Why Write? – VIDEO

September 18, 2017

Do you write for the love of language?

Do you write to learn?

To fall in?

To discover?

Why do you write?

Let’s keep this really simple. Meribeth and I write because it’s how we connect with ourselves, with you, and with the world. Language is like oxygen for us. Writing is Breathing. Writing is your birthright.

Seriously, it is.

Here are some thoughts we shared under an umbrella on a rainy day on the West Coast. We’re a little pixelated because this started out as a Facebook Live so it’s been downloaded and uploaded a few times… but hey, it’s not about how we look, it’s about the message right?

What is important for you to claim, to understand, to share, to experience, to love, to deepen with?

Here’s to YOU and YOUR WRITING…

with support,

TinaO & Meribeth

TinaO and Meribeth Deen are the creators of The Writer’s Compass, a method of writing that encourages being lost as a way to create, connect and deliver writing from the core. Want to join in our online writing group? Check out our Private Facebook Group: Core Story Writers here. You can also find our programs: WRITE and PUBLISH on The Leap Learning Lab.

Private vs. Public Readiness to Share your Writing – VIDEO

April 14, 2017

The writing process is messy and it’s supposed to be. When you truly dive into a story and let all that you are jumble up with all that your story asks to be, there will be many times when you have no idea which end is up.

And this is good news. When this is your experience, it means you are on the path even if you think you’re lost in the woods.

You look up, flushed, and a bit out of sorts as if you’ve emerged from a deep dive and strangely peaceful even though you’re not sure where the shore is. This is what it feels like to write from your core. You nailed it: the last paragraph, page, stanza, totally delivered.

You get a bit of a rush. Your confidence spikes and your endorphins kick in. You decide to do the unthinkable: show it to someone. You practically leap over the sofa as your partner comes through the door and thrust your journal at him. “Read this. Tell me what you think”, you say. So he does. Then he looks at you funny. But not funny bad, funny weird. You know the face: polite cheeks just a little too high because of the tight smile, and the distant but encouraging eyes. Yes, he is being super friendly but you can read it all over him. He doesn’t get it.

You get that dropping full stop in your stomach. Your bum cheeks let go. You smile back and say “thanks” as he says “it’s good”.

Good.

Right.

Damage done. Your second guessing starts. You start to stagger and stammer through “I just started. I’m not sure exactly where I’m at yet. Really. Hey, thanks for looking at it. No really. I’m okay. Thanks for looking at it.”

Then what do you do?

You stop. Right?

Or maybe it’s like this: You’re writing something deeply personal. It might be a memoir piece. You might be capturing a sliver of your life that was treacherously difficult but because you lived through it and came through stronger for it you feel an intense desire to write about it. This horrendous thing which like a phoenix, you rose from the ashes as it blazed this knowing inside you: to whom much is given much is expected is WHY you feel compelled to share your story. And so you do. Bravely, courageously and unabashedly let us all in.

Again, this is good.

This IS what we write about.

Your instincts are bang on.

But then something happens.

You write about it instead of into it. You know what you want to say so you say it on purpose. You don’t know this, but your story is now dying a slow painful death inside of you. Because you are so clear about the impact you want to make you take us right to the target but lose us because we didn’t discover it with you. The painful details of your story begin to feel brutal and obvious instead of devastating yet transformative. Your journey takes on a caricature quality because it has become a vehicle to drive instead of a partner to navigate. As the reader, we’re now bored. We’re judging. We stop listening not because we don’t believe you, but because we can’t hear you. We hear your commentary instead.

Harsh right?

I wrote it to protect you from draining all the beauty out of something you treasure as sacred enough to make a difference by giving it away. I want you to have your dream. I want your story of survival into thriving to be protected and nurtured until it’s ready. I want that for you.

You see, your story has to live in order to connect. It has to sit with you as you write it like a mysterious loving friend who word by word lets you in on a precious secret. A part of your writing process is supposed to be unknown to you. We want to go with you as you discover the layers that live between the details, in the pauses, the breaths, and the moments of waiting. But a story needs to be ready for that. Sometimes we have to spend a lot of time alone first, being obvious and hard hitting with our words and images until our bruising heals and we no longer need to give our words away. That’s when we’re free. That’s when it’s time to let someone else in. We invite them we don’t need them.

There is a line between public and personal for every writer and it’s going to be different for you than it is for me. Here’s the way I think about it: Stories are like children and we’d never send them out into traffic without us – that is, not until they’ve grown up a bit.

Meribeth Deen and I had a good chat about this line today. This is what we came up with.

Want to join in to our Aspiring Author’s Core Story Club, you can do that here.

TinaO is a Core Story Specialist and a Program Director of PUBLISH with Meribeth Deen for The LEAP Learning Lab. She’s a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub to Live, Give and Be Your Story, plus the deep listening weekend retreat Live Your Best Story. She’s been in the PR and Marketing world since she could put words together and has been a professional network marketer for over twelve years. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey, marketing isn’t make-believe and writing won’t give you an aneurysm (it’s not hard). You can be yourself in all that you do. In fact, that’s what the world is waiting for.

Six Reasons Why Your Core Story is How We See and Hear you From Space – BLOG

March 22, 2017

Your Book and Message Will be Different.

Because Your Book will Make you Money and not just Cost Buckets of it.

You are smart. You are committed. You’ve done everything you’ve been told to do to ”level up” as they say. You have followed the lead generating system that everyone knows works and looks something like:

Build your network – Grow your audience
Offer a valuable optin – Grow your list
Have an irresistible offer – Convert your leads
Post two blogs per week – Drive traffic to your site
Write your book – Cultivate credibility

Am I right?

You’re doing it all.

You’re ticking off every box.

You’re a freakin’ rock star… but… nothing is happening right?

Or something is happening but it’s not enough and it’s certainly not what you thought.

Here’s why:

STORY.

Your CORE STORY.

and YOU.

When you paid big money for that marketing course, or the program with that proven formula to ‘write your book and be seen as an expert’, no one told you that the single most important ingredient in the whole darn this is your story, specifically your core story.

It’s not about:

a word count or reaching 90,000 words.
a compelling title.
ten key steps or five key steps to a great book (for those who like less as more).

It’s not the steps, it’s the story that lives within them.

It’s not writing your book, it’s telling the story.

Your client and audience only have three resources: time, money and energy. Whether you are a consultant, a coach, a thought leader or a CEO, when you put your book out into the market, you are asking your reader to spend all three of their precious resources with you. Write your book by a formula and I promise you you’ll get your book, but you’ll also lose your credibility and audience unless you write from your core.

Your core story is what connects you to your people. It’s what shakes you into their memory. It creates an imprint that they’re compelled to talk about. It’s what builds your ”tribe” as Seth and Simon say. Your story is the greatest vehicle of trust building that you have. Don’t waste it.

Here are the six parts to creating a Core Story of trust and impact. I’m going to help you because as the story teller you have a blindspot, and that is you. Your story is riddled with them and that’s why you need me and when I write, I need someone else. Our story deserves that level of love and respect.

Here are six ingredients to catapult your message and brand promise into the stratosphere. That’s my benchmark btw. I know we’ve hit gold when I can see and hear you from space. Until we get there, we’re not done.

Six Core Story Ingredients that will Catapult your Message and Promise into the Stratosphere

Your Innate Who
Your Urgent Why
Your Compelling How
Your Impactful Where
Your Profound What
Your Life Changing When

Pretty logical right? Sure, but I promise you, if you attack this list on your own, you’re going to get all clever about it and it will never work. Story is personal even if the details are not, the process always is.

I want your book, your message, your brand’s foundation to rest on these six solid pillars of a Core Story because:

I don’t want your book to collect dust in the closet, sitting in a box of hope.
I don’t want your marketing message to be thought of as shlock.
I don’t want your keynote to be forgotten and considered just one of one hundred other possibilities.
Most importantly, because this one really gets under my skin, I don’t want your book to cost you more money, than you’ll make from it.
I want your story to matter to the world in the same way it matters to you.

Here’s how I’m going to make sure this happens:

Here are TinaO’s Top Ten Core Story Principles to Being Seen and Heard from Space. Sounds silly right? But it’s not. Think local and act global right? It’s time to speak, write, work and share from the core of your story to create a lasting impression that people are willing to invest in. Enough already about making a difference… be the difference with your story.

Click here to receive TinaO’s Top Ten Core Story Principles.

It’s a PLAYBOOK.

I speak directly to you.

There is a workbook too.

I’m silly.

It’s direct.

It’s more than just a read, it’s an experience.

Let’s do this together.

You Matter, and so does your Story.

xxT

TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a Program Director of PUBLISH with Meribeth Deen for The Leap Learning Lab, she’s a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub to Live, Give and Be Your Story, plus the deep listening weekend retreat Live Your Best Story. She’s been in the PR and Marketing world since she could put words together and has been a professional network marketer for over twelve years. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey, marketing isn’t make-believe and writing won’t give you an aneurysm (it’s not hard). You can be yourself in all that you do. In fact, that’s the world is waiting for.

Want my book? Get it here.

Meribeth Deen on Patriarchy and Being Robbed of Our Stories – BLOG

March 13, 2017

At a recent event that could best be described as a women’s circle, the women participating were asked two questions in order to kick off the evening’s dialogue. First, introduce yourself not only by your name, but also by the names of your mother and grandmothers. Second, state something you’ve done in your life that you feel proud of – in particular, what you’ve done to “fight the patriarchy” (those were not the words, but that was the jist of what was being asked.

I honestly felt stumped on both counts. Now partly that has to do with the fact that I absolutely freeze in any situation where I’m put on the spot and am asked to talk about myself (helloooo…. job interviews). Also, I couldn’t even name my paternal grandmother. Never mind the fact that I never met her… I should at least know her name. I should know more than the fact that she had A WHOLE BUNCH of kids and even adopted one or two, and that she was both short and stubborn. Really though I don’t know much more about my maternal grandmother even though she lived until I was 21 and yes I did know her name, oh it still shameful how little I know about her life.

My grandfathers, on the other hand, their stories shine. Stories of heroics, intelligence, ingenuity, determination and yes, a few less praiseworthy traits as well – but still, with all of those, stories, the memory of these men evoke a much more complete picture of the lives they lived.

It’s a great assignment, digging up the details of these women’s lives. And I am sure that by taking it on, so many of us women could end up revealing stories that would blow us away. Shedding light on the lives of women whose voices were so diminished compared to ours, we could start to see that we come from a long line of heroes.

We’ve been robbed of their stories, and we can reclaim them.

From their lack of stories, we can also begin to understand the value of our own stories. Our predecessors have fought hard for so many rights we now take for granted, and having a voice and the power to make our stories heard is one of them.

Which brings me to the second question, you know, the fighting patriarchy one. It’s been really hard for me – putting myself, my thoughts, out there publicly; and I am growing into the role. But now I realize, speaking up and trying to be heard and listened to, well that’s simply a woman’s responsibility.

Our stories matter. Your story matters. Take the leap and write it, your granddaughters will thank you.

If you are ready to position yourself as an expert, become a unique voice for your industry and build a residual income, it’s time to write your book so you can grow your audience, reach new markets, and fill your calendar with speaking gigs. It’s time for impact. It’s not about writing a story, it’s about writing yours. Welcome to PUBLISH, a three phase book writing program that brings your story from concept to publish ready.

**Every Wednesday we host a Publish Ready Master Session at 3pm (pacific time). We hope you’ll join us on any of these following days:**

March 15, 22, 29 and April 5

CLICK HERE to Register for Wednesday’s 3pm PST PUBLISH Master Session (to April 5th)

Meribeth Deen is a Journalist and a Story Producer. She’s a program director of PUBLISH on The Leap Learning Lab. She’s produced radio documentaries all over the world and brought the stories of whistle-blowers at Guantanamo Bay to the screen. She goes to where the truth lives. She’s kind, process oriented and believes that when writing, you need to get lost in order to find the point.

We Learn from our Story – BLOG

February 21, 2017

Our story is a personal invitation to learn. It’s not our curse nor our blessing. It’s not our label or paradigm or racket or reason to blame or run or justify. It’s not our grandeur or accomplishment or title or goals. Story just is, and it never ends, while we have breath in our body, blood in our veins and synapses firing between our ears, it is our story that invites us to keep on learning. Why? Because an experience of living doesn’t happen in what we know, it’s in the minute after minute of discovery, and it’s vital to our happiness.

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, comparison did. You know what happens when we stop learning? We start believing that we know stuff and God help us when that happens because that’s how comparison creeps in. You’ll notice when you start using position statements like: I’m right, they’re wrong. She’s good enough, I’m not. They can do it, I can’t. Why me? Why her? We begin to use words like always and never, as in…I always have to… or I never get to… as if there’s another option out there that we’re not allowed to have.

Comparison killed the cat.

The remedy? Operate in the learning and living zone. Let your story unfold. Be curious. Can we have knowledge? Yes of course it’s just that we mustn’t stop there. We must develop skills and gain wisdom, be guided by our experiences, but the very second we stop learning it’s as if we’re saying I’ve had enough of my story thanks. That’s enough learning for me.

Really?

How about this: what makes an unbelievable book? Some fictional character or person’s real life experience takes us on a roller-coaster ride of happenings that move, inspire or transform us. Most importantly, it’s a journey that we can see ourselves in. Memorable books reflect our human experience and that’s why a killer book compels us to turn the page. We are addicted to learning. We have an insatiable desire to answer the question: What next? Think about your morning routine. When your feet hit the floor and you raise your first cuppa, doesn’t the little voice in your head ask you that very question? Isn’t that why you move forward? What’s next?

That is the juju of our story. That’s what learning is.

We say: Teach me. What else is there? I want to know. I’m ready. More please. I want to be better at this. I want to try something new. I want to expand, to stretch, to lift, to enjoy, to be thrilled, to be moved. I am a life-long learner.

Life IS learning.

In today’s seemingly chaotic world governed by technology, at-capacity-thresholds and relentless change, those of us who embrace life by continuing to sit in the learning seat, (dare I say it?) will be HAPPIER than those who don’t (there I said it) because it takes more energy to hang on than it does to let go and learn.

It takes more energy to hang on than it does to let go and learn.

If you’re in business, and you don’t get story, you’re in trouble because today’s marketing is steeped in it. If you’re still selling pain instead of freedom your days are numbered because today’s consumers are done with adrenaline based marketing. Fear hurts more now because it’s difficult to get away from. If you have a website (and come on now, you must if you’re in business) and you don’t have a book: you are totally missing it. Today we are story based. That is how we learn. That is what we respect and that is what we are yearning for.

Enough with telling me what you know.

Teach me what I want to know instead.

I’m a program director with The Leap Learning Lab and along with Meribeth Deen, the two of us lead a program called PUBLISH supporting the stories of Canadian women from concept to publish ready. And while I can tell you about the tangible benefits of writing your book with us, it’s not the ‘how to’ stuff like this that you’ll take with you once you’re done.

HOW TO:

craft a title that connects to your core.
conduct a research based interview.
link one chapter to the next so your reader is compelled to turn the page.
bring the vibrancy of your inner story up and out to live on the page.
magnify your voice to cut through the noise of other books in your genre.
etc… etc… etc…

Those are just some of the writing take-aways of PUBLISH, but what about the intangibles? Because this is where life as a committed learner enters the picture. This is where we follow, and yes possibly even run along our path to happiness.

TAKE AWAYS:

Honouring the roots of where you’ve been so that your wisdom is a gift.
Connecting to the core of your why to make sense of why any of it matters.
Trusting the story that wants to tell you instead of feeling the pressure of having to drive it all the time.
Allowing a relationship with your creative side to lighten your load a bit more.
Developing a greater sense of confidence in who you are, where you come from and your place in the world.
Finding deeper meaning in all of it.

How do you put that into a curriculum? You can’t because it’s a bi-product of showing up and doing the work whatever that may be. In PUBLISH it’s about getting your book written. In Live Your Best Story (a retreat I lead), it’s about listening so as to lead your life. Whatever it is, take it on as the life-long learner that you are designed to be.

Happiness is connected to our sense of belonging, to understanding what brings us peace, and to doing life within the design of who we truly are. None of us get there by standing on a mountain of what we know. All of us will get there when we’re committed to living by learning.

Our story is an invitation to learn and as we do, we invite more happiness in to our life.

xxT

If you are a Canadian woman entrepreneur, leader, innovator, millennial or your business offers services to women in Canada we invite you to find out more about LEAP Learning Lab.

We are a team of 10 fabulous Canadian women creating opportunities for other Canadian women to accelerate their success and their results across multiple disciplines. We also offer corporate learning solutions for businesses committed to the development of their women leaders.

We are looking for fabulous Canadian women to learn, live and lead with us. Collectively, through learning, we will make each other better humans.

Want you FREE COPY of TinaO’s Core Story Playbook? Click here.

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Here’s where you can find out more about Tina’s upcoming retreat: Live Your Best Story. Here’s where you can find out more about PUBLISH and become a VIP in the Leap Learning Lab.

Identifying your Core Story – BLOG

December 29, 2016

By December 31st the first draft of You Matter – Identifying your Core Story will be complete. You can follow along as I share some sneak peeks with you until then. Big thanks to Meribeth Deen for being my Story Doula as I give birth to this word-baby. Did I just say that? Word-baby. Oh boy. I said it again.

We live our life unconsciously as stories with excited beginnings, doubtful mid-way points and then panicked or impending endings. We feel the timing of stories. We are captivated by the unknown because we expect an inevitable resolution. We control our lives to avoid the terror of unnecessary surprises. We get story and because the construct of beginning, middle, end is so ingrained into us, we woe-fully take on the dangerous pretense of being able to write our own story, as if we ultimately can. I’m here to tell you that while that’s possible, yes you can pick up the pen and write your own story, set your own course, and create the life you’ve dreamed of (as the inspirational wall art we buy never stops reminding us), this one-sided alpha position approach to living, while it may bring you short-term confidence, perceived control and seemingly peaceful order, it comes at a high price and that usually means your life, figuratively and sometimes even literally.

Yes you know where you’re going

Yes you may have the means to get there

Yes you may even have full confidence that you can ‘make it happen’

Until one day, you don’t, or unspeakably you can’t, or you simply won’t, and you don’t know why. It’s as if you can’t quite put your finger on it, you just know you can’t do this, whatever this is, anymore.

By December 31st 2016 the first draft of this book will be done. If you’d like a complimentary digital copy of TinaO’s Identifying your Core Story, pop your name in here and we’ll be sure to send it to you once it’s complete early 2017.

As well, if you are a Canadian woman with a story to tell and would like to be considered for PUBLISH, a book writing program through powHERhouse Media Group, you may want to consider becoming a Woman we Celebrate so TinaO and Meribeth Deen can support you to get your book written this year.

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TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

What was I Thinking?

February 19, 2016

Another list. Another ridiculous guffaw I frequently have with myself – usually when I’m driving. Sorry gang. I try not to drive after 6pm because I’m too busy laughing at how insane I am to be considered ‘safe’ behind the wheel after six.

Who needs a phone to distract you from driving when you have a list like this? Want to have some fun? Come up with your own top ten – but fair warning, don’t drive when you’re thinking about it.

Here’s how it starts:

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

As I flung my eight year old yelling self over the staircase banister desperate to be heard through the double doors where a boy I was teasing stood. J E N S E N ! ! ! I screeched until I fell ass over tea kettle down two flights of stairs. Cracked my jaw too (just a little but enough that there’s still a bump). Thanks Laverne for dragging my blacked out self to the office that day.

with Laverne 36 years after the banister incident.

As I claimed bankruptcy over $20,000 in debt when I was only 27 years old. Oh gawddddddd… really? If only I knew my own earning potential back then.
As I believed that guy who said he was only sleeping with me. Jeeeeeee Whizzzzzzzzzz.
As I had a freakin’ thirty-something temper tantrum and threw a chair into a wall – yup, the kids and I still laugh full out about that one. …we can still see the legs sticking out of the wall.
As I hung the family Christmas lights without a ladder, without a step stool, without anything but the back of the couch (you know, the really skinny part that’s for BACKS and not FEET?), only to quickly scramble down in order to change a poopy diaper, land on the baby’s ukulele, twist my ankle and not be able to breathe for 30 seconds because of the pain. ‘Don’t touch me I seethed. Just let me lay here for a minute.’
As I believed my college drama teachers who said I wasn’t an actor. I believed them. I actually believed them. Dumb dumb dumb dumb powerless and ahhhhhh done. Sometimes I wonder if they were right only because I believed them. What would’ve happened if I had believed in myself more?
As I made three short films with no budget. Funny how not knowing what can’t be done usually translates into doing it.
As I talked on my cel phone, pumped breast milk and DROVE all at the same time (pre-hands free driving folks just sayin…).
As I pretended that I wasn’t sure if I believe in God because it was easier than having a faith I didn’t understand.
As I almost gave up on being me as if I could ever run that fast or that far.

Here’s to you and being all that you are in whatever form you’re currently showing up as. You’re funny man. Ridiculous even. Welcome to the club.

xxT

TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.