AnywhereMan

People skills are important, especially if you work on your own. Because much of our time can be spent working in isolation away from cubicles and water coolers, keeping your conversation skills sharp should be a high priority. You don’t want to open the floodgates of talking about yourself too much when you interact with someone in person.

I’ve run into this a few times in the past few weeks – ironically with stay-at-home moms who, when you think about it, are kind of in the same situation as a work-from-home freelancer. At the end of the conversations, I kind of felt yucky. The bottom line in a conversation is that you NEVER want to make the other person feel yucky.

Why did I feel yucky? I took note of a few key do-and-don’ts to keep in the back of my mind for future interactions:

Ask Questions

To me, this is maybe the most important piece of a conversation. In order to make it not about YOU, you need to ask the other person about THEM. And try to be more specific than just “How are you?” If you ask something like “How are things going with your new project?” it shows the other person that the things they share with you don’t just go in one ear and out the other.

Keep An Eye On The Clock

In Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, they talk about the 30-60-90 rule. It’s definitely okay to talk about yourself in a conversation (typically when asked), but don’t make your answers too long or go off on tangets. A 30-second response is about perfect. At 60 seconds you’re starting to lose the other person. And you can chalk them up as “bored” at 90 seconds.

Be Positive

Bottom line on this one is don’t dump your dirty laundry on the other person. Tell me about what’s going well in your life (again, when asked). What are you excited about? It’s not that you shouldn’t be real but if you really want a guaranteed way to make the other person to feel yucky, just dump some yucky stuff on them. Be optimistic about the negative things in your life. It’ll actually make the other person feel inspired.

Act Like You’re Interested

When you’re having a short conversation with someone, try to give them your full attention. Don’t act like you’re stuck talking with them or you have nothing better to do. Act like it’s one of the highlights of your day. It’s pretty much a guaranteed way to make them look forward to your next interaction. And in order to keep it from seeming fake, practice the art of smiling with your eyes. Seriously – go look into the mirror and practice this.

Be Encouraging

When you ask someone a question, respond to their response. Positively. When you wrap up the conversation, tell them how good it was to see them. Offer them encouragement about things going on in their life that they may have shared.

Post-Conversation: Store It All In The Archive

Make a mental note of the conversation you just had – or even write down some of what they other person shared. Remember what is going on in that person’s life and use it as conversation material the next time you see them. That’s what’ll really kill any hint of the yucky-factor: it shows the other person that they matter to you.

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No, I’m not turning my blog into Twitter (“What are you doing?” or “What’s on your mind?”), but I wanted to create a post where all of you can introduce yourselves.

What is your career? What do you do? What do you want to do in the future? What is your website URL? Or your blog?

Are you a freelancer? Do you telecommute and work for an employer? Are you unemployed? Do you work in an office?

What are your hobbies? Where do you live? What are you super excited about right now? What are you passionate about?

Why do you read AnywhereMan? What suggestions do you have to make this community better?

Really, this post is open to all of you. Tell us about YOU, as much or as little as you want. Maybe it’ll lead to a new networking opportunity for you. I’ve got the multi-threaded Disqus comments enabled, so feel free to interact with one another.

Just tell us what you’re doing…

Lisa Kanarek wins the AnywhereMan Award for my favorite blog title: Working Naked. Lisa is a home office expert who puts on seminars, writes books, and offers consulting to companies and individuals wishing to have an aspect of working from home in their operations.

Lisa is also the subject of my first AnywhereMan interview. I’ve had the privilege of getting to know her a little bit better through her blog, this interview, and even a guest post I wrote for her last week. She truly is a working-from-home expert and I think you’ll really enjoy this interview…minus me, the newbie, learning how to facilitate an interview. Good thing Lisa is a seasoned pro!

Here’s a bit more about Lisa from her site:

Lisa Kanarek is one of the nation’s leading home office experts and the author of several books including Home Office Solutions, Organizing Your Home Office For Success and 101 Home Office Success Secrets. She is the founder of HomeOfficeLife, a firm that advises corporations and individuals on all aspects of working from home and is founder of this blog.

Kanarek has been a guest on several national programs including Good Morning America, CNN Financial News, CBS Up-to-the-Minute, CNBC, American Public Radio, Movie & a Makeover, Public Radio’s Marketplace and Voice of America radio. Kanarek has been featured—as an author and in interviews—in hundreds of publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, Success, Money, Entrepreneur, Cosmopolitan, Dwell, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Marie Claire and Redbook.

Whoa! Well, add “AnywhereMan.com” to that impressive list. Thanks for your time and fantastic insights, Lisa!

In honor of Valentine’s Day, this video is about relationships. Okay I wasn’t really thinking about Valentine’s Day at all when I set out to record this, but it’s fitting nonetheless. The meat of this video is in the first three minutes, but keep watching if you’d like to see some of the ways we’re trying to overcome a throw-away mentality in our household.

We live in a period when everything is disposable. If something breaks, we just throw it away and get a new one. With regards to things like the environment, this is obviously a bad thing. However, it’s even worse if we apply this mentality to people and relationships.

People are valuable. We are all unique, each with our own strengths and weaknesses. Though it may not seem like someone is of value to you right now, you just never know when your paths may cross again and on what terms. Not that it matters if you ever cross paths again: just be nice.

Also, I think we give up to easily on people a lot of times. Great relationships take time and effort. Commitment in the long run takes a “fix-it” attitude  where you’re willing to do what it takes to make it work. This is the type of attitude clients and employers like to see. It can be a big key to networking as well.

Failing at fixing “stuff” can be tolerated, but let’s make sure we’re committed to doing the work when it comes to relationships. The good news is that I see a lot of people on a regular basis with this type of attitude.

I finished reading Crush It a few weeks ago and am finally getting around to doing a review. If you’re building a business of any sort, read Crush It! There are some great tips in this book and it was well-worth the read.

Example: I uploaded today’s video to Viddler, Vimeo, and YouTube using TubeMogul, a little trick I learned in this book.

NOTE: Sorry for the lack of true HD in today’s video. Waiting on a new cable for my Canon HV30.

Are you motivated today?

Living the Anywhere Lifestyle requires a lot of motivation. We don’t have managers literally looking over our shoulders to keep us on task like we did in days at a corporate office. 

As a freelancer, it’s basically just me and my clients. While client deadlines and payments on invoices are often incentive enough, it still takes motivation to put the time in on my in-house projects, bookkeeping, self-education, blogging, and planning out the direction of my business.  Nobody is there to do these things for me or cover for me if I take time off. It’s all my responsibility.

A few weeks ago I watched an excellent clip by one of my favorite personalities, Gary Vaynerchuk.  In the segment he discussed his belief that enourmous talent is not enough.  He believes that hard work and “hustle” can be  just as important as your talent level. In addition to having the talent, you need to have the attitude and drive of a winner.

I love hearing this stuff. It gets me pumped up. In fact, I’ve heard someone else say something very similar. Who else could it be but the original Gary V…

Ted Nugent.

(Please stay with me here)

Some of you know that I play guitar. I even played in a few bands back in the day. I taught myself how to play electric guitar by listening to classic rock albums, reading guitar magazines, and watching instructional videos. The best instructional video I’ve ever seen was by Ted Nugent. It contained a valuable piece of rock and roll guitar-playing advice I have never forgotten:

While skill, nice guitars, and loud amps are nice, it’s all about attitude.

(Really it is – if you’re a guitarist, go pick up that thing and pretend you’re a hyper-macho Ted Nugent clone. You’ll be an instantly better guitarist.)

In the video, Ted shreds through some mean riffs and then goes on to talk about just returning from 39 days in the swamp, not having touched a guitar that entire time.  He talks about “diversionary tactics” and escaping once in a while to “re-align the attitude.”  Basically, to Ted, attitude is every bit as important as skill and talent.

See, when you look at it that way, it sounds like Vaynerchuk, doesn’t it?  

I agree with both of these guys.  From a freelancer’s standpoint, I do my best work when I have a driving attitude.  If that starts to slip, sometimes you can just keep going with what you are doing and it’ll come back. But, like Ted says, sometimes it’s good to try some diversionary tactics.

If I’m working on multiple projects at once, I’ll step aside from my current project and go take a look at another.  If my schedule is dominated by one major project, a lot of times I’ll step back for an hour or two and just plan on putting in some time after my kids are in bed that night.  (and actually I find this is when I do my best work) Even music can be a good tactic. What pumps you up or gets you in the zone? Fire it up in iTunes!

Evaluate your attitude today. If you find it starting to slip, experiment with different ways to get re-charged.

Talent is important. Tools are important.

Attitude is essential.

PS – I did manage to find the most valuable five minutes of Ted’s video on YouTube. Entertainment, hustle, and motivation at it’s finest.

 

You’ll see that I’ve linked to this site in my People section, but just wanted to give a public recommendation that you check out Phil & Jason Montero’s TheAnywhereOffice.com.  They provide some excellent content especially targeted at managers of virtual teams.  While my site tends to cater a little bit more towards the freelancer, The Anywhere Office gravitates more towards the world of teleworking.  

If you are not yet living the Anywhere lifestyle, directing your manager or boss to The Anywhere Office may help you convince them that a virtual office team really can work and offers many benefits.  Go read up on their site and as I mentioned, tell them the AnywhereMan sent you. 

Today’s wardrobe courtesy of Freshbooks.

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