In the Beginning 2 of...

We closed the 1st blog post by mentioning NoBS with Jen & Jess

 The motivation behind this bi weekly livestream came from change leaders like Buddy Brumley indicating that they looked forward to the conversations we were having on the 5S in Relationships livestreams. Along with an obvious uptick in vulnerability shared amongst the group, Jennifer and I were experiencing a growing sense of responsibility around continuing these conversations both for our own wellness and to nurture the special thing we discovered. 

Jennifer and I huddled up over the holidays in 2021 and decided that we would continue with the Livestreams and have imperfect conversations about the human side of work; breaking through the surface and discovering depths of vulnerability.

The base of every conversation hits on 3 points:

- Showing up and having real conversations

- Valuing the people

- Creating space for vulnerability

Our goal is to account for the entire person, both inside and outside the gate.

To date the NoBS community continues to grow and is now followed up with an "after party" aka Live audio event on LinkedIn where we have an open conversation for about an hour, which usually informs the topic for the next livestream. A little nugget that we havent talked about very much is the experience we had with the very first episode. 

For some odd reason we got caught up on what we "should" do on our inaugural Live stream and the result was an awkward clunky experience caused by self imposed pressure and trying too hard.

Immediately after that first show we decided the only way to keep this thing going was to always be authentic, honest & vulnerable. Which I believe are the main ingredients to the NoBS experience. 

While this was going on, I had an idea brewing in my mind. You see I was working on my first book at this time, so naturally I was consuming all kinds of content about publishing. I discovered there are tons of ways folks go about producing books. One of which is by transcribing podcast episodes and editing them into a book. Which at first felt redundant.

Until Kirby Coats made a comment about wishing there was a way she could get the cliff notes from all the 5S in Relationships  Livestreams. My initial response was, "I can go through the transcripts and pull out the high points". So I began reading the transcripts from the 1st S Episode and about 5 minutes into it I gave up. There was just too much to read and I didnt have the stamina. 

Then I thought "wait a minute, some people make books out of their transcripts" so I emailed Princess Kim (my publisher, friend, coach etc) The title of the e-mail said something like "Crazy Idea". We got on a call and she said "yes we can do that". 

At this point I had no title for the book and really thought we would just copy and paste the transcripts. Then it occurred to me that I should talk to Jennifer about the idea and just like before, she was in.

It was mostly an awesome experience. I say mostly because I did not appreciate the editing process. For 2 reasons,

1: I do not see typos or violations of grammar. Nor do I care to learn grammar rules. Im happy to print with all the messiness. but for some reason the team felt the need to teach me why a quotation mark and a comma needed to go in certain places. In Jesseland all this did was add time.

2: It took way longer than I think it needed to, I honestly believe that we would still be editing had I not "pushed the button" and released the Plumbers edition ;-) 

While the book was going through the editing process the NoBS tribe weighed in on the Title of what is now known as Lean & Love 5S Love Letters, a NoBS look into how your Relationships create Ripples Of Impact.

I wish I had written down all the names of everyone that contributed I specifically remember chief marketeer Steve Martin coming up with the tagline and Yesenia Garcia recommending 5S Love Letters. 

Truth be told the book is filled with contributions from numerous NoBS tribe members as the book contains many quotes, best practices and personal insights from participants of the live stream.

I feel it necessary to remind you that none of this was planned. The ideas revealed themselves along the way. Yes I had to put the first book on hold but it felt like the right thing to do. For some time now Ive adopted a practice of making the next rightest decision and the results keep me living a fulfilling life. Plus this philosophy has earned me the situation where I got to talk about my 2nd first book which took an intense transformation and exploration of my own vulnerability. 

Come back for the next blog where Ill give you the skinny on OG Spotlight and the Lean & Love Reflection Journal