Amy Swift Crosby

Rebel Rebel.

January 13, 2016 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Real stars are original.
They are inspired by and moved by and informed by other art, culture, poets, writers, leaders – YET… they are totally, radically, uniquely themselves. They don’t imitate.
Many worthy stars are never recognized, and others do something, usually for a long time, with only a little recognition. You get the feeling they’d do it whether anyone was watching, or not.
Others go big – take big stages, draw millions of sales, become household names and references.
But what I love about a David Bowie, for instance, is that he expressed despite disagreement or finger pointing or rejection. He said what he had to say in the way he had to say it. Masculine. Feminine. Androgynous. In Spandex.

That’s brave. That’s rebellious! And that was before digital had the power to take your weirdness and multiply it – in seconds. He did it despite….whatever resistance was there for him.
A real star leaves you with a message, a question or a thought-provoking dream. You can buy it or not, play it or not, read it or not. They’re going to say it whether you’re listening, or not.

As a business owner, you can’t take “promotion” off the table entirely because essentially you’d be muting your message. But what if you just changed the intention from, “how can I sell this?” to “how am I going to express myself today?”

It’s a little more artful.
Long live Bowie. A rebel worth remembering.

Big Life

Commitments. The Fourth Kind.

January 5, 2016 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Two members of the Polar Bear Club. I live with the crazy guy on the right. See the live action plunge here.

We all make them – but the terms of those commitments vary – and typically fall into three categories…

The short-term ones are day to day. Could be about 40 minutes of cardio, or eating vegan before 5pm, or cycling to work instead of driving, or spending an hour with your child without checking your device. Those are relatively easy, and tend to get easier the more often we do them.

The mid-term ones are saying we’ll be there, and then showing up, or investing in a blog, telling the world, and then posting things, volunteering with people who depend on you. Those are harder – because it’s easy to negotiate out of them – but once in the groove, we tend to stay there.

The long-term ones are the biggies – getting married, having kids, buying real estate, forming partnerships, investing capital, making an effort with relationships – year after year. These ones write the music of our lives because they’re constantly there, reflecting back to us who we are and how we are. In some ways they’re the easiest (you don’t re-decide about them daily) and the hardest (you’re in it…today, tomorrow, the next day…and still….and still!). They reassure us and comfort us, but they’re the ones we take for granted. They anchor us, and provoke us – simultaneously.

But then – there’s the last kind of commitment – the fourth kind. The kind we don’t do enough…
Like deciding that the New Year is best kicked off by jumping into the icy Atlantic, with snow on the ground, and FULLY submerging under water. That one takes commitment AND a little bit of crazy.
It seems to me that we all have one, two and three pretty much covered. But what if we had a monthly wild card, like #4?! Could be in business – or personally – I don’t think it matters. But flexing that muscle seems important as we age and lean toward seeking safety (most of the time.)

Who’s in?!?!?

Happy New Year – looking forward to 2016 with you

Small Business

Unscripted

December 15, 2015 · By Amy Swift Crosby

The Babylon of Customer Service: Babington House. Image from babingtonhouse.co.uk

Do you feel better when “Reservations” emails your hotel confirmation, or “Freya at Babington House“?

Do you feel better when the agent goes off script and says, “yah I hate it when that happens. Let me see what can be done,” OR, slowly, and much-too-long-windededly, says, “I’m sorry you had that inconvenience today. Let me go through the options on the menu that may help in resolving this issue. Would you mind if I placed you on hold while I review the materials (that I should already have memorized)?.” No one talks like this. Why does Customer Service?

So.
Yes I mind.
I mind that you can’t even talk to me without reading prompts.
I mind that you don’t sound like you’ve ever seen my problem before.
I mind that I can’t ask anyone there a real question without an answer that is pre-rehearsed, pre-recorded, pre-dehumanized…

Have all the policies you want – but package them with flesh and a beating heart, please.

Thank you One Fine Stay for being original. And flexible. And generous. Your policy said no. You said yes.
Thank you flight attendant Rob on the Jet Blue LAX – BOS route for being hilarious – we were patient because of you.
Thank you Tolbot Inn manager Dan who offered to call a friend at a hotel in another city to see if we could stow our bags while we toured for two hours. We didn’t need it. But you offered. And that was money in the bank.
Thanks Brittish Airways for making a miracle happen at 7am and running in heels through security.

Thanks to everyone who doesn’t act like a robot, who feels our humanity, and goes out of their way to make it better.
We’d do the same thing in your shoes, and should.
In the age of automized everything, let’s remain personal – as much as possible. As small business owners we can’t always, but we certainly can a lot.

Big Life

Novelty

December 8, 2015 · By Amy Swift Crosby

I’m continuously fascinated by how living in a small town can lead to living a bigger life. Maybe it’s because I commute to LA and NYC often enough to feel connected to diverse worlds, but I still think no matter where you are anymore, the world is as you create it. Sometimes when I describe our relocation from Venice, CA to Manchester by the Sea, MA, I call it “when we calmed down.” I say that because I felt like I was living my life on Lincoln Boulevard or the 405, or conversely existing in non-gmo-organic-cotton-couture t-shirts and custom clogs… in our costly but casual neighborhood …doing what people who live there do – which is buying expensive coffee and $18.00 pressed juice (still miss it), meandering our kids in $500 dollar strollers and essentially working hard at looking like we weren’t working very hard. But holy shit we were stressed! Our million dollar house was great but surrounded by drug deals and the thump of drive-by stereo base so deep it moved my home-delivered jars of almond-coconut-Mylk. Our friends with kids in school seemed pained by the process. Police lockdowns became a joke but as “funny” as they were, they bred a strange form of deep stress that we weren’t really all that safe.

I’m not really making an argument for small towns versus urban life – I love them both. But a pig roast at a friends house this weekend made me realize how much my own life has invited more novelty. There’s something about switching lives that’s kinda great. I recommend it. It has also been progressive for my professional life – which seems weird because now I have to go to my former cities to see clients – but I think I’m DOING better work, because I feel more inspired. Hmmm.
So here’s to switching it up. In the name of a new view, new circles, new problems even. Unexpected opportunities arise when you make intentional but disruptive decisions.

Small Business

No Pants.

December 1, 2015 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Screen Shot 2015-11-15 at 9.05.17 PM When we’re little, people love to see us running around naked. But that gets more awkward (hopefully!) as we age, and it’s the same for our talents. People are forgiving of the raw, unselfconscious efforts of a teenager singing her first recital, or of a first blog post, or even a first recipe, but as you practice and hone your craft, the critics have more room…and justification…to analyze, judge – as well as delete, ignore, swipe. As you get better (and most people do), the bar gets higher. Expectations (from yourself and others) become built in to whatever you put out there – because if the last time was great, the next time will be greater. You begin to walk in bigger shoes, or in this case, wear big, grown up pants.

Remember when Elizabeth Gilbert wrote Eat, Pray, Love, and then did a Ted Talk about how her next effort couldn’t help but be a disappointment? This is not a comparison to a New York Times best selling author…but sometimes, when I do good work, and there’s applause (even from one), I say to myself, “How nice. But can I pull it off again?” There’s some kernel of doubt that lives in me and wonders if that was the last time, a fluke, a one-off. I’ve never been right about this, but the more I talk to other people about this fraud/fail/anomaly syndrome, the more I see that I’m not alone. I guess it’s just so fun to knock it out of the park that it becomes addictive – and we all want that impact every time. If there were a secret to killing it, always, I think we’d all buy it.

But it’s almost impossible for every project, book, product, video, post or presentation to be a best seller. Seth Godin writes ten to twenty blogs for every one he publishes. But knowing this, the thing we can start to understand is what does work, and why does it work, and did it do something for someone somewhere that was useful…without the pressure of epic performance. Ingredients for greatness reveal themselves when you aren’t panicked about…being great.

So calm the eff down. Eyes on the road. Do your work. Measure results. Scrap what’s mediocre. Keep the good stuff. Press play.

Then do it all again.

That’s pretty much the big secret.

Small Business

Solve If With What.

November 23, 2015 · By Amy Swift Crosby

No rational human welcomes the feeling of uncertainty – that uneasy sense that you can’t see around corners or don’t know where a road might lead. Of course recent events make us feel that the world is more unpredictable than ever. But when you depend on yourself for success, financial stability, reputation, life’s work – the mercurial feelings that demand clearer answers exists all the time. Will this idea work? Is this partner right? Why didn’t anyone RSVP? I don’t even know what I don’t know, which means I really don’t know enough. EEEK!

Because we can’t see the future, and because we have to do something as answers are revealed and work performed, here’s my plan (for myself) every time these feelings arise.

I’m going to give – an in giving, try to create a little bit of certainty for another human being. It gets us out of our own way. And offers the very thing we ourselves often crave; Unexpected grace. But I’m not going to just do anything for someone else. I’m going to do something specific – that only I can do. Could be a talent, a connection, a word, a way of seeing something, to someone who needs it.

Here’s what it does: it gives us a little tiny bit of knowing that we moved another human forward toward something they really, really want – with something only you have – and were meant to give to the world. It gets us out of our own way.

In honor of thanksgiving, let’s just give some small (but hugely useful) thing. To someone. Somewhere. Freely.

It’s medicinal.