Successful Blog

Why I Can’t Reimagine, Recreate, Or Reinvent Me

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living up to who I am

I’m not a knight or a warrior. I can’t fight another person’s fight.
Every time I do. I end up wrong.

I can’t wear their clothes.
They don’t fit. I look silly.

I can’t walk in their shoes.
When I try I fall down.

I wonder at how long it took me to understand this.

I need to sing my own song.

It’s not a selfish thing. It’s a surrender to who I am.

I can toss and turn, stretch and skew an idea, but I can’t change the way my brain works. I can walk all the way around and through a thought or a belief, but I can’t change the chemistry or the electricity of a single synapse — slow them down maybe — but not reroute and remap the system to work as another brain might.

I can be reimagine, recreate, and reinvent solutions.

But I can’t reimagine who I am.
I can’t recreate life of experience and learning.
I can’t reinvent the DNA that makes the unique me.

In that uniqueness is where I found my values and the most valuable traits I offer.

The sun can’t stop shining to become a planet.
We count on its “star-ness” — the energy, heat, and light it offers.

People are made of the same stuff as stars.
I need to bring the best “me-ness” — the energy, mind, and heart I offer.

Living up to what I am is a far better use of my life than trying to become something I’m not.

Be irresistible.

Liz's Signature

Would You Invest 15 Minutes to Help Kids Make a Mark on the World?

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Do You Still Have Trouble Believing in Yourself Sometimes Even Still ?


Kids that contribute their time and talent to make our communities better realize their own potential and self worth.

On helping kids make a difference

An Invitation from Jessica Kirkwood,
VP Interactive Strategy, Points of Light Institute.

Did you ever want to change the world? Set things right? Make a difference? When did you first have a thought like that? Were you just a kid? Even now, does the idea feel too tall, too broad, too big?

It’s not. All it takes is few minutes to encourage a kid — your kid, your cousin, your neice, nephew or neighbor — to make their own mark on the world. One click is all it takes to get started.

October 16-22, generationOn, the youth activation division of Points of Light Institute, launches its annual Make Your Mark Week our initiative to inspire youth to invest their energy, ingenuity and compassion to “make their mark on the world.” Hands-on service projects are being planned all week so that young people can make a big impact on their lives, their communities, and the world.

Imagine the unforgettable experiences.

Right now, projects are being planned to make a difference in areas kids care about — animals, environment, homelessness, hunger and literacy. Here’s two already in the planning:

  • In Nebraska, first through fifth grade students at Columbia Elementary School in Omaha is going to make their mark by creating rope devices that will be used to train service dogs to open doors, refrigerators and other various items for people who need assistance.
  • The Boys & Girls Club of Southeast Georgia will be using their artistic talents to produce containers featuring plaques that encourage residents to recycle their waste.

Go look at the wealth of ideas. Some take less than 15 minutes.
How would the world be now if we all grew up knowing we could make a difference?

This is our chance to show the next generations how.

I’d be honored to have you join me by helping kids you know make their mark. It easy, fun, and meaningful. Visit http://kidsvolunteer.generationon.org to see how minutes can have a lasting impact.

You’ll be making a difference by showing kids how.

Jessica Kirkwood
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Thank you, Jessica!
The kid I once was and the kid I am now … think this is an outstanding idea!

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

GenConnect’s Laurel House and Liz Strauss Talk Irresistible Attraction

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Who Gets You Where You’re Going

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In a lovely conversation with GenConnect’s Laurel House at BlogHer in August, we explored the questions:

  • What makes an irresistible offer?
  • How does being fully-expressed in your work remove the problem of self-promotion?
  • How do you start the first connections with people you want to meet?
  • How does celebrating your heroes make you and your business better?
  • How are values a part of your attraction?

What works best for you to connect your business to the people who love what you’re doing?

Check out GenConnect – the place to connect with life’s experts.
You’ll find Laurel on Twitter as @QuickieChick

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

Beach Notes: Are You Creating and Seeing?

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

“5 White Shore Birds” by Adriaan Vanderlugt, 2009: beachside park, Rainbow Bay, Gold Coast, Australia – public sculpture courtesy of Gold Coast City Council.

This work reminds me every time I see it of what delight can be provided by a combination of creative imagination and skill with materials. When you look at the pieces in this composition up close, they are basically a set of bent and twisted square metal rods with a small flat metal piece bolted on at the tip of each. When you stand back and allow your imagination to take over, they are birds. Magic!

What magic are you creating, or seeing, today?.

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

GenConnect’s Laurel House and Liz Strauss Talk Owning It

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Who Gets You Where You’re Going

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In a lovely conversation with GenConnect’s Laurel House at BlogHer in August, we explored the questions:

  • How do you choose the people to be your team?
  • How do you move from behind the screen to behind the microphone?
  • What does it mean to “own it”?

Take a look …

How do you recognize the people who won’t let you fail?

Check out GenConnect – the place to connect with life’s experts.
You’ll find Laurel on Twitter as @QuickieChick

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

Imagining a Cutting Edge Online College Course for Blog Writing

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Guest Post
by Riley Kissel

Imagine the Best

Blogs are in no short supply these days. The World Wide Web is packed with them and you could spend your entire lifetime going through the annals of amateur online journals, posts, articles, and musings that exist and continue to be published every day.

Unfortunately the majority of blogs are mediocre; there are a few solid initial posts when the energy was there, and then they fizzle out into oblivion. Personally, there’s nothing more depressing than reading an awesome blog entry then seeing that the author hasn’t updated their site since early 2007. If they aren’t given up on, then the blog itself typically falls flat. The subjects aren’t interesting, the ideas aren’t insightful, and the writing itself is poor or poorly edited.

It’s bad. But blogs are incredibly popular. In order to cut down on all this content clutter throughout the Blogosphere, there should be a cutting-edge academic way to teach people how to blog properly. If it were up to me, places like online college courses would develop solid courses aimed at teaching students how to be a state-of-the-art blog writer.

Think about it. There’s a reason we have English majors, Journalism majors, and countless other college programs geared toward educating students in the art of a language or particular writing style. It’s the reason that’s been driving the entirety of education since the dawn of time: we want to streamline eagerness into better performance. Knowledge and the opportunity to perfect yourself are what classes are all about.

So what I’m saying is that since blog writing has become such an immensely popular subset of the written word, our universities need to start offering focused, accredited courses that teach students how to be better bloggers. Assuming half of every one of such a classroom’s students would be bloggers or aspiring bloggers, this would be enormously beneficial in improving the quality of blogs.

Hopefully, traditional universities would embrace such a program. But in the meantime, I see online colleges as the likely place where we could see new blogger classes being introduced as course options. Consider it a sort of beta phase. I don’t doubt for a minute that such a course wouldn’t be immensely popular with current generations of students.

Imagine what such a class could be like:

*Students could be taught on ways to stay inspired when the amount of ideas start to run flat.

*Classes could impose a daily blog entry, so students could get adjusted to churning out content on a daily basis.

*The basics of good writing can be reiterated, but with particular attention paid toward the need for blog writing to vivid, to-the-point, and insightful.

*The nature Blogging itself – with a capital B. Blog writing classes can present to students the (what I believe to be correct) idea that the blog is it’s own separate entity apart from journalism, diary-keeping, and so forth.

Once upon time every established art form had to break away from former foundations. Sculpture broke away from carving, film broke away from photography, and now the blog is breaking away into it’s own definition. This will include new rules, new concepts, and new beliefs when it comes to judging quality. These rules, concepts, and beliefs are all being worked out as we speak, and could finally be presented to writers in a digestible fashion if blog writing were taught within an academic setting.

I’m completely confident in the idea that one day universities will start offering blog courses to students. My only hope is that it will be implemented sooner rather than later. There’s a whole lot of clutter in need of getting cleaned up when it comes to blogs.

I want to see a day when the average blogger is confident, creative, and consistent. While offering college courses for blog writing won’t eradicate the enormous amount of junk out there on the Blogosphere, it’ll certainly help to make blog writers more creative, consistent, and confident.

What would you like to see in a course for bloggers?

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Riley Kissel is a freelance writer who covers many industries with style. You can find out more about him at RileyKissel.com

Thanks, Riley, for new insights on a critical topic.

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