Don’t Worry, I’ll Be Back Soon!
August 20, 2010
Today I got a lovely email from a blog fan saying that he was worried about me since it was so quiet. While that was very sweet, you don’t have to worry! Quiet is good!!
wise women regenerate themselves!
I’ve been having a lot of nice restful time, regenerating myself and doing daily writing. Instead of my blog, I’m writing in a funky purple notebook that cost $1.87. It’s the kind you used to use in grade school.
I’m loving taking a break from all the busyness and regenerating myself at my next level. Good stuff happening and great things on the horizon. I’ll let you know what they are very soon.
In the meantime, DON’T WORRY!! I’m doing great. Wise women need to regenerate themselves from time to time :>)
My Town is Getting Hip!
June 23, 2010
Chestnut Hill
I love my town. I live in one of the most beautiful small towns called Chestnut Hill, PA, which was voted one of the top 12 Distinctive Destinations in the US.
How cool is that?
But even better than the beauty, the shopping, the cobblestone streets and the friendliness of my town is the fact that we are getting hip!
That means is that we’re getting up to speed regarding technology and social media. Yes us ole’ folks are challenging ourselves to get out of the dark ages and into the future.
If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you know that I am a former technophobe who overcame my fears by taking a great blogging course called, Become A Blogging Maniac.
blogging
It so changed my life and my business that I started to share these skills wherever I went and last year I proposed to some folks in my town that we might join together and learn these skills.
To be honest, I met with a fair amount of resistance. I got a few blank stares, a few definite no’s and a handful of adventurers that were willing to try out a class with me.
We did ok, but it wasn’t quite the vision I had. I wanted the whole town to thrive.
So this year I tried again and the timing was right, so I’ve been working with a group of wonderful folks in our business association and teaching them how to blog.
They’re doing great!
They’re full of funny stories, great ideas and never-before-told tales of our town. You’re gonna love reading them.
So we’ve decided to expand and are creating a plan by which anyone in town can have a website, blog and be able to use social media like Facebook and Twitter.
Now this sounds like absolutely nothing to the 20-somethings who were born with this media in their back pocket, but to us of another generation, the techno-gap can be terrifying and overwhelming.
So since we have been succeeding in the business association we are now expanding to hold our first blogging class of adventurous business owners.
These brave souls will be going first to stand as role models for our town to shout and proclaim, “We can do it!!”
I’m very excited about this as it’s changed my business life entirely and I am absolutely certain that my charming town can have enormous success with this as well.
We will be updating our progress on our blog and Facebook page, so if you want to check us out and/or cheer us on, we would love to hear from you.
Be encouraged. Even those of us who are slow to get up to speed on this stuff, can catch up and we can have fun doing it. We plan to laugh, tell stories and have fun while we’re learning to promote our fabulous town in a brand new way.
Stay tuned for more stories of Chestnut Hill’s success in social media!
We’re Women – Why Our Hair Matters!
April 1, 2010
We are women, we can pretend all we want to but our hair really matters to us. Why is that?
The answer is – I have no idea. It just does.
When I was in college my best friend Jodi and I had this ‘thing’ about our hair. We would never admit it of course because we both liked to believe that we were too cool and above all that hullabaloo that women make about their hair. But in fact there were days when we were actually traumatized depending on our hair and it’s whims.
Now that doesn’t mean that we spent hours every single day brushing and blow drying and curling our hair etc., but it did mean that we would on occasion spend hilarious hours in front of the mirror moaning about our bad hair days.
Bad hair days for women are just bad days period.
When our hair looks bad, we feel bad! Men don’t understand this at all and I can’t say that I blame them. It makes no sense to most of us either.
Jodi and I mostly complained about what we called our ‘hair hats’ – those those days when our hair would simply not style itself into anything other than a kind of pitiful mop on our heads, or worse yet into some kind of horror movie type ‘do’.
We would purposefully comb our hair into hair hats just to emphasize the horror of it all. We spent hours laughing about this together (and no this is not an actual photo of us to the right, but the one below is.)
Jodi and I also went through our B-52′s period. If you don’t know who the B-52′s are, you are either too young or too old to read this post. But anyway it was our semi-punk rock days and we were pretty hot or at least we thought so.
In all of this, our hair totally mattered. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but it did.
So why oh why does womens hair matter so much to us??
The answer is that even after all of these years, I still don’t have a clue.
I am somewhat embarrassed about it all but that’s probably just because I live in a man’s world and most men really give one wit about their hair (sorry guys!)
The truth is that my hair matters and that last week after writing a blog post about my graying roots – I went out and got a brand new hair cut and color! I just could not help myself.
Now here’s my BIG question for you? How does a woman know if she’s got a really great haircut? I’ll give you a clue. It has nothing to do with whether she personally likes it or not.
The answer is – if you have a great haircut then ALL the women in your life comment on it.
If they don’t say a word, or they look the other way, then you’ve got a loser.
So yay I got a winning haircut (and color) folks because everyone I know has been commenting on it all week, even my big sister and my niece who are very picky about hair.
Now I could totally pretend that this doesn’t matter to me at all but you would know that but you’d all know that I was a big fat liar!
The reason that I know that I am truly a woman is because I am finally admitting out loud that my hair matters to me and that’s just that.
Yes I am finally out of the hair closet once and for all. All in all I believe that a winning haircut is much better than a losing hair hat, wouldn’t you say Jodi??
Let me know what you think folks!
p.s this blog post was written from an airplane :>)
42 Day Creative Retreat Process: The Details Revealed
February 21, 2010
Woo-hoo here we go folks. This week for the first time I will be talking about the 42 Day Creative Retreat process live on a Webinar with my wonderful colleague Jeff Simpkins.
Here’s the description:
42 Day Creative Retreat Process: How to go away every day
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 @ 1 pm Eastern
You want to do bigger things in life but sometimes those bigger, more meaningful projects seem impossible to get off the ground. How do you take time out of your busy day to dedicate to the things that really matter to you? More importantly how do you overcome that ever present inner critic that tells you you can’t do it? Join Annie Hart (that’s me), creator and developer of the 42 Day Creative Retreat Process which helped her create a nearly complete body of work in only 42 days.
Now what’s not to love about that folks?
You want to do bigger things in the world and it’s darned hard to get them off the ground right? That’s why I put myself in the ‘desert’ of my own life to find out how to crack the code and I’m bringing it out to the public now for the very first time.
Please join us. Jeff is great – very lively and engaging. He is the one who I tell the funny story about that he turned me on to Bea Fields, the blogging class and the power of Twitter. This is a man with a lot of heart, knowledge and expertise.
He will be hearing about the process for the first time as well. So do be on the edge of your seats to find out all the juicy details!
The Webinar is free but you do need to register. Just click here to do so.
Coming soon, my collaborator Ian Waddelow and I will be launching a 42 Day Retreat pilot group. How fun is that!
So stay tuned for more and as always get out there and change the world!
Annie
Everything Happens in Starbucks
February 4, 2010
I don’t mean to eavesdrop but I love people and being engaged in life, so I can’t help myself. I tend to to listen in when I hear juicy bits of conversation, as I did this morning at my local Starbucks and boy was I glad I did!
I met two of the most wonderful ladies – women that are icons of a bygone era and role models of another way of living that we are dearly missing in this modern hectic world.
I tuned in be
cause I overheard one of them talking about trying to text on her cell phone. She was telling her friend that she needed to look in the manual to figure out how to do it.
I chuckled to myself because I could totally relate. When I bought my ‘little phone’ – aka cell phone, I had to beg a male friend of mine to meet me for coffee just so he could show me how to use it!
We are folks of another generation, one in which gadgets of this kind were not automatically attached to our ears at birth. As I turned to look at them, I chuckled and they might have thought I was laughing at them but I wasn’t. They said, “We’re not so good at this stuff.”
I told them that I hadn’t been good at ‘that stuff’ either and that we of another generation are all of a similar predicament. We come from the days before there were even answering machines. So we are all bewildered by this new technology.
We got to chatting and they were just delightful. I told them my story of being a former-technophobe (which I wrote about some months ago), until I took a course called, “Become A Blogging Maniac” with my wonderful mentor Bea Fields. That is how I advanced my business and propelled myself into the 21st century at the same time.
They were interested to know how it worked for me. I was excited to tell them that I’ve had over 5,000 visitors on my blog in under a year. I get nearly 900 visitors a month! Isn’t that amazing? And the best part is that it’s all from the comfort and enjoyment of my own home (or a local Starbucks) instead of trekking God knows where to drum up business.
They were intrigued and wanted to know more about how it works. I told them about Facebook and Twitter thinking they wouldn’t know what the heck they were, but I found out quickly that these are not your average golden-aged ladies. They are women with a great sense of adventure. One of them uses them both and so I got right on Facebook and made her my new friend! Love it.
They told me that in their era they were never encouraged to believe that they could do anything. One of them said, “We were told we would be taken care of.” Wow that really hit home.
They told me stories of ironing their napkins and polishing their silver and I felt this deep longing for the elegance and thoughtfulness of another time. Hearing their stories, I fell in love with them both instantly. They are truly gems of another day gone by.
This made me realized that I need to capture their stories. We need stories like these to remind us of the elegance of living. Right then and there I decided that I am going to film them and share their stories.
Aren’t you eager to hear what they have to say?
So stay tuned for the wonderful stories of the two beautiful ladies of another generation that I met in Starbucks!
Everything happens in Starbucks folks. If you’re willing to eavesdrop just a little, you can meet the most wonderful people. Today go have a Starbucks on me. Eavesdrop on some neighbors and see what magic might happen right in your local coffee shop.
Yours in sharing the stories that make life rich and meaningful,
Annie
How To Create Community Using Social Media
December 3, 2009
Alright I’m the first to admit that I thought Twitter was the most ridiculous thing in the world and completely irrelevant for my business. I remember saying to my colleagues, “Don’t even tell me about it!” I wrote it off as one of those Hollywood fads that was made for those who enjoy silly snippets of conversation.
But much to my complete surprise, social media forums like Twitter and Facebook have become a central pillar of my business communications. Who knew!
What I love about Twitter and Facebook is that we can now have conversations with just about anyone in the world, about anything. Personally I don’t write those posts that tell people what I’m having for breakfast or the fact that my dog just went out and “did potty.” But those aren’t things that I talk about anyway, so why would I post them on Twitter!
Many people get put off by these kinds of conversations but what I say to you is if you don’t enjoy those kinds of conversations, then find ones that you do enjoy. Seek out what is relevant and interesting to you and then start to connect. Now how do you do that?
Well if you’re like me I get overwhelmed easily by too much data and there is no way that I want to be reading 9 million status updates a day. So I just trust that wherever I land is where I’m meant to connect, or I search out certain types of people and start to follow them. But my personal secret to fulfillment in social media is that I make all of my connections very personal, or at least as much as I can.
I’m not an anonymous type person, so why should I want thousands of people following me that I don’t care about? I wouldn’t. As much as I can, I try to connect with people individually because that alone makes me feel like I’m building community.
Personal, individual contact is the key to feeling like you’re part of something. We all want to feel connected and we need to be part of the bigger human family, so I make that my personal goal rather than just racking up the numbers.
And I’ve had great success at this. I have a wonderful following both on Twitter and Facebook but more than that, I have built connections with interesting people from all over the world.
I’ve spoken on the phone to several that I met on Twitter and in a few weeks I will be hosting a special Radio Show with two wonderful storytelling colleagues from Barcelona, Spain whom I met on Twitter. Who would have ever thought!
So can you have fun and fulfillment on social media? The answer is yes. No it’s never as good as in person contact and obviously I don’t want to be dating this way or having all of my social life online, but hey, the bigger the global family the better.
Try it today and see if you aren’t Tweeting a Happy Tune sooner than you thought and if you need any tips, feel free to contact me!
Yours in building community connections,
Annie
News Flash: I’m A National Blogger Now!
November 14, 2009
No Skirting Around!
Good News Friends, I am now a National Blogger for the online women’s magazine, Skirt! I was introduced to this by my good friend and blogging buddy, elizabeth cassidy of Coaches on the Edge.
I am very excited to be getting my words out to a larger audience and particularly to women.
I have a host of great stories and many things to share with women regarding love, relationships and the foibles of human love on planet earth. I hope you’ll check me out on Skirt! and stay tuned for great stories.
I thought I’d share a snippet of my first post and if you want to see more, I encourage you to peruse Skirt! at www.skirt.com. It’s a wonderful forum for us modern gals.
The post was titled, “Gotta Be Bad, Gotta Be Bold, Gotta Be Wiser”
“Listen as your day unfolds, challenge what the future holds, try and keep your head up to the sky. Lovers may cause you tears, go ahead release your fears, stand up and be counted don’t be ashamed to cryto try. You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser…..love will save the day.” song, by Des’ree
In thinking about my first new post for Skirt! (I’m so excited), I wanted to represent to you what is most important in my life as a woman at this time. I just turned Fabulous 50 and I want to dare to be big, bad, bold and wise. I want to stand up and count and not be afraid to cry. And I want to dare to dance around my living room to Des’ree before I write my blog posts to you, which I just did.
I want all of us to live bigger and less afraid. I want us to love more and fear less. The men of the world need our help. They are floundering in many ways and I know for myself that I used to believe that men were the leaders. But as I’ve matured I’ve come to realize that they need our help. Women having knowing and wisdom in our bones and we need to stand up, speak out and share it.
Too often we play small. Or when we do try to be big and bold, we do it by being hardened or cynical. That is not our true way. At our core, we are loving, kind, fierce, strong and knowing. The world needs our love, our care, our sense of humor, our beautiful bodies, our sensuality, our love of chocolate and shoes.
The world needs us to stand up, shout out, dare to wear high heels (if we want to), and dance around our living rooms. Honestly I rarely wear high heels because they’re so damned uncomfortable! I like bare feet best. But as a woman, I have learned the art of wearing the high heel, which I will share more about in future stories……
Again check out Skirt! and stay tuned for my stories….
Yours in never skirting around the issues,
Annie
Adding Excitement to Your Blog; Communicating in Person
October 28, 2009
From Annie: This is a wonderful post written by my friend Jeannette Paladino of Write, Speak, Sell. She is an expert in all forms of written communication. I love her take on making communication more personal.
I was just trolling through the blog of my friend Annie Hart and I realized how exciting her blog is. She uses video extensively and her writing is fresh and appealing.
Granted, she promotes story telling as a distinctive means of communication so it makes sense to see her in action. But, I thought, don’t people want to see me in action, too, even though I have a much more focused business blog?
That got me to thinking that we’ve all become too attuned, maybe, to communicating through IPhones, Blackberries and online. We don’t have enough personal interaction.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve almost been run over on the sidewalks of New York City by a person looking down, totally engrossed in her PDA. And in New York it’s not easy to become oblivious to the throngs of pedestrian traffic.
But that’s what we’re doing – tuning out the personal interaction.
I was sitting in coffee shop the other day and four young women were eating at the next table. Not a word was being spoken as they all exercised their thumbs text messaging, surfing the Internet and playing games.
I honestly find this all a bit scary. As bloggers, we need to figure out ways to add the human touch to our blogs. How about doing a video introduction of your next guest blogger, even though he may be writing a blog and not doing a video or podcast? Or what about a video of yourself on your “About” page discussing your credentials, your goals, your business and your values?
Mind you, I’m somewhat like the cobbler with a hole in her shoes. I haven’t done all this yet, but I do know I need to get more of me in my blog. Annie is going to help me figure it out.
Annie: Jeannette you make a great point. The power of real life personal communication is a precious commodity that we must preserve. And yes we’ll get your blog looking great!
Tackling Technology: Tips From A Former Technophobe
October 28, 2009
From Annie:
This week I wrote an article for my local paper in which I shared the story of my business success using blogging and social media. Wow, I would never have predicted that I would be a person to to overcome my fears of technology and go so far. But thanks to Bea Fields and her wonderful blogging course, I am more than happy to share this story.
From Bea Fields:
Less than 10 months ago, Annie Hart dug her heels in and told her friend Jeff Simpkins …”No way will I ever want to blog…I can’t do that.”
She then caved into peer pressure from Jeff (Jeff is a super salesman!) and signed up for the Become a Blogging Maniac program.
Not only has she become a a blogging maniac, she is now actually speaking to and teaching others in her local community about blogging and the use of technology as tools to reach a wider audience. And, she is being sought out by others for her storytelling expertise and is in the early stages of writing a book…wow…what a transformation!
So, Annie is now being sought out by the media for her story on being a former technophobe who is now a techno-wonder kid! Here you go…an article in the Chestnut Hill Local in Philadelphia, PA by the title of Tackling Technology: Tips from A Former Technophobe by Annie Hart. Congrats Annie!
If Annie can do this, so can you!
From Annie: My success was so surprising and unexpected and I feel committed to helping others overcome their fears of technology as well. I plan to write several more articles for my local paper and even launch an initiative to help my community work together for our collective business success. I hope my story inspires you to know what’s possible in your business. Feel free to contact me.
We Blog, Therefore We Are – Our Top 4 1/2 Reasons to Blog
October 23, 2009
This is a joint blog post by elizabeth cassidy & Annie Hart, Blogging Maniacs who share the power of story through blogging:
Once upon a time, people wrote letters, peeled a stamp off their tongues and recited a silent prayer, hoping that their words would make it across the world or town. While man wrote on cave walls and woman doused her love letters in cheap perfume, it was inevitable that one day all this would pass away.
In its wake arose a way to communicate in a nanosecond, with your friends, family and the world at large. I don’t know if you got the announcement, but your computer gave birth to a weblog in 1998. They call it a blog for short. It’s a family name.
Below are some of the reasons why you should be blogging. Read them now.
Reason Number One: (from Annie) First of all, we Ole’ Folks need to get hip. We want to be part of the wave of the future, not left back in the dust with the dinosaurs right? It’s embarrassing to think that Tweeting is just what birds do. If you’re over forty or fifty in my case and you’re freaked out by blogging, then I suggest you read a book, take a course or call me or elizabeth. We’ll convince you that you can do it. God knows if we can do it, you can do it.
Reason Number Two: (from elizabeth) We all have thoughts and opinions on what is going on in our lives, our neighbor’s lives and the world at large. So let us know how global warming, mixing plaids with strips or how the political scene is shaping up or destroying your world. Pick a subject that keeps you up at night and blog about it. When you write with passion, the world will beat a path to your door.
Ok they may knock at first, but people will come back for more when you tell us what you think, why you think it and how you plan on enlightening us in the future. Not a heavy thinker and have been known to crack a joke or two at the wrong time – like science class or in the middle of performing an emergency appendectomy? Then write a blog that will make people laugh and let your readers stumble upon it, follow or share it, tweet it with everyone they know. Just write your blog as if the world depended on your voice getting out there. And some days, you never know, it just might.
Reason Number Three: (from Annie) Blogging is one of the hip tools of today. Ok, so I know the word hip is dating me, but honestly it’s really cool to be a blogger. You can look smart and savvy right from the comfort of your own home. But while you’re at it, (for women) get rid of those platform shoes that are in your closet and (for men) get rid of that leisure suit that you are never going to wear. If you’re going to blog, you at least need to look decent.
Reason Number Four: (from elizabeth) You are blogging up a storm and you are getting a following without starting a cult. It feels great to have people clinging to your every word and your mother is thrilled to see how many people are leaving comments. But you just keep blogging and you forget to respond to the people who take the time to praise or scorn you. You remind us of those guys who promised to call but never did.
After a while, you just start to fade from their collective memories and you are blogging to yourself. Do take the time to respond to those who take the time to let you know that you impacted their lives. Start a conversation and give people a platform to be heard. More than likely someone will say something brilliant and viola’ – you got yourself a new blog.
Reason Number Four 1/2: (from both of us) It’s fun. Honest. Once you get over the hump, you’ll actually enjoy it. We promise.
Thanks to my friend elizabeth for her fun and humor.
elizabeth cassidy is a certified life and career coach for women who are looking to reach and surpass their dreams. She is the founder of Branching Out Life Coaching and the Co-Creator/Founder of Coaches on the Edge – a blog that mixes wit and wisdom with life coaching. Along with her blogging partner, Laurie Lawson, they are national bloggers for Skirt! and their blogs have been featured on USA Today.com, Daylife.com, Treehugger,com and the India Times. You can enjoy elizabeth’s own thought provoking and amusing blog here.
Connect With Annie Hart
.png)
.png)