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Everyone, meet Elisa.

If you know me, or you know Elisa, then you know that I’m totally saying that through a megaphone, because this is one chick you don’t want to miss.  I had the pleasure of staying with Elisa for a few days this past summer in her Portland, Maine home (speaking of which, did you know the lobster is a relative of the cockroach?) while on the Way Below Status Quo roadtrip across america with Colin Wright & Andi Norris last summer.  (Click here to check out our Maine video.)

Elisa’s not only as genuine and articulate as she seems online, but she’s just as fun, and thensome!  She’s a kick ass freelance writer, blazing wild trails and making a name for herself, who, at this time last year, was still working her 9-5, only dreaming about living the life she is now.  In addition, she writes at her blog, OpheliasWebb, and is currently publishing a series called Pas de Deux, a collection of essays exploring the complexities and the simplicities of all things LOVE.  (I’ll be featured there tomorrow, February 15th!)  Ladies and gents, I present to you the one and only:  Elisa.

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*****

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You know those scam emails that you get ?

The kind that “offer you a million dollars if you send some money to this African prince” or “Your account has been breached. Please access through information below” or “Click this link to see the funniest video ever…it made me LOLZ!!!!!!1!!!!!”. Or, as a freelance writer, my personal favorite: “Please write for our high-profile website, all we need you to do is sign this contract and give us your name, date of birth, social security number, blood type and promise a child to be named at a later date. DO NOT CONTACT SAID HIGH PROFILE WEBSITE. This is a seeeeeeeeeeeecret and no one else knows about it.”

I suppose it is flattering. You have reached some level of notoriety when the scammy masterminds come after you. Or you signed up for a website you should not have and now your email address will forever be a duck with a broken wing on the first day of hunting season.

I was convinced when I got the email from Forbes.com that it was totally one of those scams. I Googled the heck out of the editor who reached out to me, called friends who were much cooler than I, and spent an hour reading through the links they had sent me. There was no way that a site like that would want someone like me.

See, I don’t have an RSS feed of 5000+ followers. I barely get 10 original commenters on most of my posts. I have less than 1500 Twitter followers. I’m lucky if I average 2500 unique visitors a month. My eBooks and affiliate sites aren’t landing me such bank that I can globe-trot the world buying rounds. I don’t have multi-book contract deals with major publishing houses. Hell, I don’t even have a one-book deal with a publishing house.

Websites like Forbes don’t track nobodies like me down and ask me to write a blog for them.

A few phone calls, emails, and gasping squealing moments of “Holy shit this is actually happening!” later, I signed a contract and was off to build my Forbes.com profile and blog (Shattering Glass* for anyone keeping track). As I searched through my peers’ profiles, I was overcome with a sickening realization.

These people ARE much bigger fucking deals than me.

They graduated from colleges like Vassar and Stanford and Harvard Business School. They have written books and directed movies. They hobnob with Jay-Z and Warren Buffet and Mark Zuckerberg. They have net worths of six and seven figures. They contribute to massive sites and advise major corporations. They are legit.

And I felt like a little kid playing dress up.

I’m terrified that someone is going to figure it out.

Because that is the trend that is happening online lately. We are all pretending that we are these amazing and inspiring personalities, accomplished and inflated from our own minds onto the screen. Separating our online selves from our real selves, projecting the best of everything we are and want to be into a 150×150 pixel avatar, intent on making a name for ourselves.

So we are encouraged to create fake online personas. We grin and bear it.

We are creating a walking army of online rotting-dead-inside-shells who are cookie cuttering themselves into carbon copies of words and pictures online.

You wanna TALK about zombies?!

And why?

Because we are terrified that our challenges and short-comings and failures will be judged and we won’t sell our newest online course or eBook to as many people? Because no one will care about the online you anymore if you aren’t some perfect idea of what we want online gurus to be? Because real people are not capable of accomplishing amazing things?

IT’S COMPLETE AND TOTAL BULLSHIT!

We are setting ourselves up to fail before we even get started.

One can only live a dual-life for so long. I don’t know how 007-spies do it (though maybe it explains the rash of Alias-inspired dream sequences I’ve had over the past 10 nights…) but it seems exhausting. Hell, it IS exhausting. I’ve tried to do it before.

All these MANY online personalities are so amazingly wonderful. But perfection is hard to live up to, and even harder to maintain.

And so the chasm begins. The realization that you cannot be all things to all people. The fear that lingers and catches in your throat anytime you think someone is looking at you.

I’m talking about that evil little voice the creeps in from the back of your brain. It whispers tauntingly in your ear, lightly tickling the hairs on the back of your neck. It seduces your mind with its raspy tones and breaks your spirit with its destructive ways.

It is that little bastard that tells you that the real you isn’t good enough.

We are percolating a fear of being inadequate.

A fear of putting our REAL selves online because real people don’t sell and extraordinary never seems to be extraordinary enough when everyone is creating these “Sims” to represent themselves.

People! Wake up! Why are we SO AFRAID to be ourselves?

Last I checked, most human beings are pretty fucking cool. Many are even exceptionally cool. So cool, in fact, that we should all be emulated for being individual and brilliant and…yes…cool.

We are multi-dimensional and our inherent human spirit could lift us to the stars if we let it.

As long as you are doing stuff and trying to create the life you want, why not be proud of that?

Why pretend to be something better than what you already are?

It might be amazing how many people will reach out to help you achieve your dreams if they know you need/want help.

MOST HUMAN BEINGS WANT TO HELP OTHERS.

But who wants to help someone be fake?

To be part of a lie?

Aspire.

Absolutely.

Reach for the stars.

Dream big. Really fucking big.

Like the size of a small continent (Hell, make it a HUGE continent dream!)

Write a story for your life that is everything that you ever wanted it to be. AND THEN MAKE IT HAPPEN.

But don’t try to sell fiction on the non-fiction shelf. We have enough subpar realities with shows like The Jersey Shore and something about “Real Housewives” (who…please, bitch…represent .0000000000047% of “real housewives).

Do not EVER be ashamed to just be who you are.

* Ummm…can we seriously all take a step back and wrap our minds around the fact that HOLY SHIT I HAVE A BLOG ON FORBES.COM!?!?!

*****

Find Elisa at her blog, connect with her on Twitter, or keep up with her sexy new Forbes column.  (Elisa, get me a guest post over there, already!)

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“Good afternoon, ma’am!” he cheerfully exclaims.

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I look up from my menu, and I’m greeted by the eager, smiling face of a young boy.  One of his front teeth is noticeably chipped in half, but that doesn’t stop him from beaming with uninhibited enthusiasm as he carefully lays down 5 sheets of Hello Kitty stickers to the side of my placemat.

Before I can say anything, he takes the lead:

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“My, your hair color is very becoming on you, if I do say so myself,” he says.  “Do you get your hair done here, or are you visiting from another country?”

“Why, I’m visiting from another country,” I say, as I sit up in my chair to better face him. “Can you guess which one?”

“Well, you don’t have a Chilean accent, and most of the visitors that come here are Chileans.  You don’t have very dark skin, either.  But I’m not a very good guesser.”

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He looks momentarily ashamed.

I tell him where I’m from, and then turn the conversation around on him.

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“How old are you?”

“I’m 11,” he says.  “But I’ll be 12 on February 15th. That’s soon, right?”

“Yes, that’s very soon.  So what’s an 11 year old boy out doing on a Saturday afternoon selling Hello Kitty stickers?”

“Oh, I always do this.  I’ve been doing it for two whole years,” he proudly states.  “I’m paying for my school.”

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“It’s Daniel.”

“Nice to meet you, Daniel,” I say.  “I’m Ashley.”

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Suffice to say, Daniel and I chat for a bit longer, and I buy far too many Hello Kitty stickers than any 26 year old woman should ever admit.

He walks away, and I turn and watch him approach others, to be immediately dismissed with the flick of a wrist, a shoo-shoo motion, time and time again.  And time, and time again, he swallows the rejection, takes a deep breath, and moves onto the next table, putting on his best face and summoning once again his greatest enthusiasm.

Then, he disappears out of sight.

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I’m at a cafe in Mendoza, Argentina, and I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.

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Not because I am disgusted, or bothered, but because I can’t help but think about what I was doing on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the summer before I turned 12.

My eyes tear up.

I order a glass of wine.

And there, I contemplate.

It certainly isn’t uncommon to be approached by children at outdoor cafes, both in Argentina and Chile, and probably many other parts of the world.  Some say that their parents put them up to it, because they assume that people like me will feel bad, and be inclined to give them money–far more money than if the parents, themselves, had approached.

This is likely the case.  And I’m a sucker for it every time.

And though some days, there are so many children doing it, it becomes a bit bothersome, I still can’t help but feel badly, because whether their parents are putting them up to it or not, they still have to do it.

I think of the shame I would feel.  The disgrace.  The mortification.

And then I remind myself that they’re children, and they probably haven’t been socialized enough to feel those things entirely–especially if they’ve grown up doing it.  This has become their norm.

But as I contemplate, there’s something that suddenly, I discover, that I admire.

I don’t just mean the children of the cafes.

It’s the determined teen on the street selling 3 pairs of Nikes on a blanket, in one size only.

It’s the quiet woman who sets up shop outside of the metro station, day in and day out, and attempts to sell her colorful hand-sewn coin purses.

It’s the elderly man with the bad back who humbly spends his mornings ignoring his pain, bending over anyway to buff the shoes of the young, arrogant man half his age.

It’s the homeless woman who, despite any hope left in her eyes, stands tall, quietly places her cupped hands out in front of her, closes her eyes, and sings opera for hours on end.

It’s the man without legs who, using his arms alone, painstakingly drags his body down the aisle of the public bus, wonders if anyone is going to offer to help (they don’t), props himself up on the floor, takes a deep breath, and begins to tell jokes with a megaphone.

It’s the man who, on that same bus later that night, softly pulls an accordion from its case, and begins to play for the passengers, most of which have just come from the bar.  They talk loudly over his music, as if he were invisible. The man appears to be in his sixties, and every time the bus comes to a harsh stop, which is nearly every time, he bangs backward into the window and nearly topples over, but somehow, doesn’t.

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You know what all of this is?

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It’s called TENACITY.

And it is that which I find myself admiring.

I have never witnessed a population of people so scrappy, willing to take any skill they have and turn it into a business.

But along with their tenacity, there’s something else I deeply admire.

It’s their humility.

It’s extremely useful, this humility.  It’s unpretentious, unassuming, and innocent, in a way.  More than anything, it’s their humility that’s their greatest business asset; without it, they’d have nothing.  With it, they’ve got something.

Without humility,

What would become of the teen too proud to sell Nikes on the street?

What would become of the quiet woman too proud to sell her hand-sewn coin purses?

What would become of the elderly man with the bad back, too proud to buff the shoes of men half his age?

What would become of the homeless woman too proud to sing?

What would become of the man without legs too proud to hoist himself onto a bus?

What would become of the man too proud to play his accordion in front of a crowd?

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I begin wondering about me.  About you.  About us.

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What would become of us?

And the greater question: Are we humble enough?

Have we prevented ourselves from starting amazing businesses simply because we weren’t humble enough?

…because we were too proud to risk failure?

What will become of the writer, the artist, the story-teller, the designer, the dreamer and the entrepreneur desperately longing to build a business from their craft, but too proud to risk rejection?

Somehow, it seems that whether you’re a shoe shiner on the streets of Chile, or an artist from the suburbs of California, without humility, your fate becomes one in the same: A quiet loss of dignity.

For the shoe shiner, his dignity lies in being able to provide for his family.

For the rest of us, our dignity lies in being able to provide for our soul.

And without humility, neither can be accomplished.

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Because humility is a pre-requisite for success–no matter what business you’re in.

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Humility is what gets you through the nervewracking process of putting yourself out there for the very first time.

Humility is what helps you through your very first criticisms.

Humility is what forces you to put yourself out there again, despite those criticisms.

And humility is the tool that allows you to change things, when sometimes, those criticisms were right.

But most importantly, humility is what makes it okay not to have all of the answers, all of the time.

Because you won’t.

Ultimately, humility is what will carry your business–and your soul–forward.

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I think of Hello Kitty and Daniel once again.  I think of the 11-year old boy who, upon business failure, swallows each rejection, takes a deep breath, and begins again.

And I am grateful.

Because even though it’s his birthday on the 15th, he’s given me a gift.

The gift of the pure genius hiding behind his smile.

Chipped tooth and all.

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What can I say?

I rather enjoyed publishing Fear, Exposed last Monday, instead of the usual Tuesday.  SO I’M CHANGING IT TO MONDAYS.  It’s a nice way to start the week, isn’t it?  A little jolt of kick-ass inspiration straight from the mouths of others.  Kind of like a hard-hitting, 24 oz. double espresso latte, but better.

With that, I bring you Kyle Hepp. That photo is a damn good one, isn’t it?  Maybe it’s because her & her husband are professional photographers.  Or maybe it’s because she’s one of those gorgeous wakes-up-in-bed-looking-just-as-good-as-ever kind of people. (The envy!)  Or maybe it’s because she’s the chick who took my own photos that you see to the right, and I’m unabashedly biased.

Whatever the reason, Kyle is a no-nonsense broad who, in a fit of lust & love, up and moved to Chile to marry her Chilean husband, with no idea how she was going to make it all work. That was 6 years ago. Six years of uncertainty. Six years of unpredictability. And six years of hard, hard work. But ever since, she’s made it all work if I’ve ever seen anyone MAKE IT ALL WORK. And truly, the conviction to do so is what separates successful entrepreneurs from unsuccessful entrepreneurs. This, friends, is her story. I hope it inspires you to start the things you’re afraid to start, and to embrace the ambiguity of not knowing how it will all turn out, rather than pushing it away.  When you look at things from a new angle–one that shines light on the excitement, adventure, and the lessons learned on the journey in between–ambiguity really is a beautiful thing. Caress her, with love.

Ambiguity, that is.  Not Kyle.

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*****

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What is fear?

Fear was when my husband, Seba, was laid off from his job. He was working for a construction company who decided to lower all their employees’ salaries “because of the crisis,” by 20%. Anyone who didn’t sign the new contract would be fired.

We talked about it and decided that we’d rather have him be fired and paid a large severance than continue to work for slave drivers. He could always look for a new job.

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Fear was when I was hit by a car two days after my husband was fired.

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I was fearful that my knees would never be the same and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my favorite sport – running. I was fearful that the man who hit me wouldn’t want to step up to the plate and do the right thing – pay my hospital bills (not to mention my new iPod touch, which was shattered in the accident).

Fear was waking up in the hospital days after the accident and not knowing where I was or what had happened (I still have no recollection of the moment there was truck-to body contact, or those first couple of days in intensive care).

Fear was not being able to work for a month because I was so bruised, even on the tips of my fingers, that I’m not even joking when I say it hurt to type.

And fear was what led to us saying “Screw it all! We’re not going to look for new jobs. We’re going to use this time off to travel the world and then we’ll see how this whole photography thingamajiggy goes.”

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I’d started a photography business on the side.

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I’d been shooting weddings on the weekends and Seba helped me when he could. Business had been snowballing the year that Seba was fired and I was hit by a car, but we still weren’t booking enough to be financially solvent of wedding photography alone.

But we had some savings. And more importantly we had the time we’d always dreamed of to travel.

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So we packed up our bags and headed to Europe.

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I was quick to realize that long-term traveling wasn’t for me. I love visiting new places, but I’m more of a short jaunt type of girl. I missed my dogs, I missed having more than two dresses to choose from in my wardrobe, and most importantly, I missed running a photography business and taking pretty pictures of incredible people. That was the hallelujah moment for me, when I knew that I had to come back to Chile and that I had to make it work – that I could make it work if I threw all my life and all my energy and all my time and all my everything into it.

Fear was telling the people that loved us, that knew we had been saving up for a Round the World trip — that I didn’t want to go around the world anymore. Fear was telling people that even though all I’d talked about for years was leaving Chile to travel — that all I wanted was to come back and be a full-time wedding photographer here.

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Now I am. Now we are.

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We returned from our trip through Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Ireland, Italy, Holland and Belgium and we threw ourselves head first into Making. It. Work.

Because we had to.

Because we were scared of what would happen if we didn’t.

Not Making. It. Work. would mean Seba would have to go back to long hours of exhausting work and not enough vacation to see my family, let alone be able to travel anywhere else.

Not Making. It. Work. would mean me going back to being a professional blogger – a job I enjoyed, but a job where I didn’t feel challenged.

Now Seba and I work together shooting weddings around the globe.

The year before the accident, we shot 2 weddings. The next year–the year I got hit–we shot 15 and I started taking things seriously. The year after that–the year I decided that we would Make. It. Work–we did 24 at significantly higher prices (high enough to live off of). So far this year we have 18 on the books.

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Now, fear is two weeks passing with no inquiries.

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Fear is more than a month in between bookings. Fear is my website going down and me being cut off from clients and potential clients. Fear is missing a shot. Fear is an angry mother of the bride. Fear is looking at my budget and knowing we only have enough money for the next six months.

Fear is praying those things never happen, but fear is also what makes me try harder to become a better photographer, a better business woman and a better person, every single day of my life.

At the end of the day, fear can be a real son-of-a-bitch.

But it’s also that same fear that has made me successful.

Because when it’s all said and done, fear is what drives me.

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Sometimes, you want to do it all yourself.

Sometimes, you don’t want anyone’s help.

And sometimes, you (bull-headedly) insist on being the hero in your own fairytale.

Sometimes, that person is me.

Other times, that person is you.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned when it comes to love, life, happiness & business, it’s that there comes a time when it’s okay for us both to drop the act.

In fact, it’s not just okay, but it’s a must.

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This isn’t a post about connecting with others because--together you can go farther!–or some happy horseshit like that.

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Rather, it’s simply about remembering that we’re called human beings for a reason–and that with that, comes an element of humanity.

And humanity implies a collective–something that perhaps we should consider emphasizing for once, rather than minimizing.

Because while it is true that together you *can* go farther, the fact of the matter is that we don’t need to go farther.

What we need, rather, is to go deeper.

Deeper into ourselves, deeper into our connections, deeper into our world, and deeper into our most precious desires.

Because it’s there–in the deep recesses that we typically ignore–where every answer lies that we’ve ever longed for.

It’s just a matter of digging for them.

But–

We can’t do the digging all ourselves–as much as our pride insists on it.

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So this, friends, is a call for trust.

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To trust readily.  To trust shamelessly.  To trust frankly, fully, ingenuously and open-heartedly.  To trust so much that your raw, unearthed vulnerability is exposed, but instead of running from it, you revel in it.

It’s about trusting ourselves, it’s about trusting each other, and it’s even about trusting in the Dutch pilot who sits down next to you and your friend Nina while she’s visiting you in Chile, and proceeds to wax on about how beautiful you both are in the cheesiest of ways.

Because sometimes, the Dutch pilot is telling the truth.

And sometimes, instead of turning our heads, looking the other way, and pretending not to hear him, we should look the Dutch pilot squarely in the eyes, flash him a bold smile, and simply say, “Thank you.”

Because as it turns out, he’s human, too.

And as it also turns out, we now have a chance to go to Ecuador for the weekend.

See what I mean?

This trust thing isn’t so bad, after all.

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P.S.

If you look to up to the right at my mailing list opt-in (which you should obviously be a part of), you’ll see why it’s really ironic–and hilarious–that we ended up sitting next to a pilot in the first place. Thank you, world, for humoring me last night. Next time, could you make him a little younger, and perhaps throw in some hair?

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Another Tuesday, another kick ass Fear, Exposed post.

And when I say kick ass, I mean kick ass, because from where I sit, it’s always MY pleasure to be able to connect with so many talented individuals who are out there, making it all work, despite having moments (months? years?) in which they’re scared right out of their minds. But somehow, some way, they make it work.

Sean Platt is one of those people. Is he ever one of those people. Can’t you just tell from his photo? To put it simply, Sean is a maven. I hope he likes being called that, because I’m totally not taking it back. He’s a straight-up maven, who has made it all work since, like, the age of 12 when he first discovered the beauty of entrepreneurship, selling candy bars & comic books at school. Weasel.

A few years later, he launched some other cool entrepreneurial ventures, such as a flower shop & later a preschool. And NOW he does none of that–Sean now runs a very sexy copywriting business with some other hip folks, regularly contributes to Copyblogger (jerk), recently launched a new venture designed to help other aspiring writers become authors (love it), and even has his hand in another project that promotes the value of writing at an early age, because as he puts it, children write the future. (And they do, don’t they?)

This is his story. You should absolutely harass him in the comments section–this is a guy you should know.

*****

I lost my house last year.

I also gathered enough debt to make most men cry, and search for a short rope and a strong beam.

Forcing your dreams into reality is hard.

But I did it, and so can you.

The key is to look fear in the eye, and slap that bitch silly.

Losing my house was a crushing miscarriage, among the most difficult challenges I’ve ever faced. The good news is, the grass is definitely greener on the other side, and the sweeping lawns are easier to find than you may believe in your darkest moments; when hope is at a whisper and terror at a bellow.

Six years ago, before I decided to trade a steady paycheck for the limitless promise of a money-while-I-slept living online, my wife Cindy and I bought our ghetto mansion with the best of intentions, trading two overvalued condos for an old Victorian in the historic district of our city.

I started writing articles for pennies a word, but my family needed dollars to survive. After writing for a year and a half, I hadn’t progressed enough to pull us from the fire. Despite my wife’s unflinching faith in me, I hadn’t delivered on my promise.

Sure, I had plenty of attention. My blogs were doing well, racking up comments and retweets, but doing little for my bank account. Some months I made a little and some months I made nearly nothing, yet I was never late on our mortgage. Not once. This meant many of those months my mortgage hit the credit card.

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Yes, sometimes I am a BIG, GIANT dumbass.

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I’ve since learned the ridiculousness of this strategy. My long-time realtor and good friend shook his head when I told him what I’d been doing. “You should’ve walked months ago,” he said.

Of course he was right; it was my eternal optimism keeping me blind. Until the day when I surrendered, I truly believed I would make it all work, convinced that unparalleled success was waiting just beyond the bend.

But you can’t be bobbing in the middle of the sea and believe you won’t drown.

I doubled my efforts, put myself out there like never before, and at last found the client base I’d been seeking. By the end of summer 2009, I was booking more work than I could handle and the wolves at the door were now going hungry.

But I mistook a spark for a flame and threatened my family’s future with ash.

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2009 was a rough year for most of the country, but the last six weeks of that year punched me in the teeth and left me in a puddle as it stood above my broken body laughing.

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Summer’s steady stream of work turned to full drought, yet the mortgage monster was as hungry as ever.

With every credit card either at its max or knocking on the limit’s door, I had no ability to pay. Worse, I had gone from no debt and a deep distrust of credit cards, to a comedy of errors where I was the punch-line.

In 18 months I went from owing nothing besides the debt on my house to being three months behind on my mortgage and suffocating in credit card debt. Walking away from the house was the right thing to do, but my pride and ego were beaten, battered and bruised beyond reasoning.

I went to a quiet room, closed the door, and arrived at one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever faced. The humiliation devastating; I felt like a man who promised his family a cruise, but left them drifting at sea.

It was time to shake the Etch-a-Sketch and start over.

I drew my breath, gathered my advisors, and designed a plan to pull my family from the mess. Life’s not always fair, but light is always at the end of the tunnel. Whether through my own arrogance, poor planning, or eternal optimism, I had wandered down a dark alley with a decisive dead end.

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But it is always better to swallow your pride than choke on it.

—

I didn’t have to say goodbye to the house, but I’m glad I did. Had I listened to the fear, and gone back to a sure paycheck to save my house, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

When the world demands you give up, hope whispers, Come on, try it. Just one more time. So I did. I started the foreclosure process and continued my efforts to realize my dream of an online living.

I ditched the cheap keyword copy forever, vowing to take no clients rather than the cheap clients that were keeping me running in circles. I returned to my first info product, a potty training solution for frustrated parents, and hooked up with Lori Taylor, one of the world’s greatest copywriters.

The chaos of work continued, but the danger started to fade. I made a promise to my family which I’ve kept every day.

That was a year ago.

I now live in a lovely house with my lovely family. We have a large backyard that spills into a gorgeous forest. a movie theater in my basement and happiness in every room.

My $150,000 worth of debt has dwindled to toward nothing.

I’m not saying this to brag; I’m saying it to let you know your dreams are worth holding, and you might be a lot closer to seeing the sunrise than you’ve allowed yourself to think.

Hope whispers, it’s your job to listen.

*****

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Sean Platt is a ghostwriter and online entrepreneur who helps good writers make a great living. Follow him on Twitter.

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