Some things I would never use in million years – and somethings are totally not me. Here are some of them:

Ribbon organizers..  (photo grabbed from craftzine). I guess Im just not a ribbon and wrapping person. Im always out of ribbons and wrapping paper. I guess to do a ribbons organizer you have to be dedicated to ribbons. Im just not. Maybe if they had skulls and simili stones on them though? hm.

Even though Im all for love, and that I do believe in God and that the universe has got my back. I have a hard time with Bible Verse wall art. If it is for you – this is a great place to find it.

Furniture and decorations that just scream GIRLIE. I think mainly because of my husband. Sometimes I look at things and say.. yep they are super nice – but TK would kill me if it entered our house. the only place we really clash is with the use of bright colors and pastels. He likes black and white scandinavian design – so do I – but I want colors.

I’ll add more in here when I stumble across something

Here’s a personal rant for you… =)

So – Im happy to say, that lately I’ve been feeling happier than ever before. Those people who knows me well also know that I was about to give it ALL up last winter and set the Toothless Tiger free and get a daytime job somewhere at some agency or something. I was so frustrated with how things went and how I looked at myself, I was so frustrated with all the fighting within myself. I spent a lot of days playing sims 3, World of Warcraft and walking around in my PJ. I was wondering why these “things where happening to me” constantly. And then I met an angel.

She interviewed me for her podcast and we connected on a whole other different level than most… I guess she was one of the first people to really SEE my pain and my ….well… hatred towards myself. She gave me some ressources that I cherish to this day. I quickly decided that I needed to step up to the plate and be who I was meant to be. The person that everybody else was talking about in huge terms, but that I personally couldn’t relate to – this kick ass lady called “Henriette Weber”… hmm who was she ?. anyway I decided that I couldn’t be afraid anymore. Fear wouldn’t get me anywhere. I was a cruise to get un- afraid of stages or speaking gigs or criticism or fingerpointing. Im in total control. Im a free bitch baby.

I needed to claim my throne and I needed to see that my work, the things I’ve made and written and events I’ve created was not just “valuable” to others -they where worldchanging at least – to most. I needed to not only love what I was doing and feel blessed for the opportunity that I’ve gotten – I needed to love myself as well.

And you know what? Im finally getting there. I’ve done so much soul searching you wouldn’t believe it. Today I’ve prioritized things in my worklife that has made me step up as a leader and CEO of the coolest company around (mine=). And Im steering this ship with confidence and love, (also thanks to my darling  business advisor Mercedes, My husband TK and Mark, my partner in Toothless Tiger)  - not just because it’s expected of me since Im the founder and the knowledge behind the company, but also because… I love it. I am even starting to do more workshops and speaking gigs again, and writing more and letting myself write more. Because it’s the heart of the business.. my curly hair, huge laugh and simplifying the social web for all of you..

All you need is Love =)

On saturday morning (right after I stopped sobbing about the tragic tragic news from Norway which is still moving me deeply) my 15 year old dog passed away. He was extremely old and he passed just the way we wanted it – in a room filled with the people he loved.. Instead of getting too emotional about it – I just wanted to share some pictures of him in here. He’s been with me since I was 20 – so it’s a large part of my “adult” life that we’ve been together. anyway Nicki xx.xx.1996 – 23. juli 2011 – rest in peace old yellow you will be greatly missed.

Nicki and P doing fleemarket

Nicki at BBQ with friends

C is walking Nicki

Beautiful old yellow Nicks

Nicki and Jarvis sleeping on the hot tile floor in the winter

Nicki, Pan, P and TK

Nicki and Jarvis underneath him (it was the opposite in the end – Nicki underneath Jarvis)

Nicki moving into the house

Nicki finding shade (on the hottest day ever)

Nicki at the Coworkingboat Pan Launch Party

Nicki after a bath in Kattegat + a huge sandrolling incident

The day before he died. He is missed beyond words.

This.is.a.rant.

Actually I thought that hurting peoples feelings and having a huge attitude was something that went out of style when you became 20 or something.

But the other day it was something I saw happening to a friend of mine, and it both made me sick to my stomach, it made me dizzy, and it also put me right back in school as the outsider I always was and still am. It was the same feeling that I had years ago when I was at a school reunion and I felt horrible because the patterns was the same as they where when we attended school. I didn’t get a chance to do differently because they already thought they knew me, and I wasn’t that interesting to them. I hadn’t been interesting 10 and 20 years ago, what would be interesting about me now? They gave me attitude.

That “you’re not good enough to be talking to me” attitude.

That “what have you ever achieved” attitude.

That “why are you approaching me” attitude.

Basically my friend just sat down at a full table and told a lady that she loved her book. Within 3 minutes the table was cleared of other people than her. And I thought ” wow that was extremely harsh and rude”. I think it actually made a larger impact on me than her.

Now in my perspective, we are only succesful because we see ourselves as succesful and we have achieved something because people can relate to what we’re writing or teaching or creating. If the people relation wasn’t there – then you wouldn’t be succesful. There’s no way that I’ll refer anyone to those ladies at that table again. Because I don’t think they deserve it.

In my opinion those ladies have the same pattern as the kids in school. That pattern became the primus motor for me to actually start my own business and publish a book before I was 30.

I really don’t want to get into details, but it just meant the world to me, the outsider, to be the one shouting “I told you so” or “see what I said ? Look who’s awesome now”.  In some ways it’s a double edged sword, because I can see both my primus motor and what their doing as a part of the same pattern. It’s the “im more succesful than you attitude”.

I have chosen to be humble about it though. it’s not something I shout out- and I think I am pretty welcoming to people, because I know that If I ain’t they will see me as some sort of arrogant bitch, never referring any more clients to me. It might be that it derived from my own insecurities as a person, but I’ve chosen to see it as strenght in my work and my personality. Im the outsider, the one you probably wouldn’t choose to talk at first choice at a cocktail party. Im overweight and I wear weird clothes and I suck at wearing heels. But Im also the one having more fun and getting more love from people, because I am humble because I relate and I give them a 1000 chances to tell me who they are and what they believe in. It could be that we don’t agree or don’t match, then it is what it is. But you have to give people a chance.

So get off your high horse and come down to earth and play. You’re hurting people. And it’s so much more fun here. We even have good music, champagne and cupcakes.

I get a lot of ideas – some of them are really huge, some of them too huge and some of them are put into a context that I can carry out on a daily basis – and still have a huge perspective. I thought I would write a blogpost about how I make my evil plans. From HUGE to tiny worldchanging actions.

The first thing you need to do, is to know what your HUGE evil plan is.

I like to say I have several.  Actually I have one for everything I do, and they are all attached to my driving forces in life: epic, unusual, creativity and action. Really when it comes down to it I just want to die at 120 years old and know that I made a huge difference in the world. That I mattered, and that I’ve created a legacy that my family is going to be proud of.  I strive everyday to be the change I want to see in the world. But I want to make a lot of money and have a ton of fun doing that as well.

To make that happen I need other plans – such as business plans.

I find inspiration in other fields of work than my own for my business plans. I find inspiration in large companies and software in general, and I find inspiration in NGO’s and cold canvas sales. I mostly find inspiration in what it is they should do, and aren’t doing, and I tend to tell them as well.

Then I find inspiration in my darling network and especially with my advisors. I pay a lot of money for advice and inspiration, and I value it so much more than I pay.
I find so much inspiration in music, art, nature and health.

And I find inspiration in unusual business books.  One of the ones I refer a lot of people to is Marina Hjørdies “the visual businessplan/den visuelle forretningsplan” (only in danish so far, but hey, you get to brush up on your danish as well =)”

I love the “business model generation” book and I could cry myself to sleep at night, thinking about the fact that we didn’t have that book when I went to school, I would have loved it because it literally makes business models into a game =)

To make business plans happen, I need my action plans.

I think a lot in flows. I like to ask questions. A question I get a lot is “how do we turn this viral?”  The answer to that is that we create great content that our target group actually adores, and make sure that they love us as well. It’s that simple (and yet very complex at the same time). I mean we could make the best content but if the target group is wrong there’s not a thing in the world we can do to to make it viral. It’s not gonna happen. So we turn things viral with more questions and answers to more evil plans.

To make my action plans happen I need to take action.

It kind of make sense right ? But I love to see my actions as creations. I love to see my work as art and change. If I am creating art and change instead of business, I’m more inclined to do so. Here’s a secret for you: I get so turned off by boring things. If I think a thing is boring, there’s not anything in the world you can do to make me prioritize it. I think business per se, is really boring. However I think that business unusual and how I make my living is crazy cool and fantastic – and it’s still business – but not business as-we-know-it. It’s Henriette-business because it’s defined by me, and it is me who decides if it works for me or not.

To take action I need my lists and my structures.

I need my to-do lists and my timer to take action. I set the timer on a half an hour or something and then I work work work until it rings, take a break and then over again. I need structure in form of people telling me what to do, or timers, otherwise I end up not prioritizing what’s urgent or important, but what’s fun (sometimes I’m lucky that it’s both urgent, important and fun=)

And that’s the evil plans of Henriette Weber. What’s yours ?

The meditation part of my day is a long walk with my dog, Jarvis in the morning. I love it and it makes me connect with the world and be in the moment. I walk around town at around 6 in the morning, right when the sun is rising over Sweden and making the sky wonderfully pink.

It really is wonderful, and a great way of waking up to a sometimes hectic day. This morning in Elsinore there’s a large trash collection from the municipalities – so not only did I get to walk the dog this morning, I also got to look at the stuff that people throw out. We have trashed a lot of stuff ourselves. The thing is that some people are making money on the large trash collection because they gather the trash from the streets that is valuable to them.

The point here is that sometimes when you trash stuff, other people see it as gold. I think it’s really important, both in business and in life. Sometimes it’s hard to let go of things, but it’s often needed to open up for even more cool stuff coming in. The great thing about this is that somebody else might see it as their next opportunity, and thats okay because you’re moving on to something else. I have had some decisions to make lately, and after this morning I know exactly what I need to do. Because of the trash on the streets, the sunrise, dogs and life in general.

Breathe in.

The last couple of days there has been a discussion going on in the danish twitterverse about a blogpost where he was sad about the social media/technological revolution (in danish) -because it made him and his family sit in front of screens all the time. I think it raises some great subjects, so I couldn’t help but giving you my take on it.

I have always felt trapped in between technological revolutions. Seriously – when I was a kid I loved loved loved playing Civilization and Hero Quest – I could get completely absorbed in the game to the point where my family didn’t see me for a whole weekend – if they letted me. I remember being FURIOUS if my brother had to borrow the computer and play. I have always been drawn to the games. I can see my daughter is getting as absorbed in it, as I was.

I tend to make it into a family thing to play animal crossing on the wii (which she loves) as I tend to make her help out cooking, create stuff and as she has her “creative online workshop” (a blog) where we posts things that’s she’s build out of cardboardboxes and other stuff. She loves to build, she loves to be read to, and she loves to make stories/movies with a camera and her lego’s (maybe with permission I can post some of it here).

I posted Clay Shirky’s essay called “gin,television and social surplus” in my book “return on involvement” because it’s one of the essays that means most to me. I think it’s spot on to say that the media has changed, and they have become more active (as he does in the essay).

I think the active media and how we use it is all about choice. It’s what we choose to make of it -I sit in front of the computer all day, and there’s nothing that makes me more relaxed than to cuddle up with the family in front of a nice movie, or to spend my nights reading books or doing art. I don’t believe in technology/life balance as well as I don’t believe in work/life balance or family/life balance- I believe in life.

Seriously if you think you spend too much time in front of the screen – get a house, a garden get some kids and get a dog… and you will cherish your time in front of the screen. Set up an environment for yourself where you can’t get absorbed in it. You will love it everytime you get to go into your RSS reader and see what magic is happening in there, because to me, the technology truely is magical.

If you let the technology take over, if you let it separate you from the crowd you’re in, and where you spend you’re time sitting in front of screens.

Like letting your kids play DS all day long,

Like being at conferences – not being present but checking out stuff on the internet

Like playing wii with your best friends instead of being together with them

I think it’s your priorities around the technology that’s not set up properly, and you probably should set them up – otherwise you might miss out on a great deal of living =).

Technology moves SO fast these days, it’s important that you have your priorities set up about it, both from a business, personal and a family point of view. To me the technology is empty shells – it’s just tools

But it’s what you put in these tools and what you decide to create with it, alone or in a group, that counts – it’s not a life takeover – it’s fun, creative, narcissistic and full of possibilities (as well as threats) – make the best of it.

Those of you who are friends with me on twitter and facebook probably know that during the summer, I moved back into my childhood home, together with my family ( my mom and dad has an apartment another place now – I didn’t move back in with my parents =) Anyway I have been dying to start writing about the house here on my blog. I have been a bit in doubt whether or not I should do it here, or another place, because it doesn’t really get within the business things I do. Come to think of it – there’s a lot of stuff on henrietteweber.com that doesn’t grasp the business things I do (as well as there is a lot about the business things I do as well) – I think that’s alright, the blog needs to grasp me.

But back to my house and my experience with it so far:

It’s wonderful here. Messy, chaotic and very optimistic. Moving back into my childhood home has been fantastic. I love the fact that I have an awesome house now, that I know a lot of history about. Like that my great-grandpa used to hide parashoots and machineguns in the garden under worldwar II. Like I can’t stop thinking about that time when my brother scared me so bad in the cellar, pretending to be a ghost, that I literally flew up the stairs.

Of course we have changed the house so it doesn’t look anything like my childhood home. There’s still so many things to be done here I don’t know where to begin, but by now it looks like us, the things and colors we love. there’s still a long way to go though – but it’s good. we’re living in the flow and the process.

There’s a lot of stuff here that’s wabi-sabi. meaning non-perfect in a perfect way. I have decided to try and follow the wabi-sabi through – together with the cool avantgarde that is me. This I am doing for a couple reasons.

1. it’s me. I love non-perfection, I think it’s a perfect style for me. Im very non-perfect myself. I thrive in chaos.

I have learned an important style lession from having to deal with massive curly hair that goes it’s own way, everyday all my life. it’s perfect in it’s non-perfection. it’s wild and unmanageable, it’s curly and creative and I’ve had to deal with it, because it’s such a huge part of my personality. the twists and curls.

2. my mother left behind a lot of beautiful (but also some really ugly) junk before moving to her apartment

3. I don’t get to mass-consume new stuff but reuse the old

4. I will deliberately go after the stuff that’s not-perfect on fleamarkets. halfbroken and beautiful – I think it’s cheaper. cracked porcelain and stuff.

Things are quiet on the blog these days, but pretty hectic everywhere else, moving houses is such a big deal and I am looking so much forward to settling in, the transition is driving me slightly mad these days, maybe because there’s so many unsolved issues. But around 2 weeks ago I was so lucky to attend Roskilde Festival in sunshine. It was such a great time and probably one of my favorite festivals ever. (bands rocked, friends everywhere and great weather, what’s there not to like. Laura and Sami drove down from Helsinki to attend the festival as well and Sami made us come to this really cool and weird concert with the finnish band: Circle. It was a weird blast, but after a while people starting really getting into it – and I must say, it’s the first time I’ve ever witnessed a simulated decapitation of the singer by the bassist – with a guitar.

After the show the band members themselves started to clear away  their equipment. It made me burst into a “be your own roadie” statement. One that I promised I would look into more on the blog. I mean being an online rock star and all (ahem=) Im the one to toy around with the statement as well.

And if you think about it “be your own roadie” isn’t really a bad statement for a company that wants to be more like a rockband. If you’re a rockband and you are your own roadie, it means that you’re relying on yourself to get things done. Epic.  In my world it’s often the “being my own roadie” that’s the most exhausting, but also the place where you really can feel the entrepreneurial freedom. It means that even though you’re the band, you’re relying on yourself to make the show go on. Taking away the excuses for not getting things to happen for you and taking responsibility and not blaming the world for everything.

It’s up to you.

You need to do it yourself. Create it yourself. whatever.

Be your own roadie.

I am currently reading the book called “the element” by Sir Ken Robinson. Ken’s thoughts on education has inspired me for a long time, and it’s one of the reasons that I have chosen that my daughter is starting in an alternative school after the summer. Combined with my personal experience on how I have always wanting to be creating instead of competing, I am really fearing that the educational system is not only not embracing the rapid changes in the world, but they are educating people for a world that maybe doesn’t exists anymore.

I can only think of my own education first in primary school, then in commerce college and then at CBS. I am sad to say that no where along the lines was the discussion brought up, that maybe it would be wiser to create markets yourself – instead of competing for it. Keep on doing creative cool stuff that would have people getting nearer and nearer to you ( or further and further away from you – if they don’t like what you’re doing). Creating market share instead of competing for it. And start educating kids to take a stand, be a standpoint themselves and to create their way through life, instead of bashing other people down and compete for every single thing. I don’t know about you – but competition stresses me out. I love the fact that people who wants to work with me, most of the time wants to work with me because I am Henriette Weber, and not because “i do social strategies, counselling and speaking” – to me it’s not important.

It has been a long process for me to go from being bullied in school because my outlook was different and I was “weird”. To being the person shouting the loudest in the room trying to get everyone to understand my point of view and how they could use it for their business. To being me today – at peace with being the eternal outsider, a cool girl resting in herself and making money on being myself. And having people listening and involving because they, like me, thinks my points are as valid as everybody else. I think it rocks! Mostly it rocks because I have started to believe in it myself. I know you guys have gotten my back all the time =) but I needed to think of myself differently and that has been the hardest part.

One of the things I am most proud of, is that I am able to do this everyday. I make a living being myself. I still have to make a living and be able to get that fantastic red MG B roadster from 1954 that I adore. But I am buying a house soon and things are really good on my end (yep now I am bashing the idea of being the suffering entrepreneur living in a cardboard box down the road.) The biggest differences in my business life has been where I have busted my cute little behind and creating stuff – being structured and putting great ideas into context.

To me, the creative parts (or the products if you will) is what people has remembered me for and it’s really what’s making a difference to other people.

So what are you creating ? are you creating at all ? otherwise get yourself in gear and start creating something that’s important to you – and I bet also to a ton of other people out there