A few years ago, I created a personal mission statement. As a solo-soul-preneur, I am the face and being of my business.  At the end of 2010, I was called to update that document. Usually the word “mission” for me is a non-starter. I’ve read far too many mission statements that put me to sleep.

As the Write Synergies Guru, I teach people the magic of growing their results (in words) greater than the sum of the parts. To do that, it calls for stepping into a level of Being in the World (and in the moment) that can only be expressed as your mindful and conscious Presence.  Sometimes, that Presence yearns to share itself by owning the parts that it encompasses. Maybe my colleagues would benefit by revising their “mission” statements into “Presence” statements…Or what I call the Code.

As a writer and a mentor for those crafting,  honing, and polishing their public messages, writing is one piece of my process. Let me share a secret: Who you are Being, from your deepest essence, is what makes the critical distinction between you and everyone else. So ponder the following questions. Take them to heart. Write your answers. Then share your riches here and with your own community of customers, clients — your circle and tribe.

First, who are you Being?

= From your Being, what is your Vision for 2011?

= What is your process for bringing that Vision to life?

= What are the words, the code that you live by when you are truly expressing from your highest and deepest self?

Please share!

For me, it is out of a place of deep inner space, of silence, of a kind of solitude, of words written by hand and by keyboard.

The Write Synergies Code

Out of the deep inner space of silence and solitude grow discernment, intuition, compassion

Walking a spiritual path, I commit to living these core values:

Listening deeply and with loving attention

Exploring with joy, curiosity, passion

Living mindfully and artfully with health, serenity, abundance

Knowing the sacred flow in all energy exchanges

Promoting peace, creativity, wisdom

Expressing compassion for Gaia, nature, and all sentient beings

Advancing with honesty, integrity, authenticity, gratitude, imagination

Connecting with the highest expression of those intersecting my path

Embodying a focus on the Light within and highest good for all concerned

Such foundational and visionary work is the beginning of declaration — what some might even call the basis for a Manifesto. Rest assured, that is coming. Living and expressing fully from this deep place calls on all our intent, requires that we show up in these new and powerful ways of Being.

I have been able to share, above, acrostic messages as part of my Write Synergies Code. These totems and ways of Being are also part of the code and reminders to me about the deeper forces at play in all aspects of life.

We are being called to wake up and act from a more powerful place. Start by unlocking your Being, shining a light on your Vision, and acting each day in the truth of your Code!

Join me on the Write Synergies Path!
Bobbye Middendorf
The Write Synergies Guru

Just like Christmas is always on December 25, so Epiphany is always on January 6. We’ve finished the twelfth night of the Christmas season and move on to the season of Epiphany.

I always loved the idea of epiphanies — those great ah-ha-s. Epiphanies were a big deal for Stephen Daedalus in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, one of my favorites of the “great books.”

Epiphany, beyond the capitalized version of the religious holiday, according to Merriam Webster (at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epiphany :

2   an appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being

3  a (1) : a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b : a revealing scene or moment

Such illuminations are indeed possible — especially using the writer’s toolkit. It’s a matter of paying attention to what is there, as one friend says, “Notice what you notice.”

Together throughout 2011, we will explore the many possibilities for synergies, legacies, epiphanies.

Here’s to Love, Peace, Joy …
and Epiphanies filling your 2011 to the brim!

How do you connect your venture, creation, business, project, or book — your brainchild — to your perfect audience, tribe, circle, or community?

You need a bridge. You need a strong bridge that weaves together:

~the heart of your vision, its benefits, how it will change the corner of the world you are intending to change.
~the authenticity of your voice, the integrity of your heart, the power of your soul manifesting through your intended creation and its message.
~the clear expression of how you can solve the problems or help your people overcome the challenges or deal with the issues you address.
~the longings and yearnings of those people who can only hear it from you — your tribe, your community, your readers, your clients.
~the words that create the connections, the written words that weave all these elements together so that all the pieces stand together as something brand new and stronger than any one of the items alone — i.e., synergies.

You can build the bridge and chart the path across the gap between your vision and your tribe. And sometimes it’s nice to have a guide to show you the way.

I admit it. I’m a book person. (Yearbooks in school started my publishing journey. Then working in corporate book publishing for ~20 years. Then freelancing for a variety of publishers, ghostwriting books, marketing books, writing press releases for books, helping people with web sites about books, coaching people about their books… Finally focusing on creating my own books. And all the while reading and buying still more books. Maybe lightening my load soon when I get my new iPad. We’ll see…)

In fact, I may be a book-a-holic. Yes. There it is. Out there in public. One of my “drugs of choice” is books. My husband despairs of my book piles that threaten to topple over. Our house my not really be sturdy enough to house my existing library. (Clued in about this by those funny cracks that seem to keep appearing…)

During my childhood, summer was a time to fall deeply into books. I’ve also been an avid re-reader, revisiting stories that resonated with me time and again.  “So many books, so little time,” is a phrase that was tailor made for me. How about you?

Simultaneously to reading comes the writing. Or vice versa. In fact, there are real synergies that grow in a process of reading and writing.  Each one feeds off the other.

Many people are interested in bringing more ease and authenticity into their writing. They long to be purposeful with their messages about their businesses and projects and creations and ventures. One of the ways to find your authentic voice is to practice writing, ideally in a public sphere like this blogging challenge, where you will be able to tap into a zeitgeist and community of like-minded others and to receive feedback.  You’ll be both reader and writer here.

In addition to writing, reading can be a powerful way to embrace and test your writing. One summer, I went through the letters of Virginia Woolf — volume after volume. Yes, that summer my friends from college received letters from me that unconsciously picked up the tone and flavor of VW’s letters. You can’t help but learn from your reading. It’s what nourishes your soul and heart and voice and mind.

So I want to acknowledge and thank the folks at Flashlight Worthy Books on Twitter as  @flwbooks for sharing this link. It inspired my blog post (as books are wont to do) and offers windows to “see with fresh eyes” in ways to rethink and revisit your own writing process.

“7 Great Titles for a Writer Digging for Inspiration”

And welcome to the second 30 day blogging challenge for 2010. Follow the fun on Twitter at #blog30.

It’s been quiet over here at http://www.writesynergiescopywriting.com
since I completed Connie Green’s 30-day blog challenge
earlier this month. But lots of things are
simmering on the back burner, so watch for the
feasts and creative explosions to come!

I was revisiting some of the posts a few days ago.
They still sound pretty good! I invite you over
to partake in the synergies that are growing!

There’s another 30-Day Blogging Challenge
coming up! For the entire
month of June, (1-30) there’s a group forming to
continue the blogging fun and business-building.

This time, Jeanette Cates is leading the group.
Go to http://twitter.com/JeanetteCates and search
for #blog30 or connect with her at

http://jeanettecates.com/what-makes-a-great-blog-challenge/

to join the blogging challenge.
Join the fun!
Plus: Today (5-28) Jeanette has “feature member profile”
of yours truly at the customized  member site for this
month’s blog challenge at http://meetourmembers.com/

(So, yes, you’d need to register to see my profile!)
Happy Blogging to All!

Tailored and edited for a public community,
these thoughts to build the momentum for your creative project
are adapted from a piece I wrote this week to encourage a friend.

So you, my conscious creator friend,
are in a total creative mode at the moment.
Your vision and creation are being nurtured.
You are cutting to the bone of living your purpose and giving your gifts.

Consider you are in a kind of birthing process.
It’s an inner path and inner process, the river you dive into alone.

And yet…

In this deep dive, realize that a lifeline to the surface is just a best safety practice.
Do you have people in your circle, community, or tribe?
If so, let them know, especially if you’ve been out of touch.

Keep your people apprised of the new energy and excitement.
You’re sharing part of your new creative cycle.
Make it a sort of a “stay tuned” message.
Bring them into the excitement.
Let them know something big is in process.

Take your time.
Remember if you rush out with your creative brainchild, there’s a risk:
That it will not be formed enough or strong enough to maintain its momentum.
So NOW, in this pre-birth process, is the moment to take the time you need.
Ask for the support you need — so that the new brainchild can grow to its fullest potential.

Know that followers of your message really love you, your energy, your presence.
Invite your community of friends and colleagues to the pre-party.

Invite and invest  your people into the process.
Request good thoughts, mental, emotional, and spiritual encouragement.
Create safe and sacred space around you, your creation, your community.
It works on the same principle as prayers and energy healing from a distance.
There is no distance. That’s just illusion.
Best of all, this creates a true two-way community –
as you invite people to support you in this exquisite time of creativity.

Strengthen the vessel of you.
Put into practice all the good intentions for all the good new habits. Do it!
The vessel of  you–body, mind, spirit– is your means for delivering the gifts of consciousness into the world.
From the inner path to the outer expression, it is like a birth process.

Ponder the apparent “gap” between the dream-creation you are nurturing –
and the challenge of bringing it whole, strong, healthy, and long-lived into the manifest world.

And ask for the help you need.
The momentum you add will generate still more synergies — a positive spiral.

Follow the 30 Day Blog Challenge on twitter:  #blog30

Legacy, “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past,” says Merriam-Webster online: It is most commonly considered something you leave behind. It is how you are remembered. Will your words paint the stories of your purpose fulfilled, your passions pursued, your life lived fully in the moment with a presence of love?

Forget the tired old definition, and don’t LEAVE a Legacy. LIVE Your Legacy instead. Live your legacy with your words and writings as well as your actions. Writing to live your legacy: it’s a stunningly powerful way to leave something of value behind.

In reality how you are remembered is created one day and one moment at a time, through interactions, conversations, and yes, the slipstream of your written words. Those synergies make up the raw materials of your legacy. If you are writing, it’s your presence embracing the moment of the writing that creates the memorable and remarkable.

• Have you considered, rather than “leaving a legacy” behind you, instead to live each day as you wish to be remembered?
• Have you considered, as you write, to bring to the page the conscious presence of your deepest truest self in the moment?
• Have you thought it just isn’t possible or it’s too hard to express your gifts as a legacy?

You create what is memorable by how you passed through this world one moment at a time. Doing it with words makes your presence all the more powerful.

Your legacy is constructed of the bricks of consciousness, of the moments of your days stacked one atop and next to the other. It’s much like a dry stone wall–one rock fitted inevitably and perfectly next to the neighboring rock. No filler. No mortar. Just rock by rock. (Similarly Anne Lamott’s famous anecdote in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
gets at this too. Bird by bird, her brother got the report done.)

Whether it’s rock by rock or bird by bird or word by word or tweet by tweet,  your legacy is created like that–day by day, word by word, moment by moment. You construct your legacy a day at a time, one moment and one interaction at a time, just as you live it. How you will be remembered? Will your legacy stand like some of Ireland’s dry rock fences, for centuries?

Follow the 30 Day Blogging Challenge on twitter at #blog30.

Riffing off Debra Marrs‘ great blog post series (for #blog30)  about writers and procrastination, I noted:

I just realized that procrastination is rather like the shadow side of synergies. Instead of creating results greater than the sum of the parts, it’s not creating anything at all. (AKA stuck.)

What I’m noticing:  taking up Connie Ragan Green’s 30 day blogging  challenge, plus

• finding clients who fit just right with Molly Gordon
• becoming a master of enrolling people in my work with Bill Baren
• connecting with my soul-aligned business with Elyse Hope Killoran
• getting the nuts and bolts of web site creation with Christina Hills
• creating the book both here and in the Book Breakthrough workshop

–everything is connected. It’s  all conspiring to move me to a completely new place — a much bigger and more visible place.  All these connections are building, one on the other, and they are creating immense synergies between the book, the marketing, the clients, and the audience, and doing it all simultaneously.

This is the power and excitement of synergies. All these pieces of learning and being mentored are clicking together in a brand-new way to generate results greater than the sum of the parts.  It helps to be as intentional as possible and then just step into the flow and take action. But more than all the learning situations I’ve stepped into, it’s the 30 Day Blogging Challenge that is making such a difference. It’s giving me a container for sharing the insights and opening the space for new communities and interactions.

You might also want to stop by Debra’s blog for another installment about procrastination — a seriously crazy way to start your day that makes granola look really good.

It’s Day 2 of Connie Ragan Green’s Blog Challenge! (Find it on Twitter  at  #blog30).

Note to self: figure out the automatic publishing timer on WordPress.
This is the sort of thing that I figure left brain thinkers can do without a problem.

And it’s pre-income-tax weekend. For us, there’s a head start. College Financial Aid requirements mean getting our act together sooner rather than later. Still, what’s in my face this weekend, as a solo-preneur self-employed type, is getting the package of first quarter biz details summarized and over to the accountant, Victoria Zimelis, CPA. Hands down, the money  I spend on having someone who actually knows about taxes to take care of the forms is “priceless” as the commercial says.

There are benefits to giving the left side of the brain a bit of a workout every now and then — In this case, at least quarterly.

For writers, it’s generally considered that language is a left brain function, so maybe I’m not as hopeless as I initially thought.

So, what are your writing exercises for right-brain workouts versus left-brain workouts? Share your insights!

OK, so here goes: My friend Connie Ragan Green is doing another of her 30-day blogging challenges. I’m stepping up to it this time around because I have a book to develop and create.  To read more about the challenge, here’s a link to Connie’s post, along with some great tips to connect through social media for building an audience:

http://ebookwritingandmarketingsecrets.com/30-day-blogging-challenge-2010-connie-ragen-green/

So, why am I taking up the challenge right now?  In a related vein, (I’m a writer, after all!) I am starting a three-month mentoring program to get my book (long anticipated in its planning stages and long incomplete) into some serious forward momentum.  I’ve been challenged by my Book Breakthrough coaches, Elizabeth Marshall (yes, she of Author Teleseminar fame) and Janet Goldstein (NY publishing uber-consultant) to start to feed out into the universe the ideas, nuggets, processes, and philosophy that will make up the underpinning of Write Synergies, as the book is tentatively titled. (You might notice a commonality with my web site…

I was pleasantly affirmed today during the monthly meeting of Entrepreneur Group (facilitated by long-time Chicago-area career coach, Robin Sheerer), to learn that “synergies” is the word that expresses the process that people experience when they work with me.

So, part of the plan over these 30 days at the blog is to continue to develop the ideas for the book and start to put them out in a more public way. Hidden away in my notebook, they aren’t especially useful to anyone. This is one way to share the wisdom — and to get some feedback loops going!

Since this dear project has been hanging around for awhile in many iterations, this new version is still finding its way and its content. Stay tuned and be part of the process!