I confirmed my safety via text, and then checked sfgate.com (the mobile website of the San Francisco Chronicle) thinking they would have the latest “official” news.

Found nothing except general “yay we won the World Series” stuff. Hum.

So I went to twitter. (Of course.)

Yes. There it was. Thousands of people had been rioting most of the night after the SF Giants won the World Series – most of those riots taking place a few blocks from my apartment.

Even confirmed by the people checking into the riots via 4square. (lol & wtf.)

(Why does the local team succeeding inspire some people to go out and run around screaming, break bottles, set fires, and sabotage the municipal bus system? Sigh.)

But the San Francisco Chronicle called this “joyful mayhem” – as if calling it “joyful” makes it okay. As if this behavior is a necessary part of victory. As if rioting about a sporting event is part of free speech and free assembly, a celebrated part of what it means to be American.

Yet another reason I don’t read the paper.

But the thing is, this bullshit spin on reality happens everywhere. From everyone.

In politics (thank god I don’t have TV this election season so I missed the nasty commercials), in our romantic relationships, in our marketing, even subtly in our 140 character tweets.

Human beings naturally spin facts and truth to manipulate the people around them into thinking, being, behaving how they want.

So we can hide our fears we wish to never be discovered. So we can get others to fulfill our needs we’re afraid to ask for. So we can force people to do what we wish they would do anyway.

We all do this.

Sometimes because we aren’t aware we are doing it.

Sometimes because we are afraid no one will meet our needs until we trick them.

Sometimes because we have no other framework except subtle manipulation and outright force.

This is the current frontier of Live Your Truth.

It’s all nice and good to have your Moment & get all self-actualized. In a vacuum.

But we live in a world of other humans.

And we still need to get stuff done.

We need to get our needs met. We need to deal with people who may never get us and those who are also on this journey, with people who don’t give a crap about our mission and those who are totally on board, with people who have never read a self-help book and those who are all about yogaish woowoo self-improvementness.

The question is – how do we do deal with people and also live our truth?

In a few days I’ll be sharing my newest program, Live Your Truth in Partnership, where we will be exploring this for the next 10 months.

A framework for understanding ourselves and each other. For making deals so everyone gets what they need, without anyone being “taken.” For working, living, loving other people – simultaneously living our own truth without squashing theirs.

For building partnerships with every person in our lives – family, friends, partners, significant others, kids, clients, coworkers, colleagues – so we can support each other, create win-win dynamics, and still all be completely ourselves.

Want to join me on this new adventure?

If so … get on the First Dibs list so you don’t miss the announcement!

You say that what you are is “a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now.”

You are so much more than that, my dear.

You are so much more than about sharing facts and figures, feelings and fascinations.

More than discovering the latest depressingly beautiful picture of the latest oil spill disaster, more than knowing which drunk celebrity went off on a photographer last night, more than learning what your customers think about your inability to test the antenna on your latest super phone.

No, honey, what you are is more profound and fundamental than you may ever know.

Twitter, what you do is reduce the transaction costs of people connecting with the mates of their souls.

And I don’t just mean the various levels of romance (even though yes, that can be had. ahem. cough cough.), and I don’t mean the one-soulmate-for-forever-for-each-of-us fantasy.

I mean connecting with those people who, for some reason, we need at this particular moment.

To help us with a problem. To show us where we are blind. To invite us to grow into the next level our our existence on their earth.

Whether what they provide is a better cup of coffee or a less expensive power cord for our iPhone or the step by step process to edit an iMovie video … or the core truth of our existence or our purpose here on this earth.

All of those connections, from the simple to the profound, are important.

Valuable. Expensive (in time and money) to find anywhere else.

(btw, when I say “people” – I mean individuals, friends, lovers. I mean coaches, consultants, mentors. I mean people who are part of business, agencies, corporations. However they are titled, whatever they are part of, twitter (and business, and life) is simply about people connecting with people.)

Yes, I’ve made money from my connections on twitter.

About 1/2 of my sales in the last 12 months, and a huge percentage of my business relationships – all come through twitter. Also had some fun stuff, like I got a fancypants person at AT&T to call when I threw a fit about my DSL, and got a free plane ticket to Toronto from Klout/Virgin America.

But that’s not the most important thing that happened for me.

I met or made the powerful connection with the most important people in my life via twitter.

These people are my best friends on this earth, who are the ones who support me when things get bad, who celebrate when things are fantastic, who love me for who I really am. Yes, we took it beyond you (skype, texting, email, facebook, telephone, face-to-face) to deepen the relationships.

But twitter is where the magical resonance first happened.

So thank you twitter, you changed my life.

Love,
@ElizabethPW

P.S. I wish you would let me pay you money, especially if that would mean I would get analytics and more uptime reliability. #justsayin

Gracie 10 days after the tumor was removed

What I have experienced in the last 15 days since my daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor has proven yet again how blessed I am to be friends with the most generous, smart, caring, and supportive people on this planet.

Thank you to Allison, Ori, Ken, Carla, Sarah, Alison, Scott, and Dave for being in my inner circle, people to whom I could send the most shocking text ever (“gracie has a brain tumor”) in those first few dark hours, people who all immediately found the best ways they could support me – via f2f, texts, phone calls, messages, tweets, blog posts, taking stuff over, and everything else you all did that I don’t even know about. You are all amazing.

Thank you to Allison Nazarian for being the first person I told, who called me immediately as I was still sitting in shock in the doctor’s office, who talked to me on the phone for the one hour drive up to the UCSF children’s hospital. Thank you for being on constant text alert, checking on me, crying when I couldn’t, reminding me to drink water, worrying for me, and every other way you support me every day.

Thank you to Alison Kramer for dropping her life (with 3 kids & her own business) to fly from Toronto to be with me, face to face, in San Francisco for a week. When she texted me the day after the diagnosis asking if it was okay if she came, it was so hard for me to say yes, I felt so uncomfortable accepting such a generous gift of time and support … but I really did need her. Not only did Alison bring Starbucks & breakfast for me every day, and regular snacks for me and Gracie … Alison also brought peace. Alison was a playmate for Gracie, and a friend for me who was 100% on my side. Alison listened to the hospital talk, and also made sure I got out & had fun conversations about anything *but* the hospital. You were an angel for me, Alison.

Thank you to Ken Moorhead for the calls and texts, for immediately taking over my business without asking me (since he knows I would have said no) and for quickly writing a blog post to let everyone know the short version of why I was MIA, even before I could think. Thanks to Ken and Carla Young for doing the heavy lifting of taking over my blog, email, facebook and twitter until I was able to handle it again. Thanks to Carla for being practical and doing research and doing thinking when I couldn’t and for sending an hilarious present to the hospital. Thank you to Ken, Carla, Allison Nazarian, Sarah Robinson, and Johnny B. Truant for volunteering to write guest blog posts to keep ElizabethPW.com online & the traffic flowing. You all made it easy for me to drop everything to just take care of me & Gracie.

Thank you to Ori Bengal for always being available for a phone call, whether to just talk, to listen to my insanity or to distract me with tales of his. Thanks to Scott Stratten for lending me Alison for the week , for keeping tabs on what was going on with Gracie, for the video and the texts & tweets & posts on FB. Thanks to Sarah Robinson for keeping tabs on me & supporting me & worrying for me, even as her own life is crazy/awesome. Thank you to Dave for checking on me, grounding me, always getting me, and reminding me that I’m more than a mom with a kid in a hospital. Thank you to Britt for bringing me desperately needed Starbucks, snacks & toiletries & distractions, and tons of toys and craft stuff for Gracie.

And … thank you to all of you.

Thank you for your emails, texts, tweets, @ replies, DMs, phone calls, facebook posts, facebook comments & likes, blog posts, and blog comments. Thank you for your thoughts, prayers, wishes, energy work, and rituals.

I really don’t know what I have done to deserve having all of you in my life.

I hope someday that I am able to return some of the generosity, caring, and support that you all have unconditionally shown to me and Gracie.

Thank you, and I love you.

#thatisall

I have seen people like Carla, Ken, Sarah, Alison and Ori spring into action in a way that awes me, makes me cry every 32.6 seconds and does me proud.

Not surprising, or even unexpected — but very, very ironic.

Why ironic?

Because, you see, these are my “fake” friends.

These are the ones I met in that fake world of cyberspace and social media (twitter, specifically).

The ones who I don’t see face-to-face with any regularity, the ones I would never run into at Publix, the ones I can’t meet at Starbucks with five minutes’ warning, the ones who live Lord-knows-where-but-definitely-not-where-I-live.

These are the “fake” friends that I get questioned about – lots – in my “real” life.

“Why do you spend so much time talking to/texting with/tweeting these people?”

“Isn’t it weird that you are such good friends with people who don’t even live here?”

“Are you going to meet those people in Vegas again?!”

Yes, my “fake” friends.

The very same “fake” friends who, within hours (and in some instances, minutes) of the news about Gracie from EPW, rallied, communicated, planned and organized.

Like the “fake” friend who got on an 8am flight Saturday from Toronto to San Francisco to be with EPW for one full (and uncertain) week. Oh, and she left three not-at-all-fake young kids at home with their Dad so she could do so. (She runs a business, too, by the way. So she has just a tad bit on her plate.)

Then there is the “fake” friend (in Indiana) who, by Thursday night, had emailed Carla (Calgary) and me (Florida) log-in, scheduling, calendar and inside business information so that we could coordinate and plan for an unspecified amount of time’s worth of blog posts, tweets, emails and promotions.

From the first night, Carla was researching the science and medical aspects, tweeting for EPW, strategizing and keeping her head on straight. (In fact, her business head and practical questions gave me a cold hard dose of reality in terms of how my own business would fare if I had to leave it indefinitely. Lots to look at and change in that department for me, but that’s for another post.)

Ken and Carla didn’t let emotion stop them; in fact, it made them more focused and purposeful in their emails and actions. Admirable in any situation; freakin shake-your-head amazing given the distance, the full plates we all already have and their no-nonsense approach. (Maybe they felt they could focus better after telling me that they were OK with me worrying for the both of them. This is definitely a group in which each person knows his or her place, and does what he/she does best.)

More “fake” friends…including the one who, like me, needs to come up with blog post titles in her head as a sort-of therapeutic way of dealing with whatever this or the next moment brings.  Everything has a corresponding blog post title, that’s how we process it and carry on. (I always have to remind myself that not everyone is like this. And that it is a little weird, actually. I can say that because I do it too.)

By the way, that’s the same “fake” friend (Alabama, by the way) currently driving with her husband and son to North Carolina while communicating with me via texts and updates back and forth.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you, as well, about the “fake” friend (sort-of Texas, now dog-sitting in California, couchsurfing everywhere) who is available 24/7 (literally) for jokes of any and all kinds, from corny to belly-laughing to X-rated to so-stupid-I-don’t-know-if-it-is-funny-or-ridiculous.  (Full disclosure: I knew this “fake” friend from the days before twitter an Facebook, so maybe he is only a “half-fake” friend.)

And then there are the numerous “fake” friends who have emailed, tweeted, texted, called and messaged me over the past 48 or so hours, asking from the bottom of their hearts what they can do for EPW and Grace, how they can help and begging me to, at the very least, make sure Elizabeth knows she is in their thoughts and prayers.

Yes, these are the “fake” friends I am proud to call my own.

The ones who have shown their true colors in ways I’d have bet on but couldn’t really have imagined.

The ones whose hearts and minds and business acumen and all-around life skills know no bounds, geographical or otherwise.

The ones I am learning from in many ways, in just about every moment.

These are the ones who, together, are capable of just about anything. The ones who, ultimately, care more than anything about a beautiful and sweet five-year-old girl in a San Francisco hospital bed.

That’s some fake stuff, huh?!

As many of you know, EPW and I are in constant touch, literally, every day, all day and some of the night long.

One of the exchanges from what I would imagine is now in the tens of thousands of texts I once sent her talked about my views on the term “IRL” or “In Real Life.”

Sometimes, when people who know each other through a medium like twitter meet up offline, they say they are finally meeting “IRL.” I told EPW that I didn’t feel that was an accurate term because a massive part of my “RL” is people who don’t live in my area code. People I don’t see every day or every week or even every month. I told her I felt that using that acronym downplayed the significance or importance of what were and are some of the most important relationships in my life. They are part of my “RL” even if I don’t see them every day or every week (or month).

So I always use the term “f2f” (face-to-face) as opposed to “IRL.” Telling her that made me feel better, though it didn’t seem terribly significant at the time.

Now, it makes more sense than I could have imagined.

These “fake” friends? I’ve never met anyone like them. I’ve never seen a group of people come together in such a loving and totally productive way. Without fanfare. Without nonsense. Just doing what needs to get done for our friend. Our very, very “fake” friend.

So to my “fake” friends, and there are many more of you than those I have mentioned by name here, I say THANK YOU.

Thank you for showing me that true friendship and true love can be and are very, very real and profound no matter what form (or medium) they come in.

Thank you for being as weird as I am, for being able to take charge when you need to, for shining in moments that aren’t bright and happy and shiny and for letting me worry (quietly) and write blogs and emails for EPW so that I can do what I do best. (Just don’t ask me to take over any tech-related responsibilities.)

And, above all, thank you for letting me be in this IRL, not-always-face-to-face, not-your-mother’s-friendship with all of you.

So with apologies to Oprah, I will now tell you what I know for sure: Some of you may question or judge what is unfamiliar or uncomfortable to you. I know it because I have been on the judging end, and I have been on the being-judged end.

Either way, my love, my friends and my world may not look like yours. It doesn’t have to and they don’t have to. That doesn’t change how very, very real it all is, or how very, very fortunate I am.

So next time you want to ask me why I text so much on my phone, or what’s with my obsession with twitter or who these people in freakin Canada, Indiana, California, Alabama and who-knows-where-else are, please remember what I have shared with you today.

These people are some of the best friends I have ever had. And even more, they are my family.

#thatisall

the most important resource in building your tribe are your evangelists.

If you want to learn more about building your tribe –> next week I’m launching the pre-sale of Build Your Tribe, the new program to teach you how to find those people who resonate with you and build relationships to revolutionize your business & your life. Learn more and get on the First Dibs list (it will only be open for 3 days!).

How do you want to be acknowledged for spreading the word about your favorite people, programs, & brands?

How do you thank members of your tribe for passing you along to their people?

I’d love to hear your ideas, feedback, and comments below!

In the spirit of “this is not a freaking non-profit,” I’m launching the heck out of these this summer.

I will be asking you to help. (More on that later.)

Meanwhile, sign up now to get on the First Dibs list & you’ll be the *first* to know when these programs go live!

#1 – Build Your Tribe (prelaunch May 25-27, 2010)

Create relationships. Build a tribe. Engage. Join the conversation.

Yeah, but what does that mean? How do you actually do that?

In BYT I’ll teach you both the technical steps as well as the strategy behind each step of building your tribe.

You will find & nurture a tribe that resonates with and buys from you. Because of who you really are.

Building my tribe changed everything for me – especially as I launched a completely new business in 2009. All my successes, the money I’ve made, the joint ventures and opportunities and friendships and masterminding – it all came from that tribe.

We’ll be focusing on five tactical areas for building & nurturing your tribe: social media, email, deliverable content, blogs, and live interaction.

Here’s how it will work: BYT will be a virtual self-study program delivered via video/audios & pdfs, broken down into short lessons. You’ll also get video tutorials on the technology and case study interviews with both experts as well as regular people you haven’t heard of who have got results. I’m probably going to throw in more stuff too unless someone stops me.

It will be freaking awesometastic. The prelaunch is in less than 2 weeks. #yay!

Get on the EPW First Dibs list to keep up with the latest on Build Your Tribe and everything else I’m launching this summer.

(More on Find Your Truth, the Advanced Video Series, and The Quickstart Video Program coming soon)

If you have anything you’d like included in BYT, or anything else you would like to learn from me or need help with, leave a comment below!

Watch EPW Live each week on Thursdays at 3 PM Pac / 6 pm EST!

And I don’t mean that crazy stalking that results in me unfollowing & blocking some creepy dude at one in the morning while I’m in Vegas because he is suggesting he may drive across 4 states to find me. #truestory

I mean keeping up with the most important people in your business.

The most important people in your life. Not missing those most important tweets.

And this is hard to scale. I mean, I obviously can’t read all of the tweets of the 13K people who follow me.

And no, I don’t use Tweetdesk or Semantic or any of the twitter clients or applications to manage my stalking.

I use twitter lists.

No only do I love using twitter lists on twitter.com from my desktop or laptop (I typically have 4-5 tabs open in Chrome to do this), now Tweetie 2.0 on my iPhone can also access my twitter lists, so I can effectively stalk from anywhere.

Here’s how I use twitter lists to maintain my most important relationships and make additional connections with my tribe.

1. Stalking in real life.

When I went to South by Southwest in March, I dreaded being in downtown Austin overflowing with 11K people at SXSW interactive (plus thousands more at the film & music festivals). How could I possibly find the people most important to me?

So, I created a SXSW twitter list of my twitter connections going to SXSW. Now I could easily use Tweetie on my iPhone to find out who was doing what at any particular time. I could find out who was having coffee where, what bar they were going to, who was at what session, who was missing because they were still in their hotel room. And hunt them down.

I have also used location based twitter lists to develop a network of connections before I visit & have a tweetup (like Chicago, SF, San Diego, Canada), have a list of awesome people who I’m stalking and want to connect with in real life, and a list of people who I’ve tweeted up with so I can remember to connect with them again online.

2. Stalking online.

There are some people for whom I don’t want to miss anything they say on twitter. And there are others for whom I want to catch most of what they say.

For business, I use lists like my private “rock star” list (179 people, changes weekly), and my lists of members of Live Your Truth and #lytchat.

For fun, I keep a list of people who are inappropriate (yes, as you know, always need a bit more snark in my life).

For me, I want to keep track of all my best friends. So I’ve created a private twitter list just of those 7 BFFs. And I pretty much read all of their tweets. #powerstalkingFTW

Why do I keep my “rock star” and “bff” lists private? Because those are just for me. It’s not an objective standard I’m using for those lists. It’s pretty much just who I feel like reading today.

3. To enable others to stalk each other.

I’ve created lists to facilitate different parts of my community to connect with each other. Lists for INFJs, #lytchat and for members of Live Your Truth.

Here’s the secret tip – if you care about building relationships & creating a tribe – the most effective thing you can do is to empower your tribe to build relationships with each other.

Relationships that don’t necessarily involve you, but you were the thing that brought them together. Not only does this strengthen your tribe, but it cements you in their minds as the connector. The nexus.

Have you seen other effective uses of twitter lists?

Are you using twitter lists?

I love to hear your experiences, feedback, and questions below!

And not get any other work done.

But, alas, I am one of only two people working for my company, and there’s other work to get done.

So instead of actually working on that other work (including writing this post and another guest blog posts for MomEO), I did what any highly productive CEO would do.

I went and complained on twitter.

And my wonderful friend Alison Kramer (@nummiesbras) replied to my complaints in a flash of brilliance:

Finally! Inspiration!

And that leads us to the point of this blog post.

You see, I complain about two problems with writing.

The first is that I feel the need to be inspired.

To have a flash, a possession come over me that demands I write an epic diatribe full of insight and pronouncements on life or business or reality.

Obviously not a sustainable business model.

I can’t base the blog of a real business, one that needs continuous traffic and new content, off of random and unpredictable inspiration.

And, as we’ve all said before, every post does not need to be epic.

The second complaint is that I don’t have time to write.

Now this excuse is becoming more and lame. I’ve hired Ken Moorhead (@kenmoorhead) as my COO, which means that all of those back end things of my business are being handled by someone much more suited for that than I.

And seriously, some of the time I’m futzing around on social media or answering emails could be dedicated to writing.

But writing, or any creative endeavor, doesn’t just need time. It needs space.

When my mindset is in the middle of a project, when I’m stressed out about a conflict with a loved one, when the apartment is a mess … I can’t create.

I have no mental space. No spiritual space. No void created for the chaos of my mind to find a nexus, to pull together disparate pieces of information and ideas into a message. Into a truth to be spoken.

So, instead, I whine.

That’s freaking useful & productive, eh?!

Ah, but it was, wasn’t it?

I whined. And now, I am writing. About said whining.

And, that’s the nexus of this post.

Write from the now.

From how you feel, where you are, what’s going on, in this moment.

Because there is always inspiration in this moment.

That’s the only place where inspiration lives. In the now.

So if you have a blog post to write, or a video to create, and don’t feel like it, or have writer’s block, or are obsessed with your website or your house being a mess or the fight you just had with your friend or how cute your cat is … write about that.

And yeah, you may want to relate it somewhat to your business. Or what was on your writing calendar for that day.

Or not.

I invite you to let inspiration, let the moment lead you to what to create. Don’t force it inside a predetermined framework. Don’t think your way into it.

Because, the thing is, you already know.

Just get out of your own freaking way, and write.

You make a zillion dollars more than me, are decades older, have a blog with a billion readers? Awesome. I’m much more concerned whether you are a non-idiot who is funny & has something interesting to say.

I pride myself on being able to talk to just about anybody.

But I totally have a ridiculous fangirl thing for @gapingvoid (Hugh MacLeod, author of “Ignore Everybody”). I re-read his book once a month. Tell everyone to buy it. Read his blog. Follow his twitter. I’ve even bought a print of one of his cartoons as the first piece of art for my wall. Actually, the first art print I’ve ever bought in my life.

And he was on my short list of who I wanted to meet (aka stalk) at SXSW.

So instead of finding him in his booth or at a coffee shop or a bunch of other places I could have tracked him down for a conversation (because, as I lamented to Sarah Robinson, “I don’t think I could talk to him!” or “I might throw up on him!”), I chickened out.

And went to hear him on a panel on Monday.

And tweeted about it.

And 15 minutes before the panel, he @ replied back that I should go up to him before they start, and say hi. (omg!)

But I missed the tweet, in my lame effort to concern iPhone battery power. #technologyfail

And after the panel, even after I had read the tweet, I could have talked to him.

But I freaked and went down the escalator instead to grab lunch with a friend. #lameexcuse

Later I tried to find him in the expo at his table. He was either not there or was being interviewed on camera. #stalkingfail

So what’s the lesson?

I should have talked to him. When he *invited* me to.

Or found him at a coffee house, or some other place where he was not being bombarded by people.

The lesson is that everyone is fangirl/fanboy about someone.

We all are slightly insane.

This happens when someone says or does something that has a huge effect on our lives, before we’ve connected with them as human beings. It’s completely one-sided. And can get a bit wonky.

But really … we are all just people.

We want to make a connection with the very people who love our work.

I mean, wtf are we doing this for anyway, if we don’t get to talk to each other?

So the next time I get all fangirl over someone, I’m tracking them down & making a connection before I get too wonky.

And if you see me at a conference or tweetup, and want to come talk to me, do it.

If I’m sitting by myself, it’s not because I want to be alone, it’s because I’m an introvert and networking is scary.

If it helps, send me a @/DM on twitter first, and I’ll give you a specific invitation.

See you then.

Have you ever been nervous to talk to someone? (Did you every throw up on someone, because I’m kind of worried about that.) What happened when you got up the guts to talk to them?