Marc's Musings

A fun video from my family to yours!

Today is the winter solstice here in Maine. The shortest day of the year.

For those not inclined to see the glass half-full, it’s also the darkest day of the year.

But in the Southern Hemisphere, in places like New Zealand, today is the longest day of the year. The day with the most sunlight.

I love that! It helps me remember that even if things look really dark for me, I’m simply not seeing the whole picture.

And as my wife reminded me, the winter solstice has always been celebrating that the light does return. The darkness doesn’t triumph.

No wonder the Church chose to celebrate Christmas on the winter solstice. The Light will return to triumph over darkness.

May you experience that Light this Christmas. And may you have a hope-filled 2011.

I opened my email this morning to see this update in a Human Business Works note from Chris Brogan:

501 Mission Place Launches

Hi Marc –

I am so excited to report that 501 Mission Place, our HBW community to help nonprofits and charities grow, is launched! If you run a nonprofit or charity project or know someone who does, this community and learning experience was built for them. Our goal is to help people grow their capabilities in this tough economic time, when giving is drying up exactly at the same moment that people need it.

501 Mission Place started as a conversation between Rob Hatch and me. Over the summer, we went on vacation together, brought Jon Swanson and Marc Pitman along, and by the end of it, we had a lot of ideas how we could help charities do more with less. We then needed a leader to facilitate the experience. Estrella Rosenberg who runs many nonprofits including Big Love Little Hearts for congenital heart defects, was the obvious person for the role. And we added also John Haydon, a smart guy with a lot of feet-on-the-ground experience of his own.

The result is 501 Mission Place, an educational community dedicated to equipping nonprofits and charities for success.

Because this benefits the nonprofit sector, we’ve done everything we can to keep costs down. The monthly subscription rate is just a low $27 USD, about the price of a hardcover book. Annually, that’s a little bit less than the ticket cost of a conference (and you don’t have to pay airfare or hotel fees).

Our hope is that you’ll pass this on to any nonprofit or charity people you know, as they might not already be subscribed to the HBW mailing list, and if you would, we’d be grateful. We think that 501 Mission Place will be very useful to people.

As always, thank you for all that you do. I’ll have more personal development and business growth thoughts shortly.

-Chris…

I am so excited! I’ve been working with the team on this for months. Together, we’re going to help nonprofit people do amazing things!

I’ll blog more about this later (probably at FundraisingCoach.com. I’m about to get on a coaching call with a very cool client. But I’m so excited I wanted to let the world know!

This is another saying I’ve been hearing a lot lately. “Why should I vote? It doesn’t really count anyway.” “My vote won’t sway an election. Why bother?”

I try to be polite. And I do empathize with the helpless feeling. It’s really easy to feel insignificant in the face of the mess we’re facing as a state and country.

But individuals do matter.

Beyond the hanging chads of 2000. Beyond a Maine governor’s race that could be much closer than anyone anticipated. And beyond the casino vote that, it looks like, will be decided by just a few votes today. More and more elections seem to be coming down to a few votes.

But even beyond that, individuals to matter.

Everything you use today was created by an individual doing their job. Whether that job was inventing the combustion engine or inserting a screw on the toaster or pulling coffee beans off a tree.

Each of those unnamed individuals matter. They made a difference in your life, didn’t they?

Whatever your stance on issues, please don’t take the privilege of voting lightly. People have fought and died so we could vote today.

People are fighting and dying still.

So please, take another sip of coffee and then get out there and vote.

I’ve been speaking to lots of people asking me if I think Cutler really has a chance of winning Maine’s gubernatorial race. You see, they don’t want to “throw their vote away.”

Today, I’m glad to say that it looks like Cutler isn’t the spoiler in the race. According to Colin Woodward:

“Recent polls suggest it is Mitchell who has become the real spoiler. The Critical Insights poll released last night confirms the trend: Cutler has doubled his support base to pull into a dead heat with Mitchell, who has been hemorrhaging support since the primaries.”

Throughout the primaries, people always came up to me and said, “I like Peter Mills but I’m not sure he has a chance of winning.” If each of these people had voted for Peter, we may have had a different Republican nominee.

Let’s not make that mistake with Eliot Cutler.

Yes, being an independent is hard, especially when there are two other independents siphoning votes away. And when you have money rich lobbyists like the Republican Governors’ Association and special interests like the Maine Education Association working against you.

But we’re Mainers. We’re independent. And we don’t need out of state people or special interest groups telling us how to vote.

If like me, you think Eliot Cutler is the right man for the job, vote for him. Vote now at your town office or vote on November 2. You really don’t have to settle for a party nominee this election.

But you will if you don’t vote.

As a social media guy, I’m so proud of how my kids are using email and starting audio and video recordings.

Over the last couple days, my 10 year old son — on his own initiative — “borrowed” my wife’s camera and tripod, designed this scene, and took the over 500 pages that it required. He even knew what song he wanted it paired with. AND he was determined to have it uploaded to YouTube.

Yep, I’m a proud Dad.

Today I had the privilege of introducing gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler at the Waterville Rotary Club. Here’s what I said (at least what was in my notes!):

I’m honored to be able to introduce Eliot Cutler today.

As I was preparing my introductory remarks, I realized I ran the risk of taking up all of Eliot’s time in the introduction! So I’m choosing to limit my remarks to why I’m supporting Eliot Cutler for Maine’s next governor.

In this club, we’ve heard from both of the party nominees. These parties are going in directions many of us consider simply too extreme. Republicans and Democrats seem to be going through a seismic shift between moderates and extremists. This is cyclical in the history of US politics and is probably healthy.

But we in Maine don’t have time for that struggle to be played out in the Blaine House.

The first two years of the next governor’s term will be very tough. The next two may well be quite good. We need a man or woman versatile enough to navigate both the cuts needed in the hard years and the judicious investments needed in the good times.

I believe Eliot Cutler is that man.

Eliot knows Maine. He knows government, and having spent my spring as the campaign manager for Peter Mills, I now appreciate how important it is to know how government works. More importantly for me, Eliot also knows how to run successful international businesses. He has a vision for not just how Maine fits in the new global market, but how Maine can be a player in the global economy.

Eliot has a plan. As the party candidates have continued speaking the primary platitudes they’ve used all spring, Eliot has shared the details of his plan. It is so detailed, Maine media are saying it is now the standard the other candidates need to meet when they share theirs. Eliot’s plan honestly shares the uncomfortable decisions that will need to be made, and the more comfortable opportunities.

Eliot is a man of action. His actions impress me the most. This summer, while the party nominees were still just talking, Eliot brought a delegation of Chinese business leaders to look at the distinctively Maine industries of lobster, blueberries, and aquaculture.

Our current governor goes overseas on trade delegations. Eliot brings those delegations to Maine.

That’s why it’s a great pleasure to be able to welcome Eliot Cutler to our Rotary Club.

During Eliot’s entire talk, the Republican Governor’s Association’s tracker, Ryan, filmed every word. Both parties are worried because Eliot’s campaign is so strong. And both are throwing negative smears his way. As an independent, he doesn’t have the parties to help finance his campaign.

Would join me in helping him? You can make a secure donation over at:
http://www.cutler2010.com/donate/

Thanks!

Had a great time tonight at Barrels Market 1st Annual Dinner by the River.

All locally grown food, some even served by the people that grew it!

But I also had a lesson in edamame.

Look at the two plates above. I grabbed a pod from the blue plate and popped it in my mouth. [Lesson #1: you don't eat the whole thing, just suck the soy beans out.]

Then, after I’d consumed the pod, I found out I’d picked it from the plate my friend Sarah was using to put her used pods on!

You bet, that was Lesson #2.

Last week, I had the pleasure of being on Good Day New York to talk about how to change a career more effectively than Steven Slater’s jumping out of a JetBlue plane. The interview is above. A more complete 5-page article is at:
Changing Careers Without Facing Felony Charges.

So far this summer, most of my reading has been nonfiction. Having a yearning to read fiction, I asked my social networks what they recommended.

Thanks to @amuhs, @llake, @cloudspark, @ddpaek, @LarryHehn, @frankmckay, my Twitter request yielded these suggestions:

• South of Broad: A Novel, Pat Conroy
• The Dead Don’t Dance, Charles Martin
• books by Eric Wilson
• The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
• The Help, Kathryn Stockett
• That Old Cape Magic: A Novel, Richard Russo
• The Children’s Book, A.S. Byatt

And on Facebook Tom Golway, Hannah Doak Clifton, Elektra Damianos Gaebelien, Denise Lafountain, Greg Daly, Michell Arnold Paine, Kate Arnold Fitzpatrick, Katelyn Jo Melanson, Richard Cebra, Amy Cyrway, Maggie Hall, Jeff Pouland, Robert Sezak, Wayne Burke, Jean Coltart, Kathleen Tozier Duprey, Joanna Tracy Martel, Bill Taylor, and Faye Nicholson recommended:

• The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
• The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
• World Without End, Ken Follett
• Quo vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz
• Hadassah, Tommy Tenney
• The Strain, Guillermo del Toro
• anything by Agatha Christie
• The Stand: Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (Signet), Stephen King
• Under the Dome, Stephen King
• As the Crow Flies, Jeffrey Archer
• The Sirens of Titan: A Novel, Kurt Vonnegut
• The Overton Window, Glenn Beck
• Everything Matters!: A Novel, Ron Currie (2 recommendations)
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson (2 recommendations)
• Day of Reckoning, Jack Higgins
• all the Harry Potter books
• The Tommyknockers, Stephen King
• On Writing, Stephen King
• Charlie’s Web: A Mystery, LL Thrasher
• A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle

These are all (affiliate) linked to Amazon but Robert Sezak reminded me that most of these books can be purchased at used books stores like RE-BOOKS in Waterville!