Tag Archives: motivation

Blogging

Will Paying The Price Get It Done?

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Last week I read an interesting post on a blog written by a lady named Jacqueline Gates titled The Price Is Right ~ But Will You Pay It? First, that’s the first time I’ve ever typed a squiggly line, and I didn’t even know I had that key until I went looking for it. Second, it’s an interesting article that also has an interesting, if long, video complimenting it.


by TheTruthAbout

If you don’t go check it out, the basic premise is that everything is attainable if you’re willing to pay the price for it. She talks about weight loss, being monetarily successful and something else that’s slipping my mind. In her view, we all have the capability to do and be these things if we’re willing to do what it takes to get there. The question now is twofold; one, do we believe it and is it really true?

Y’all know me; I’m of two minds. One, I believe that anyone can achieve anything if they can get beyond circumstances, whatever those circumstances are. Two, I believe there are some things that are unattainable, not because one doesn’t work hard enough for them but because, well, they’re just unattainable. In my comment on her post I mentioned that no matter how hard I work, even if I do the same thing 24/7, at this point in my life I won’t ever be the starting guard for the Los Angeles Lakers. But in my past… okay, let me have that pipe dream for a moment. 🙂

Based on my beliefs, question number one has limits to it. I used to be a pretty good piano player but I haven’t played in years now. If I started to practice every day for at least 20 hours, I might be able to get back to where I was. However, I couldn’t reach the level of Rubenstein even when I was playing between 6 – 8 hours a day in the past; would that really be attainable now, no matter how much I practiced? Sorry Charlie (who remembers old tuna commercials?), but it’s just not going to happen. But can I be pretty good, maybe even better than I was before? Sure.

So, not only are there limits, but there are modifications we might have to deal with. Can we all be rich? Absolutely. Can we all be Oprah rich; ain’t gonna happen. Do we need to be Oprah rich to be happy and content? Nope. Is it still a nice goal to shoot for, as long as we’re still realistic about our overall dreams? Yes.

Okay, on to question two, and I think I’ve already answered it. If it’s not always attainable, and thus not believable, then it’s obviously not true. At least not across the board. Let’s look at blogging, my favorite subject here, and talk about it a little bit.

Can any one of us be really successful at blogging? Since there’s lots of criteria, sure. But let’s look at two criteria in particular. One, can we all make money with our blogs; two, can we all get our blogs ranking high wherever we want them to rank high? Let’s take these in order.

We can all make money with our blogs. I’ve made money with this blog and my other two blogs as well. Have I made “big” money; that’s a much different question. I don’t think I’ve made $100 total with my blogs in the full existence I’ve had them, and one of my blogs is more than 5 years old. Actually, let me take that back; I haven’t made $200, since I did make some money when I accepted text ads early in 2009. I haven’t made any thing significant, though. Could I? Truthfully I don’t know. Since there are a few folks who’ve made it I could say “yes”, but since that number is less than the number of millionaires in the United States (which is actually a much higher number than you’d believe), I’d have to say probably not. Doesn’t mean I won’t try, but it’s highly unlikely.

So, number one says “no”. What about number two? This is one where I believe Ms. Gates rule on “price” is spot on. With this one I really do believe everyone can be really successful if they’re ready to pay the price. Ah, but what is that price?

Two weeks ago my blog finally cracked the magical 100,000 number on Alexa. I believe it cracked that figure because of the sweat equity I was putting into it. I’ve written a post a day for about a month; I even had two posts a day two weeks ago, though that second post was more about marketing. Tomorrow’s post will be my 900th post in just under 3 years. And I’ve visited lots of blogs and commented, shared, retweeted their posts and my posts, and really worked the community. In essence, I’ve been willing to pay the price to get to this number, and all without page rank (y’all don’t really want me to go there again, right?).

However, I know everyone can’t afford to do this. I work from home, so I have more freedom to diversify my work and my blogging. Not everyone can do this, so I have a small advantage. But this is where paying the price differs. I give up vacation time and time to just sit and watch a lot of TV or play video games for this. I might be missing something, but I don’t know. But y’all do, and if you enjoy doing what you do, then you’re not missing a thing. You’re paying the price in a different way; that’s okay.

In conclusion, we all pay the price for whatever we have. We can decide to pay the price for other things or continue paying the price and getting what we have. But paying the price for something else doesn’t necessarily equate into ultimate success. Yes, you’ll be more than you were, and that’s great. But trying to be more than what’s possible will leave you depressed. Do the best you can, achieve the best you can, and be happy with that. Now, get in there and blog!


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Business

Don’t “Stink”; Not Quite A Rebuttal

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Last week, Mitch Joel wrote a post on his blog titled Don’t Suck. It’s a tongue in cheek yet kind of harsh statement on what you shouldn’t do if you don’t want certain negative things happening to you online or with your products.

Whereas I kind of like it, and I understand its purpose, I have to kind of counter it in saying that I don’t believe that it necessarily means you or me, well, stink (yeah, I changed up the word; so sue me, but I just don’t like that term) just because you have difficulties doing certain things or achieving certain results. True, there might be something lacking here and there, but that doesn’t mean you stink.

For instance, this missive: “If no one “like”s you on Facebook…” I’m not sure one thing has to do with the other. I see lots of things I like and comment on that I forget to “like”. I have many posts on this blog that people don’t end up “liking” for whatever reason. I see many things on Twitter that other people write that are very good with very few “likes”. I’m just not sure that a Facebook “like” is the end all – be all of one’s popularity or competence.

Another one is “If no one is leaving comments on your Blog…” I’ve talked about it often, as has Sire, in determining that some of the best writing we’ve seen will show up on blogs where almost no one comments, mainly because bloggers haven’t quite figured out the community part of it all. True, there are some folks that have no real sense of community that will do very well, but I tend to think that’s more of a fluke than the norm.

Finally there’s this one: “If no one is clicking on your banner ads…” Almost no one clicks on any of my banner ads, and I think that pertains to lots of other people who blog. Does that mean we all stink, or does it mean that people just aren’t clicking on them because it’s not why they’re visiting your blog, or even website, if you have a sales website, so to speak? Even if I happen to write about a product and add the link to it at that point, and no one clicks on it, does that necessarily mean I stink, or anyone else stinks, because no one clicks on it? And, by extension, does it mean I stink if no one visits any of the products I posted last week on this blog, even if none of those products apply to the audience I’m writing to? Or do I stink because I know the folks visiting this blog aren’t the market for those products and I wrote it anyway?

As I said, I really do understand the premise behind the post, which is this; “be good!” Heck, it’s probably “be outstanding”. Those who exceed will achieve better than those who are just middlin’, who don’t give full effort, who leave the public wishing for more. If you can go over the top with what you do and people see it, they’ll flock to you and your products and you’ll do well. If you don’t give your all, or you present something lackluster that people feel they were cheated on, not only might they ask for a refund but they’re going to spread the word about you and, unless you’re really big already, you’re going to suffer. That’s never good.

I hope you read Mitch’s post (yeah, I like the name :-)) because overall it’s pretty good.


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from Tiger Direct
 

Motivation/Inspiration

Are You Planning For Your Success?

26 Comments

I had a pretty good week this past week. The week before I felt like I was leaving way too many things to chance, so I thought it was time to regain a bit of perspective. After all, one doesn’t just fall into success; no matter what it is, you have to work it, and it works better if you have a plan of some kind.

So I worked out a plan based on a marketing plan I’d put together for 2011, things I want to do to earn the bulk of my cash for the year. I’ll do other things hopefully but you have to start with something. The next step was putting together a monthly plan of attack, which I started at the beginning of the month. In doing that, you also have to put together a portion of three types of things; things you want to do daily, things you want to accomplish during the week, and things you can to complete for the month.

After that I decided I needed to plan my time daily as well. So I did, and I got to everything I wanted to do that I planned for. This coming week is going to be kind of a mess since it’s Thanksgiving week and I’ll be out of town for a couple of days, but that’s okay because the plan helps me be prepared to have most everything done before I leave; whew!

As Snoopy shows, I got a lot of things checked off my list. See, I’ve been asked in the past how I get to so many things, and how I can find the time to write so many blog posts. When I plan my time, when I have plans of attack, I’m very good at it all because I don’t have to think about it. Everything’s written down in some fashion, or logged somewhere, like in my computer calendar associated with my Palm; that’s my alarm system, as well as my cell phone (remember, the stupid alarm on my Palm doesn’t work anymore). And I make sure to plan breaks and meal times as well. And weekends… I don’t plan those, but if I stick with my plan, then weekends are mine to work on my other projects, or just to try to relax a little bit; I don’t do that often.

So, I plan my blogging time, both for myself and some clients. When I’ve got other contracts to work on then I plan that time as well. I need to readjust my plan some because I’ve been thinking about trying the Chris Brogan thing and writing at least two posts a week in the coming year; kind of hard to do with multiple blogs though, but who knows right?

Are you planning for your success, or are you just waiting for it to happen? Maybe you need a planner; look at the cover below.

Classic Legacy Binder with Snap Closure - Black

Franklin Covey Classic Legacy Binder with Snap Closure – Black

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Mitch Mitchell

Motivation/Inspiration

I Get Motivation From Things Like This

26 Comments

Ten days ago I wrote a Sunday Question post asking people how they motivate themselves. Almost everyone stated that they motivate themselves in a way that doesn’t involve anything on the outside.


by multimedia student

You know, I have to say that, in general, I’m not believing most of that. Yes, I’m taking a controversial stance, but I’ll explain why.

I’m known as the observer of people. I like humanity, even though I don’t like everything people do. But I see a lot of people go through their day as if they’re just following a script. They get up, go to work, come home, watch TV and go to bed. There might be some deviation, but in general that’s pretty much it. And they’re not often happy about it.

I’m an independent consultant. I do most of my work from home. When I’m on the road, I partially do what everyone else does, except I have to go out for my meals or have something delivered. The one thing I rarely do on the road, and don’t necessarily do all that often at home either, is watch TV. I find that I like deciding way in advance what I want to record for the week and then will watch when I’m ready.

So, I sit at my desk, at my computer, and I work a lot. Oh sure, I take breaks to do things like write my blogs and participate on Twitter and Facebook, but a lot of what I do is business oriented. This means that I don’t really take a lot of time to just relax and get things off my mind. I am at the computer until it’s time to go to bed, and it’s the first place I come after the bathroom when I awake. I’m always here.

But sometimes I just can’t get in the mood to do much of anything, even if I’m sitting here. I could easily say I’m driven to succeed, and that would be true to a degree. There are times when I just don’t want to do anything; who reading this can say that doesn’t happen to them every once in awhile? And when I don’t want to do anything, I don’t care about success, I don’t care about family, I don’t care about eating… I don’t care about anything!

Well, that seems kind of depressing, doesn’t it? But it’s not. The reason is that I only allow myself to be in that mode for short periods of time. Hey, if I don’t work, I don’t earn any money. I can’t fall back on vacation time because I don’t have it. I can’t just fall back on my reserves because that just takes money away from me and I then have to figure out how to replace it.

In those times, I look for motivation in other places. I’ve talked about motivational movies like The Secreticon. I’ve shared motivational videos on this blog, things that have made me feel better. I’ve mentioned the name Zig Ziglar here before, but haven’t talked about what he does as a motivational speaker all that often. He loves telling the tale about a guy who comes up to him and says “Motivational speaking must not work all that well because it seems people are always needing to be motivated.” Zig says “People also need to eat and bathe, but I don’t hear you saying people don’t need food or soap.”

His belief is that we all need to find ways to motivate ourselves at least a few times a day because no one is a machine. Thoughts of others won’t always get it done. Dreams of eventual success won’t always get it done. But finding other things that offer at least a moment of uplift… man, that’s priceless. So, I figure that if someone like me, who has stated many times on this blog that I want to be successful and a big deal, needs outside motivation from time to time, actually probably a little bit at some point every day, that everyone else almost has to as well. No one is happy or upbeat 24/7; not even Zig.

With that in mind, I want to share this video with you, although it’s not a great video. But it is a great song. Michael Jackson has done lots of motivational songs. This one is called Keep The Faith. He didn’t do a video of it, and it’s too bad. I thought about just posting the lyrics to this song, but I didn’t for two reasons. One, it’s super long; this is one of those songs where the chorus is repeated many times, but it’s a short chorus, so there’s a lot of new lyrics through to the end of the song. And two, I didn’t want to risk copyright by posting everything here, although truthfully that’s secondary to how long the post would end up being.

So, I post this video that has the music and the lyrics. I hope you listen if you don’t know the song, and I really hope you follow the lyrics. This is powerful stuff, and I doubt that anyone who listens to this entire song can’t say that the words aren’t motivating and uplifting. And if you really think that, don’t write it here. Enjoy:

 

Motivation/Inspiration

Where I Find Inspiration

32 Comments

Our friend Peter asked an interesting question in one of his comments. His question was where I find the inspiration for all these posts and newsletters that I do. I guess it’s because I have a large output for all my blogs and my one newsletter, and of course all the writing I do for other people here and there.

I find inspiration in many places. Almost anything could spark an idea for writing a blog post. Even visiting other blogs or reading news stories or seeing what’s going on via Twitter or Facebook can spark something. And sometimes it’s a comment, like this post. Let’s take a look at my previous 10 posts on this blog to see where I got the inspiration from; I’m not going to link to them, just so you know.

I wrote about evaluating when to end something because I was reading another one of those blog posts where it was recommended to never give anything up because success is just around the corner. I had just a couple of weeks earlier stopped writing one of my newsletters because I realized I didn’t have what it took to write it anymore, and thus I felt what I was reading was contrary to what I was doing, and so I wrote about it.

I wrote about the song We Are the World because I was walking on the track at the gym listening to my MP3 player and it came up and I got chills listening to it. The impact was still strong when I got home, and there you go.

I wrote a Sunday post on cravings because I’ve been having a lot of them. I had just days earlier started a new metabolic eating plan that I’m being evaluated on, and I had been craving chocolate almost nonstop.

I wrote a post on the Count Per Day plugin because on one of the blogs I write for they had it, and I tested it to see how it compared to Analytics and wrote my thoughts on it all.

I wrote a post on blogging and Twitter because of a local event that showed just how fast news, good or bad, can spread based on a blog post and its popping up on Twitter, and how a business can either be ruined or have a chance to save their reputation.

I wrote a post on simple answers to what seems to be difficult problems because I’d just gone through two things, one literally a couple of days earlier, where I’d done a lot of work for nothing.

I wrote a post on the things a blog should have because of a comment someone left asking about it. Then the next day I wrote a post on the administrative area of WordPress because I had just helped a friend of mine set up a new blog, and she looked inside it and was really confused over what she saw.

I wrote the next Sunday post on trust because it’s the political season, and thus all those political commercials are on TV these days. It’s interesting how much we all hate them because they’re so mean, yet these people keep putting that trash on, and thus we don’t trust them because we know they could care less about us and are only in it for their own reasons.

And finally I wrote about the components of a newsletter because my friend has been thinking about writing one and kept asking me about length, images, etc, and it seemed like a good idea to write a post about it in case someone else had been wondering.

And there you go. See, it doesn’t take a lot to determine what to write a blog post about, even if I were writing a niche blog. Of course, this is the fun blog, so I write more posts on this one than the others. Inspiration really doesn’t have to be hard most of the time; all you have to do is pay attention to what’s going on, what people are saying to you, and of course your own feelings.