Successful Blog

The Million-Dollar Imagination

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I've been thinking . . .

a million dollars.

I’ve been imagining that I have a cool million in the bank — well, intelligently invested. It’s out there somewhere doing whatever a million does when it’s working it’s numbers off. It’s somewhere to the right of me, taken care of.

I’ve been watching how a secret million-dollar investment might change me.

em>How would I approach this situation, if I had a cool million I could count on?

Here’s what I see.

My answer is more confident, less needy. I know where I stand. Somehow that million takes away the “I need to . . . ” and turns into “The best choice is . . . ”

It’s relaxing. It’s also attractive. People have been responding. I have too.

My imagined investment brought a greater return on reality than I had imagined.

I like that that thought, that sentence, that beautiful oxymoron.

Imagine a cool million. How might your re-imagine change your reality?

Liz's Signature

Got Clients? Advertising Is for Boring Businesses

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Think About It . . .

“GET” STICKY!

I’ve been hearing myself repeat the same thought lately. It’s something that Andy Sernovitz said when he spoke last May at SOBCon07. Andy knows a few things about what people talk about. He wrote the book, Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. What he said was . . .

Advertising is for boring businesses.

Andy was making the point that if our product or service was compelling, interesting, people would already be telling each other to check it out.

In his book, Word of Mouth Marketing, Andy explains that to people talking about us and our stuff, we need to know what people talk about. We talk about three kinds of things.

    We talk about other people and their stuff.

    We talk because it makes us feel smart, important, and helpful.

    We want to feel part of a bigger group.

Talking to each other is what we do . . . on a regular basis.

Interesting, exciting, satisfying, compelling products that do what they promise are sticky. They get us talking. We share experiences that we find remarkable and defining.

Obviously Andy’s talk was anything but boring. Here I am telling you about it 5 months later. He doesn’t need advertising. His message stuck with me.

What was the last product or service you talked about? What about it made you want to tell the story?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Find out about working with Liz.

Blog Action Day: Personal Environmental Action

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Blog Action Day, October 15, 2007

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Environment
Notes: 1. environment emerged linked with nature, implying ‘natural’ (not human, not cultural) surroundings; ecology emerged as a scientific effort to connect organisms (such as the human) to their environments
2. environment is the area in which something exists or lives; habitat is a the place or type of place where a person or thing is most likely to be found

Source: Roget’s New Millenniumâ„¢ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1) Copyright © 2007 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Please don’t misunderstand. I love the sky and stars, the flowers, the animals and the ocean, the fire that lights and warms, and the rainbow colors that stole my heart when my eyes first opened. They steal my breath. I’m stunned to silence whenever I reflect on life without them.

Yet I wonder whether environmental change has a chance when we focus on their protection. Imagine nurturing what we can. . . . The question tugs at me do have a hope of healing the planet when we’re so woeful at healing ourselves, our missteps, and our own hurt feelings.

What if we healed our personal environment first? What if we brought our whole selves to make a whole Earth? Would doing the first part make the second part happen faster?

Personal Environmental Action

Did you ever love playing in the dirt?

What if we start with us? What if we heal ourselves first?

Inside our heads.
Inside our hearts.
Inside our thoughts and feelings.
About ourselves.
About others.
What if we put away the drama?

Do we love the words that hide inside our heads,
the words that say we don’t deserve
the breath-taking world set before us?
Let’s live self-respect and deserve what we have.

It doesn’t have to hurt.

Do we love the people, who
have taken trust and broken it,
violated and defiled something good?
Let’s shine our hearts on caretakers and caregivers instead.

Did you ever wish upon a star?

Do we love the events in the past,
that strapped the world — its fights and
its hurts — on ou rbacks and shoulders?
Let’s leave yesterday’s battlefield to reach the gold of tomorrow.

We get to pick who we are.

Self-respect and a shining vision on so many hearts,
just might be the gentle rain we need to heal the world
. . . without a word, a law, a cause.

There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer . . . — Emmett Fox

It starts with us . . . and how we love.

Did you ever love playing in the dirt?

Liz's Signature

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Do you suppose if we thought more of ourselves, we would take better care of the planet? Or do you think that the problem is rooted in thinking about ourselves too much already?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Wise Dots

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Connecting dots with The Idea Dude

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It has very little to do with intelligence and everything to do with humanity…

Liz said this when she was wondering a week ago about what it meant to be wise. I thought about how I viewed others as wise. It wasn’t because they knew 1+1=2. That’s because they were smart. It was when they took my problem and helped me look at it in a different way and in so doing showed me the path that was obscured because of me. They didn’t have to have a solution already or have lived that problem before. They simply knew how to look at things a little differently and in doing so taught me more than I could learn alone. They were wise. Liz also said…

Maybe wisdom defined is unconditional love and understanding. . . .

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Chris talked about trust and seeking advice. Mike nailed it in his comment to Chris …to lead us either out of our current situation, or into a better one – they must first come to where we are and take our hand.

Perhaps wisdom is seeking the unknown rather than the known. . . .

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Phil reminds us that wise men ask great questions. The conversations I’ve had with great friends/mentors/advisors were always those where they never stopped asking me questions even though they were uncomfortable ones but always done with heart. They somehow knew that until they understood how I got to where I was and where I wanted to go, they could not help me. But in doing so, we travelled down the path together.

Wisdom comes from unexpected quarters. . . .

Mathew has been a long-time proponent for comments on blogs. He says, . . . I think the “conversation” is part of what makes blogs so powerful (even if it’s more of an argument!) . . . Just as no meal is complete without dessert, no blog entry should be read without the accompanying comments. They add dimension, flavor and dare I say, wisdom.

Wisdom is accumulated over time. . . .

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Jules said it best when she reminisced on when we believed we could fly and we grow wiser over the years. I don’t remember changing, it must have happened when I was asleep.

Since Liz inspired this post, it’s fitting she has the last words. . . .

We can change the world — just like that!

May the dots be with you!

Vern, The Idea Dude

A Party, Wednesday, October 24th! You're Invited!!

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Will You Come?

Liz-Strauss-writing-invitations.

I’m writing invitations in hopes of your participation.

Would you, could you join us?

We’re having a birthday celebration!

Joe’s Blog, Cat’s Blog, HART’s Blog, Karin’s Blog, and OUR Blog!!!

The 2nd Annual All-Day Open Comment Birthday Party

Who: Everyone is invited.

Where: Successful-Blog . . . https://www.successful-blog.com

When: Wednesday, October 24, 2007, 7a.m – 11p.m. Chicago Time (Central Time/GMT -6hrs See the clock on this blog)

What to bring:

  • Bring a link to a page, a picture, a post that demonstrates, celebrates, illuminates your success and outstanding-ness as a blogger.
  • Or bring that ebook, that manifesto, that photo, that priceless work that you want to offer as a birthday gift to everyone.

What will be happening:
It’s an all-day conversation with outstanding gifts for EVERYONE.

  • Open Comments all day.
  • Flash mob commenting.
  • Photographic Party Favors.
  • HUGE SURPRISES!!.
  • Guest posts galore.

I’ve invited some folks to guest post for the celebration. If you’d like to write a guest post or if your blog birthday is this month, please email me today at lizsun2@gmail.com to let me know.

A Party! You’re Invited! C’mon! Let’s Talk and Have Some Fun!

(There’s only one rule . . . be nice.)

–Me “Liz” Strauss

Thanks to Week 103 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.

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 directly to me. This award comes with a full “Liz said so” guarantee. It is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and 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