Successful Blog

Beach Notes: I Almost Gave Up!

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by Guest Writer Suzie Cheel

Last week I started swimming with 3 local guys who swim each day, weather permitting, from one end of the beach to the other. One end being Greenmount Beach, the other end being Coolangatta Beach. This is about 750 meters (half a mile) in length.

I have been talking about swimming the length of the beach for several years, but never quite got started. Greg one of the swimmers asked me recently when I was going to start. I said: ” When I get some goggles.”

At the beach the next day Greg presented me with a spare pair of his goggles to try – no more excuses.

I decided to start the next Monday and I would swim Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.

Day 1 I got about halfway and discovered that swimming

the length of the beach was no pushover. Day 2 seemed even more difficult, the sea was also quite rough, to the point that I wondered whether I would even make halfway on Friday. I was even wondering if this was something I wanted to continue with.

I set off on Friday ahead of the guys and surprised myself when I looked up at the halfway point and thought that seemed easy and kept swimming to the end.

I reached the end and there was a slightly nervous moment when I thought the current was going to carry me around the point to the next beach. I was able to swim into the shore, I felt exhilarated.

I was so glad I had persevered.

Time to celebrate and do a happy dance.

What do you know about giving Up?

Suzie Cheel

Creative Batteries: How Far Can You Go on a Single Charge?

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by Seth Simonds

How long can you work on a creative task before you need to recharge?

I like to think of my creative energy in terms of a little electric car. Not a beautiful and fast electric supercar (who am I kidding?) but a little bee-bop two-seater with an 8-inch steering wheel. If I had a picture of my creative energy, it’d look a lot like the one in the photo, only blue.

Thinking in terms of a small electric car allows me to plan for my projects based on three factors:

  1. My Range: I’m good for about 150 miles of projects before low-battery warnings start to sound. Sure, I can push a bit more, but if I do, I’ll need to take an extended break before I can get back to work in top form. There’s a time to push ahead through blinding exhaustion in order to get a task done but I try to avoid it.
  2. My Itinerary: Having a plan means I’ll know when to stop  for breaks so that I keep myself charged and can bring a project to completion. Planning can seem like a dreadfully dull portion of a project but the resulting energy makes every moment of planning worth the effort.
  3. My Destination: If you’ve ever driven a car the size of my creative energy, you know that it can be hard to see over and around the larger vehicles involved in a project. Financial restriction trucks block intersections and deadline buses will try to run you off the road. Having a clear idea of what my end product allows me to stay focused no matter what short term distraction comes up.

I’m not a tireless machine that can happily trudge around social media stapling smiles to telephone polls and posting stump speeches on my blog without ever needing a break. I’m more like that little electric car, using power at a discernible rate. I get worn out during projects and find myself growing frustrated with people over things I’d never notice if I were getting enough sleep. I get dismayed by human nature and sometimes catch myself saying things like “I hate people” even though I don’t really mean it.

That all changes when I’ve planned out a project and know what my destination is and how I plan on reaching it. When I take time to recharge by quietly reading a novel, talking on the phone with a friend, or going for a walk, I find that my energy level stays high and projects are completed with a flourish. Bringing a friend along for the ride can add a lot to a project as well. The picture of the car shows only two seats but there’s room for a lot more people than you’d imagine!

What do you do to keep your battery charged?

Seth Simonds is about writing, networking, sharing in crazy conversations with brilliant people. He writes at Seth Simonds.com
Follow him on Twitter: @sethsimonds
photo credit: Flickr: frankh

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The Importance of a Compass … to Going or Staying Anywhere

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When Your Only Transportation Is a Bike

Steve Goodman wrote a song, “City of New Orleans.” I can’t hear it without thinking about the Rock Island tracks that went to Chicago alongside my dad’s saloon.

Behind my dad’s saloon was narrow leanto right next to the railroad tracks. By “right next to” I mean not more than fifteen feet away.

I can’t fully describe it to you. I only saw the inside once when I was a very little girl. It made me curious. I remember thinking “It seems like my hideout in my closet.” My hideout was magical. I didn’t realize that for a grownup this probably wasn’t.

It was made of some grayed-out wood, laminate — cheap stuff — shaped like a shoe box. It had holes I could see through — all the way to the gas station across the tracks. Inside was a cot, a table, a chair, a dirt floor. The door on the shack flapped in the wind and only had a weird wood thing that turned on a nail to hold it closed, kind of like what you find in a bad bar’s bathroom stall.

The man who live there, they called him “Seewall,” walked tall. He was always smiling. I see him at my dad’s saloon. Sometimes he’d be moving a mop. Sometimes he’d be running errands. Sometimes he’d be carrying boxes. Sometimes he’d be talking to me like Donald Duck and making me laugh. As shy as I was, as much as he owned the space he walked in, we were friends.

He’d given up riding the rails. His only transportation was a simple wide-tired bike. It had a basket for carrying bags and stuff. No bell or brakes or anything that cool bikes had. Every night a 10pm as a ritual, he would pedal around the saloon and take down the stairs in the floor behind the bar. It was safe there. To me it seemed like that bike had one home and he had another.

Most importantly, he was happy.

I was almost six feet tall and the man who lived in shack by the tracks was long gone, before I found out from my younger, older brother that his real name was something like Sewell Southward Sebastian Fleming, the Third. It’s a name that sounds like he had something before the Great American Depression. Some might say that the man lost everything.

He always acted as if he found it.

Guess a shack by the rails might mean something different to a guy who took on life as a true hobo. He always had access to his freedom. But he never went. He talked to me once about a compass. I never asked where his was. I just knew that he had one.

Have you found your compass? He said you need one if you’re going or staying anywhere.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Whoa! Could You Stop for 1 Second? Or Are You a Work Snob?

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You’re Not Doing Yourself or Anyone Else Any Favors

Hey, I know you’re busy, gotta get a lot of things done. But whoa!

But, could you stop for 1 second? It’s barely that –> . <-- long. Just stop. Don't do anything, before you read on.

–> . <--

If you don’t stop once in a while, you’re not doing yourself or anyone else any favors.

About Things Humanly Possible

When I first got into publishing, I was an adrenaline junkie. I loved getting things done. I prided myself on being able to find more seconds in an hour than anyone could. I could arrange, rearrange, multi-tier, multi-task, and multi-delegate the same page to multiple people while I was doing multiplication for multiple project quotations in my head. I could spin 23 plates on sticks and watch 18 fishing poles in the river, while I was juggling 6 balls in the air and talking on telephone. I even said things like, “I want to be known as the person who can do the impossible.”

It all embarrasses me now.

Because more isn’t more. Not one of those things got my full attention. I was good, they all got B work or better. But none them got my best. And in the end, they got the best of me instead.

When I finally got a job, where they wouldn’t let me do that, I learned the value, the fun, and the excitement of going deep and doing quality work. Less really is more. That’s when I found out what I was really capable of. That’s when I did the work that I’m still proud of, the work that lasted.

So if you’re

  • tossing off emails
  • overbooking meetings
  • missing details
  • forgetting things
  • Twittering while you’re talking on the phone
  • thinking you can do more in the same time than anyone

You might be what I was — a work snob — I thought I was better than the rest.
A work snob because every human can only do what’s humanly possible — even if they do it well. Slow down just enough to show folks how damn good you really are. Take a rest.

What are you doing to keep the human in you around?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Beach Notes: T-Shirt Messages from the Beach

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by Guest Writer Suzie Cheel

T-Shirt Messages from the Beach

This morning as we we walk on the beach we saw a walker wearing a tee shirt with the message displayed

Never, Never, Never, give up!

I said that’s a good message and   Des asked how does that fit with your Law of Attraction? If you attract what you focus on doesn’t that mean you’ll attract giving up vibes?

Absolutely right, that was a slip up!  Given that this week I started a Law of Attraction series on being in a High Vibe state.

So what would you put on the T-shirt I asked?

Always, Always, Always, Keep going!

What would your T-shirt say?

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

Beach Notes: Beach Blogging Seminar

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by Guest Writer Suzie Cheel

Today I was making the badge for my newly launched SAB -Super Abundant Blogger – award. I had just taken this photo when a couple of other regular morning beach walkers, Ros and Ivan, stopped and tried to guess what the letters stood for.

After several guesses we enlightened them. Or thought we had, but then noticed their looks of incomprehension about "bloggers", "blogs" and "blogging".

Ivan wanted to know more.

This led to Des launching into seminar mode – he can’t help himself when there is some blogging evangelism to be done, even on the beach in his board shorts – and 20 minutes or so later we continued our beach walk.

As we walked away Des said:

You heard Ivan say at first when he heard "web" that he is okay with his phone and his fax?  Well, from being "okay with a phone and a fax" he went to starting to see how blogging might help with a community project he has. He asked me if I had a business card. Not right now, I said, but I’ll bring one next time. No question his interest is piqued.

Des did also tell the story of how just 3 short years ago, my eyes glazed over when he launched into seminar mode!

Blogging maybe dead for some, for others it still hasn’t been born!

How did you respond the first time you heard about blogging?

Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh