Just Because Something Is Fun For Someone Else…

SoAfunforyou

The Happiness Project: “Just Because Something Is Fun For Someone Else…”

March 5, 2012 0

It’s time…

March 4, 2012 0

Upgrade yourself!

Mastin Kipp shares a good analogy today at TDL…

I joke that my goal in life is to upgrade my internal software as often as iTunes upgrades its software! I mean, think about it, how many times does iTunes upgrade it’s software? It seems like almost daily! And why does Apple do this? Because they are constantly improving their product so that it’s better for us to use.

And that is what we must do. Accept who we are, know that where we are is perfect. And then from that place step into constant personal growth, busting through old stories and patterns and upgrading our internal software so that we can be used by The Uni-verse better.

The future is bright. Many people think when times are good that they will always be good, and that when times are tough they will always be tough – instead of remembering that the nature of life is constant change. It’s usually never as awesome as we think it is, nor is it as bad as we think it is.

And when we have a vision for a future that we want to create, we can use that vision as a navigation system when times are awesome or when times are tough. Coming back to your vision and taking action towards it REGARDLESS of what is happening in the outside world – that is what separates people.

Source: Here’s Why Your Future Is FULL Of Radness!

Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of his post…

March 4, 2012 0

The Million Dollar Question

Million Dollar Question

Expectancy theory states, that which we focus on expands. If we continue to allow ourselves to focus on problems, we will actually have more problems. Conversely, asking and answering the question—what is one thing I can do differently that could make this better?—within sixty seconds of a problem arising, literally causes our level of optimism and success to grow.

Any time you catch yourself thinking about what is going wrong in your life, be relentless about asking this question (what is one thing I can do differently that could make this better?). Keep asking until you identify a potential solution to your problem.

The mere identification of a potential plan for a solution is helpful, as it breaks the negative cycle of thought. You will obviously need to put energy into the execution of the solution, but the essential first step in getting started is realizing that something can be done to improve any situation.

Source: The Million Dollar Question [BLOG] « Positively Positive

Go to the source if you’d like the rest of author Jason Selk’s perspective. I’m trying to apply this to a situation that happened yesterday; I received a horrible, hurtful, hateful email full of shame and blame from a friend. The worst part is that I actually have to consider whether or not some of it is true, and if so, what should I do about it. I’ll have to think about what Jason says…

March 4, 2012 1

May I hurt you? :-D

Tempting Dance Chuck Undies | Bizarro Blog!

March 2, 2012 0

I had an interesting opportunity to sit on a panel of ‘experts’ yesterday and advise website development students on how they should develop a portfolio of their work and present it to prospective hiring authorities or clients. To be honest, I don’t know how I got on the panel; the others were truly experts — I’m just a lowly WordPress developer who creates websites out of necessity because of their role in ‘thought leadership’ marketing…

As I thought about it in hindsight there’s an important piece of advice that I left out but it’s a good one for all of us. When it comes to displaying a ‘portfolio’ [btw, to me a blog is a kind of a portfolio of thoughts so bear with me] of your life’s work I think there are only two activities that matter:

Deepening your understanding of your craft [or continuous ongoing education]
Letting people know you have deepened your understanding of your craft

I think all of ‘thought leadership’ marketing can be summed up in this statement: become and be known as the expert.

In order to do this you need a system that will help you effectively manage the content you need to master in order to become an actual expert. I wrote just last week about the tools I use to accomplish this. They are:

Gmail
Google Reader
Gist
Google Tasks
Evernote

As it applies to this particular topic, the two most important tools in this process are Google Reader and Gist. Google Reader allows me to create a virtual newspaper of the sites and searches that I need to track in order to stay on top of my craft — my areas of ‘subject matter expertise’. Gist is like Google Reader but for people and companies. In an easy to use dashboard I can see everything that someone has produced on the internet for the past 24 hours so I never miss a thing that someone who is important to me has said. The two go together like peanut butter and chocolate to help me become more of an expert…

Getting smarter is only half the battle — letting the world know you have gotten smarter is the other part. Blogging and social media are perfect for this! As Chris Brogan said in Trust Agents “As you now know, if you have no Google results, in a sense you don’t exist.” Active blogging on your area of expertise is a great way to let the world know you are an expert. Does it work? Well, are you reading this? Sharing your ideas in a public forum like the internet gets you a share of the voice which may get you share of mind if your ideas are good enough and may eventually lead to share of market. My tools of choice for getting found are:

WordPress
Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook
Google+

The order here is intentional and they tools are stack ranked in order of priority. Master one and move on to the next.I’ve written often about homebases and outposts — blogging should be the first priority because it is OWNED media — everything else should be evaluated based on the audience you’re trying to reach. Here in Northeast Wisconsin, LinkedIn rules — things might be different in your world…

Guest Blog Post: Google Reader and Zemanta’s ‘my sources’ tab; a match made in heaven (zemanta.com)
Guest Blog Post: Zemanta puts the ‘cherry on top of the sundae’ (zemanta.com)
Google Reader tips and tricks for content management (e1evation.com)

March 2, 2012 0

Today is important

“What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.”

Download a printable version of this quote: What you do today is important!

March 2, 2012 0

A Declaration Of Deserving

Danielle LaPorte shares this today…

A Declaration of Deserving:

You are worthy of your desires. Really wanting what you want gives you the power to get it. You were born free. (The more you try to earn your freedom, the more trapped you become.) You are worthy of love and respect. Lovable.

You deserve

: eye contact

: smiles in the morning

: food made with pure intention

: clean drinking water, fresh air

: Hello, Please, Thank you.

: time to think about it

: a chance to show them what you’re made of

: a second chance

: an education

: health care, including dental

: multiple orgasms

: weekends and the summer off

: eight hours of sleep

: play before work

: to change your mind

: to say no

: to say yes

: to have your deepest needs met

: to be seen

: to be loved for what is seen.

You deserve all this just because you showed up.

Yep, you’re that monumental.

Source: A Declaration Of Deserving…Just Because You’re Here [BLOG] « Positively Positive

Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of her thoughts on the topic…

March 2, 2012 0

Healthy Relationships

I stumbled upon this this morning…

Communication is a key part to building a healthy relationship. The first step is making sure you both want and expect the same things — being on the same page is very important. The following tips can help you create and maintain a healthy relationship:

Speak Up. In a healthy relationship, if something is bothering you, it’s best to talk about it instead of holding it in.

Respect Your Partner. Your partner’s wishes and feelings have value. Let your significant other know you are making an effort to keep their ideas in mind. Mutual respect is essential in maintaining healthy relationships.

Compromise. Disagreements are a natural part of healthy relationships, but it’s important that you find a way to compromise if you disagree on something. Try to solve conflicts in a fair and rational way.

Be Supportive. Offer reassurance and encouragement to your partner. Also, let your partner know when you need their support. Healthy relationships are about building each other up, not putting each other down.

Respect Each Other’s Privacy. Just because you’re in a relationship, doesn’t mean you have to share everything and constantly be together. Healthy relationships require space.

Source: Healthy Relationships | www.loveisrespect.org

Go to the source if you’d like to know more…

March 1, 2012 0

Using Others to Stop Our Pain

Cover of "The Language of Letting Go (Haz... — Cover via Amazon

Melody Beattie has some thoughts I wanted to share with you this morning…

Our happiness is not a present someone else holds in his or her hands. Our well-being is not held by another to be given or withheld at whim. If we reach out and try to force someone to give us what we believe he or she holds, we will be disappointed. We will discover that it is an illusion. The person didn’t hold it. He or she never shall. That beautifully wrapped box with the ribbon on it that we believed contained our happiness that someone was holding — it’s an illusion!

In those moments when we are trying to reach out and force someone to stop our pain and create our joy, if we can find the courage to stop flailing about and instead stand still and deal with our issues, we will find our happiness.

Yes, it is true that if someone steps on our foot, he or she is hurting us and therefore holds the power to stop our pain by removing his or her foot. But the pain is still ours. And so is the responsibility to tell someone to stop stepping on our feet.

Healing will come when were aware of how we attempt to use others to stop our pain and create our happiness. We will heal from the past. We will receive insights that can change the course of our relationships.

We will see that, all along, our happiness and our wellbeing have been in our hands. We have held that box. The contents are ours for the opening.

God, help me remember that I hold the key to my own happiness. Give me the courage to stand still and deal with my own feelings. Give me the insights I need to improve my relationships. Help me stop doing the codependent dance and start doing the dance of recovery.

Source: March 1: Using Others to Stop Out Pain | Language of Letting Go

Here’s the dirty little secret. This blog is only a public scrapbook of the things I need to remember for myself. If it happens to resonate with anyone else that’s a blessing as well. Did anyone else need to hear this today?

March 1, 2012 0

In previous posts I’ve talked quite a bit about how Twitter has become much more important in my ‘thought leadership’ marketing workflow. I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to tell you about two tools; one not so new and one that that just popped up on my radar recently. They are Paper.li and Twylah. I’m sure I saw Paper.li pop up over a year ago — Guy Kawaskaki was the first person I saw using it well. Twylah is a different story — I stumbled across Nilofer Merchant’s Twylah page only about a month ago. Both are great tools, but in the final analysis I think if you’re looking to use your tweets as part of your Search Engine Optimization [SEO] strategy, you’ll decide like I did that Twylah is the tool for you. Here’s a little riff I did for you outlining the reasons why…

What people are saying…

What people are saying…

http://storify.com/e1evation/paper-li-and-twylah-the-roundup

Twylah, Link Building Using Twitter (seopositiveltd.co.uk)
Use Your Tweets To Create A Website Using Twylah (makeuseof.com)
Twylah Creates A Website Out Of Your Tweets (alltopstartups.com)
Trending tweets with Twylah (sciencetext.com)
Tickled about Twylah(mikekato.wordpress.com)

February 29, 2012 0

Samantha :-D

She-Devil He-Devil Afro Tux | Bizarro Blog!

February 29, 2012 0

You Are Not A Victim

Here’s a kick in the pants from Kute Blackson…

You are not a victim.

Regardless of what might have happened in your past.

You have a choice in this moment to choose what your experience of yourself and life will be today.

Now.

If you want to be happy, being a victim doesn’t serve you in any way.

It takes real courage to forgive and let go. It takes courage to take responsibility for your inner experience, especially when someone has wronged or hurt you.

The degree to which you take responsibility for your inner experience determines the degree of freedom that you will experience in your life.

So how much freedom do you want to experience?

You choose

There are many things you will never be in control of in life. This is a fact.

The weather.
The Traffic.
Other people’s opinions of you.
The government.
The media.
Your spouse or lover.
The stock market.

But you have the choice to choose your interpretation of what happens. And to choose again until the choice you choose serves your true happiness.

Source: You Are Not A Victim. Own Your Power!

Go to the source if and read the rest of Kute’s post if this resonates with you. Own your own power!

Here’s Why There Are No Victims – Only Volunteers! (toddlohenry.com)

February 29, 2012 0

Say good-bye to past trauma and hurt…

Mastin Kipp shared something that I know someone needs to hear…

Let us review the definition of trauma from the good ole Merriam Webster’s:

Trauma (N): A disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury.

A lot of people get so identified with what happened, that they stay there, always identified by what happened and, in many cases using that identification as an excuse not to grow.

Now, I am by NO MEANS diminishing that fact that crazy shit happens in life. Bad things happen to good people. There is all kinds of suffering in the world. But that doesn’t have to be where we LIVE!

You see, there are some key words in Webster’s definition. The first word is “state”. The state you are in changes during the day. Sometimes you are in a sleep state, sometimes you are in a groggy state, sometimes you are in an excited state, and if you are lucky enough to be with a partner you Love and end up getting busy with them, you can be in a pretty excited state, too.

We humans can be in all kinds of different states. The state that we go into when we experience a trauma is totally normal and natural. But afterwards, because we are co-creators of our life, the state we stay in is up to us. This is why I love it when Tony Robbins said that there are no such thing as victims, because once the event happens it’s up to us to choose to stay in a victim identity or choose an empowered story and become stronger.

I can hear some of you right now screaming, “YES MASTIN BUT I WAS ________” and then fill in the blank. I’m not saying that these things didn’t happen and that in that moment you aren’t a victim. Of course you are. But after that moment happens, how you live your life, where you choose to live emotionally is up to you and the meaning you give the events of your life! Moments of victimhood happen, a life of being a victim is chosen and we become a victim of our choice to identify with that moment, instead of growing past it.

The goal is not to avoid pain or to deny what happened to us; the goal is to learn that we have the power within us to change and that starts by not letting an event define us. Instead, we know that painful events happen and when they do, we give them an empowering meaning and choose not to relive and make our identity the trauma that we felt.

Source: Bye Bye Past Trauma & Hurt! Here Comes The Sun Baby!

Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of his post. Choose life!

February 29, 2012 0

Author Toby Murdock has some ‘curatable’ thoughts on the Content Marketing Institute blog…

As I meet with brands and agencies, I still come across people who are totally unfamiliar with the term “content marketing.” And as I begin to explain it, they often respond, “Oh, brands publishing content? You mean social media marketing.”

Indeed, content marketing heavily involves social media. And, of course, in social media, marketers use content to get their messages across. But although there is plenty of overlap between content marketing and social media marketing, they are actually two distinct entities, with different focal points, goals, and processes. To help clear the confusion, let’s look at the major ways in which they differ:

“Center of gravity”

In social media marketing, the center of gravity — the focus of the marketing activity — is located within the social networks themselves. When marketers operate social media campaigns, they are operating inside of Facebook, inside of Twitter, inside of Google+, etc. As they produce content, they place it inside of these networks.

In contrast, the center of gravity for content marketing is a brand website — whether it be a branded URL like AmericanExpress.com or a microsite for a brand’s specific product, like Amex’s Open Forum. Social networks are vital to the success of content marketing efforts, but here, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are used primarily as a distributor of links back to the content on the brand’s website — not as containers of the content itself.

Source: Content Marketing vs. Social Media Marketing: What’s the Difference?

I’m going to stop there, but by all means – go to the source and read the rest of the article as you might pull out something completely different. I want to camp on his phrase ‘center of gravity’. I’ve heard a blogsite described as a homebase, a hub, but I like the idea of a brand blogsite being a ‘center of gravity’ and I wanted to capture that here. Does this resonate with you?

10 Essential Social Media Resources for Enterprise Business (sproutsocial.com)
CONTENT MARKETING AND THE FUTURE OF SEARCH Content marketing is… (futurecomms.co.uk)
Content Marketing vs. Social Media Marketing: What’s the Difference? (contentmarketinginstitute.com)
The Best Content Marketing Infographics on the Planet (junta42.com)
Wildfire Partners With Adaptly To Create Social Media Marketing & Advertising Solution (bub.blicio.us)

February 28, 2012 0

The magic in your mind

Have you read this? I only recently came across it thanks to blogger David Kanigan @ Lead. Learn. Live.

View this document on Scribd

February 28, 2012 0

Before you speak…

Before you speak… – Lead.Learn.Live.

February 28, 2012 0

Love Me Tender

I heard this story in a sermon at St. John Neumann in St. Charles, IL yesterday…

Look up Dolores Hart on IMDB — and prepare to be wowed. Hart, a Hollywood brat discovered while attending Marymount College, starred opposite Elvis in “Loving You” (1957). George Cukor directed her and Anna Magnani in “Wild is the Wind” (1957). The future prioress starred in the cult favorite “Where the Boys Are” (1960) — and even played a nun in Michael Curtiz’s “Francis of Assisi” (1961). And then, in 1963, at age 24 on the verge of marriage and following the premiere of her final feature, “Come Fly With Me,” this leading lady who had been compared to Grace Kelly and kissed “the King” on screen, entered the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut.

Yes, the Hollywood star gave up the spotlight for God. According to the Oscar-nominated documentary short, “God is the Bigger Elvis,” Hart discovered an inner peace and contentment in the cloister that had been absent on stage and screen, and in her engagement to California businessman Don Robinson. Hart has confessed it’s tough explaining the change in vocation, but has described it as: “Falling in love. One falls in love with the Lord.” Now, the feisty 73-year-old Prioress, Mother Dolores Hart, will not only attend the Oscars this weekend, she voted for them. She’s the only nun currently a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Source: Love Me Tender: Mother Dolores Hart on Elvis, her Big Bang Theory of Sexuality, and her Oscar-nominated short ‘God Is the Bigger Elvis’ | Coverage of The 84th Annual Academy Awards® – Yahoo! Movies#_=_#_=_

Go to the source if you’d like to read the Mother Dolores Hart interview. Good stuff from the ‘stranger than fiction’ category…

February 27, 2012 0

Raise your standards!

Today’s Visual Inspiration: RAISE YOUR STANDARDS!!

February 27, 2012 0

7 Signs you are in an emotionally abusive relationship

If the title caught your eye, you may need to read this post from Shannon Cook…

Let’s face it – relationships are tough and always require work to succeed. If both parties are invested and make an effort, the reward can be a mutually satisfying, long lasting union. But what if one of the partners is abusive? It is possible that the problems you are having in your relationship and the dejection you feel over it is not your fault. You may be partnered with someone who is an emotional and psychological abuser.

This type of abuse can be trickier to detect than say, physical abuse. The effects of verbal and psychological abuse can be more subtle. Fortunately, there are some clear signs to look for if you suspect that this type of abuse is happening in your relationship (or someone else’s you care about)…

Source: 7 Signs You Are in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship « Just say NO to Toxic Relationships

Go to the source if you’d like to know what the 7 signs are…