Pebblestorm

Below is an email I recently sent to a group of inspired entrepreneurs in Washington D.C., organized by Klia Bassing of www.VisitYourself.net. I feel this note could help others see a new perspective on what’s going on with these financial and economic earthquakes. As painful as they are now, they’re helping us in an important transition in business, from a “pushing/pestering” energy to a “attracting” energy.  For most PebbleStorm readers, even if you don’t understand exactly what I mean by this, I’ll bet that idea or those words resonate for you. This isn’t an overnight change, and it will take more years to fully realize.  Meanwhile, the harder people and organizations hold onto the ‘prior’ way of doing business, the more painful it will be for them and their communities…

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Hi Seedbed’rs!

I hope everyone is weathering both the literal storms and financial market storms. The financial market problems are one symptom of a massive change in how business works, from one of  promotion (driven by a hunger for money and prestige), to one of attraction and receiving (driven by a desire for enjoyment and inspiration).  This will be, it is, a very painful shift for many people and entire organizations.

I’m sharing here a v1.0 handout I created for the PebbleStorm Open House event I had recently in Los Angeles.  The intention of the handout, and the idea of “unique genius”, is to help you or anyone reflect on what kind of dream business you would create for yourselves. Once you have a vision of it…you can begin to make it!  Even if it might take years…better to start now than later 🙂

Download the Unique Genius Handout – 090308

Here is one other exercise around pausing to reflect on “what do I really want for myself?”
https://pebblestorm.com/2008/04/17/the-original-small-pebble-big-wave-self-manifesto/

All the best,

Aaron Ross
aaron (at) pebblestorm (dot) com
PebbleStorm.com: “Make money through enjoyment”
CEOFlow.com: “Make money through enjoyment” (for organizations)
BuildASalesMachine.com: “Create predictable revenue”

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Amazing Energy

The PebbleStorm LA Open House was last night, and it was phenomenal!  (I’m biased, but it’s still true.)  We had about 25-30 people and there was just a GREAT energy in the air. I felt a lotta lotta interaction and inspiration.

I knew about 2/3 of the attendees personally, and the rest either came as guests or found PebbleStorm through the group on Meetup.com.  I felt that everyone really was very open, friendly and interested in each other.

LA’s My Playground

The second ‘stage’ of PebbleStorm is “Play”, and Los Angeles is my playground for PebbleStorm itself – events and all. There’s an enormous creative, entrepreneurial energy here looking for more ways to be channeled and directed.  That (ok plus the fun and weather) is why I moved here! As I experiment and tune PebbleStorm tools, event formats and such, I’ll then take them to a few other main areas as well (SF Bay Area – you’re next).

Fear Gremlins

I’m not someone that holds much fear of doing or trying new things (as my friends and family know). But even I, when doing a new event format, even with a small group of people, always have those little ego/fear gremlins: Am I missing anything? Will people show up? Will the format work?  Will they enjoy it, get value from it?

Then, once the event starts, whether in person or a conference call, I get into the flow and love it, and it always works out exactly as it should. I know this from experience, and yet the gremlins are there each time I do a new one 🙂

PebbleStorm Circles

Ah, fear. Everyone experiences fear and loneliness as they start and run a business, especially if you’re a single entrepreneur or CEO without a true peer or partner in the business. One of, or the, best antidotes for this common fear and loneliness is connecting with other people going through similar journeys, people who can also help each others’ businesses. Community increases the enjoyment and makes it easier to be successful, since you have a group of people helping you out!

A fundamental part of PebbleStorm includes connecting people in supportive communities, both offline and online.  I’m still working on fleshing out the idea of a ‘do it yourself kit’ for motivated people who want to start their own “PebbleStorm Circle”, a small local group of like-minded people that would meet say, at least once a month.  (Interested in finding out more? Send me an email.)

Unique Genius

A topic we spent some time on last night was “Unique Genius”…a unique mashup of your talents, interests and enjoyments combined in a way that adds meaning to your life – usually by helping others in some way. For example, I say “helping people make money through enjoyment” is my unique genius, and PebbleStorm is the manifestation.  I’m getting closer to putting up a real blog post about it (the raw material is on the wiki: unique genius).

Another Open House Post Coming

I’ll put up another followup blog post with some more content, pictures, etc. in a few days once I digest everything and ask the group for some stories or impressions I can share here.

Digital Versions of Handouts / Contact Info

If anyone at the event missed my contact information, or would like digital versions of the handouts, you can reach me at: aaron [at] pebblestorm [dot] com