How About a Big, Slobbery Thank You?

My mom always taught me to send a thank you note. This is my thank you note to <a href="../members/dan-mccomb">Dan McComb</a> and <a href="../members/lara-eve-feltin">Lara Eve Feltin</a>, the Biznik community, and also to <a href="../members/joe-shirley">Joe Shirley</a>. I attended an inspiring Biznik event yesterday, called <a href="../events/best-practices-for-hosting-events-a-collaborative-clinic">Best Practices for Hosting Events: A Collaborative Clinic</a>, where I met some awesome people and shared a great experience with old and new friends alike. Reflecting on it today, I find myself thinking about how much Biznik has changed my life over the last few years. Sometimes a simple thank you doesn't quite seem like enough. When people do something extraordinary, our participation, praise and recommendations are often enough to satisfy both the givers and receivers in the equation. Other times, we feel compelled to show our appreciation in a bigger way, yet how do you do that without seeming like a weirdo or a brown-noser? Writing it down works for me. First, a big, slobbery thank you to the mother and father of Biznik, Dan and Lara. As most Biznik members know, Dan and Lara have completely, tirelessly invested themselves in creating this amazing Biznik community. They put their established careers on hold, and almost accidentally discovered a new career. And they are damned good at it. They have rewritten the rules of business networking. In fact, they've obliterated the old rules, creating a format that can morph and change and feel custom-made for nearly anyone. To say that Biznik is 'business networking that doesn't suck', as their tag line boldly states, is perhaps the understatement of the century. Biznik seems to bring out the best parts of people, community building, business vision, and entrepreneurship. The format encourages people to not only think outside the box, but to completely unfold, flatten, and recycle the box, leaving nothing behind but a memory of how boxes used to keep business people apart. How Biznik manifested when it did seemed fairly arbitrary when I first joined back in early 2006. But now, it seems anything but arbitrary. Given the state of our country and society, it seems obvious that Biznik was inevitable. Over the last 8-10 years, while the country found itself sorely lacking in strong leadership, people became divided, frustrated, apathetic and angry. 2008 was a tough year for nearly everyone. 2009 will be just as tough, if not even tougher, yet I believe we will see people coming together for support and community in greater numbers than we have ever before witnessed. Biznik was born out of this time of frustration and a strong desire and need for better community. I feel blessed by the earth to have been in Seattle during the infancy of this amazing (anti)organization. The U.S. has a new president who embodies the country's sense of hope, directs with a profoundly good grasp on the concept of team, and communicates with great power. Biznik shares these same qualities, and it gives every member the tools, opportunity and encouragement to do the same. For me personally, the Biznik experience has resonated with parts of me that I didn't even know existed. I have grown so much during the past few years. When I joined Biznik, I could hardly stand up in a crowded room to introduce myself without shaking like a leaf in a gale force wind. Now, I am teaching workshops and loving it. I feel more in my element than I ever have before. My problem had a lot to do with the existing networking formats not syncing with my past experiences, sensibilities and comfort level, but it also had to do with a need for personal growth. Through Biznik, I met a person with a totally different method for helping people discover and work through their issues. If not for Biznik, I would never have met Joe Shirley. Welcome to the Joe Shirley part of the big, slobbery thank you. I'm going to add in a hug here because I feel like it. (Hugs to Dan and Lara too for that matter.) I wrote a compliment for Joe which I am inserting here because it perfectly sums up my experience of working with him: "Joe's method helps you understand the labyrinth of your own mind, and actually feel in your body how your life experiences have shaped your own doubts, fears, and joys. His work is truly liberating and empowering. I recommend Joe without hesitation to people who want to work past personal barriers in the fastest and most effective way possible." That's not me putting my professional copywriting to work. It's the no-hold-barred truth. Joe's work changed my life forever. I'm laughing and feeling my tear ducts well up slightly from the joy of just writing that. I still shake on occasion, but now I know how to actually feel it coming on. Perhaps even more importantly, I know how to preemptively put myself in a better space. When I saw a similar problem in one of my clients last year, I recommended Joe. The client worked with him for about a week, and the change was like night and day. Where did I meet the client? <a href="../">Biznik</a>. As I mentioned at the start of this article, I attended a Biznik event yesterday, Best Practices for Hosting Events: A Collaborative Clinic, put on by none other than Joe Shirley. I highly recommend it. The format brings people together and produces an outpouring of ideas and epiphanies. Aha moments abounded. As I wind this up, I can't help but think about the fact that I regard a few of the people I saw there as old friends, yet I have known them for only two or three years. And that's the thing with Biznik. The people I meet are by and large pretty darn deep. We are independently trying to create and do things in new ways, expressing our visions and growing our businesses. We all have to do similar things to succeed, and we all have this exceptional community in which to learn, grow and make it happen. Thank you Dan, Lara, Joe, and everyone who makes Biznik great. 2009-01-09T11:49:04Z