Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You're only a stranger once.

What do you and Harry Potter have in common?

Filed Under Guest Writer, Idea Bank, Successful Blog, leadership | 4 Comments

Are you going through a rough patch right now? Do you feel as though you are being taxed to your reserves? What is it that keeps you hanging on? Is it a mental toughness? Spiritual sustanance? Physical conditioning? Perhaps it is a combination of the three? Perhaps it is something undefined, yet no less real.

You may have been referred to as “strong,” by those around you. From whence does this strength originate? How do you expand upon it? How do you call upon it? How can you conjure it from the ether?

The answer? I don’t know. I just know that it’s there for those who call upon it – just like the Sword of Gryffindor.

If you are a fan of the Harry Potter books, you are familiar with the Sword of Gryffindor that Harry draws from the Sorting Hat while in the bowels of Hogwarts within the Chamber of Secrets in order to slay a serpent called a basilisk. Two things are significant here: one – Harry is able to draw the sword because he has faith that something is there/within. Something in reserve. …

“We acquire the strength we have overcome.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

…And two (this comes into play later in the series), the sword, once impregnated with the venom of the creature it has slain, is henceforth impervious to that specific poison. The blade is stronger, having triumphed over and internalized this particular obstacle.

Every time you are able to overcome a barrier, you have it now within you to triumph over similar trials that you encounter subsequently.

Strength is measured by what you can withstand – your capacity. Pliability, flexibility, adaptability. Each of these are components to withstanding various challenges that you will encounter as you move forward in your life. As you move forward, your challenges will increase in direct proportion to your capacity to withstand them.

“The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be.” – Horace Bushnell

As an analogy, think of a great ocean liner, leaving the harbor. While in the friendly confines of the harbor, the waves met are easily sluiced through. However, as the craft navigates the open waters of the vast ocean, the swells increase.

If you are facing experiences that strain your resources, congratulations. You are getting stronger. Take a moment, center yourself, and ask a few questions of yourself:

Reach out to those who have already developed this particular strength. Ask them about how they succeeded. Adapt what works for your situation. If it helps you to visualize the development of “strength,” I recommend envisioning something like weight training. When weight training, the growth or development of strength actually occurs between workouts, after the muscle tissue has been broken down by lifting.

After you have experienced a particularly turbulent period in your life, reflect about the “muscle building” opportunities hidden within.

Periodically, review your life’s trajectory and see where you had intense periods of effort, possibly struggle. Give yourself credit for the progress you have made. This awareness is the key to building your strength and providing the wellspring from which your spirit can draw the next time you need to tap your reserves.

Always remember, you have it within yourself to achieve great and wonderful things. What are you facing today? How can you overcome it? What would you need to do so? How can you make it happen?
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Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive Foundation) or “Like” them on facebook.

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How Images Can Make Your Blog Post Demand to Be Read

Filed Under Idea Bank, Successful Blog, Writing | 3 Comments

A Guest Post by
Chris Lamphear

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Successfully Working From a Home-based Office

Be Compelling. It’s one of the most important commandments for any successful blogger. But after you’ve written a post full of value for your reader, your job isn’t done. You have to figure out how to make your post jump off the page and demand to be read, otherwise all the work you’ve done writing the perfect post will be for naught.

I’ve been writing articles and promotional copy for more than twenty years and have learned that an attention-grabbing image is a must if you want to be read. I even started creating my own images and over time figured out the type of images that do the best job. Here’s what I’ve learned …

1. The image should communicate a concept.

Your reader wants to learn about a certain topic; that’s how he or she landed on your article. An accompanying image must clearly illustrate the same concept the reader is interested in. Don’t go with a pretty but generic picture. Ask yourself, “If I just stumbled here and didn’t know what this post was about, would this image tell me?” Make sure you pick a photo or illustration that clearly makes the very same points you’re writing about.

2. The image should be simple.

You have about one second to convince your reader to spend time with your article, and the less complex detail getting in the way of communicating your message, the better. The reader should not have to study the image to get to an “Aha!” moment and uncover your point. Think of the picture as a billboard shooting through your field of vision while you speed down a freeway. The most effective and powerful images are those that make an immediate impact. Be clear and you’ll get attention.

3. Intelligent use of vibrant color is candy for the eye.

Certain colors like red are flags that tell the reader the image is important and pull the eyes in. Stay away from drab, dull colors; instead look for primary and bright colors that jump off the page and say “look at this!” Here’s an example of an image of the word Goal with a target and arrow. Red is a color that tells the eyes “This is important,” and when the reader sees it and absorbs the message, determining this is in fact the subject he or she wants to learn about, you have succeeded.

4. Words in pictures tell a story.

Sometimes the best way to make your subject matter jump out and demand attention is to pick a picture that embeds that very word right inside it. Here’s an example: a two-way street sign with the words You Decide. Sometimes an image that incorporates a word or two can pull double duty, telling a reader what your post is all about more quickly than a wordless image can. In this sense, a word truly is worth a thousand pictures.

5. Relevant images = good SEO.

As a bonus, having images with titles and alt tags that support your subject could help you with SEO efforts. Communication is becoming more visual every day, and Google Image Search is being used by more and more people to quickly find the content they need. Be sure to include the appropriate image information in your code, such as title and alt description, and make sure you title the picture file something that matches your content.

I’ve decided to share my images with others like you to help you communicate your messages. Use one of my pictures in a post and see if it makes a difference! I’ll give you one in exchange for a link and credit. Just take a look at my royalty-free stock photo website and let me know what image you’d like to use. Click on the Contact Us page at www.theideadesk.com and tell me what you’d like to use. Good luck!

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Author’s Bio:
Chris Lamphear is author and owner of the ideadesk blog. where he writes about how to use design to boost the effectiveness of your communication, from winning new customers to growing relationships. Through the blog, I also offer free images from his site for royalty-free stock photos, theideadesk.com

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Don’t Miss It!: Rise of the Blogging Scholarship

Filed Under Bloggy Questions, Community, Idea Bank, Successful Blog | 1 Comment

A Guest Post by
Brandon Mercury

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Successfully Working From a Home-based Office

As the cost of a college education continues to soar students and parents are under increasing pressure to find funding. Scholarships are one the best ways to avoid student loans and excessive debt. There are several traditional types of scholarships, including merit, athletic, religious and ethnicity based. With the rise of the “blog” in the last 15 years, the time has come for a blogging scholarship.

Your Local Security is offering $1,000 for the best blog post answering the following prompt: “As the nation approaches its 57th Presidential Election, we’re asking the future leaders of this country, students, to define the single most important political issue in this election. Tell us not only what that issue is, but also tell us why and how you propose we come to a solution that benefits the majority?” Full details can be found at http://yourlocalsecurity.com/scholarship

Additional consideration will be given to how well the post is promoted through “tweets”, Facebook “Likes”, “Stumbles”, and Google “+1′s”. The winning blog post will have both compelling ideas and social support, neither one can independently guarantee a win. This scholarship represents a great opportunity to earn cash for college by flexing your blogging skills.

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Author’s Bio: Brandon Mercury (@BrandonMercury) is a regular contributor at In Good Measure .

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Find the Genius in YOU –Stop Believing in the Box

Filed Under Business Life, Idea Bank, Inside-Out Thinking, Marketing, Successful Blog | 6 Comments

There Is No Box

insideout logo

That box that everyone talks about — the one that we’re encouraged to think outside — came to be without a thought. No one decided or built a process called “Thinking Inside the Box.”

It was an accident, a management issue.

It’s easier and more efficient to run a school or a corporation of people when we teach, talk, and manage to the group.

Can you imagine how chaotic a school or a corporation would be if every student or every employee got to decide on his or her own creative version of “what works”?

So how can we bring leadership to every level and not ignite a mess that makes things worse? In the name of management, we build a bias toward one way of thinking in a sea of creativity.

Find the Genius in YOU — Stop Believing in the Box

When many of us weren’t looking, we learned about looking:

We learned useful and appropriate skills for working in top-down managed groups:

Within those boundaries our thoughts were caught much like a mime stays inside an invisible box.
And like the invisible box that the mime pushes and touches. The box that we think inside isn’t real.

The way to start thinking outside the box is easy enough — stop believing in the box.

Life Without the Box

The biggest problem with thinking inside the box is that for the mostpart, we’re relying on a model we learned, and so when we “show our work,” we’re really showing how someone else figured it out it.

Life without the box opens us.

New mind channels become available — creativity, flexibility, fluency, elaboration, and original thought. We break the habit of always doing “someone else’s work.”. The resources of your brain are freed up. Even better, it’s more fun, once you get used to it, because thinking outside of the proverbial box involves playing with ideas not just thinking.

DaVinci knew it.
Einstein knew it..
Lots of folks with divergent hair do it.

Most inventors only find the inside of the box to test things after they’re through seeing what they can do. Nothing new is achieved or gathered by staying where everyone else is thinking. And when we do get out of our usual ways of thinking, we land smack dab inside our own genius.

So let’s get on with getting out of it so that we can get into it.

Here’s one way to find the genius in you …

Even new creative, flexible, fluent, elaborative, original thinking needs structure. Let’s use a problem-solution format.

  1. Pick a problem.
  2. Move outside it. You can’t really see a situation when you’re part of it.
  3. Identify your greatest weaknesses.
  4. Look for how those weaknesses provides openings … Ask yourself “how can this weakness be a strength?” If your back is against the wall, no one can sneak up behind you. If you’re smaller, you’re more agile. If you’re unconventional, you’ve got surprise on your side.
  5. Leverage all of those new found strength into a single unexpected opportunity.

So, if you’re ready, I am. Enough with this introduction, let’s let the games begin. Everyone can think like a genius. It only takes a little practice, and a firm commitment. Throw away the darn box.

Put together your best out of the box thinking to find the strongest opening. Then check it against what a traditional in the box thinking would do to shore up any inconsistencies. That’s how to use your genius thinking to reveal opportunity.

Is inside or outside the box more comfortable for you?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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5 Creative Ways to Faster More Effective Problem Solving

Filed Under Idea Bank, Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog | 1 Comment

insideout logo

Whether we realize it consciously or simply move through process without thinking, the act of getting new ideas is an act of problem solving. We don’t have something we to do something we want to get done. The idea is the solution. But like finding lost keys or finding a job, the solution is always in the last place we look … mostly because we stop looking once we’ve found our solution.

On the first day back from vacation, getting into the rhythm of solution thinking might take a little more creativity than most days. Yet, in a short work week, we need to get a faster flow and wider choice of ideas in less time than usually. One way bring the vacation experience into the workplace and have it help us is trying what we learned to do as kids (often to explain our failures) — make up fantastic stories — with a little practice we can use that same ability to push us to faster success in problem solving. Here are a few techniques that will help you do that!

  1. Look for the questions presented not the answers. When we’re looking for ideas, we focus too narrowly over answers. Turn into a 3-year-old and ask relentless questions. What are you doing? What’s a blog post? What if you wrote it as another person? Suppose an alien kidnapped you just when you started writing? Use the questions to move your brain into the ridicucous and when you’re sure you’re there. Then work on the problem.
  2. Get obsessed and curious about one detail. The one weird detail of leaf on tree that is an entirely different color raises curiosity that leads to questions. Make up several stories that answer the curious question. The solution to your problem may occur to you as you explore the stories that you’re spinning.
  3. Take a vacation in your mind. Get some perspective by being reflective. Take your question with you as you imagine yourself in your most favorite habitat — on the beach, skiing, in a beautiful forest, In 5-star restaurant with a fabulous view — maybe even the edge of the Grand Canyon or under a starry night. Give yourself a mental that allows your ideas to expand and grow.
  4. Use music to go back in time. Put on it on softly and remember who you used to be. Ask yourself what would that you be thinking was important about current events and situations? Have a conversation with the person you once were about the problem that you’re now facing. Think about the most interesting characters — artists, writers, musicians, dancers, engineers, coders, designers, contractors, mathematicians, boring teachers, and bartenders — who you’ve shared your life with. How would they approach the puzzle you’re facing?
  5. Turn your situation into a disaster movie. Take the problem to world-ending proportions. Invent an action hero to save the world by delivering the solution you need at the very last second.

The process of linking your ideas into an ordered sequence of curious questions or an amazing plot line breaks down the false barriers that prevent us from seeing other ways to approach the answers we’re needing.

Which of the five ideas seems most up your alley?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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