Successful Blog

Spring Cleaning for the Mind

by

By Tiffany Matthews

There will come a time when you find yourself unable to write, not just for hours at end, but days and weeks. The worst is when those weeks stretch into months. By then, the screen’s cursor constant blinking would become a taunting reminder that you have yet to type words, not even one word. If you’re suffering from a serious case of writer’s block, simple tips to beat blank page syndrome will no longer suffice. Badly burned out and drained of every last drop of creative juice? It’s time to call in the big guns.

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

When a writer friend suddenly announced on Facebook that she was going to unplug and go away for awhile, I was concerned. I wondered what she could possibly be going through. I had my answer when she resurfaced online three long months later. Apparently, she had been dutifully following a 12-week program based on Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. Judging from her relaxed and happier mood, the long break has been helpful in restoring her creativity as well as productivity. The program also helped her get over her major case of writer’s block and gave her more insight on the artistic process.

Some people will not like everything about The Artist’s Way. The long period required to complete the program will not appeal to active writers–who are trying to survive daily life and–who can’t afford to break off from work just for the sake of creativity. There are a couple of things in this book, however, that they can can still do–morning pages and artist dates.

Morning Pages

Every day for the next 12 weeks, you have to pen three handwritten pages, all done first thing in the morning during a stream of consciousness, which means you can’t look back at the previous pages you have written. If you’re not a morning person, you might think twice about waking up early for this exercise. You’ll probably wonder how you can write when you’re still drowsy. Once you get started, however, you’ll be surprised to discover clarity and how easily you can fill up 3 pages. When you write, don’t think, just let the words flow. Ramble if you must. When you read the sheets, you’ll find out that your true thoughts–some repressed–and find a way to resolve some of the issues that have been in your mind for a long time. This practice of morning pages also helps transform writing into more of a daily habit and makes the words flow easier.

Artist Dates

“Artist Dates are assigned play.” Once a week, you must embark on an expedition alone in order to explore what is of interest to you. It doesn’t have to be overly artistic, but it should fire up your imagination. An artist date should be fun and whimsical, something that encourages play. Art is all about the play of ideas, so open yourself to fun things that you want to try. When we experience something new or something that we enjoy, it helps fuel our creativity and build up another reservoir of inspiration that we can draw from. Artist dates replenish our creative juices, adding new ideas and images that bring us closer to our inner artist and craft new masterpieces.

General Cleaning

Sometimes people dread spring, not because they are not looking forward to warmer weather but because it’s time for spring cleaning. Cleaning your house from top to bottom until you drop can be therapeutic for writers and artists, not to mention productive. Just remember to invest in a good vacuum cleaner. The no-handles type can help you get rid of every speck of dust, even in those hidden corners under beds and furniture that you can’t reach. Who knows, you just might get some great ideas while you’re cleaning. Having a sparkly clean house also feels very rewarding especially after all the hard work you’ve put in. The actual spring cleaning helps relax your mental state and makes you feel refreshed. The more relaxed you are, the more your ideas will flow so you can now get back to work.

Spring cleaning isn’t just for the house. Sometimes, we need to apply it to ourselves so we can recharge and welcome new changes that will help us grow as writers and artists.

Author’s Bio: Based in San Diego, California, Tiffany Matthews writes about travel, fashion and anything under sun at wordbaristas.com. You can find her on Twitter as
@TiffyCat87.

Business Success: Power of Negative Thinking?

by

By Deb Bixler

If you are looking for home business success, then you start to realize that there is power in everything. People believe in the power of positive thinking and everyone understands that knowledge is power. But would you believe it if you were told that there is power in negative thinking as well?

To find home business success, you should not dwell on negative thinking for too long. But since it is inevitable that you will come into contact with people who are always looking at the down side of any issue, you should learn how to cultivate the power of negative thinking.

It Forces Alternatives

goals for success

The great thing about people with negative attitudes is that they are always looking for a way for something to fail. Before you roll out an important plan or program that will cost your company a lot of money, give the idea to a negative person. He will start poking holes in the plan and find ways that it will fail. As long as you are taking notes, you will have all of the information you need to find ways to fix the plan or offer alternatives to make the plan stronger.

Negative Thinking VS Positive Thought

Sometimes sharing your thoughts and business success strategies with negative people you will learn how they will be received in the market place.

If you have a marketing plan you are ready to roll out but you are unsure of some of the ideas or theories you have in the plan, then run it by a negative person. If anyone is going to put your theories to the test, it is someone who wants to see them fail.

If your theories and ideas hold up against a negative point of view, then they are very strong.

Success Plan

When you are putting together any kind of business success plan, you always try to consider as many options as possible. Negative people love to turn the presentation of ideas into a game of “I bet you didn’t consider this.” When you spend some time reviewing your plan with a negative person, you will eventually consider all possible options.

It Tests Your Resolve

Nothing tests the resolve of a human being more than the power of negative thinking. Just when you think that you have everything figured out, a negative thinker will find a reason to have you start all over again. If you can stand the kind of scrutiny that comes from a person who is always looking at the world from the negative side, then your resolve is strong enough to succeed.

There is a power to negative thinking that, if harnessed properly, can work to your advantage. You do not want to develop the habit of being someone who is perpetually negative. But if your ideas and plans can withstand the kind of microscopic scrutiny that a negative person will give them, then those plans are ready to become part of your company’s business culture.

Author’s Bio:
Deb Bixler retired from the corporate world using the proven business systems that made her a success working for others by incorporating them into her home business. In only 9 months Deb replaced her full time income with the sales and commissions from her home party plan business. Find her on Twitter at: http://www.Twitter.com/debbixler

How to Build Interest (Part 2 in a Series): Honesty

by

By James Ellis

(This is Part 2; you can find Part One here.)

I recently flew to NYC (in a plane) and I was reminded of how bad air travel is. I used to be a full-time business traveler. I know plenty of business flyers. And the simple fact is that there is no such thing as a good airline.

Oh, there are people who work in airline companies who can, on occasion, do good things. But usually they don’t. They don’t care that your luggage went missing, that your guitar got smashed, that your child traveling alone never met the airline rep you paid to make sure your child got somewhere safely. On time means pushing off the jetway, not getting where you want to go. Customer satisfaction means you only feel semi-violated getting somewhere.

But I have a way of fixing modern airlines: Honesty.

The worst part about flying is the lying, the lack of understanding how passengers/cargo are treated, the gamesmanship, the arbitrary and hidden rules. You spend a few hundred dollars to be told you will be treated like kings and then get treated like traitors.

Marketing teams think that if they tell us the truth, no one will book tickets. But I disagree. I hate being told that two airlines are merging “for my convenience” and not to lower operations costs by 0.2%. I hate being told that it is time to board passengers in Group 3 when no one actually looks to see if I’m in Group 3. I hate that we all pretend that my iPad will cause the plane to crash if I turn it on during takeoff (um… the entire plane is an electronic device, people).

My new airline will simply be called SucksAir. At no point will any of the marketing lie. I will flat out say that the seats are cramped, there’s no food for free, the air as healthy as your average flu vaccine, the drink cart will mug anyone with an aisle seat, the pilot will always sound hopped up on Valium, and the in-flight entertainment will always be commercials. At no point will anyone who works at SucksAir ever treat any paying customer like a human being. Flights will be coming and going on a schedule closer related to a Roman orgy than a German train station.

Being honest is the unique selling proposition. You know that SucksAir is a crappy airline that just happens to get you where you want to go. No more, no less.

What if you were equally honest? Painfully honest. Brutally honest. About your industry, your customers and yourself. If you can’t be stand-up comedian honest in your blog, you should stop blogging.

What’s the fear? That everyone will realize that you’re making it all up as you go along? That you think some of your customers are idiots? That there are shysters in your industry who make a pretty good living? Trust me, we already know that. It might just be enlightening to hear you say it.

Author’s Bio: James Ellis is a digital strategist, mad scientist, lover, fighter, drummer and blogger living in Chicago. You can reach out to him or just argue with his premise at saltlab.com.

How to Build Interest (Part 1 in a series): Coattails

by

By James Ellis

You want to know a poorly kept secret? I met my wife on Craigslist. Missed Connections, in fact. I know! Crazy, right?

Anyway, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy a dirty little peek at the Missed Connection page in their particular city. Quickly scanning to see if they recognize a person or place is really just cover to see if anyone left an MC about you.

Lots of people do it. And even more single people do it.

If I was a business owner, let’s say of a coffee shop, I’d have to wonder if there was a way to leverage the popularity of Missed Connections to help build my own audience.

Single people drink coffee. They sit for a bit, read a book or surf while enjoying their tea, and then they leave. How do I get more people to come in and drink?

Hypothetically, you could start posting a MC listing every day, talking about how you really liked someone’s glasses, or ask about the book they were reading. Nice shoes!

Do that for two weeks. Stay innocent. Pretend you have no idea where these are coming from. Then, after two weeks, post something on your Facebook page and Twitter account about how amusing it is that all these people are posting to MC from your shop. Keep posting. You should start to see posts that aren’t from you. Good. Keep posting. After three more weeks, start posting your favorite MC from your store of the day on your web site and social networks.

Go crazy. Have an MC day, where the whole store knows what’s going on. Everyone will be drinking coffee to see and be seen, to meet someone, to know that their MC post will at least be read, likely by the person it was for.

This is an example of building interest in your business by riding the coattails of some other popular idea. I’m not saying your nut company needs to do a Gangnam video (yeah, I’m talking to you, pistachio growers), but find your audience, learn what they do, what they like, and slowly and slyly become a part of it. Never let it appear that that’s what you’re doing, because that ruins it. Spur the connection and foster it. Never force it.

Author’s Bio: James Ellis is a digital strategist, mad scientist, lover, fighter, drummer and blogger living in Chicago. You can reach out to him or just argue with his premise at saltlab.com.

What Are Your Assumptions?

by

By James Ellis

closeup_donkeyPeople don’t read the web, they scan. People don’t like to click. People don’t look past the first four Google search results. People only search Google with 2-3 word search terms. People don’t open their email on the weekends. People don’t spend money online. People don’t trust strangers online. No one cares what you had for breakfast. No one will want to look at a picture of your lunch. People buy most Christmas gifts online on the Monday after Thanksgiving. No one will download a movie to watch on their phone.

All of the above statements were once considered gospel at one time. Gospel. Carved into stone tablets. Given to marketers’ children to recite every morning.

But you should all see at least one statement that you know to be patently false (in fact, I’m pretty sure that they almost all are, depending on circumstances). But they linger on, because they are based on assumptions.

These are just examples of online/web/tech assumptions that linger in the minds of people close to us (especially clients and bosses). There are plenty of business, blogging and personal assumptions we make and live by that simply aren’t true anymore (assuming they ever were).

Assumptions are the blind spots in our vision. We see them without acknowledging them every day. We work around them instead of challenging them, when challenging them is how we create success. Think of Kodak and Poloroid, who assumed we’d always want printed pictures. Think of Ford (circa 2009) who assumed Americans only bought big cars. Think of the music industry, who assumed that we wouldn’t like to download our music whenever we wanted.

Businesses fail every day because their assumptions were wrong. Businesses thrive every day because they took a chance on challenging assumptions. Think of Starbucks, who didn’t listen to the assumptions that people wouldn’t pay $5 for a cup of coffee. Think of Apple, who didn’t listen to the assumption that people didn’t want to check their email every second of the day. Think of Rick Bayless who didm’t listen to the assumption that Mexican food is cheap food.

What are the assumptions you live with every day? Are you challenging them? If you don’t, what happens when someone else does?

Author’s Bio: James Ellis is a digital strategist, mad scientist, lover, fighter, drummer and blogger living in Chicago. You can reach out to him or just argue with his premise at saltlab.com.

Photo credit: Dieter van Baarle, Flickr CC.

Ask People What They’re Thinking

by

I Can’t Read Your Mind

cooltext443794242_influence

When I was younger, maybe ten or eleven, I used to wonder about what other people were thinking. I’d sit in my desk at school and imagine I was another person, sitting in that person’s desk, thinking what that person was thinking. At times, I’d wonder whether that person ever did the same thing — sat in his or her desk wondering what I was thinking.

As I got older, maybe 15 or 16, I began to ask people what they were thinking. Some people answer that they had been thinking the most amazing things.Some people would say they had been thinking absolutely nothing. Seemed a strange thing that a person could think nothing.

I didn’t realize until I was older still that people often answered that question with something they might have decided I was expecting or something that they devised on the spot because what they were thinking didn’t seem worthy or relevant.

What Are You Thinking?

Over a quiet moment at a romantic first-date dinner, a young man asked “What are you thinking?” and my answer was, “I was thinking about the bread.” Not exactly the most charming response to my date. It was a long complicated set of thoughts that had brought from thoughts of meals shared with people I cared about to how it’s called “breaking bread.”

He was affronted that my thoughts seemed less than romantic and not at all about the moment … with him.

I tried to explain how the bread related. The more I said the more irrelevant my words sounded even to me.

My thoughts had been soft yet suddenly I was feeling small and wrong for moment’s mental connection that happened without intention … the way connections between ideas happen for me.

We never became a couple. We showed no signs of an ability to communicate on the simplest things.

He wanted me to be thinking what he was thinking at that moment and I wasn’t. Had he not asked he might have assumed I was … I expect that eventually would have had equally bad results.

Ask People What They’re Thinking

I’m thinking on that story now because I realized this morning, how often I see people take a wrong turn by deciding what someone else is thinking. Misled by their silence or a nondescript comment we invent their world view by putting our thoughts into their mind. You can only imagine what scenarios we’ve been able to conjure out of what people were nowhere near thinking at all.

Eventually I’ve learned it’s easier, faster, and less worrisome to ask people what they are thinking and then leave room for asking them why. And what my friends are thinking is always interesting, valuable, and worth hearing — much more than I might have imagined — and when I’m listening often the source of new thoughts of my own.

Thank you for all of the thinking that you do. The world needs it and I do too. Want a smarter, higher performing team? Want better relationships?
Keep thinking.
Keep asking people what their thinking.
Keep listening when they tell you.
It’s irresistible when you do.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss