced to the semifinals so they were playing soccer for four days. We left for the beach shortly after their final game.
On the way back my mind picked up the self-deprecating thoughts about the name Twisting Road and I started haranguing myself again. What were you thinking? You drove tight mountain roads for a year and a half and know it can be nerve-wracking! But I thought about the reasons I chose the name, including the glorious views and breathtaking moments of rounding a corner and seeing a valley open below and mountains rising in the distance. The last leg of Wednesday’s drive was into Asheville, North Carolina in the dark and in occasionally heavy rain, through tightly twisting highway. It was hard to keep positive expectations up, but I resolved to enjoy the drive into Tennessee the following morning.
I did, although we had some heavy rain and a little light rain along some of the twistiest portions. But my sons were excitedly looking for hillbillies, and then trying to identify nuts growing densely on trees lining the ridge, and then spotting homes built near the many rivers and streams. Just before we left the twisting pass through the Smokies, we saw mist rising near the top of one mountain that was so dense it looked like smoke. I had been explaining to my sons that the haziness and blue cast of the mountains in the distance gave them their name, and had tried to explain how mist and clouds played a part. When we saw the dense rising mist after the rain no more words were necessary.
Following your calling is difficult. Being self-employed is challenging. Trying to have an authentic life is not all sweetness and light. It’s intimidating, it’s anxiety-provoking, and sometimes it’s lonely since it’s hard to connect with people down in their ruts. It’s a daily conscious choice to take the more difficult path, or to create a new path, and it is slow going. It is very demanding. But it’s also vibrant. It’s creative and it’s exciting. Taking on this challenge helps work be fulfilling.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
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