It's so interesting sometimes, Lovely Simplerista. A year and 8 months ago, I had a session with my very favorite fingerprint and hand analyst, Baeth Davis. If you haven't had a session with her, I implore you to get on it right now. She's absolutely incredible. I've had several sessions with her, and I've given sessions to key people in my life, and it's always so worth it times a hundred.
So back on February 17, 2015 I had a session with her. And I remember it as being helpful, valuable, and ... then life kinda happened. This weekend, I was searching my Notes app for something, and up popped my notes from the session with Baeth, and I started reading them.
Looking back, it's cray-cray how prescient that session was both in terms of what's happened since, and where I'm at right now in my life.
Have you ever had that experience of reading a book you read several years ago, and now when you read it again, entirely new things register for you, and you wonder if they were even in the book the first time you read it? I'm sure you have. That's what it was like fro me. Only I'm listening to the recording, and it's clear I was right there, in the session.
Two things in particular stood out to me.
One is she talked about me being a "Generator" in Human Design. I'd come across Human Design shortly before our session, but I found it crazy incomprehensible (and I'm generally good at Figuring Shit Out™). The founder is named Ra Uru Hu, and Human Design was channeled to him in Ibiza in the 70s or something. And the PDF I'd bought to read about it was the transcription of a series of lectures that he or someone had given at some point, and it was filled with spoken language, aborted sentences, and lack of structure. In short, it didn't really register at the time. I guess I wasn't ready.
But this time, I decided to dig in again, and I found some other resources, including a couple of excellent books, and now it all started to make sense.
As a Generator, you should avoid initiating things at all costs. Stop trying to make things happen. Instead, wait for people and opportunities to come to you, and decide whether you want to pursue them or not based on your gut reaction. This was revelatory. Looking back on my life, this seems to be exactly true with everything great about my life: It wasn't something I actively pursued, it sort-of came to me, and I decided that I wanted it. Most of the times I've tried to actively pursued things, it didn't really work, but it did waste a ton of effort. Super interesting.
The other thing that stood out from the session is the importance for me of having a team around me executing things. I have world-scale visions and solutions for world-scale problems, and I really need people around me to execute them, or it's never going to happen. Like Steve Jobs. If he'd tried to design and program and produce everything himself, we'd never have the Mac, the iPhone, or the iPad. Thankfully he didn't. That's the transition I'm going through now.
I feel so grateful to have an incredible team around me who's perfectly able to take care of every single aspect of running and pushing Simplero forward better than I'd ever be able to. And it all happened without me actively trying to pursue it. In fact, it only started to happened after I stopped trying to pursue it. Then people magically started to appear in my life, or people who'd been around me for a while started to raise their hand and offer taking on a bigger role. It's really been quite remarkable.
I'm still having to be mindful about shedding the idea that only actively doing the work has value, and accepting that "just" setting the vision, and directing other people to do the work is enough, but I'm on board with the idea. After all, my heroes Richard Branson and Steve Jobs seems to have been of service to others doing just that, so I'm thinking I might be able to do something like that, too.
My point is, sometimes we can be so darn stubborn in holding on to something, fighting hard against or at least ignoring the very thing that's going to make us the most fulfilled and provide the greatest value to other people. Often times, it's right there in front of us, but we can be, shall we say, a little daft?
I know I can.
Old New Customers
One thing we love (and experience regularly) is when people come back to Simplero after having tried something else, and realized how much better they liked Simplero.
We get it. There's a lot of marketing thrown at you. Sometimes you get convinced, sometimes you're like, maybe I'm missing out, maybe this system really is so much better, maybe I really do need this thing, or my life's going to suck.
We really strive to make the best, simplest, funnest platform in the industry, with none of the BS, and so it thrills us no end to see our customers tell us that's what they experience, too.
Welcome back, Hollie and Tom:
New Features in Simplero
We're working on some BIG and VERY exciting changes, and they're looking great. Can't say too much, but we can give you a tiny sneak peak:
Released this week is support for emoticons in worksheets.
Want an Interview?
One of my favorite things to do is to give interviews. I happen to believe I do a pretty good job with them. If you'd like to do an interview with me, get in touch, we'll figure something out.
Also, on the music side of things, I'm looking for co-writers, co-producers, and a manager.
I'm looking to really up my "visibility" game.
Just thought I'd throw that out there. You never know what'll show up. Seed planted... :)
Random Links from Around the Interwebs
I'm really shocked by the uproar over Apple's new MacBook Pro launch. Personally I went straight to the site and bought the most decked out model they offer. Sure, I would've liked it to be less expensive, have more RAM, and be even faster. But given the lay of the land, I get every single one of their decisions. Apple was never about being cheap, and Intel doesn't make chips that are faster or support more memory without a significant power penalty. It's gotta require thick skin to be a leader. Reminds me of my friend David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails. He was very adamant about the importance of a thick skin in this business. I hope they have it. And I hope they're going to make Macs with their own processors, like they do for iPhones.
Dylan Moran on Arnold Schwarzenegger (thx Nick).
LEGO bags that make it look like you have LEGO mini-figure hands.
Have an incredible week!
–Calvin