Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Moving out of your comfort zone - part 3

Moving out of your comfort zone can produce rewards beyond your expectations. This pastel drawing is the most recent result of my wife Gretchen's actions to redefine herself as an artist after years as a high tech program manager. I am getting a framed copy for my office wall.

She did pen and ink drawings while in college, but raising a family as a single mother and a late-life career pushed her artistic endeavors off the stage of life for many years.

Moving to Floyd and being exposed to a supportive artistic community encouraged her to study painting again. She began with watercolors, then discovered pastels and that was all it took to unlock her creativity in a big way. She is now painting almost every day.

She has taken a few classes and now does figure painting every Wednesday with a group of Floyd artists who have been painting together for almost twenty years. She is also exhibiting regularly at the Hayloft Gallery.

This would not be happening if she had not been willing to move out of her comfort zone and into an area where she would be putting her talent on display.

It is never easy to put yourself in the public eye, but it can be done and is being done every day by people who never thought they could do it.

One way to make the transition easier is to find people you can trust and who will help you succeed. You want friends who are winning and want you to win too. They recognize that helping other creative people makes for a better game for all concerned.

People who view life as a zero-sum game should be avoided entirely because they view your success as their loss.

Try to find people who share similar goals and view you as an ally on the road to success. They will help you move out of your comfort zone into new challenges and new victories.

Let me know how it goes.

Moving out of your "comfort" zone - part 2

If you read my earlier post, you may already understand that a comfort zone can be a self-constructed trap. It is the mechanism you construct to avoid any exposure to events, ideas, and people who might cause you distress. It is the barrier that will hold you back in life especially if you are an artisan, a musician or a writer.

If you are having difficulty following this train of thought, here are some examples from life. You are hiding in a "comfort zone" if you are doing any of the following:

1. Avoiding situations where you have to discuss the price of your wares or services with potential customers.

2. Avoiding contact with situations where you have to speak or perform publicly.

3. Listening to those who tell you that you should not try to write, paint, sing, play because you are not expert enough. They always say they are telling you this, of course, "for your own good". These are the people who criticise other's art instead of creating it themselves.

4. Staying in a job or relationship that is slowly grinding you down to a shadow of your former self, because to leave it would mean that you would have to go out and meet new people.

If any of the four examples apply to you, the first step in handling it is to understand that you are the only person who can do something about it. Nobody else can do it for you. Others can encourage you, but you must recognize that your "comfort zone" is self-constructed.

You might think that your solution is to become more competent at your craft. That is always necessary, but it will not move you out of the trap you have constructed for yourself. You need to reach out to new people and find out what they want and are willing to pay for. That is not "selling", it is the very essence of marketing!

It is this gradual reaching out that will show you who wants and can afford what you have to provide. It is essentially a social activity and it requires more listening  than trying to convince someone.

It is far easier to find customers who like what you have to offer than it is to convert people who hold contrary opinions.

Think of it this way, other people have comfort zones too! Their comfort zones may not include trying new things like your products or services. They are set in their ways. Don't waste time educating them when there are people who already are looking for what you have to offer.

Life is short. Spend it with people who care about you and your products. Find them instead of trying to convert the unwilling.

Good luck!

Moving out of your "comfort" zone

A "comfort zone" is a pattern of behavior that gives you a sense of security. It usually involves creating artificial boundaries to exclude any exposure to events, ideas, and people who might cause you distress.

That certainly sounds like a great idea until you consider the following:

Growth of any kind involves overcoming the fear of events, ideas, and people who cause you distress.

When you look at it that way, a comfort zone can be viewed as a self-constructed trap.

How many people do you know who are unhappy in their life or work, but are afraid to make the  necessary changes to improve their lives because that would jeopardize their "comfort zone". They derive an artificial sense of security from the relationship or job that is making them miserable!

Ask almost any successful artist or businessman about their rise to success and you will discover that they started making their breakthroughs when they finally discovered how to move out from their "comfort zone" to a higher level of public exposure.

Success, money, even healthy and happy relationships come from the freedom to expose yourself to new people and new opportunities.

A good way of accomplishing this is to broaden your comfort zone by first training yourself to confront and handle those things that make you uncomfortable, and then gradually confronting and handling those things that you fear. Eventually you can increase your ability to the point where you are comfortable with a wide range of people and situations.

This is not an overnight process. It can take years to accomplish, but every day that you broaden your horizons is a day that you achieve a victory over those things that hold you back in life.

I will continue this discussion in following articles with specific examples and drills for craftspeople who want to broaden their comfort zone in dealing with customers.

Many thanks to Silvie Granatelli, master potter, for suggesting this topic.

Getting to know Rick Boucher

One of the pleasures of living in a place like Floyd is that we get a chance to get up close and personal with visiting candidates for government office. There is something reassuring about being able to shake someone's hand and spend a few minutes in relaxed conversation with them. A lot of the person comes through in an exchange like this.

Congressman Rick Boucher and his wife Amy are people worth meeting anywhere, but joining them for a few hours in a country setting was an unusual chance to know them as individuals.

Gibby and Buz Waitzkin of Floyd, Virginia, hosted a luncheon Saturday, September 9, at their home for Rick Boucher. It was a beautiful sunny day for a change and guests mingled on the deck as the sounds of country music played by local musicians wafted across the lake.

Eighty-five guests had a chance to chat with Boucher and his wife, Amy Houslohner, an editor of the Galax Gazette in Galax, Virginia.

Among the guests were State Senator W. Roscoe Reynolds and his wife Linda. When the time came for Boucher to address the crowd, Reynolds made the final introduction.

I asked Boucher what plans he had for the region. He said that the $1.2 million in federal funding has been approved for the Rocky Knob project is just the first step in encouraging new tourism development in Floyd and Patrick Counties. He said that he will be  seeking additional federal funds for Rocky Knob tourism development.

Congressman Boucher has been a good friend to Floyd and intends to continue in that direction.  He has been  a strong supporter of efforts to achieve sustainable economic growth through tourism and has been very supportive of the Jacksonville Center and 'Round the Mountain, Southwest Virginia's Artisan Network.

Boucher has long been active on Internet-related legislation, including a bill which became law in 1993 authorizing electronic commerce by permitting for the first time the transmission of commercial messages over the Internet. His proposals to promote competition in the cable and local telephone industries contributed to the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

You can see Rick Boucher's voting record by issues on Project Vote Smart and on specific bills on the US Congress Votes Database. He is obviously a man who thinks for himself as he votes on the merits of the issues, not by party line. I think he understands the needs of his constituents and is a sincere and dedicated professional. I feel he is deserving of our full support.

Boucher introduced his wife of three months, Amy Hauslohner, to an enthusiastic round of applause. He made the point that she will be acompanying him on the campaign trail, but she will not be speaking about the campaign at all. As an editor of the Galax Gazette in Galax, Virginia, she maintains a position of strict neutrality.

Following the luncheon, Rick and Amy were whisked off to the next event on their non-stop campaign tour. When invited to a party in October, Rick replied that all social events are off until the November campaign is over.

I wish him well, and hope to see him back in Floyd at his earliest opportunity.

Country Living - it's all in what you create

People come to Floyd or places like Floyd because they have this dream, you see, of enjoying a simpler and more satisfying lifestyle. The image above seems to capture that idyllic quality.

There is more room and fewer people in the country, but you have to create your own lifestyle and that takes hard work and dedication to make it happen, just like anywhere else!

I met this family recently which has established a store on their farm. They are cheerful, hardworking people and every one of the family members, including the smallest children, seem to have a job.

On this particular day, the mother was cutting the hair of a younger boy on the front steps.  She told us she had taught herself to cut hair by doing it and had gotten better at it as time went by.

Two older children played on the porch behind her, with their sheet music spread out on the porch floor in front of them. The boy played guitar while his sister  sat listening to him holding her violin.

Two older daughters were in the store waiting on a steady stream of customers. They sell produce grown on their farm along with meat and produce from other farms in the region. The store is spotless and the food products are high quality and very fresh. The service and food quality is a match for Whole Foods or any of the other high-end natural food markets I have used in the past. Those of us who live in the area have spread the word about their Farm Store and traffic seems to build every week.

An incredible amount of hard work has gone into creating a store of this caliber and more remains to be done. The steep gravel driveway leaves no room for error on the part of patrons. One moment of inattention and you will need to call a tow truck to get you back on the road.

The father of the family made a judgement call and decided to open the store in time to catch the growing season, even though the driveway, landscaping, and product inventory was incomplete. His decision was the right one, but that was evident only after a lot of hard work and excellent organization created a successful store with satisfied customers.

Before leaving, we bought fresh corn, crisp green beans, fresh plump beets, and some sweet baby summer squash that begged to be sauteed with some sweet onions.

As we exited the store, we heard the boy and an older sister playing a delightful country tune. This time the boy was playing the fiddle, accompanied by his sister on the guitar. You can see it on the video below. (Large file: 8mb)

There is more to this charming country scene than is apparent to the casual onlooker. Do you agree?

Is avoiding failure a valid business and life strategy?

I was talking with a group the other day and I realized that many of their questions and concerns had to do with avoiding failure.

It suddenly brought to mind a lifelong string of discussions with various people that had gone nowhere, simply because the focus was on avoiding failure. No matter how much they talked about changing jobs or their lives, they eventually did nothing because the risk of failure was paramount in their minds.

I was reminded of "Helicopter Parents" who protect their children against failure beginning in nursery school and even when they join the workforce. These parents threaten litigation at the first sign of a school demerit, a failing grade, or a bad review from a manager.

I wonder if these parents realize how much damage they are doing to their children?

A failure is merely a sign that you have made too many mistakes and are not learning from them. A job, a relationship, or even your health can suffer when you make decisions on unsufficient or incorrect data.

Avoiding failure through parental intervention or by refusing to make decisions is a scenario for eventual disaster. There is no attention on making better decisions, only attention on avoiding responsibility for bad decisions.

If children are allowed to make mistakes and fail early, they learn from a very early age that certain courses of action are unsuccessful. Nails will not hold wheels on a cart. Stoves are hot. Knives and other sharp things must be handled carefully. Fragile things break unless handled gently. Unkind actions can cost one a friendship.

Lives or jobs where there is no room for mistakes of any kind are boring and extremely repetitious because a human is doing a job that a robot would do better. Where there is room for creative activity, there is infinite possibility for making mistakes and even failing.

If attention is put on understanding why mistakes and failures have occurred and changes are made to produce better results, a useful learning process occurs. If attention is put on flogging those who made the mistake, a different kind of learning process occurs. The floggees learn to never make a decision and to hide all evidence of errors or mistakes.

An acceptance of risk opens the door to adventure, mistakes, even failure, but it is the only way to create a life worth living. Careers and companies alike achieve greatness only through the process of overcoming mistakes and learning from them.

I wrote an article about this more than a year ago. It was called Growing wiser instead of just older.

You might find it interesting.

Tom Phelps - unique production potter

The first thing you notice about any Tom Phelps pottery display is the teeth. Then when your attention is thoroughly snagged, you notice that he also has cups, bowls, and a host of dinnerware items that are just what you need for your home or for gifts.

Tom Phelps is our neighbor. He is an entertaining fellow and one of the most successful production potters in the area. Over the Labor Day Weekend  we finally got time to go over and visit him.

He has a production studio with electric kilns and several propane fired kilns on his farm just over the hill from us. You find his studio by driving down Stagecoach Road off Franklin Pike. Just look for the sign.

He gave us the full tour of his shop, introduced us to his staff and cheerfully explained his approach to making and selling pottery, but it was of little use to me. It was like Picasso explaining his painting by saying he just lays down the lines so they look right.

Tom answered every question thoroughly, but it was quite evident that I didn't have the depth of understanding, even with years of marketing experience, to understand the nuances of his approach to marketing his wares.

All that I know is that every time I see a display of Tom's pottery, I am drawn first to the grotesque faces on mugs and plaques, then to the standard dinnerware in long shiny rows, then to the beads and pendants. I start buying the small pieces and then begin picking up cups and bowls and before I know it am pulling out the credit card and looking at items that I have no earthly reason to buy, except that they are fascinating.

The toothy caricatures were first devised by his son Seth and have since become a staple of the product line.

Even his discards, like this broken pot put away on a dusty shelf, have the power to fascinate. This piece looks like someone's rendering of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights.

What stays with you the longest however is the strong, clean lines of the more standard pottery. We have a number of bowls and cups and each is a pleasure to use and a delight to the eye.

If you are visiting Floyd, be sure and plan a visit to his studio. For more information, visit his website  or send him an email at info@potterystuff.com

Click on the last three images to enlarge. The details really don't come through on the smaller images.

Excuse me, did you say Polaroid camera?

UPDATE: Welcome Neil Gaiman fans and ultra-large Polaroid Camera fanciers. This is an account of  the  use of a 20x24 Polaroid Camera in a non-studio environment as part of a tour before the camera is decommissioned. Those who have difficulty understanding what is written here should read my note in the comments.

That super-large format camera in this photo is indeed a Polaroid camera, the largest of its kind in the world. It is being operated by Jennifer Trausch and Kim Venable on the dance floor of the Floyd Country Store.

Floyd residents seem to take extraterrestrial visitors in stride. The huge bellows moved in and out in an attempt to frame a picture of the swiftly moving dancers and the dancers never missed a beat. They were flatfooting up a storm and the taps on some of the dancers shoes filled the room with a shattering fusillade of staccato sounds.

Why these young women are lugging a 250 pound camera around the Eastern United States in a rented truck is a story in itself, but I will confine this article to their valiant attempts to use the world's largest Polaroid camera to capture images of dancers clogging at the Friday Night Jamboree. Here is a closeup of the nameplate. As you can see, it is immense.

Jennifer and Kim gamely manipulated controls and changed lenses in an effort to capture images of the dancers and every few minutes would open the vast doors on the back of the camera and take out a huge sheet of exposed Polaroid film and run up the stairs with it.

I did not get a chance to see the images of the dancers, but here is an image Jennifer showed me earlier in the day. As you can see it is a very large format black and white image.

I admire their determination to take this camera on one last tour before it is decomissioned and placed in a museum, because like many endeavors I have engaged in, the doing of the deed is as important as the results.

Here Kim Venable shows us one of the lenses for this camera.

This camera is the last of its breed, a technological dinosaur, and for one glorious moment it was put through its paces at the Friday Night Jamboree in Floyd, Virginia.

Many thanks to Woody Crenshaw, owner of the Floyd Country Store for having the imagination to allow these two young women to create this once in a lifetime event in Floyd.

If they were successful in capturing a fair image, I will post it here. Stay tuned for more information about this camera and their tour.

UPDATE: Doug Thompson has written a post Size Does Matter with more details about Jennifer and Kim and their project. (This link seems to be broken now)

Tag: Polaroid Camera