It’s real because writing is the doing part of thinking.
It’s authentic because my writing comes from the heart about what’s going on in my life right now.
My life is sustainable because my thoughts turn into words which in turn become actions.
Earlier this week I had the privilege to speak at MKELive’s Ignite event. I was not asked to speak until late last week and thought to myself what can I talk about for five minutes? Not an extraordinary length time but as such more difficult to pick a topic for. The MKELive group is social media savvy so I decided to speak about the importance of your blog being the center of your social media universe.
My blog became my speaking notes. An hour before the event I sat in a coffee shop and read my last half dozen posts. A couple things occurred to me (when I say occurred it’s not as if I just thought of this it’s more like saying I “got it”)….
1. Your blog IS your on-line reputation. Tweets come and go at a pretty fast rate. You can still read blog posts I wrote almost five years ago. It is considered bad etiquette to delete old blog posts.
2. Your blog will become a community the instant an audience of ONE reads your first post. Just trust me on this one, I’m five years in and it took a day like yesterday when I had something like a dozen comments in a 24 hour period to realize that what I have built here is a community. A community where one person can inspire another and then we can all feed off the goodness caring between people.
These days LinkedIn is your resume, and your blog and the blogging you do are your interview. All other things being equal I’d like to do business with people who blog. It lets me check out their long-term view. Again, you can go read my posts from almost five years ago (it’s painful for me – I’m a much better writer now) and check the consistency of my story. You can also check out how I adapt to change (the world has changed a lot in five years) by reading through some of the history.
What do you think? Would a perspective employee, vendor, or business partner have a leg up with you if they had several years worth of consistent blog posts for you to read? Please jump in and let me know what you think!
You said it so perfectly in the first few lines. Love it! Blogging takes us from thinking to actions, thus manifesting our thoughts into reality. I do the same – I am inspired and I write and that becomes the topic for my workshops or consultancy. And sometimes it is the other way around, I am leading a workshop and the discussion brings up new insights which I go and Blog about. And eventually, it will all come together and become a book. It is a very organic process of truly living out my authentic self.
Thank you and will borrow the way you said it in my workshops – will give you credit of course 🙂
I love the way you think and would love to hear your comments on a Blog post I wrote about what’s missing in our discussion on personal branding: http://mindfulmarketers.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-is-missing-in-current-discussions.html
Shalini – I am pleased you feel I said it perfectly in the first few lines. Others in this community have commented about not being clear what real, authentic and sustainable really means. I am going to work on making it more clear in at least one post a week like I did here.
It will be an honor to have “they way you said it” included in your workshops. – Keep me posted on when/where those are – who knows perhaps I will be able to attend one someday.
I’ve already skimmed your post and will be headed back later in the day to re-read and comment.
Thanks for stopping by and jumping into the conversation.
You said it so perfectly in the first few lines. Love it! Blogging takes us from thinking to actions, thus manifesting our thoughts into reality. I do the same – I am inspired and I write and that becomes the topic for my workshops or consultancy. And sometimes it is the other way around, I am leading a workshop and the discussion brings up new insights which I go and Blog about. And eventually, it will all come together and become a book. It is a very organic process of truly living out my authentic self.
Thank you and will borrow the way you said it in my workshops – will give you credit of course 🙂
I love the way you think and would love to hear your comments on a Blog post I wrote about what’s missing in our discussion on personal branding: http://mindfulmarketers.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-is-missing-in-current-discussions.html
Shalini – I am pleased you feel I said it perfectly in the first few lines. Others in this community have commented about not being clear what real, authentic and sustainable really means. I am going to work on making it more clear in at least one post a week like I did here.
It will be an honor to have “they way you said it” included in your workshops. – Keep me posted on when/where those are – who knows perhaps I will be able to attend one someday.
I’ve already skimmed your post and will be headed back later in the day to re-read and comment.
Thanks for stopping by and jumping into the conversation.
I have known and shared business (and fun) successfully with Jim many times over the past 20 some odd years.
Jim you were always insightful and with purpose but who knew, you would also now be saliently eloquent. Great stuff thank you. Greg
Greg – Comments like this from people who have known me for so long mean more than I can possibly express in words. Thank you for not only taking the time to come read but also to comment. Looking forward to running into at a trade show sometime soon!
I have known and shared business (and fun) successfully with Jim many times over the past 20 some odd years.
Jim you were always insightful and with purpose but who knew, you would also now be saliently eloquent. Great stuff thank you. Greg
Greg – Comments like this from people who have known me for so long mean more than I can possibly express in words. Thank you for not only taking the time to come read but also to comment. Looking forward to running into at a trade show sometime soon!