Marc's Musings

Got a call earlier today from a joint venture partner. My first thought was:

“He’s calling it off. The project is over.”

Why do I do this? I’m pretty much an over-the-top optimist. The glass is always full: sometimes full of liquid, sometimes full of air. It’s always full.

There really is always a silver lining. There is always a seed of equal or greater benefit in even in the worst experiences.

So why do I do automatically jump to the negative?

Deeply rooted pattern

This pattern of thinking has gotten me in trouble before. I’ve had it with just about every boss over the last couple decades. When they asked to see me, I just knew they were going to fire me.

Totally irrational. They may have been wanting to say something good for all I know!

The problem is, I come to the meeting radiating defensiveness rather than collaboration. Not the best mindset to approach any meeting (other than one that you really do need to be defensive in!).

Paths

I’ve heard that with the brain, a thought pattern is like a path. The more it’s traveled, the more worn the path gets. Eventually, the path is a paved city street.

It takes a lot less energy to travel a paved street than a dirt path. So in a way, the brain is gravitating toward the path of least resistance.

Bushwhacking

I guess the only way to solve this is to force myself to think good thoughts when I see the doom-and-gloom start to raise its ugly head.

When I start thinking dark thoughts, I will have to take out my mental machete and force myself to think of a great thing that could happen.

If I get another call that leads me down the thought path I mentioned above, I could add:

…perhaps…He could be calling to call this off. OR, he could be calling to celebrate a breakthrough.

What do you do to retrain your brain?

Last month, I was honored to be chosen as one of Maine’s “Forty under 40.” They went across the state looking for leaders under the age of 40 who were having an impact in Maine and in the world.

Glad I made it! Especially since I turn 40 in January!

Since it looks like this only went into the Portland Press Herald, here’s the text of the profile:

Love of family, trust in God, positive thinker and an unparalleled focus on getting things done and helping others achieve their goals.

These are just some of the traits that define Marc Pitman, 39, of Waterville, whose skills at writing and speaking have served him well in his travels around the world teaching fundraising and social media marketing.

The married father of three and founder of FundraisingCoach.com has indeed accomplished much and earned the recognition of many, including his latest selection as one of Forty Under 40 in Maine who are making significant contributions in their career and community.

“In such a challenging economic time, many nonprofits have lost a significant portion of their funding. Marc’s work is helping many of these organizations continue to achieve their goals by giving them the tools, skills and ‘permission’ to ask for funding help,” says Lynnelle Wilson, founder and president of Bold Vision Consulting, in nominating Marc, who points to his family – “an amazing wife of 16 years and three wonderful children” – as his proudest accomplishment.

Marc’s drive to get things done also might explain how he’s been able to accomplish more in four decades than many have achieved in a lifetime, such as “international speaking, pastoring a church, managing a gubernatorial campaign, writing books, teaching at the college level and raising millions of dollars for charity,” he said.

“The mission of his business is helping nonprofit and philanthropic organizations become self-sustaining,” says Wilson. “Outside of his business, he is very active in his local and statewide community. He’s actively involved in making Maine a better place by getting involved managing political campaigns (Peter Mills) and serving on area boards like the Mid-Maine United Way and actively serving the local public libraries. In fact, his third book Ask Without Fear! for Librarians is inspired by his work with Maine librarians.”

Here are just a few other notable achievements, according to Wilson:

• His book, “Ask Without Fear!” has sold more than 4,000 copies
• His blog is listed as one of the top 10 nonprofit blogs in the world
• Having the Association of Fundraising Professionals list his “The Rule of 3′s” (on nonprofit marketing) as one of the top 10 downloads of 2010 and another articles is in the top 10 downloads of 2011
• Speaking around the world, including Bermuda, and a three-week book tour in New Zealand while also speaking across the U.S. and Canada as well as in Maine, especially to Rotary Clubs across the state
• One of the co-founders of www.501MissionPlace.com, an international community for leaders of social change.
• Being featured in FundraisingSuccess magazine, in the UK’s Fundraiser magazine and on About.com
• The global fundraising coach for this year’s international Twestival fundraising event
• Getting listed on IMDB for his “Ask Without Fear!” DVD training

Marc has had a number of mentors in his life, people who have had a lasting impact such as his parents, his first boss in fundraising, Bob Grinnell, and David Dunlop, “one of the most famous people in the field of philanthropy you’ve never heard of,” and his wife – “She has an amazing ability to inspire me, whether that inspiration is a word of encouragement or a kick in the pants.”

Marc draws inspiration from not only his family, but also from his religious convictions and beliefs. “Jesus. As cheesy as it sounds, I owe everything I’ve accomplished to Him. I’ve dedicated my life to discovering how He’s created me and being the best I can in honoring His trust. I could go on and on, but I’ll just say He has had the most impact.”

Still, even with all that he’s involved in, Marc finds time to enjoy the good life at his favorite place in Maine – Waterville, his home, where he often can be found enjoying a book and a satisfying cup of coffee, brewing his own beer, or singing out loud in the car.

“If you see me in a car, I’m probably singing ’80s tunes loud enough to embarrass my family.”

Looking to the future, in 10 years Marc would like to be known as “the Tony Robbins or Tom Peters of fundraising training.”

“There are so many amazing causes that are struggling simply because well-meaning volunteers don’t know how to fundraise effectively. As a certified Franklin Covey Coach, I love helping people discover their potential and design their lives around it. Having a larger platform will allow me to help more people fully fund their cause.”

I just finished being off the grid for 52 hours. Yep, no Google+. Or Facebook, or Twitter, either.

And I survived.

In fact, I highly recommend trying it.

Honestly, I freaked a little before hand. Having an internet connection seemed incredibly important. As I drove away from our house, I heard myself thinking thoughts like, “What will happen to Fundraising Coach? What if people want to hire me? What if I don’t answer an email or tweet all Friday?”

That’s when I knew I needed the break.

We all have triggers. One of my “I need to get out of this place” triggers is when I think my job will completely end without my hourly nurture. When I think that the world really does revolve around me, I know something is incredibly warped. So it’s great that I got to get away!

Looking back on the weekend, the lack of internet connection was sort of releasing. But what was really distracting, a complete surprise to myself, was not having brought a book along! *sigh* I got over that too. (And picked up the second Bourne book at a local bookstore on Saturday afternoon!)

I’ve now checked into Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. I am grateful for the connections. But I also love hanging out with my family by a fire and getting to look up at leaves like these.

I encourage you to try unplugging between now and the end of August. If you’re of the camping persuasion, I highly recommend a few nights at Peaks-Kenny State Park here in Maine. But if you do, go for 3 nights. Two wasn’t long enough.

Went to the store today. When I came back to my van, I found a note on my windshield.

It said

You will go TO HELL if you park so close to me ever again

Despite the obvious pun on my license plate “I WILL GO” (ironically based on a Christian worship song), the anger in the note was palpable. [More ironically, it was written on note paper from the Humane Society!]

As I walked the note to the trash can, I started seething. How dare anyone write a note like that! Especially when I was right in the center of the painted lines of my spot! I wasn’t sure who’d put the note there, but I started trying to figure out who was to blame.

Then I remembered Zig Ziglar’s story about kicking the cat. You see I grew up listening to Zig. And he had a great story that went something like this:

A man is angry because he got a late start for the office so he drives like a maniac and cuts off Frank. This ticks Frank off so when he gets to his office, he snaps at his assistant about a report at that is late. His assistant is now upset that the person responsible for the report, Joe, is making her look bad to her boss so when she calls Joe, she takes out her anger on him. Joe gets the report but is upset all day. He’s still upset when he gets home. His cat, who’s has nothing to do with Joe’s day, bumps the door and Joe, in his anger, ends up kicking the cat.

Don’t Kick the Cat

The cat had nothing to do with Joe’s bad day, or the assistant’s stress, or Frank’s being upset, or the first guys getting a late start to the day. But the cat takes the brunt of that frustration.

Zig’s point was that at any point in the chain of events each of the people had a choice over their attitude. They could choose to react in kind, or respond more positively.

Each of us have the choice to not kick the cat. To not pass on the negative crap we get by hanging around people like us.

Obviously this lady was having a rough day. I’ve never received a note like that. Think of the effort involved in finding the Human Society note pad, finding my license plate, and hand writing such a venomous note. She must’ve been fit to be tied.

And really…it had nothing to do with me.

Sure, it was wrong. But did my kids really need me to lash out at them as I’d been lashed out at? Obviously not.

So I tried making up a story in order to fight of the anger that kept trying to get me. I decided it was the woman who’d parked into my space and went into the cell phone store. I know how frustrating that can be. And I tried imagining what happened to her on the way to the store and why those people did what they’d done.

Because, her anger really had nothing to do with me. And I didn’t want to kick the cat.

Let me tell you about a dream I had last night.

I wanted to get a burger at 5 Guys. I’ve never had one from there and a new 5 Guys had opened up in our city.

When I went there, it was packed. The line wasn’t out the door, but it might as well have been. I don’t like lines like that. They get stressful and people often get mean. So I started strategizing.

I decided to step outside, call in my order from my cellphone, and relax while it was being prepared.

The problem was…I didn’t have my cellphone. I wracked my brain to figure out where I left it. I also tried figuring out who I knew that would let me use their office phone to make the call.

As I was looking up to get the 5 Guys number off the sign, I realized I already had a burger. And I’d eaten half of it!

I’d been so focused on the seeking, that I hadn’t even realized I’d been munching on my burger. Somewhere along the way, I’d accomplished my goal. But I had such tunnel-vision, I missed it.

Sometimes success isn’t about the journey

I blogged about the fundraising implications of this dream over at FundraisingCoach.com. But I really think this dream is about life.

It got me wondering: am I so focused on building my business and helping others that I am not realizing I already have achieved some of my goals.

Self-employment is amazing. The most exhilarating thing I’ve done, and the scariest. There’s no HR office to work with, no regular paychecks, no planned vacation days. Nothing happens financially unless I start it.

It’s easy to get so focused on building the business that I forget how much has been accomplished. I get so focused on getting the hamburger, I fail to see the one in my hand. And if I do recognize it, I’m too busy worried about where the next hamburger will come from to enjoy the one I have.

They say that success is a journey, not a destination. But sometimes it is a destination…at least a rest stop on the journey.

An invitation

I think this dream was an invitation for me. An invitation to enjoy what I have, savor it, cherish it. Family, friends, things, all of it.

I don’t have any formula for this recognizing and enjoying these rest stops. But I think that knowing they exist will help. It’s like GI Joe used to say, “Knowing is half the battle!”

How about you? How do you recognize and enjoy your accomplishments?

It’s a snow day here in Maine. But my kids are plowing through school work. Even the one in public school is doing homeschool work.

I love homeschooled kids.

I have an appreciation for public schooling. We need as many people educated as possible. And I was really good at it, high honors and all that. But one of the things I learned from the classroom was that there was little reward for completing work. I still had to sit there. And people that didn’t complete their work didn’t really have any consequences.

One of the things I learned from the way school was set up (public and private) was the importance of warming a seat. Attendance was half of the battle. And the kids that didn’t act up or cause trouble were the “good kids.”

But homeschooled kids are not only learning the same subjects, they’re learning the importance of work. The system is different. There is a freedom to choose what to work on. And the reward of being able to be done when the work is done.

When I was in New Zealand with my 8 year old daughter, she always started her day doing her math work. It wasn’t her favorite, but she knew if she did it first, she would be done with it for the day.

It strikes me that this is so important with life too. There are increasingly few jobs that reward people for simply warming a seat. Today, people need to know how to work. They need to know what constitutes accomplishing a task and how to manage their own workflow.

As an entrepreneur, I get paid for work I do, not the time I take to do it. Home schooling creates a structure that teaches this by it’s very nature.

Just like my kids are doing today.

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.