I just had lunch with a writer friend who wanted to pick my brain about social media. Social media–does anybody talk about anything else these days?

Almost two years ago, I made the decision to stick my big toe into the muddy stream of  social media while listening to a teleseminar by an “older” woman promoting its value. I thought, “Hmm, if she can figure it out despite her aging brain, then why can’t I?” That was the day I realized that technology would continue to be my foe because of my fear of it; if it learned about it and then jumped in, my fear would disappear and I could make Web 2.0 work for me.

Today I continue to be a student of internet marketing, website building, and book promotion, and I try to soak up information about what’s going on with social media and technology. Or at least as much as this aging brain will allow!

I’ve concluded that social media is a powerful force to befriend. Particularly for writers who are struggling to promote their writing, their books, or their brand. As I look back over the social media influences in my life the last week or so, I find many examples of its influence.

Last week I attended a writing networking group and author Marcia Reynolds shared how she created a buzz for her new book Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction using social media. Her publicist was able to get her a blog gig on the Huffington Post, which upped her credibility several points in my book. An older audience member dared to raise her hand and asked the author to explain what a blog is. I listened as the group debated the best way to set up a Wordpress blog, which was really WAY more information than this poor woman wanted or needed, before I jumped into the discussion to set the group straight on Wordpress.com versus Wordpress.org.

In Oregon over the weekend, I checked out Yelp reviews before deciding on a restaurant and then visited the restaurant’s site to check out its web presence and menu.  In one hotel room without—horror of horrors—internet connection, I resorted to acquiring restaurant information the old-fashioned way by letting my fingers walk through DEX.  Since Google became my best friend, I can’t remember when the last time was that I’ve touched the yellow pages other than to put them in the recycling bin as soon as they’re delivered to my front door.

Back in Phoenix after I posted photos of my trip on Facebook, my parents invited me to dinner at Grapes, a little Italian restaurant and winebar a mile from my house that I had driven by ever since it opened. They had heard about it through social media for old folks–word of mouth, friend-to-friend. Of course, I “Yelped” it prior to our arrival and learned there was a happy hour, which was not advertised on the restaurant’s very basic site. I complimented the manager on the food and wondered how he was promoting the largely empty place. Social media, I wondered?  Then today I saw how Facebook saved a dying Florida restaurant. If Facebook can rescue Betty White from retirement, why not use it to save a restaurant in danger of closing or promote an eatery that deserves a loyal following?

As we lunched today, my writer friend fired up her wifi and questioned how the “average” grandparent will use social media. Some will get it and some won’t, I said. And some will have to hire people like me to help them get it, I explained as I demonstrated how a Facebook fan page works. And some will be too old (in their attitude) so that they’ll never even bother to get it, although my oldest Facebook friend is a computer savvy 85-year-old grandmother and old family friend. On Facebook I just learned her grandson’s tumor had dramatically shrunk and shared this news over dinner with my non-Facebooking parents. For once my mother didn’t bemoan “you people and your computers” after I delivered the news flash.

I told my friend that social media is about building connections as well as trust, especially if you’re promoting a business. Facebook fan pages are a great promotional tool, which is why I created a Wise Women Write fan page that can be accessed via Google by even non-Facebook users. It’s just another way to be….well, social, I guess, while at the same time building a brand. I know my fan page count is but a tiny rhinestone speck compared to the fan base of someone like Lady Gaga—could it be the way I dress?—but I’m happily getting my voice out there as I build my little Wise Women Write fan group and have fun.

Fun. Yep, I’m pretty sure that’s why social media is catching on. People find sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube fun.  And rather addictive. Must be why the latest Facebook statistics say that more than 400 million active users spend over 500 billion minutes per day roaming around the site.

So should you make friends with social media or not? Whether you’re the average grandparent my friend mentioned or a business struggling to be competitive, social media can help you connect to others. If you need “Social Media in Plain English,” check out this YouTube video I stumbled onto by the Common Craft folks explaining social media using ice cream. (My kids have rolled their eyes when I’ve warned them to try a lot of flavors other than vanilla before you find the flavor/guy you like.)  In this case, the ice cream analogy works very well in this video. And who doesn’t like ice cream?

So what flavor of social media is your guilty pleasure? Make mine two scoops of Facebook please.

When I attended More Magazine’s Reinvention Convention in Chicago, I hoped for some reinvention inspiration as I approach my 60^th birthday. I was surprised that the day was almost like attending a writing convention. Almost every woman who spoke had published a book.  Of course,  it helps getting published if you are a woman in the public eye as most of the convention speakers were.

I highly recommend attending a future More Reinvention Convention. My biggest challenge of the day was choosing the interactive breakout sessions to attend and which speakers to miss. Having the opportunity to hear so many incredible women in one day filled my head with inspiration and encouragement that anything is possible as women age. I learned that sometimes women are forced into reinvention by circumstances we would not choose.

Lee Woodruff  set the tone for the day when she said she had responded to her husband-newsman Bob Woodruff’s traumatic brain injury with writing—because writing is therapy. Later she turned her writing into two books. (I’m on a committee to bring Lee Woodruff  to Phoenix in the fall so watch for updates.)

Next Dara Torres, the 41-year-old swimmer who won Olympic Silver, told about her comeback using hard work and an attitude that “age worked to my advantage.” She also admitted to being very competitive, especially when people asked, “Aren’t you too old for this?” The five-time Olympic competitor has turned her experience into an inspirational memoir.

Being a Richard Carlson Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff fan, I was anxious to hear his widow Kristine Carlson speak about how she coped with his sudden  death. Kris shared from her heart and told us how she turned her 80,000-word journal into her new book.  Another example of writing as therapy. I highly recommend her book Heart-Broken Open because it shows how to thrive no matter what happens. She writes, “I had to get up. The rest of my life was waiting. This was something I could choose. It was all up to me.”

Dana Delaney, our luncheon keynote, hasn’t written a book because she’s busy acting on Desperate Housewives, starring in a new series and supporting a large number of causes. She’s a very wise woman so I’d love hearing more of her story if she ever slows down to write it—or have it ghost written.

Jenny Sandford, the wife of the governor who took off to Argentina with his mistress, didn’t think she had anything to say in a book. But friends encouraged her and she overcame her tendency to be a private person, using her story to heal herself and help other women rather than hurt her ex-husband. The writer in me wondered if the book was ghost written so I asked during the Q&A how she managed to write it so quickly while caring for her four boys. She wrote every day after her boys left for school and a “woman in San Francisco” helped put the book together in record time, two months after she signed the publishing contract. (I think her divorce took longer than the writing and publishing phase.)

The final speaker was Ambassador Nancy Brinker whose promise to her sister, Susan G. Komen, has led to incredible advances in breast cancer awareness and treatment. Nancy, whose memoir about Susan is due out in September, closed the convention with a very powerful example that one woman can change the world.

I have long agreed with Lee Woodruff—that writing is therapy, but before I attended the convention, I wouldn’t have considered writing as a reinvention tool, a tool for self-care. Certainly Lee Woodruff, Kris Carlson and Jenny Sandford used writing to move forward.  And writing can be an altruistic gesture: use the bad things that happen to you to help others, or in Dara Torres’ case use writing to encourage and show that dreams can come true.

Most of all, the day was confirmation that wise women write.

MORE Magazine – Reinvention Convention 2010

Mother’s Day was on my mind last week when I developed an assignment for one of my Wise Women Write groups based on a short essay “Sweet William” by Judith Thurman. The piece fit nicely with motherhood as well as our topic of “expected versus unexpected.”  In it, Thurman told of reading a bedtime story with her son that contained an old Chinese proverb: “A parent owes a child two things: roots and wings.” My Google search didn’t pin down the exact origin of this quote, but whoever said it, was very wise…probably somebody’s mother.

Yesterday I visited my writer friend Jennifer, who—right in line with the writing topic—had experienced the unexpected last week, a badly broken leg. Her mom was there on duty, washing clothes, pitching in, and getting ready for next week when Jennifer needs to have inpatient surgery. I told her mom that I realize she didn’t sign up for this (I told Jennifer the same thing)—but, hey, what a way to celebrate Mother’s Day by coming out of retirement! When Jennifer told her mom I have four girls, she asked, “Oh, are any of them here?”

“No, the only one who’s here in town will be too busy working tomorrow at her restaurant to spend the day with me,” I said.

The irony…Jennifer will be spending many days under her mom’s loving care, all  because her “wings” had been beaten up. And my daughters are out there winging it on their own, as their semi-retired mom celebrates Mother’s Day for the first time without any of them home to celebrate with me.

But spending Mother’s Day alone is a good thing! Motherhood is the only job I know of that you labor tirelessly for around 18 years in order to work yourself out of a job. In Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, Elizabeth Lesser says, “When you parent, you fall in love with a person who is always changing into someone else, and who you know will leave you.” But yet a mom isn’t  necessarily out of a job once children have grown; the job description change as a mom learns to let go, hoping those wings are in good working order.  Our children are supposed to fly away from home. And we are supposed to wave happily from the place where we provided those roots, believing that those roots are strong enough to keep our children coming back home, at least occasionally.

So Happy Mother’s Day to those women whose job it is to give children roots and wings. Maybe today you’ve reflected on motherhood as I’m doing, either on what it’s like being a mom  or what having a mom meant to you.  I got a head start yesterday when Daughter #2 sent me a list of thought-provoking questions for me to answer and hopefully share with her. I include  some of them in case you need some writing inspiration:

• If you could pass on one piece of advice to a future mother, what would it be?

• What did having children teach you about yourself, both strengths and weaknesses?

• What is the best thing your mother ever taught you?

• How do you feel when you reminisce about raising four girls?

• What sense of accomplishment do you feel when you realize you raised four strong, independent, unique women?

Whether or not your little chicks have flown the nest, I hope you celebrated the amazing job of being a mom, today and every day. And if your kids’ cards, flowers, calls and texts, Facebook posts, handmade gifts, and special treatment haven’t convinced you of how special you are, maybe this fun video will do the trick. Because you’re the Mom! (And if you’ve can pick up on every Momism in this song, you’re probably still a quick-thinking mom!)

I played the piano throughout grade school and high school. Like any kid who had far better things to do, I hated to practice, so I managed to get by, lesson after lesson, with a minimum amount of effort.  First, elderly Mrs. Jensen tried to convince me of the benefits of practice, and then Mrs. Miller patiently sat through my lessons in high school when piano was the last thing on my list.  But under her guidance I did learn to play a decent version of “Clair De Lune” from memory.

When I went to college and added piano lessons to my schedule as a lark following my roommate’s idea for obtaining an easy credit, I never worked harder for one credit.  Because I had taken lessons for so long, the university’s music department figured I could play fairly well. I may have managed to placate Mrs. Jensen and Mrs. Miller for so many years, but my music professor, an accomplished pianist, didn’t buy my slap-dash approach to the piano. In fact, she actually made me practice scales! Over and over and over.  No teacher had ever demanded so much from me.

Over the next two years, my teachers continued to expect nothing less than my hard work, and I was grateful that I had the opportunity to finally approach music with discipline.  I discovered that I did indeed have potential, and when I actually spent more than a few minutes in the small practice rooms of the music building, I could produce music that sounded so much better than a barely passable “Clair De Lune.”  Practicing required time, focus and commitment—the big three of discipline.

Whether one has talent for writing or painting or playing music, this potential will grow from a small seed to its full bloom with the addition of discipline. The late Jim Rohn said, “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”  However, sometimes discipline alone isn’t enough. Others must help us tend the growing of our potential garden.

The power of discipline and the encouragement of others intersect in this video. The sounds of Patrick Henry Hughes playing “Clair De Lune” at the beginning hooked me. As I watched the story of this talented young man and heard him focus on his abilities rather than his limitations, I realize I often undervalue or fail to see what I’ve been given.  I suspect we all are guilty of being blind to our potential. Maybe our parents help us to see.  Maybe it’s a college professor or a high school coach. And maybe it’s a  young blind man like Patrick Henry Hughes sounding a wake-up call on his trumpet that helps us see who we can be.

I realized after watching this video that Patrick’s book has been dormant on my bookshelf since I bought it maybe two years ago.  I Am Potential: Eight Lessons on Living, Loving, and Reaching Your Dreams alternates between Patrick’s story and his dad’s, the second hero of this story. The first chapter is called “When Life Gives You Lemons, Accept Them and Be Grateful.”  Patrick’s dad says that he realized his son would never play baseball but he sure could play music.  His parents, particularly Patrick’s dad, were instrumental in helping him develop his musical gifts. Witnessing his dad’s discipline in helping Patrick succeed cracked my heart open.

After watching this video, I think you’ll agree that Patrick has turned his lemons into beautiful music.

Who do you have to thank for helping you develop your potential?

Happy Spring. Happy Easter.  Lots of happy talk going around during this happy season. Must be why I picked up a new book called Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness by Ariel Gore.  I’m hoping that I’ll discover in the book what’s up with the whole notion of the bluebird of happiness because feeling blue is definitely not a happy mood.  The author does point out that the origin of happiness comes from the Old Norse happ meaning “luck” or “chance.”   So does happiness just happen?  If you’re lucky enough?

Part memoir, part research, the book is an easy and interesting read. It turns out that women’s happiness is not as simple as the old  “if Momma ain’t happy then nobody is.”  The author and I are kindred spirits when it comes to an affinity for women and journaling.  For her research, she assembled a large  group of women, somewhat like her lab rats, who joined her in keeping a daily happiness journal.  Many of them happily turned over their private writing to her and these entries appear throughout the book like this one:  “I realize that as I’m recording these moments of happiness, I actually attract more happiness into my life.”

About 75 percent of the women said that they placed their children’s and their husband’s happiness above their own.  One woman said, “First come the kids, then my husband, and then me. I’m stronger than they are. I don’t need to be happy.”  Sad but true, I thought, as I remembered those frantic days of motherhood that went by in a blur, days when I was in charge of everyone else but me.

Egg-stra Happy Eggs

One of the women in Ariel’s group had an ah-ha moment after writing in her journal, realizing that her happiness was coming from external things.  After she thought about the whole concept of joy she writes, “I had a day when I was happy all day.”  Ariel observes, “We create our own reality thusly.”

In search of more happy talk, I remembered a website that I had heard about before, the Happiness Project.com.  This short little video from the site made a deep impact on me, and I shared it with my Weekly Wise Words subscribers. I include it here because it is vivid demonstration that happiness depends entirely on us and how we think.

I’ve added the recently published The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun (what a great title!), Gretchen Rubin’s new book, to my reading list.  It’s about the year she spent testing out happiness theories.

I especially love this wise woman’s 12 commandments listed on her website, beginning with her first: Be Gretchen.  Do you know what an amazing world this would be if we could all adopt this commandment and Be Diane or Be Susan or Be Mary and BE GLAD!

What if I made Be Diane my first commandment? It would mean I can write about what’s on my mind (like happiness), eat Dove dark chocolate after lunch, or stop reading a book that doesn’t grab me. It means I don’t have to be afraid to try new things—being courageous and daring can be part of Be Diane. It also means that I’m free to do the things I like to do, those that make me happy: helping others, making people laugh, and hanging out with a great bunch of women.  Keeping the Be Diane commandment allows me to work hard at being me instead of wishing I were best-selling author Kelly Corrigan or Elizabeth Gilbert (but trading places with them for one day would be okay!)  My commandment helps me to realize that I’m supposed to enjoy my own ride, wherever it’s leading me.

Gretchen’s second commandment is “Let it go”; mine is Be in the Now.  I so have to work on this one since it wasn’t until a few years ago that I even realized that Now was the place to be.  Being in the Now requires work and present moment awareness every day. I guess my commandment to inhabit the NOW does involve letting go. To live in the Now, I have to let go of guilt for what I didn’t do last year to organize my tax records and let go of concerns about my Easter outfit.  It means that I look out my window and really see the fig tree that’s finally full of leaves, stop to pet the cat on my lap and appreciate his nudges on my face, and rejoice that I’m still in my comfy jammies (it’s after lunch) on a relaxing Saturday at my computer. Being in the Now commands me to notice the grackles whistling however annoyingly in my backyard because they’re happy I just put food in their feeder.  Ah yes, the Now is a happy place when I allow myself to truly be here.

Now that I’ve shared two experts’ thoughts on Happiness, what about you, my happy readers and writers?  What are two of your happiness commandments?