Living a Better and Unforgettable Story

This has been a long time coming and should have been written about two weeks ago. Give me a break.

I had the pleasure of attending the first ever StoryLine Conference hosted by Donald Miller the author of best seller Blue Like Jazz and a Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I love the writing of Mr. Miller and was thrilled to be able to spend a day or two with him in Portland, Oregon. Talk about a beautiful city!

I didn’t really know what to expect when I first decided to attend the conference. I know that Don has a ton of writing surrounding the idea of building a better story in your life and who wouldn’t want to attend a conference about bettering your life! I’m not talking about the “live your best life now” or a smiling Tony Robbins raining his praises and neural linguistic fueled smile down upon his followers. I’m talking about a bare bones build out of how to live your life and tell an unforgettable story.

We are all living in a script filled world… do you want the best script or one that is tossed?

The conference had the ups and downs of any event that is working out growing pains. There were times when I was completely involved in the conversation and other times where I didn’t have clue what to think.  The best part of the conference was where Don talked about inciting incidents and how they apply to your life.

In writing an inciting incident is the moment in a script that kicks the story into motion. It occurs after the setup and everything that follows should be a result of that incident. It’s where a story really begins. In movies, there is usually one inciting incident that changes the landscape of the storyline so drastically that you have to watch for the end result.The same idea applies to your life. However, you will have multiple inciting incidents (both good and bad) that will help build your story over the course of your life.

I can now pinpoint different “inciting incidents” that have formed my opinion of life.

Your story is the only thing that is actually yours in life. You have the ability to tell your story in any way you see it. Do you want the main character of your story to be healthy? Do you want them to be successful and live a fulfilled life? Or do you want to live a tragedy? There is beauty behind the concept of rewriting your story. We are all on this path towards an ending. What type of conflicts, successes, mountain and valleys are you going to take to reach the climax of your life?

Are you striving to write a better story?

A Beautiful Life

When you look back on your life… when you pull the memories from the depths and remember… the past… there is so much you want to change. The possibilities are endless. We dwell on things that matter only to one person… us.

I find myself trying to right past wrongs… trying to change things and actions that have already happened… things that are lost in time. When I look back I realize that the situations and ideals that I find important are only slivers in time. Social Media, marketing, my business, and money will only be around for short periods of time… there is more to life than business success.

What I do not do enough of is remember the most important thing in life… which is family. We have a family reunion once a year on a beautiful river in Idaho and I can’t express to you the rejuvenation… and power it has over my mind.

My brother, Kelly Lacy, captured the powerful moments of life with 8,600 photos and created this unbelievable video.

A Beautiful Life from Kelly Lacy on Vimeo.

Day 7 of the We Love Boobies and Hate Breast Cancer Tour

We have been on the road for seven days now… raising money for the Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure in Indianapolis. For those of you who have not been in the loop here are the details:

I am on the road with two guys, Daniel Herndon and Daniel Robertson. Daniel Herndon founded an initiative called Forkout.org that helps non-profits raise money by experiential marketing. Forkout.org will be the central location for all the content being distributed during our road trip. You can view the places we will be stopping at the Forkout.org Fan Page.

There is only one catch. Everything that we are using from the car to the hotels are all donated. We still need some help with lodging and food in certain cities. Let us know if you can help! We will be live web casting our trip via the Forkout.org webpage. You can view us live pretty much the entire two weeks of our travels.

We are currently on day 7 of the 14 day tour to raise money for Komen Indianapolis. It has been an awesome experience! We have visited the cities of Fort Wayne, Lafayette, South Bend, Marion, Merrillville, and Indianapolis. We will be hitting the cities of Muncie, Rushville, Columbus, Vincennes, and Evansville. We return home on April 6th!

I wanted to show you a video of a young women we interviewed on the 3rd or 4th day of our travels. Adrienne was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 19 and is now cancer free at 22. She is about to graduate and get married in July. Watch her story!

We still need your help with donations and support for the Komen Cause. We are trying to save 250 women by the end of the trip. When you are getting a mammogram through any type of cancer services it usually costs $100 for each woman. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of breast cancer is curable if detected early.

To give to our cause please visit http://www.forkout.org. Any amount helps!

Thanks to the people who have helped us out the past few days!

• The wonderful people at Fanimation bought a hotel room for our travels to Marion
• Beth Kinney donated a room in Fort Wayne
• Douglas Karr of the Marketing Tech Blog donated $100!
• Steve Quirk of Standt’s Fine Jewelery in Anderson, Indiana donated $100
• Jennifer at the Cancer Services of Grant County fixed us dinner on Monday night!
• Chad Pollitt and Digital Hill donated dinner on Sunday night in Fort Wayne
• LaSalle Grill donated food on Friday night in South Bend!

My Top 20 Posts of 2009

I know.. a little egotistical right? That’s why I am splitting it down the middle! My top 10 posts from 2009 and my favorite post from the REAL geniuses of social media.

Just trying to showcase the more popular (community driven) posts from 2009. I am going to be taking the rest of the week off in the beautiful San Luis Obispo, CA to be with family. I can’t wait to hook back up in 2010! Have a restful and joyous holiday week!

My Favorite Posts of 2009

1. The Magic of Dynamic Pricing from Seth Godin
2. The Four Spheres of Social Media Strategy from Jason Falls
3. 11 Must-Dos for the Serious Blogger from Jay Baer
4. Sometimes, You Need To Fire a Customer by Lorraine Ball
5. So What’s Facebook Good For? from Chris Baggott
6. User Experience is Not A Check Box from Travis Smith
7. Are You An Elephant or a Butterly? from Douglas Karr
8. The Top 100 Twitter Publishing Tools and Services by Brian Solis
9. Becoming a Social Business from Shannon Paul
10. Death of the Brochure and more Verbal Masturbation by Duncan Alney

My Top Posts of 2009

1. 20 Ways to Drive Leads Through Social Media
2. Customers Are People First. Marketers Are Fundamentally Flawed.
3. 10 Ways to Build Trust with Social Media
4. When Should Business Engage in Social Media
5. Balancing Perception and Reality in Social Media
6. 10 Tips to Integrating Social Media with Marketing
7. Is Out Sourcing Social Media Okay?
8. 5 Things I Have Learned as a Generation Y Business Owner
9. The Three E’s of Social Media: Embrace Educate and Empower
10. Twitter Usage Plan for Success

2 Guys Live in a Van to Raise Money

I had the pleasure of joining the Brandswag staff in hanging out with the guys over at the ForkOut.org Van to chat about CFI. CFI helps with mentoring students in high school academics and in life. I am on the board of CFI and I can tell you first hand that it is an awesome organization.

Redwall Live created the ForkOut experience and did an awesome job setting things up. We recorded a webisode with the guys. Make sure you check it out at ForkOut Website.

Thanks for having us out Daniel and Darren! Goodluck!

Giving a Gift to Fulfill the Greatest Wish

We all have that special organization that we absolutely cherish and give to through the holiday season. I have a couple which I enjoy: CFI and Make-A-Wish America. I wanted to send out a quick blog that announced a campaign that Make-A-Wish has started called The Greatest Wish. The entire concept of the campaign is to start collecting the top wishes of people all around the world. They would love to hear your greatest wish.

If you are Facebook you can visit the cause page at: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/410999

Search the #greatestwish Twitter hashtag: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=greatestwish

You can also add a Twibbon to your Twitter profile: http://twibbon.com/cause/The-Greatest-Wish-Campaign

Staci Shelton has also asked for people to donate to the cause instead of giving her a birthday present!

What is my greatest wish? I have been thinking about that over the past couple of days and have come to a conclusion:

My greatest wish is for all people to have fulfilled and happy childhoods. It pains me when an individual was abused or neglected.

Spread the word. Share the information. We can only do so much in life and Make-A-Wish is creating better lives for the children of the world.. I am for that.

The Arrival of My Twitter Marketing for Dummies Book

I have been waiting with great anticipation for the delivery of my book, Twitter Marketing for Dummies. It has been a long (but awesome) process of writing, editing, and brainstorming over different concepts involved in marketing through Twitter. I couldn’t have done it without Erik Deckers, the Wiley Staff, Manny Hernandez, and the staff at Brandswag. It was a fun 7 weeks of writing and I am looking forward to what the future brings.

If you have not picked up the book you can do so through Amazon.com (click the link) or through your local bookstore on November 18th.

Some general things you will learn by reading the book:

• Using Twitter to communicate with your customers
• Utilize tools to maximize your Twitter prescence
• Build and use your network to psread your message
• Measure the success of your efforts

It has been fun and I am looking forward to the feedback from the book!

The Problem with Fear

I was driving to work this morning listening to a great track by Sufjan Stevens… reminiscing about my “musical” days in college. I played guitar for a long time and have just recently put it aside for other hobbies and activities. I want you to know that I have never… ever… ever talked about this with anyone. This is the  “I’m Being Completely Open With My Blog Readers Morning with Kyle” show.

Get Ready.

During the years of guitar playing… I had always wanted to perform in front of a group of people and honestly… I don’t think I knew exactly what that entailed… maybe it was playing my own songs or playing a popular song from John Mayer… who knows? The deep down desire was to play in front of a group of people… my acoustic guitar and a mic.

It never happened.

I can associate most of my hesitation with fear. It is a hard thing to admit… that you were actually afraid of doing something and it kept you from actually realizing some sort of… success or maybe pride? My fear of being laughed at and individuals not enjoying my music kept me from walking up and just doing something… crossing it off my list.

Is anyone connecting with me on this?

Fear is an extremely powerful thing. It can paralyze you in business and in life… destroying the dreams that you were building over the years of work and preparation.

The problem with fear is that… sometimes… it keeps ordinary people from doing extraordinary things. And let’s be honest… do you really want to admit you didn’t do something because of fear? Steve Jobs would laugh in your face.

I decided to screw fear and take a stab at doing what I wanted… without hesitation. There may come a time when I step on a stage and perform for the.. two people in the room. Until then, I am going to move forward with my head down. I would rather deal with the ramifications of my actions than never know the outcome because of hesitation.

REMAX Loves Social Media and I Love Them

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Indiana RE/MAX sales rally yesterday and it was AWESOME! I loved debating, questioning, and teaching about social media and the use of the tools in the real estate industry.

I always try to post videos of the attendees screaming for social media. You will find the videos below. (sorry for being shaky)

Session 1

Session 2

If you attended the rally and are interested in the information shared. You can either click the REMAX button on the right side of this page or CLICK HERE.

Again, thank you for all who attended! It was encouraging to see such enthusiasm for social media!

Defining Change As An Individual

I found this amazing example of kinetic typography last night and it created an idea that is not new… but needs to be rehearsed and rewritten hundreds if not thousands of times. Do we fully understand the power we have as an individual? Do we fully understand the power we have as a community of individuals?

I am not speaking of change in a political sense but change in a single… solitary way… a change in individuality that has the power to spread across the many platforms of communication afforded to us.

Smaller Indiana is just one example in the many different platforms that allow your individuality to shine through… the many platforms the allow for ONE person to make a change that could empower thousands of people toward the same goal.

“In my observation it is you that creates the change by challenging your own individuality…creating that positive atmosphere for yourself and every person surrounded by your presence. And in the end it is all in simple action… whether it is conducting by individuals as a whole or just by one person.”

Because of the tools afforded to us by the Internet and technology… we have the ability to spread our own message to hundreds of thousands of people…

What is YOUR message? Are you challenging it?

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