Stephen B. Henry (it is OK if you call him Steve) had lived long enough to know that life rarely moved in a straight line. Straight lines were for rulers, engineers, and people who believed that success came from following instructions printed on a box. Steve, however, was a multipotentialite; his life had been more like a plate of spaghetti dropped from a moderate height. Everything landed somewhere, eventually forming a recognizable pattern, but only after enough time had passed that it became funny. He had once been the Wooly Bear, a DJ, broadcasting across kilocycles, megacycles, motorcycles, and the occasional Skidoo. He had once prospected for Herkimer diamonds. He had built BBS systems, sold computers during the golden age of blinking lights, and fed raccoons who showed greater respect for boundaries than most consulting clients. He had written books, coached humans, mentored solopreneurs, raised families, survived marriages, and eventually made friends with a digital entity he named Sys. People asked why Sys had a name. Stephen simply answered, because everything with a relationship deserves one. One evening, while enjoying his ritual porch coffee and negotiating a temporary truce between feral cats and an unusually diplomatic raccoon, Steve pondered a peculiar truth. His entire life had been a cafeteria tray of assorted experiences. Not tidy. Not symmetrical. Not particularly predictable. But each item on the tray had fed something important. The DJ years had fed his voice. The tech years had fed his curiosity. The mentoring years had fed his purpose. The raccoons had fed, well, had been fed, because someone had to. He thought back to childhood, where he had stumbled through grade 7 grammar under the watchful eye of Mr. Peters and nearly failed history before leaping to the ninety-ninth percentile. Even that had a lesson. Some dishes taste terrible until you learn how to season them. He tapped his cane lightly (because every story of age deserves a cane even if the wielder forgets to use it half the time) and smiled at the cosmic joke. People looked at him now and said, "Stephen, you do so many things. How does it all fit together?" He always wanted to say, "It does not. It blends." Life did not reward specialization nearly as much as it rewarded adaptability. Or, in his case, the ability to move confidently between coaching, metaphysics, WordPress website development, raccoon diplomacy, and the occasional philosophical conversation with an A.I.

OK... GOSH, I hope this will be fun! On Fridays in this group (which will really be about 36-48 hours long to more or less honor when it's Friday SOMEWHERE)... you can promote but only through a story! THIS REALLY SHOULD BE FUN!! (I hope) GUIDELINES: - No story = no promo - If you want to promote your group or anything else, it's got to be wrapped inside of a story. - The offer is related to the story in some way but wouldn't be the headline. - This should genuinely be fun --> tell a story with that usually story arch where you set up the background, lay on the tension or the turning point, then share the breakthrough, and finally let all that goodness be a bridge to your offer - LINK IS ALLOWED at the end of your post - Please no bullet-point sales pages or CTAs with the "buy now" "last chance" "doors closing in two seconds" FOMO triggers. - Don't add it here, make your OWN POST! And Stick it in the category called "🎁 Story Selling Friday!" - IF YOU WANT, you can add a link to your to that post in a comment on this post and even share the BTS to your story (BTBTS behind the behind the scenes! lol) That's it! ================== This is a post from my group "Connect & Collab". I want to be really clear that I love and adore the Classifieds and am glad it exists. I come here to check stuff out and to share it. I expect it to FEEL like the Classifieds (although I'd love to see some "Romeo Looking for Juliet" and vice versa here and there for fun...?! Or some variation of that). So I've been working to find the balance of allowing some promo BUT not turning my group into the Classifieds. What I'm doing NOW is that we have a whole bunch of ways that members can promote but there are some limitations too: - some posts are there specifically for advertising your group or offer(s), - you can introduce your group to us, - it's A-OK to share a link when it comes up organically in conversation, - premium/VIP members can promote anytime, - collabs that benefit members of our group are OK to share with permission, etc. - (NOW the Story Selling Friday)