Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 109 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Surviving Explosion, Implosion, Meltdown and Other Personal Disasters of the Holidays

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Fine Memories or Forgettable Mess?

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On this busiest shopping weekend, phone purchasing something can be a fine memory in the making or a most forgettable mess. We change how folks act or what they do, but we get to choose how we think about it.

Surviving Disasters of the Holidays

Yes, Virginia, it can be done. We can get to the New Year with our Joyful Jolly still fully functioning. As usual as they might seem, personal disasters — explosion, implosion, and meltdowns — are not a necessary result of the Holiday Season.

Here’s how to avoid them entirely and maybe even have the energy to help others to do the same.

  1. Allow too much time for everything. When we’ve got more to do, we seem to think we can do more in less time. We hurry up. Everyone else is hurrying up too. Traffic jams, extra programs, sales at the mall, and holiday traditions pile on us all. We funnel in the same direction . . . bumping into one another. Accidents happen. Let the other guy go first because you left early.

  2. Make a list and check it twice. Other times of year, a list might be useful but during the holidays, a list is major stress relief. Get those details of what to do in one place on paper, where they’ stop mentally nagging you to remember them. The accomplishment of crossing off something that’s done is a feeling that will keep your good mood moving forward with you.

  3. Enjoy the view. Set aside time along the way to relax. Beautiful things happen this time of year. Let your eyes, your mind, and your spirit take them in. The time you take to do that with folks you love will refuel you. You’ll come back ready to do more than you might have had you kept chugging ahead. You’ll be brilliant and appreciated. A little appreciate — of the world and of you — does a lot to keep a joyful, jolly mood in season.

  4. Realize that everyone is a person. The clerk at the store, the voice on the phone, the delivery man or woman at your door, the folks walking around you on the street . . . they all have thoughts, feelings, and the same sorts of stresses as you. . . . maybe more. See them. Smile. The smiles they return will make you smile even more.

  5. Be a person too. It’s easy to start attempting superhuman feats during this season of generosity. Set kind and generous priorities. Know that to give well also means taking care of yourself for your family and friends. All of us can only do what is humanly possible. The world won’t end if you decide not to make cookies this year.

Follow these simple ideas and you just might find that you enjoy the holidays. Decide from this moment what you care about and let that be your guide when you feel yourself starting to falter.

Besides, when the cranky folks decide to explode all over us for their own unpleasantness, nothing beats a smile and an answer like, “Hey, I’m sorry that’s how you feel. . . . I’m finding everyone is so generous and joyful!”

How will you manage yourself this holiday season?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

SOB Business Cafe 11-23-07

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Creative Think brings news that Various studies suggest men and women have differently structured neural networking possibly due to early exposure to sex hormones during critical prenatal and postnatal periods.

Copywriting.com brings information on how to expand our reach. These are 10 methods you can start using this same week to start building momentum and kick-start your blog’s readership immediately.

Essential Keystrokes brings news of a book that isn’t just for beginners. Lisa sent me a copy of the book to review (and I’m giving one away at Casual Keystrokes right now). All I can say, is that it doesn’t matter whether you are an experienced WordPress pro or a brand new blogger needing all the basics, this book is worth every penny.

Business of Design Online brings relief for times like these . . . So you’re sitting at your desk, trying to focus on a piece of creative work – but it’s hard to concentrate, there’s something nagging at your attention. Suddenly it pops into your mind – you’ve forgotten something urgent!

Chris Webb brings links to some of the most interesting news on the web this week. Does Kindle signal the end of traditional books?

Related ala carte selections include

Problogger found this at Inside Google who picked it up at YouTube.

If you don’t know the story of the now-famous book and blog about the Fake Steve Jobs, listen in as author, Dan Lyons, reveals it. He belongs on the Comedy Channel.

42 Days Becomes 24 years

It took that guy on the couch and me 42 days to get married — 24 years ago today. How cool is that?!!

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: Think Our Way Out of the Box

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We Make Our Reality

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It’s only sensible that we make our reality. What we perceive comes through the filter of what we have experienced before.

When I used go home to visit my family for holidays, every trip was a stress. I felt they didn’t see me.

Families have a way of bringing us back to our “role” in the group dynamic. I would return telling people how my siblings thought I was still 12 years old. I thought they were self-centered in doing this.

Couldn’t have been me? Could it?

Silly me. It sure was all my own doing. I thought they put me in a box, but I was finding that box and crawling right into all by myself. Sometimes the roles we play in a group dynamic are so comfortable, so much easier than being fully present. We gravitate to old roles without being aware that we’re choosing them, and then we decide that it’s something that other folks are deciding for us.

Head and heart, when all of our parts are connected together. That’s when we really have a soul. That’s when we know how to listen — to ourselves and others. Our cells resonate with the sound of life like drops in that pool.

We imagine other people in our own image and likeness. When we guess what they’re thinking we’re really imagining what we, ourselves, might think were we them.

So why not imagine them thinking we’re a fabulous success? It’s within our power to think our way out of that old box.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Generosity and Gratitude

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In this universe

so much larger,

infinite and spectacular,

filled with wisdom.

filled with wonder . . .

beautiful tulips

We want,

we worry,

wander searching

for meaning,

for beauty and for connection.

flowers from the heartflowers from the soul

We reach. We find our hearts, ourselves, each other.

Our lives are connected by beauty, meaning, and generosity.

Generosity and Gratitude

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are inseparable, as lifelong friends are.

We cannot offer one without the other.
They are brave and vulnerable.
They are magnetic power.

They make us better forever.

All of me thanks all of you
for every word and every space.

I am one lucky girl.

Liz's Signature

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The Top 10 Ways to Start Living Your Life
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Working Smart or Working Away the Time of Your Life?

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Whoa! Look around us!

Everyone is so . . . busy. We’re almost can’t see each other.

We’re juggling, talking, typing, scanning instead of reading, talking instead of thinking, putting off time with our family and friends. We all know so much about productivity, goals, keeping connected, and following our passion to build the business that we love. It’s enough to make a brain shut down into auto-mode.

I know I occasionally find myself staring out from a glazed look, walking into walls. How about you?

Being determined, motivated, set on a path with a laser beam focus is a good thing. . . . right? It is, if every now and then, we check that our destination is still where we want to go and that we’re enjoying the ride on the way.

The Going Not the Getting There

I see it in clients. I’ve felt it in my friends. I’ve done it myself. It’s a heads down sort of thing that takes over our thinking. We become so aware of time, so time-managing, that we manage to set aside anything that might, even possibly from far off, appear to be construed as doing nothing.

What’s wrong with doing nothing or better yet doing something just for fun — not balance . . . F-U-N? What’s wrong with enjoying the folks we care about as we move through our lives?

Nature has no straight lines.

Our priorities can get so straight that they become twisted and upside-down. We can get so focused on our destination that we forget to pay attention to the journey and the people who make living our lives magical, meaningful, and worth living.

Way, way back in the olden days, Harry Chapin sang this in a song.

It’s got to be the getting there, not the going that’s good. –Heads and Tales, Greyhound

We’ll never get this moment back . . . oops, it’s already gone!

At the end of my days will I regret the work I didn’t do or the time I didn’t spend with my husband, my son, my dad, my mom, my brothers, my nieces and nephews, my lifelong friends, the new exciting people I’ve just met?

If you knew that your time left was only tonight, what would you do then?

I’m going with Bruce Cockburn’s answer . . .

If it was the last night of the world, I’d have champagne with you. –Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu, Last Night of the World

Yep, that’s what I’d do.

I’m making a sign and putting up right above my monitor.

Will you make a sign too? It’s the time of your life.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Related
The Top 10 Ways to Start Living Your Life
Branding: 5 Ways to Help You Find Out Who You Are
How to Recognize a Friend
Personal Identity: What Is Humility?