Note: Our sponsors/partners are an enormously important and impactful part of  the BolderLife Festival. In this installment of  the Partner/Sponsor Spotlight we caught up with Stonestreet Works for a chat.

For more than a decade, a collective of freelancers operating as Stonestreet Works, with an extensive and diverse creative and technical knowledge base, has been providing website and related marketing services to businesses and organizations of all types. Including the BolderLife Festival.

A new partner/sponsor of BolderLife, Stonestreet Works helped revitalize this website where you get all of your BLF news. Plus, the group recommended one of this year’s panel speakers, Rick Gunn. As one of the featured speakers of the 2014 Student Program, Gunn, who is a writer, photographer and adventurer, will bring his acclaimed presentation “Soulcycler, Words and Images From a 25,811-Mile Bicycle Journey Around-the-World,” to the BLF student audience during the Resilience and Leadership Program, Oct. 16.

While much of the company’s work is focused on WordPress sites, it’s more than that. The Stonestreet Works approach is truly a fusion of technical knowhow and creative innovation.

“One of the questions is how to make something that is so good, people want to celebrate and share it for its own sake,” said Erich Stonestreet, founder. “We’ve had a lot of success doing that.”

A prime example of that successful approach involved promoting the book “The Adventures of Unemployed Man.” Stonestreet Works’ marketing support included making costumes of super heroes from the book, and attending comic book festivals and events. This captured the attention of people who sought to ‘hang out’ with the costumed authors, and ultimately photos of the public arm-in-arm with the authors were featured on CNN. In addition, the company created a custom online job board with the word “Superhero” in the job description; and the Stonestreet Works teams went to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, trained a local choir, and went around town singing the text of the book “Good Night Bush,” in four-part harmony.

“People really loved that experience,” Stonestreet added. “We’re always looking for ways to create an authentic connection.”

That commitment to authentic connections makes every success, no matter the scope, an important victory.

“There’s usually a “Eureka!” moment when we solve someone else’s creative, technical or other problems,” Stonestreet said. “Most of the people who come to us have a unique set of needs that are interrelated. So we have to come up with what amounts to a whole ecosystem of things that are working in relationship to one another.”

The practice of building on and building up collaborative and unifying elements is a mark of many of the partnerships Stonestreet Works enjoy, Stonestreet explained.

“It all starts with listening,” he added. “We listen intently and think deeply about what can be done, then the picture emerges.”

As we embark on another BLF festival season, filled with multiple opportunities to deepen awareness, embrace inclusion and insightful action, examine difficult topics, and encourage empowerment of all people, we are grateful for the partnership with Stonestreet Works.

In keeping with the profile tradition of sharing wisdom with one’s younger self, we asked Erich Stonestreet what two pieces of advice he’d share with his younger self. Here’s what he had to say:

“When I look back on my life, I see all kinds of suffering I could prevent if only I could send some advice to myself in the past—but I wouldn’t do that because my present would disappear, and that means I have to accept my past.

“To a young person today, I can offer some advice…

1. What you need to be happy is unique to you. Therefore, being happier requires cultivating a deep knowledge of yourself.

2. Sometimes to “keep your eyes on the prize” is the worst thing to do. That’s living from the outside in. The prize is your own unique happiness and purpose. Live from the inside out.

3. Conflicts are easier to resolve when you put everyone on one side of a line, and the problem on the other side of the line—so everyone is united against the problem, not divided against each other.

4. Your understanding of your parents will be more complete once you become a parent, so you don’t need to spend a lot of mental and emotional energy coming to definitive conclusions about your childhood or your family, because your perspective will change over time. Also, your parents may not be around as long as you think.

5. The point of striving isn’t to elevate yourself above other people—that isn’t even possible except in a delusion. The point it to be the best you that you can be.”

By Antoinette Rahn