What Do You View As Failure?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Dec 16, 2011
Last night I saw a link to a post on a blog called Engage, which looks like it has multiple writers. In this case the writer’s name was Andrew Hanelly and the post was titled 5 Lessons From my Biggest Blog Fails of 2011. In the post he talked about articles he’d written this year that didn’t get much attention and how it was his own failure that caused it.
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I commented on it, then decided to write about it more here. This concept of “failure” is a tough one for me to deal with because of its strong negative connotations. While some motivational and sales training types try to turn the word into something that helps you become better, I find that having words such as failure linger too long in one’s mind, such that you’ll concentrate on it more than you will the good things you did.
I thought about posts I’ve written in the past on the subject, in its own way. Years ago I participated in something titled 34 Questions and my answer to #17, which was “What Do You Fear The Most”, was failure. I also wrote a post titled The Fine Line Between Blog Visitors Success and Failure where I was saying just how you never know when good things will happen based on something you do and how others react to it.
We all see failure in our own way. For instance, this guy talked about 5 posts that didn’t generate the publicity he expected they would, then examined why he thought they didn’t work as he had hoped. I wrote in my comment that no one hits a home run with every single post they write. I alluded to my recent article about 14 Favorite Posts and said how I looked at over 280 posts to come up with 14 that I thought were somewhat superlative. I decided that, in my own mind at least, I didn’t come close to failing with this blog because I’d written so many posts here, and on my other blogs, in the past year and other years.
When you’re putting out a lot of material, you always try to do your best, and there’s a lot of good stuff out there, But let’s do a short comparison between Mozart and Beethoven, if I may. Mozart wrote more than 600 compositions that we know of; Beethoven wrote 200. Mozart was a “staff writer”, if you will; he was employed to write music, pure and simple. When whichever benefactor he was working for at the time said music was needed for something, he wrote it. Sure, he wrote things on his own as well, but sometimes he had to write something really fast, in less than a week. I used to write music and songs would come to me fast, but I was on my own time; I’m not sure I’d have been able to have the kind of output Mozart had.
Beethoven was different. He was a professional composer, one who lived at a time when musicians were finally being seen as artists and not lower class workers. Because of this, Beethoven got to take his time writing, and he was known as a perfectionist. And yet, even as a perfectionist, he had his flops. His opera Fidelio flopped, even after many revisions, and it bothered him the rest of his life. Some of his sonatas connected with audiences while others threw them off. Of all things, his 9th Symphony, considered one of the greatest works of all time now, had a grand opening, mainly because of the respect he garnered, then failed miserably with every other performance until the 1900′s.
Or did it fail? As I said, these days its seen as a major triumph, especially when we consider that he was deaf when he composed it. The same with Mozart’s music; do we consider any of it as “failed” music because he couldn’t take all the time he might have wanted while composing it? For the rest of us, if we produce consistently, can anything we do really be considered as failure, even if it doesn’t all resonate with the masses?
This is why I’ve written in the past, and need to reiterate again now, that most of us have to realize that we need to think of ourselves when we write. I’ve read those who write about how to make money that we need to write for the customer, write to their level so that they understand and will buy your product. I tend to believe that unless you’re hired to do something specific you have to like what you do in order to give your writing personality. If you do that, you can never say you’ve failed at anything. Maybe it didn’t do as you’d hoped, but failed… never!
Now, if your favorite football team goes 0-16… well, we’ll save that for another time. lol
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell
Stuff We Forget To Do For Our Benefit
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Dec 11, 2011
A couple of nights ago my wife asked me to help her move something. I went to help and realized it was something big and a little bit heavy. Not afraid of heavy things, I did my part in helping her move this thing. At some point, however, I smacked part of it into my foot and did that jumping around thing most of us do, trying to walk it off.
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My wife was now upset because not only had I hurt myself, but I wasn’t wearing shoes. Most of the time while in the house I don’t even think about it, wearing either socks or nothing. But I need to know better because, being diabetic, one is supposed to watch out for things that happen with feet, just in case. As it is I currently have a bruise on my big toe that’s been there for about 4 weeks now, not healing, and I just thought about calling the doctor’s office about it; two days and they haven’t called me back yet. The thing is that I have no idea when I hurt that foot, and I can only estimate how long I’ve had it because my wife noticed it first; actually, I’m not even really sure it’s a bruise.
I’m at an age now where there are simple things I just don’t think about beyond a couple of minutes. Putting on house shoes is one of those things; if I need to go to the kitchen and I don’t have shoes on while sitting at my desk, I don’t even think about it until I’m there. But dangers are everywhere; my wife sews and pins could be present in the carpet; I’ve stepped on them here and there but luckily to this point they’ve never been turned up. I also bump into a lot of things; how many of us don’t bump or kick something accidentally here and there, and some minutes later, for the most part, have forgotten we’ve done it?
I’m one of those people who’s a scheduler; turns out my mother is as well. I do that because I need reminders to do things, then to follow up on them. For instance, I always set timers to do laundry but always forget to set timers to put the laundry in the dryer, which means sometimes my laundry sits in the washer for a couple of days and I have to re-rinse everything. I have to schedule times to eat, otherwise I’ll go hours between eating, not good for my glucose levels. I schedule breaks, and sometimes I schedule projects and even email.
One thing I never have to schedule is my blogging. When I want to blog I just do it; luckily, depending on which blog I’m thinking about, I write enough to get by. Yet, what happens if one of these days I forget that? How will it impact some of the other things I believe are somewhat important in my life?
I mentioned eating; seems strange that one would forget to eat, doesn’t it? Especially someone like me, who’s not necessarily a small man. Even with my CPAP I’m tired a lot, and often I have to make the choice of whether to take a nap or eat. Most of the time I choose napping, feeling that I can always eat when I wake up.
According to a nutritionist that’s the wrong move. When we’re born the first instinct we know is how to eat; sleeping is something that we just do. Turns out that as we get older, we really do stop eating as often or as much, and food is what sustains us. Supposedly, by not eating something first, we sap our energy such that it makes it harder for us to wake up; that’s assuming we eat the right foods. When my grandmother’s mind stopped working properly she stopped eating; supposedly even when one’s mind doesn’t fully work, they can control eating or not eating, and without eating, she didn’t have a chance to survive. My nutritionist told me I don’t eat often enough; can you believe this? Well, I can after looking at myself more critically and realizing that often I only eat 2 meals a day, along with some snacking; nope, that just won’t do.
I lead in with all that stuff because I have a point; of course I have a point! lol When we don’t take care of the things we believe can help us in life or business we don’t survive, or rather all we’ll do is survive. People who create blogs with the intention of growing their business or selling their products and forget to blog are only hurting themselves. Folks who forget to send out invoices (yeah, I do that) or market themselves or use social media to help get the word out or, if necessary, spend a little bit of money to progress, only delay any benefits they might have coming their way.
What things are you forgetting to do that you might need to start scheduling for your life or business? What assistance are you searching for to help you progress? And what are you going to do about it?
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell
Influence Versus Wasting Time
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Nov 1, 2011
Anyone who’s been checking out this blog for at least a year knows that I talk about the concept of influence on a fairly regular basis. I’m one of those people that believes that not only will influence allow you to have a voice in what goes on around you, but it offers you the best possibility for future financial success. You probably find influential people a happier lot as well, though I know someone’s going to pull out “I know so-and-so who’s not very happy”. Doesn’t apply to everyone but I’m betting it applies to the majority.
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As this post goes live I’ll be at a live event that I briefly mentioned in this post hoping to increase my influence locally by hopefully giving a presentation that will at least put my name into the light. It’s a long and hard road to get yourself known by more than just a few people, isn’t it?
The same goes for being online. It’s really hard judging how influential you are online. Sure, there are lots of ranking services, but none of them seem to agree just how well you’re doing. One of the problems with being a social media consultant is having clients and potential clients wanting you to tell them all the things they can or should be doing to become more prominent online. I’ll say this; no matter what it is one hopes to do, it all takes time. And some of that time, in my opinion, is wasted time. What do I mean? Let’s take a look at some of these major time wasters.
I’ve talked about Klout a few times now. It’s supposedly one of the top online ranking systems to tell people just how influential you are “across the board.” I put it in quotation marks because it doesn’t look at a lot of things. One, it doesn’t look at blogs or websites at all. Two, it doesn’t follow your comments, even on sites that it checks on such as LinkedIn and Facebook. And three, if you’re engaging in conversation but with only one or two people on Twitter at a time, it doesn’t give you any bonus points for that. It pretty much follows two things; how much you’re participating in the couple of things it’s following and how much others are passing your stuff along if you happen to put stuff out there.
And no one really knows how it works; I’m not sure they do. Back in the summer when I had my post on 21 Black Social Media Influencers, my Klout ranking soared. Now, they’ve made a change and my score has dropped drastically. Not that it wasn’t slowly coming down anyway because who could keep up with the amount of activity needed to keep a Klout score high? How much time would I have to consistently waste on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, doing specific things, to get my score up? And I hear there are employers that are judging people based on this; ugh.
A couple of weeks ago I talked about Empire Avenue. At that time my score kept going up, but truthfully I had no real idea what it was all about; I still don’t. Turns out that the only real way of keeping your score up is to promote your site and have people buying “stock” in you. Sure, you earn your fake income by acts you do, but that doesn’t influence what your stock price is.
I mention Empire Avenue because in my previous post I wondered how it helps with social media, or even if it was supposed to help. On that front I’d have to say it has helped some. My Facebook business page has had a lot of folks from Empire Avenue sign up, and a few people have visited this blog and left comments; that’s pretty neat. So it hasn’t been a total waste of time, but for the amount of time one would have to put into promoting yourself, which in essence is promoting the site, I could write 3 blog posts for each blog I own.
Then there’s Technorati, Delicious (is it still going by that name?), StumbleUpon, etc… all those intermediary sites that people seem to love but I seem not to love. Like many other people, when I first started trying to get more recognition for my blogs I tried social bookmarking. And once again I found myself spending lots of time trying to get good rankings on these sites, only to learn that it not only takes a lot of time but you never know what any of those rankings mean anyway.
For instance, I just took a look at my Technorati account. This blog has an authority of 450; my business blog and finance blog have an authority of 101. I’ve never listed my other two blogs and won’t. Traffic has drastically gone up on my finance blog, but the way Technorati works, people have to “name” your blog, or at least a post, for you to get recognition. You can add a link on your own, but it still only works if others decide to tag along.
The same goes for all those other sites. I hate when I click on a link on Twitter and it takes me to StumbleUpon or any of those other sites, with those big clunky toolbars. And it’s people posting their own links; why not post the link to your blog instead of one of these other sites? Isn’t that a major waste of time? Someone please school me on this one because I’m missing it.
There are so many other ways of spreading your influence online that don’t take a lot of time wasting. And of course one can spread their influence without worrying about these rankings all that much. We all get so caught up in the numbers; I know I can from time to time. But you know what? This past Saturday I took a day and basically sat in front of the TV watching DVDs. I had my laptop, but I rarely checked it. And it felt good; the chase was over for at least one day.
If you’re going to waste time, waste it in making yourself feel better. If you want influence, don’t restrict it. Find ways that fit into your schedule that don’t become overwhelming. Get out there and have fun with it, while getting things done. This is one of those dreams/goals I’m shooting for as I retool what I hope to do in 2012.
I’m Mitch Mitchell and I approved this ad. 
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell
What If Your Dreams Came True?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Oct 25, 2011
Last week I listened to an interview on a blog by Ray Edwards with Carrie Wilkerson, whose new book called The Barefoot Executive has just come out. I bought it and I’m about 1/4th of the way through and it’s very good, so I’m recommending it to you as a great business purchase.
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Anyway, I was drawn to one particular point where she talked about dreams and how people will have dreams of things they want to achieve, yet sometimes it scares them to think about getting there and then, if it comes, what to do about it or where to go from there. She used two great examples from two of my favorite movies (y’all know I’m just a big kid, right?), Tangled and Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs
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From the first movie, the main character is about to experience something she’s dreamed about from the time she was a child, and she’s somewhat sad. When asked why she’s sad she answers “What if it’s not everything I dreamed it would be?” His response is “It will be.” Then she asks “And what if it is; what do I do then?” His response is “Well that’s the good part. You get to go find a new dream“. From the second movie we remember that Snow White is singing a song about wanting her Prince Charming to come, and when he actually shows up she runs into the house and closes the door.
I tend to be a dreamer, but I’m also a realist. I know that if any of my major dreams ever do come true that my life would change. I believe that many people who end up being rich and famous, or even just rich, haven’t prepared themselves for what’s potentially coming. That’s why do many people who win the lottery end up broke, and so many people who end up famous go to rehab, or at least get counseling. All of them know the hard work it took to get there they got, but once there, how many of them have built a foundation to help them keep some of that money and prestige? I mean, how many professional athletes have to end up losing all their money for whatever reason before someone sits back, thinks about it, and realizes that just getting there isn’t enough?
I think it’s this fear that has so many people leaving comments on this blog whenever I talk about striving for the top saying they’d rather make enough to be comfortable, whatever that means. There has to be a fear of getting rich, of being famous, of suddenly seeing your friends change their behavior towards you or you changing your behavior and your friends, of spending money on things you’d have never bought before just because you can, and the fear of what happens if you lose it all and have to start all over again, yet can’t capture what you had.
Two quick stories, if I may. First story, I used to play piano and sing at weddings. Back in 1999 I performed my last wedding. I got to sing a song that I’d always hoped I would sing at my wedding, a song I wrote. It was the final song I ever sang in public, in a church, and I got my one and only standing ovation. I decided that day I was done, that it wouldn’t get any better than that, and I’ve almost never played the piano or sang again, even in the shower. It was a dream I had, though not quite how I saw it coming, but I accepted it and moved on.
Second story is one about weight. I’ve always had a weight issue, I hate to admit. When I first went to college I was probably in the best physical shape of my life but still slightly big. I wouldn’t eat my first semester in college because I couldn’t get used to the food, and I lost 26 pounds. I kept that weight off 2 years and though I’d always keep it off. Gained it all back and more my third year and didn’t lose it again until 10 years later.
Then I lost 66 pounds and was down to what I considered a great weight. Thing is I never believed I could hold that weight, as I thought I’d lost way too much, and two years later I’d gained that weight back and then some.
One more time I lost 50+ pounds and finally I was at the weight I thought would be perfect. This time I held onto it for 9 months, then things started heading south again. See, with my weight, I’ve always dreamed of a size I wanted to be, but I’ve never been able to prepare myself mentally to stay there, and thus I’m back on the losing weight thing again.
Think about this and let’s see what you have to say; what if your dreams came true? Would you be prepared? Would you be ready for another dream, or would you say “it can’t get any better than this?” Or are you fearful that you’d hit your dream and that you couldn’t sustain it and thus would rather not even dream, not for fear that you couldn’t get there but for fear that you might get there?
If you’ve never seen Tangled, enjoy this little clip from the movie, apropos to this topic called I’ve Got A Dream:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell
You Can’t Just Be “Comfortable”
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Aug 17, 2011
When I wrote my post asking Why Is Everyone Busting On A-Listers, it seems that many people kind of missed my point in a way. But that’s okay because some people thought I’d missed their point. I’m going to take that on first.
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I didn’t miss the point about A-listers and how many of them don’t respond to comments on their blogs anymore. I get it; I don’t like that either. No matter how big someone gets, I feel they should respond to at least some of the people who comment on their blogs. Maybe not everyone though, as I finally acquiesced to in Monday’s post.
However, almost everyone missed my point, and I’m going to say it’s my fault because I didn’t think I had to state it specifically. However, sometimes you have to go that extra step and tell people exactly what’s going on; that’s what this post is all about.
Not often are there only 2 ways to go about something. We can say there’s a right way and a wrong way but that’s not entirely truthful. That’s because everyone’s truthful isn’t the same as everyone else’s. If it was there wouldn’t be a need for political parties, or a need for different languages or countries. There wouldn’t be prisons to put criminals in, but there also wouldn’t be different degrees of heroes, from those that run into a burning building to save some children or those who called 9-1-1 on their cell phones for help.
However, when it comes to success, you either shoot for it or you don’t. This doesn’t necessarily mean you shoot to be the CEO or the person that cleans the toilets. What it means, however, is that there’s no way you or anyone else can shoot for the middle.
The middle moves, and it’s either on the low end or the high end. Many people think of the middle as being comfortable. But the reality is that no one is ever comfortable unless they have so much money that they have no worries in paying their bills.
So, let’s not go with that particular “C”-word. Let’s go with another one, which I’ll call “contentment.” I’m using that word because if I start talking about “content” you’ll think I’m talking about blogging again and that kind of content. But stay with me.
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My dad joined the military on his 17th birthday. He didn’t have a college degree obviously, but he also didn’t have a high school diploma; he had just started his senior year. This means that his military career would be limited. Still, he set his sights on the highest position possible for him at the time; master sergeant. He had to switch branches of the military to get there and it took some time, but 23 years after he’d enlisted he finally reached the highest rank possible.
Now, just so you know, sergeants don’t make a lot of money; you don’t get rich in the military. But he wasn’t content to be a staff sergeant or even a tech sergeant. He knew he’d never be an officer but he went for the best he could reach.
What did that do for him later on? He showed he was someone who wasn’t afraid to work to get as high as he possibly could. He never looked to be comfortable because comfortable for him would have been watching the evening news, having either a few beers or some bourbon over the weekend, and playing pinocle. That doesn’t take a lot of money, but to be truly content, you take care of your bills first, you set a living standard you want to enjoy, then you take your shot and go for it. You can’t aim at the middle because you never know what it’s going to be.
Dad didn’t do that. He retired from the military and got a job at a large corporation. They wanted to help him move up but he had to take care of some things first. So he got his high school diploma then went to college. He finished 2nd in his class with a double major in business management and psychology. And he moved up within the corporation he worked at to the point where they flew him all over the world to teach others what he’d developed. He left management and was basically a freelancer within the company. Now there’s true contentment because he got to do what he wanted to do with no encumbrances.
Now, think about your blogging for a minute. Do you write a post with the intention of it just being “good enough”? Are you just trying to put out whatever you can and move on to the next one? Do you really care that someone’s reading what you have to say and might be impressed with what you’re saying, enough to get them to leave a comment or share the post somewhere else?
Or are you just trying to be comfortable, going through the motions, not really caring if people comment or not because you know you’re not putting forth your best effort? What’s the middle of blog writing?
I see a lot of people who say they’re trying but we know they’re not. I visit a lot of blogs; I’ve seen a lot of bad writing. I’ve seen “make money” blogs that have no soul in the writing. I’ve seen a lot of blogs that basically rehash the same garbage over the over, giving nothing of themselves, ever. That’s comfortable; those are people who are trying to make money with no effort whatsoever.
Which one do you want to be? Do you want to try to be better, at least have something to say, put together posts that have some passion in them, something you hope someone else picks up on? Or do you want to be comfortable, writing bad posts and not really caring, trying to find the easy way without really working for it?
Take that point, add it to your life in general, then be truthful with yourself. Does being comfortable take on a different meaning now? Is that really all you want out of life?
Not me.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell
I'm Just Sharing is where I share my thoughts on internet marketing, writing, blogging and many other things. You never know what I'll be posting on. So keep coming back, read, enjoy, and buy something! ;)
