If you’re not familiar with the Ignite format, each speaker has only 5 minutes and 20 slides (each on 15 second auto-timers) to Ignite the audience with whatever they’re talking about.  Most of the topics are audience-selected, but a few are selected by the organizers.

Here are the event Details: http://ignite.oreilly.com/2009/11/ignite-fort-collins-4.html

Ignite Fort Collins Colorado #4 & Global Ignite Week: Thursday March 4, 2010

Ignite is a night of presentations on a variety of topics, with a twist. Each presentation has 20 slides that automatically advance after 15 seconds. It is a worldwide movement. View sample presentations from other events around the world here.

We’re bringing geeks, designers, and hipsters together for a night of beer drinking and fun.

Tickets go on sale at 9:25 AM on Thursday, February 18.
Tickets are required and available at 3 price levels: Free (as always!), $5 (micro-sponsor) and $10 (mini-sponsor). The event is expected to sell out, so mark your calendar…
Get tickets here

New sponsorship levels!
Read all about our new micro- and mini-sponsor levels. Become an Ignite Fort Collins sponsor for as little as $5.

BEvERages and food The first keg is on us, after that a cash beer bar will be open. Delicious snacks are also provided.

Event location:
Drake Centre
802 West Drake Road
Fort Collins, CO 80526
[map]

Doors open at 6 PM. Presentations at 7 PM. Get there early – socialize and enjoy some free snacks and beer.

Presentations selected for Ignite Fort Collins #4
In order of presenters first name:

Coworking: The New Way to Work, Angel Kwiatkowski
The top 10 do’s and don’ts when faced with a Zombie Invasion, Chris Vieville
Fifteen Films I Hope You Haven’t Missed!, Dave Taylor
The Strong, Healthy Lives of 50 Athletes Over 50, Don McGrath
The State of Data Visualization, Douglas
Homegrown Healthcare- How Love, Art and Facebook conquered Medical Bankruptcy, Frank Stanley
How iFarted and Came Out Smelling Like a Rose, Joel Comm
How not to drive like a douche in the mountains, joshmishell
The Red Pill – A Whirl-Wind Tour Through Western Esoteric Symbology, Kevin Houchin
What’s it like to be a host mom for Ft. Collins Foxes baseball players! Marge Brodahl
Top 10 Reasons Why It’s More Fun to Hate Your Job, Michael Joseph
Marketing is for the Dogs, Nick Armstrong
Dating & Recruiting …..pssst they aren’t all that different after all! Nora Burns
How to Talk Your Way Out of a Traffic Ticket, Traci Brown

As many of you know I’m a big fan of social media, especially Twitter.com (@kevinhouchin) and Facebook (Kevin E. Houchin). I recently posted the following and received a couple responses that motivated me to start writing.

The question about HOW to recognize purpose is a question that a lot of people have. While I don’t profess to have THE answer, I think I have AN answer–one that I’ve shared in my Fuel the Spark books, in my workshops, seminars, and keynotes, and will definitely share again in my next book: The Secrets of Creative Business. But I don’t want you to have to wait or have to pay for this, because sharing this information is at the heart of MY purpose on the planet.

First, and this is VERY important, understand that you are not searching for your purpose, instead, the goal is to recognize your purpose. Searching for your purpose will lead you to failure every time, because by searching, you are looking outside yourself to find something that’s already inside you. If you search outside yourself, you’ll be fooled into accepting what other people think your purpose should be as what your purpose really is.

Second, know that you probably have more than one purpose, or at least more than one way to manifest that purpose in the world. Properly stated, your purpose will never be “completed” but you will always be in the process of fulfilling the purpose without “failure.”  Many times, if you feel that you have more than one purpose, each purpose you state will be related in some form to a higher purpose that you have not yet recognized and articulated. I’ll give you an example and then we’ll move on to why recognizing your purpose has become so difficult.

I created my purpose statement using the tools and structure from the book Inspire: What Great Leaders Do by Lance Secretan. (No, I don’t have an affiliate relationship with Lance.) This is one of my favorite books ever and one I think everyone should read.  My kids will be required to read this as soon as I think they can understand what’s being discussed and I’ll probably read it out loud to them well before they can read it on their own. Lance breaks purpose down into three statements: Destiny, Cause, and Calling.  Here are mine:

1. Destiny: To reach my full potential in this lifetime by helping as many other people as I can reach their full potential in this lifetime.
2. Cause: Every person on Earth recognizes their personal spark of divinity and begins to share their flame.
3. Calling: Writing and speaking around the world to share the recognition of the personal divine spark and give people the tools they need to be accountable and share their spark.

This essay is a step toward fulfilling my purpose on the planet. My law practice, where I help people find ways to make their living through creative business (sharing their spark of divinity) is another. My books and speaking events are a literal calling to help people understand these concepts and then have the tools to act on what they’ve recognized in themselves. In a quite moment last night I literally heard my little voice say I needed to write this essay for my friends Terri and Marla who commented on Facebook, and share the essay with the world via my blog. I know my purpose. Now let’s get back to recognizing yours.

Understand that it’s not your fault if you can’t articulate your purpose yet, because it’s not something we’re taught in Western culture. In fact, our entire culture seems to be structured around obscuring your purpose or providing you with all kinds of false paths. This isn’t done intentionally. Most of the people providing these false paths to nowhere do it out of love and pure intention, but as we’ve discussed, anything coming from outside yourself is going to be a false path. Most of the time, these folks who are trying to help you find your purpose really have no sense of their own which means this isn’t really their fault either.

Your parents provided purpose in your life. They sent you to school, they taught by example, they taught by providing positive and negative feedback for your actions. Many of us discuss what we want to be when we grow up with our parents and sometimes our parents do far too much to drive that decision down a path that THEY define as “success” or “security” out of love for you and sometimes out of a desire to reach some unrecognized or unfulfilled purpose of their own.

If you were lucky enough to have some great teachers in your life, they probably exhibited some examples of purpose for you. How many people wanted to grow to be like one of their teachers or coaches? While at school, you find friends and those friends help shape your dreams, goals, and definitions of success – for better or worse. After school, you go to work and the culture of the job or company shapes your purpose.

The religion of your parents, friends, and nation also shapes your definition of life purpose, usually with a moral undertone, but again as an influence from outside. How many times has religion been used as a tool to bend people’s purposes from what is inside them to what is willed from behind the pulpit. No religion is exempt from these examples and I believe that most of the time the outside influence is delivered with the purest of intentions. But none of these influences will guide you to your true life purpose, because your purpose can’t be FOUND because it’s not LOST.  It’s inside you right now. All you need to do is recognize, accept, and surrender.

I’m about to share with you the most powerful (yet simple) tool and process for recognizing your life’s purpose that I’ve found, and I’ve been working on this for YEARS. But first you have to be in a state to use the tool. This process can be used in your personal life, your career, or even at a business planning level. To make it work, you have to be able to get quiet.

Western culture doesn’t like people to be quiet. We’re bombarded with stuff every second. I do workshops and ask the attendees to just sit quietly and look at a dot on the wall for just one minute. To a person all of them think it’s the longest 60 seconds they’ve ever spent. We are taught to multi-task. We are taught to be on the go all the time. We are not taught to just be. We are not taught how to find the space between thoughts, but it’s in the space between that we find the place where God, the Universe, Spirit, Zero Point Field, or whatever you call the higher power can speak to us in a language we understand. It’s there right now trying to help you recognize your purpose. The tool I’m about to share can help you find the space between thoughts and get quiet enough to recognize why you’re on the planet. Nobody can do this for you.

This process is not about searching, but it does involve some work, focus and commitment. It’s not hard, and if done right is actually fun, fulfilling, instantly and permanently rewarding.  Are you ready to start?

Good.

It starts with this quote from an incredible book called The Universal Traveler:

The most profound choice in life is either to accept things as they exist or to accept the personal responsibility for changing them.

What does that quote have to do with life purpose? EVERYTHING.

Your life purpose is simply the thing you accept personal responsibility to change.

It really is that simple, because when you’ve truly accepted the personal responsibility to change something in the world, your path unfolds with opportunities for inspired action and your life will never be the same. Everything you do will be moving you toward the goal of fulfilling the responsibility you have accepted and if something doesn’t move you toward that change you either won’t do it for long or you won’t do it at all.

The work is figuring out where you TRULY and DEEPLY ACCEPT the PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY to CHANGE something.

There are plenty of problems in the world that need solved. There are plenty of things that need changed. What are you going to accept as your problem or problems to solve?

What can you NOT live with as it exists?

I can’t live with people going through life in ignorance of the spark of divinity that lives inside them. I can’t stomach people living lives of quiet desperation working in a cubical at a job they hate waiting to have fun only on the weekends because they don’t know how to start their own businesses doing what they love. So, I became a Creative Business Lawyer, started this blog, and have been writing in an effort to change that situation.

I can’t stand how law school takes our brightest, most idealistic young people and beats the creativity and idealism out of them, redefining the definition of success into a trap of top 10% and six-figure salaries doing work they hate and feeding a lifestyle of internal and external conflict. So, I try to help change law schools through helping law school administrators better define their branding, and wrote a book to help law students stay balanced in the face of this 3-year+ hazing ritual. Finally, I wrote a book to help practicing attorneys recognize the trap they may be in and find a way out in order to truly use their passion and skill to manifest their purpose in life.

What can YOU not live with as is?

When you answer that question in the sincerity of your heart and soul, you’ve taken the most profound step toward recognizing your purpose(s) in life because all you have to do is flip the statement around.

Your purpose in life is to change the thing(s) that you can’t live with as they exist.

It’s just that simple.  And that difficult.

When you’ve found the quiet place to do this work, it will come to you. You will recognize your purpose. You will be inspired to act in authenticity in every element of your being and every moment of every day.

I could expand on this quite a bit – and in fact, I will. IMPLEMENTING this work is at the core of my next book, The Secrets of Creative Business. When you know your purpose, it will be time to act and I believe at a soul-level that the best way to implement one’s purpose in life is through founding and building one’s own busines and aligning one’s VOCATION with one’s Purpose and AVOCATION.

Recognize your purpose. Accept the personal responsibility. Surrender to that path and you will find more power than you’ve ever imagined you could wield.

Recognize Your Spark.  Share Your flame.

The Tao of Advice

© 2009 Kevin E. Houchin, Esq.

You are an expert at something. Everyone is an expert at something. Everyone. No exceptions. One of the secrets to success is bringing your area of expertise into resonance with your professional career. As lawyers we’re expected to be the experts. Handing out advice is what we do and I’m sure the content of your advice is top notch, but does your delivery build relationships with current clients and attracts more clients, or does your style push clients away?

It’s time to give conscious attention to the way you give advice. Giving advice is a position of incredible power and responsibility. Lance Secretan in his book Inspire! What Great Leaders Do (Wiley, 2004) says that every communication between humans is an opportunity to inspire. Are you using your opportunities to give advice as opportunities to inspire your clients to reach more of their potential? Here are three themes to improve your advice-giving style so that what you communicate will actually inspire your client to take action:

1. Simplify

2. Patience

3. Compassion

Simplify:

Our job is not to complicate, but to simplify. I used to have an office mate that enjoyed complexity. He enjoyed it so much that he could take a simple client matter and turn it into a complex problem effortlessly. Maybe he thought it helped his billings. Maybe he thought it made him look smart. Maybe he thought he was helping his client understand all the potential issues in a situation. All I know for sure is that it annoyed me to no end and I could tell from the body language of his clients that the same was true for them. Giving advice is about being helpful, not necessarily about being smart or even being “right.”

The Tao Te Ching says:

Governing a large country

Is like frying a small fish.

You spoil it with too much poking.

It’s the same with giving advice. Make your advice as simple as possible.

Patience:

This is the hardest for me. Many lawyers jump to the solution before listening to the entire problem. I become impatient, fidgety. I’m sure you’ve felt the same way. And, if you’re still billing by the hour, it’s easy to rationalize interrupting the client’s narrative in the name of saving the client money. How helpful is that? Not very.

I’ve always liked putting “Attorney and Counselor at Law” on my business cards. It has such a classic old-world craftsmanship feeling. People sometimes ask me what’s the difference between “Attorney” and “Counselor.” I have two answers. First, that as a counselor, I’m in listening mode and as an attorney I’m in talking mode. Second, that you want to hire me as a counselor so that you don’t need me as an attorney. I’ve come to appreciate the counselor role as more valuable and personally rewarding. One of my favorite books, The Trusted Advisor by Maister, Green, and Galford says “more value is added through problem definition than through problem answer.” I believe them.

To enjoy the role of counselor I have to remain patient. The difficulty in remaining patient is not the responsibility of the client; it’s the responsibility of the lawyer. I’ve found it much easier to remain patient if I ask my client to “tell me a story” because then I can find the patience to just listen and give them 100% attention. Sometimes just having someone listen is all a client really needs. If you’re patient, they usually find the solution themselves, and you still end up getting credit for helping solve the problem.

The Tao Te Ching asks:

Do you have the patience to wait

till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remain unmoving

till the right action arises by itself.

Taking some extra time is worth the effort.

Compassion

How many clients have come to you feeling shame? Shame that they haven’t taken care of an issue sooner. Shame that they made a mistake. Shame is a powerful feeling and we have the opportunity to remove that shame through compassion. Most of us are good at providing compassion, but let’s add some nuance.

Again, I learned something from my office mate. He was in his 60s and had a tendency to talk down to clients, most of whom were young enough to be his children or his grandchildren. He gave off a paternalistic vibe. That “father” energy may have made some people feel safe, which is good, but I witnessed it pushing more people away. NOBODY likes admitting a mistake to their parents, and not many people enjoy asking their parents for help. What kind of energy are you putting out?

I’ve worked with several professional coaches and the question of why I attract the type of clients I serve has been a recurring topic. The answer finally dawned on me the other day. My coach suggested that many clients might be looking for a “father” archetype in their lives. The “Ah! HA! Moment” happened when I pushed back saying that most of my clients are roughly my own age, so I couldn’t be seen as their father. The energy I bring to the relationship is that of a compassionate brother.

Are you a compassionate brother or sister to your clients? Do you give your clients loving encouragement when they’re struggling with a problem? Do you celebrate your clients’ wins like they were your own? Do you give them a bit of good-natured ribbing when they knew the answer all along? Do you have their back if someone threatens their security?

The Tao Te Ching reminds us:

The Tao nourishes by not forcing.

By not dominating, the Master leads.

Leave those parental instincts at the door and treat your clients as your brothers and sisters.

Give your advice with simplicity, patience, and compassion and you will feel greater joy in your work, make a lasting difference in the lives of your clients, and attract the types of clients that you are meant to serve.

—

Kevin E. Houchin is an author and Creative Business Lawyer™ helping people reach their potential through creative business. He can be contacted through his website at www.HouchinLaw.com or @kevinhouchin on Twitter.

From “Inspire! What Great Leaders Do” by Lance Secretan:

We overuse the word “driven.” We want to be values-driven, customer-driven, mission-driven, market-driven, technology0driven, solutions-0driven, and self-driven. Perhaps this is why so many people are driven to drink, driven insane, or driven to distraction? Are Zen masters “driven”? Were Christ, Lao-Tzu, Confucius, Buddha, or Mother Teresa “driven”? Is being driven part of the problem rather than part of the solution? What would it look ilie if we were customer-inspired? Or market-inspired? Or values-inspired? Or family-inspired? Wouldn’t anyone rather be inspired than driven? There is a greater sacredness and inner beauty associated with inspiration, the breath of God, compared to the manic style of the old story leader that causes us to be driven – and thus drained.

From one of my all-time favorite business books: “The Trusted Adviser” by Maister, Green, and Galford:

More value is added through problem definition than through problem answer.

The tweetathon created some internet history and raised over $10,000 for Water Is Life.

Live Video streaming by Ustream

Free TV Show from Ustream

More info: http://www.tweetathon2009.com/

—

On behalf of the Masonic Family in Fort Collins, I welcome you to our historic Masonic Center. This building is truly one of the treasures of Fort Collins and we are very proud and happy to be part of the 2008 First Night festivities.

Take a few minutes to look around the building and feel free to ask questions to the Men and Women who are part of the Masonic Family and have volunteered to host tonight’s activities. They are happy to answer your questions about the building or the Fraternity and its related organizations.

A quick bit of history:
Freemasonry is traced back to at least 1717 in England, and Freemasonry has been active in Fort Collins since 1870, when Collins Lodge #19 was founded. The great history of the organization has truly mirrored the history of Fort Collins itself. The men of the Lodge met in several buildings prior to constructing the current building. The cornerstone of this building was set in 1925 and the building was opened in 1927. The total cost of the building and furnishings (many of which are still in use) was $144,990. That would be about $16,250,000 today.

The building is owned by the local Masonic lodges and membership on the Home Board is restricted to active members of Collins Lodge #19. The Home Board is charged with the day-to-day operations of the building as well as the long-term planning and preservation of this historic treasure. The group is actively planning for the future preservation and renovation of the building with the goal of keeping the building as a vibrant hub of community involvement.

What is Freemasonry about?

Many people ask me what being a Freemason is all about. The quick answer is “making good men better.” How is that done? Through a series of ancient symbolic rituals that teach moral and spiritual lessons. The Mason learns invaluable lessons of faith, hope, and charity in addition to being exposed to some of the richest and most meaningful symbols in the Western spiritual traditions. Masonry is NOT a religion, although members are required to affirm a belief in deity.  Our members come from, and tend to be active in, a wide variety of spiritual backgrounds. Masonry is not about business networking either, although many relationships are formed outside the formality of the Lodge.

While “Blue Lodge” Masonry is for men only, there are opportunities for women and children to join the Masonic Family through organizations such as The Order of the Eastern Star, Job’s Daughters, Rainbow for Girls, and DeMolay for Boys.

Masonry may be best known today for it’s charitable work. For example, most people have heard of the Shriner’s Hospitals. Every Shriner is a Mason, and there are dozens of other very active Masonic charitable causes.

Finally, to be one, ask one.
Kevin E. Houchin, Esq.
Member, FC Masonic Center Home Board
Member, Fidelity Lodge #192 and Collins Lodge #19