I began to list the qualities or skills I applied that helped me go from loser to a winner at something I knew absolutely nothing about when I started. I didn’t take me long to see that these are identical to the qualities that help me succeed at anything I want to do. While these ideas aren’t revolutionary, it’s easy to forget that each is within our power to do.
Realize I’m where I am on purpose, even if it’s an accident. Sometimes the most trivial things that happen to us are more important than we believe. When I look for the big, the exciting and the momentous – I leave empty-handed. When I surrender to the present moment, understanding the sheer magnificence of each of these in my life – even those that suck — and then follow that with gratitude, my wheelbarrow overflows. (I use that expression because my entire life, I wanted a wheelbarrow and now I have one, a good one I won one for not much money at all at DealDash and because “cups overflowing” has become a cliché, something writers should avoid.) I really am thrilled about having a wheelbarrow and in my most far-fetched moments of self-love, couldn’t justify buying one.
In his epic book “Here Comes Everybody”, Clay Shirky writes:
We are living in the middle of the largest increase in expressive capability in the history of the human race. More people can communicate more things to more people than has ever been possible in the past, and the size and speed of this increase, from under one million participants to over one billion in a generation, makes the change unprecedented, even considered against the background of previous revolutions in communications tools. The truly dramatic changes in such tools can be counted on the fingers of one hand: the printing press and movable type (considered as one long period of innovation); the telegraph and telephone; recorded content (music, then movies); and finally the harnessing of radio signals (for broadcasting radio and TV). None of these examples was a simple improvement, which is to say a better way of doing what a society already did. Instead, each was a real break with the continuity of the past, because any radical change in our ability to communicate with one another changes society.
So now you are an expert. I know it. You know it. It’s the rest of the world that may not know it. Yet. In my humble opinion however you did not get to this ripe old age of wherever you’re at without becoming an expert in something. The 10,000 hour rule is just that – Malcolm Gladwell hypothesized that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something. Now think of all the things you are an expert at!
Here’s the problem, however: your area of expertise may be so narrow or specialized that no one in your town or county or even your state needs it. There are however almost 2,000,000,000 people on the Internet. Even if your expertise appeals to only one in 1 million people that still means there are 2,000 people who need you to guide them. The 10,000 hours you spent gaining your expertise probably means you’re pretty good thinker too. The challenge is you can be the sharpest knife in the drawer but if no one can find the drawer you’ll never get a chance to get out…
Chris Brogan says:
“As you now know, if you have no Google results, in a sense you don’t exist.
My good friend Dana VanDen Heuvel, a thought leader in his own right, says “there are thinkers and there are thought leaders. They both have a point of view. The thinker has a point of view that is limited by word-of-mouth but the thought leader is only limited by world of mouth.” Using the good, fast and cheap tools available on the Internet a thinker can make his or her thought leadership position searchable, findable, knowable, usable, and shareable. Because of all those ‘ibles’, they may actually become credible. Publishing your thought leadership position will give you a share of voice which may lead to share of mind and ultimately to share of market…
The first step in ‘being known’ is actually accepting the face that you ARE an expert and discovering your ‘onlyness’ as author Nilofer Merchant puts it in her book “11 Rules for Creating Value in the #SocialEra“:
The foundational element starts with celebrating each human and, more specifically, something I’ve termed onlyness. Onlyness is that thing that only one particular person can bring to a situation. It includes the skills, passions, and purpose of each human. Onlyness is fundamentally about honoring each person, first as we view ourselves and second as we are valued. Each of us is standing in a spot that no one else occupies. That unique point of view is born of our accumulated experience, perspective, and vision. Some of those experiences are not as “perfect” as we might want, but even those experiences are a source of ideas and creativity. Without this tenet of celebrating onlyness, we allow ourselves to be simply cogs in a machine—dispensable and undervalued.
Merchant, Nilofer (2012-09-12). 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era (Kindle Locations 107-113). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.
So now we have established the foundation of being known; you have to define your area of expertise and embrace your ‘onlyness’; only then can you take the next step. More next Tuesday…
“The best part of blogging is the people you will meet”- Hugh MacLeod repeating wisdom from Loic Lemeur to me at the Big Pink at 2 am in South Beach after the Future of Web Apps 2008.
If you asked me to tell you a list of three of the best decisions in my life, I can certainly tell you that regularly writing is one of them. It’s the reason I’m an author here at OnStartups, made many new friends, had interesting opportunities cross my radar, and most importantly had the chance to share knowledge that has helped other entrepreneurs.
Wow — this post is just loaded with business case and valuable tips. You can follow the ‘vi a’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in getting even smarter…
If you start out with a solid topic, a good knowledge of your audience, and a reasonable degree of writing ability, you’ll usually end up with a pretty good piece of writing.
But you don’t have to settle for “pretty good.” A little attention to the final details can kick “pretty good” to “magnificent.”
Whether you’re creating blog posts, special reports, sales letters, a video script, email autoresponders, or whatever else, you can take your writing up a level just by applying some simple principles:
Some thoughts on beginning blogging from a writer at FlowingData…
I answered a few questions for Amstat News not too long ago, and the questions were centered around why I, as a stat grad student, take the time to write for FlowingData and why others should give blogging a try. The questions were more from a career standpoint, but it really all comes down to this. It’s fun.I have fun picking apart designs and playing with data. It’s fun reading comments. It’s fun looking at others’ work. It’s fun learning how to make stuff. It’s fun getting emails from people who were totally scared of numbers, but are now taking stat courses.
People often ask me how much time I spend writing posts, but it’s like asking someone how much he watches TV or plays video games. How many hours have you spent roaming an art gallery?
I’ll let you in on a little secret though. Maintaining a blog doesn’t take as much time as you think. You just need to manage your time wisely. Don’t waste minutes checking stats, tweaking design, etc. Get rid of the extraneous, and you’re just writing in a journal. Doogie Howser wrote every day and he was a doctor and he had a social life. So it must be possible.
Hold on. I think I have a point here.
I guess—if you’re thinking about starting a blog, go for it. I highly encourage it. FlowingData has definitely been a good thing for me. There’s a book on the way, and I’ve been lucky to connect with people and groups I probably never would have been able to otherwise. But don’t just do it because you think it’ll advance your career. Do it because you actually like what you’re doing, and other stuff will follow. It’ll be much more fun that way.
Sorry for the longish curation excerpt, but this was a great post by ‘askflowingdata’ at the FlowingData blog that I just had to share! Comment, call or ‘connect’ so we can talk about how this applies to your organization. btw, here’s a bit of ‘Doogie Howser’ eye candy for those unfamiliar with the reference…
But here’s the reality: naps are a powerful source of competitive advantage. The recent evidence is overwhelming: naps are not just physically restorative, but also improve perceptual skills, motor skills, reaction time and alertness.
I experienced the power of naps myself when I was writing my new book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working. I wrote at home, in the mornings, in three separate, highly focused 90 minute sessions. By the time I finished the last one, I was usually exhausted — physically, mentally and emotionally. I ate lunch and then took a 20 to 30 minute nap on a Barcalounger chair, which I bought just for that purpose.
When I awoke, I felt incredibly rejuvenated. Where I might otherwise have dragged myself through the afternoon, I was able to focus effectively on work other than writing until 7 pm or so, without feeling fatigued.
So I launched my blog this past Monday and announced it to the Twitter world…got many retweets and congrats, and at least one blog mention (thanks again, Maggie!).
Now the reality sets in. I actually have to write this thing…it ain’t gonna write itself. After all, I don’t want to be like the bride who loves weddings and hates being married. I confess: this might be a big reason I haven’t started a blog before now. After all, it’s a commitment. I value my integrity, and now I’ve publicly said I’m gonna do this thing, I darn well better do it!
Sometimes, putting “it” out there, making it public, is a very good thing. I guess that’s why they tell you writing down your goals is so important. I think this blog is going to do some really good things for me.
• It will help me be more disciplined in when and how I write. Writing is hard work…just ask any writer who makes it look effortless (and there are a lot of them out there!). You can’t wing it; you can’t “mail it in.” Every writing teacher I ever had (not to mention every book in my writer’s library) told me the key to success in writing is to sit down and write. Regularly.
• It will force me to prioritize (or at least take a stab at it) what I want to think and write about. My really big challenge is that I have lots to learn and lots of things I want to learn, and lots of things I want to write about here. Even within the topic of learning – not to mention the peripherally related things that might end up on this blog. Ten minutes on Twitter and I’ve found 20 new websites to read…an hour on a live Twitter chat brings me new tweeps and a whole new set of links to explore. Simply by going through the process of prioritizing what’s important to this blog, I’ll get increasingly better at deciding where to focus, what to write about.
• It will help me refine my ideas. When I’m figuring things out, I’ll frequently “think out loud” (if you’ve ever been in conversation with me, you’ve likely heard me do it!). I “write out loud,” too…a sort of stream-of-consciousness process that helps me capture ideas and then mold them into something that makes sense (to me, anyway).
So even as I blog, I’m learning. Learning to be more disciplined, better at prioritizing, better at refining ideas. My big ‘ah-ha’ for the day…what was yours? Spend a little time thinking about it; you might surprise yourself.
I loved this post so much that I grabbed the whole post as a quote. The ‘learning evangelist’ nailed it! I blog as much for myself as I do my readers and clients — blogging is a discipline that benefits me. Far from being a waste of time, I find it actually makes me more efficient about doing ‘marketing’ because it allows me to chip away at it a little bit at time…
When someone asks me a question, if I answer them via email, I benefit only that person and perhaps the people in their circle. If I take the same content, however, and create an ’email to the world’ via a blog post, I can reexpress my own content over and over again to people and in ways I never dreamed possible!
Kudos to the ‘learning evangelist’. You get ‘it’ whatever ‘it’ is and I predict a long and happy blogging career for you…
My brother in law Alan is a talented writer [his new book is called “Gods of Venice“] who is just moving into the online world. If you’re like him, you may benefit from brainstorming around these 20 different types of posts that a blogger can use to build their site content…
“Blog Tip 18 – Change up your posting form – find new blog topics – In the same way that it’s easy to get ’stuck’ in always posting in the same voice – it’s also possible to get stuck in always writing in the same form or genre.
Yesterday I decided to look through a the 500 blogs entered in Australia’s Best Blog Competition (I didn’t view them all but looked over at least 200). I was amazed by the talent out there. I also came away from the exercise struck by variety of different approaches that people take to blogging – especially with the form of posts that they write.” 20 Types of Blog Posts – Battling Bloggers Block
Click the link to go to the source and read through the 20 different types of posts — it’s great stuff, but too long to incorporate here. Comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your business…
Melody Beattie has a loooong post on New Year‘s mindfulness. Here’s an excerpt:
Bright, shiny objects! 
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