Liveblogged: Patti Digh Opening Keynote #typeacon

Session: Opening Keynote

Speaker: Patti Digh

Where: TypeAParent Conference, June 23-25, 2011, Asheville, NC

Patti Digh is a published author. She wrote two books on global business, before writing Creative Is a Verb and Life Is a Verb: 37 Days...

Some years ago, Patti went to a craft school in Asheville. She talked to an ironworker at the craft school. She told him that she felt that when she spoke in the corporate world she wasn’t speaking in her real voice. Just a corporate voice. She spoke as a consultant. She yearned to find her true voice.

One person she knew said “I wish I could use my voice.” We have a voice. The question is what will my voice say.

What Do You Want To Write About?

Patti Digh said “Write down what you would have to say if you had a voice .”

At this point Patti asked everyone to get a pen and paper to jot down their thoughts.

What do you want to write about?
What is your primary intention?
Go off and write. I’ll wait while you go and get a pen and paper…

Patti asked the audience: What did you write?

Tease apart what is your intention for doing the work. What is stopping you from writing in your own voice.

Three Blocks for Writing

1. I compare myself to others. False comparisons with others. “I don’t have as many readers.” “I’m not on the New York Times best seller list.”

2. False expectations of myself. “I should launch my blog and be very successful.” “I need to be on the New York Times bestseller list..“ Instead, come as you are. Be ordinary. Make strong offers of yourself.

When she was on the Ralph Waldo Emerson project — Domino — Patti wrote…”if you put down your clever, what you have left is your ordinary.” Patti said “I am at my most potent when I am myself.”

“What happens when you just show up?”

The Party Planning Game

Part 1 of the Party Planning Game — At this point in the session, Patti asked each person to plan a party with a person at their table. One person would offer a suggestion to the other person.

In the Party Planning exercise there are two rules.

(1) You must offer your partner one suggestion at a time: “We can use balloons for the party…”
(2) Your partner must answer all your suggestions with a phrase beginning with, “Yes, but…”: “Yes, but…balloons kill small animals…and can pop and scare small children.”

Why would I offer you my best suggestion if you are going to tell me no…shoot me down? A “Yes, but…“ answer reduces me and my idea by cutting me down.

So, make strong offers. Be ordinary. Stop trying to be clever. Come as you are. Say yes. Give up hesitancy and say yes. But, women will say I need to say No to requests. What you need to do is say Yes to yourself, which can sound like No to others.

Part 2 of the Party Planning Game — Change “Yes but’ to “Yes and.”
For instance, “We can have a mariachi band.” “Yes and we can have a drink fountain with pink drinks dripping out of the fountain.” “Yes and we can have people decorate a drinking glass.”

Stop striving. Patti said she gets exhausted reading twitter and Facebook about what we must do. Stop complaining. Just go out and do it.

3. Catch fire. What do you care about? How far away from this are you?

Patti was in DC. At a party on Capitol Hill, Patti and friends decided to say to anyone who asked: “What do you do?” that they made “cheese in Wisconsin.” Patti said that people couldn’t run away from her and her friends fast enough!

Find your passion.

Creative Is a Verb and Life Is a Verb: 37 Days are books by Patti Digh

What is the thing that you can’t walk away from? What is it that you must do? What is your passion?

Patti wants to work with positive intention. Are you pushing against the negative or striving for the positive?

Patti’s acupuncturist asked her to give up her need to be right. She asked “Patti, why are you so attached to being right? Patti said “because I am right.”

The acupuncturist continued by asking: “Patti, why is being right about this so important to you?”

“Doesn’t everyone have their own version of right?”

“What would happen if you gave up your need to be right?”

Patti realized that her attachment to being right, was akin to lusting for a position.

Give up your need to be right. I’m powerful. I don’t need “X.”

Patti spent her career as a business consultant and author of business books. She wrote Creative Is a Verb and
Life Is a Verb: 37 Days… when she found her own voice as a writer.

Patti was afraid when her books became popular that she was playing to an audience.

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Questions/Answers/Comments:

Question from Lisa — “How do you stop? We all have tons of things going on? How do you stop to breath?”

Answer from Patti — One time when Patti returned from a business trip, Patti’s daughter told her she had a dream. In her dream, Pattie’s daughter was lost and looking for her mom. Soon after this conversation, Patti quit her job and started working for herself.

Easy for those in social media to be reactive and for us not to step back.

Life is a story. Ark of story is what we yearn for.

When Creative Is a Verb came out, and Life Is a Verb: 37 Days… was successful, Patti would ask people “What do you long to say?”

Question from audience member: How do you know that what you have to say will be accepted by people?

Answer from Patti: Patti said she didn’t care. She writes anyway.

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Patti wrote her stories for her daughters. She wrote the stories in a three-ring binder. She decided to share them with the world when she published her books.

Let go of the audience. Write what it is that you want to write.

Patti often writes stories that she doesn’t post on her blog or anywhere.

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Question @reallifesarah: What is your mission statement”

Answer from Patti: Be kind. Be generous. Write in your own voice. Pay attention to your own direction.

Question from audience member: When did you start writing?

Answer from Patti: Patti was a painter who expressed herself. didn’t start writing until 2000.

Question from @AngEngland: A lot of my self expression was through music. For me, writing is a form of self expression and a business. How do you keep your passion when it is on your to do list?

Patti  — Life Is a Verb came to Patti. She didn’t have to work for it. It just came to her. Publisher wanted to title the book: “Make Every Day Count” but Patti knew what it was she wanted to title her book. She stuck to her convictions and insisted on the title: Life Is a Verb.

You must divorce yourself from reader. Do what you need to do to write?

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Final Thoughts from Patti

• Pick up your ordinary.
• Be OK not knowing.
• Turn what is ordinary in to extraordinary.
• Let go of what needs to be right.

Patti writes at her dining room table amid kids and chaos. She couldn’t write in an office. She needs to be in the midst of her family.

Emerson prompt. Set a timer for 15  minutes. Write a story that needs to be written. Stop after ten minutes.

Most important question is not what do I get, but what do I bring?

You will leave conference. You will get some things right and some things wrong.

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Resources for Patti Digh

Patti’s books are available at independent bookstores, like Malaprops in Asheville, NC.

You can find Patti’s books on amazon.

You can find Pat Digh’s website here.

Patti blogs here.

Patti’s on Facebook, too.

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