Beware the Ides of March

Failure To Prepare Is Preparing To Fail

This is a short post today about the process of trying to write 31 posts for the month of March.

It's a true challenge, I'm not going to lie.

I have two really long pieces I'm working on right now and those seem to take more time than I have available to finish them.  Especially with trying to keep the publishing schedule that I announced. 

Perhaps that's the ides of March I should be wary of.

The significance of the ides of March was made famous by William Shakespeare.

In his play, Julius Ceasar, a soothsayer warned Ceasar to "Beware the ides of March," otherwise the day of his assassination at the hands of the Roman Senate.

Over time, the idea has taken many different meanings, to wit:

The assassination of Caesar isn't the only major historical event to happen on March 15.

For example, the ides of March was the day that Roman citizens had to pay outstanding debts.

Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first voyage to the New World.

The last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, abdicates in 1917.

In 1985, the very first Internet domain name, symbolics.com is registered.


So there are good things that can happen on March 15.

I just wouldn't want to be Ceasar.

Or the Roman citizenry - I haven't finished my taxes yet and a month is a lot of extra time.

I didn't plan the month of March out very well, but as they say - if you fail to prepare, you've prepared to fail.

How To Transform Your Thinking And Get Everything You Want

The Value Of Experience And Confidence 

Something's been on my mind all day.

Confidence.

What is it?

Why do we struggle with it at times, especially when we've done something over and over and over again?

Is there something innate in us that makes us doubt ourselves, or some other outside force?

I read an interesting post today on Mary Jaksch blog, Write To Done.  If you're unfamiliar with Mary or her blog, you're missing out.  It's a wonderful blog about all things writing, from freelance to topics on writing and everything in between.

Today's blog post discussed a common fear we all share.

The Fear Of Being Discovered

Discovered as the fraud we writers imagine ourselves to be and ways to work through it.

The post was written by Sonia Thompson who is founder of Try Biz School, a great resource for helping others build their dream business.

The post titled "How To Keep Writing Even When You Feel Like A Fraud" lays out common struggles that we writers all share (and I'm sure other creative types, as well as any one who shares anything worthwhile).

For example, one of the common issues we deal with is that we are a by-product of our environment growing up (Nature vs. Nurture anyone?).  Think about it a little.  We are raised by our parents, attend schools that help reinforce certain behaviors and expectations, and we strive to fulfill them.

It's when we feel we fall short of these expectations and roles that are rooted in our psyche that we develop a sense of being an imposter.

The Myth Of Overnight Success

Another cause of the feeling like a fraud is if we do something that appears to come easy.

Take the example of Elizabeth Gilbert, writer of Eat, Pray, Love.  She dealt with "instant" success that garnered a lot of attention, made into a movie and a book deal.  She struggled with the idea that she wrote something amazing, easily, and the expectations were to replicate it.

She struggled to write her next book and guess what?  It didn't do very well.  But she was fine with it, because she knew the value of her experience working on her craft.

Keep in mind that as the person who sweated, toiled and worked for years to perfect our craft, we know it wasn't easy but a rather long, hard road. And the knowledge you learned is priceless and the experience gained, invaluable.

  Pablo Picasso is rumored to have best illustrated this in a story about being approached by an admirer while sitting in a cafe in Paris.  The admirer asked Picasso for a quick sketch, and Picasso agreed.

Using a napkin, Picasso sketched out his "Dove of Peace" and handed it toward the admirer but not before asking for a rather large sum of money in return.  The admirer, stunned, said "how could you ask for so much?  It took you a minute to draw this!" To which, Picasso replied succinctly, "No, it took me 40 years."


(Thanks to Brian Braun's excellent short post on the Napkin Wisdom on Experience and Pricing)

Since we, as people, are social creatures by nature, it only makes sense that we struggle with being discovered as less than we project.

But understand, you are an expert at what you do.

You've studied the craft and honed the skills for years and the idea that you can just whip out something in mere minutes that appears to be easy, was actually paid for in years of hard work.


If you're interested about more articles on Mary Jaksch blog Write To Done, just click Mary's name.

You can get more information about Sonia Thompson's Try Biz School by clicking her name.

Read Brian Braun's excellent post Picasso's Napkin Wisdom on Experience and Pricing.

One Hack To Skyrocket Your Writing Productivity

The Efficiency Hack To Make Your Content Easier To Blog

This post is about one simple hack that you will skyrocket your productivity and will make it incredibly easier to write and publish on a regular basis.

Here's why:

Today is about the simple things.

It's a Sunday evening, all across America people are stretching out preparing for the week ahead.  Daily Savings Time (DST) was last night, so many are probably a little groggy and tired from losing an hour of sleep.

But that fatigue won't change for the week ahead.  See, not only do we "gain more sunlight" with DST, we also get sleep deprived.  Losing an hour of sleep, and disrupting your circadian rhythm can take a week or more to adjust.

Ask any traveler who travels through multiple time-zones.  Internationally it would take you a few days just to even get into a rhythm sleeping.  A week and you're just starting to regain your sense of self and sleep.

With that in mind, this article is about one simple hack you can make that will help ease any content creation demands.

On a blog called VideoFruit, I stumbled on a post that talked about a hack the author uses to write incredibly lengthy posts in less time.

His secret?

Dictation.

The author discusses how he uses a simple process to make lengthy content in quick fashion.

I've shortened the steps by 1, and you can source the information in the original article by clicking THIS LINK.

1. Outline and Plan your content
2. Use a voice recorder and discuss your outline in detail
3. Transcribe your content as a post
4. Doctor it up a little, or as the author says, pretty it up  

Pretty simple and useful I think.

Whelp, that's about it. Until next time.

In Retrospect - How We Understand By Looking Backward

Just Look At How Far We've Come! 

How to look backward to mark your progress moving forward.

Anytime we set out on a new journey, one that we value but greatly underestimate the commitment it's going to take, and how we measure success, can be difficult.  How we set out to achieve goals and goal setting is both enthralling and fraught with peril at the same time.

The footing on our new path can be treacherous, slick and unsure.

I'm watching a new Netflix show called "Flaked" with Will Arnett. Based in Venice, it's about a drunk who drove under the influence and ended up killing someone and is working to amend the past.

There's a great opening quote:

"Life must be lived forward but can only be understood backwards"

Or in my own paraphrase; "we stare forward and only in the past can we see."

Take it for what it is. But the point is that in retrospect we have a much better idea of what we did.

Let's put this in another way, once I dated an incredible woman. Smart, engaging, social, she also said something about how we reflect on things in our past and are able see them more clearly. She worked with clients on goal setting, accomplishment and success.  She was a business and life coach by trade, and a caring woman by nature.

She claimed that while we're in the moment of living we can't see our destination. It's too hard to see the forest for the trees.

But if we think about it like sailing, we leave the port and if we only focus on the outcome, we fail to see how far we've truly come.  By looking backward from where we left, can we really see how far it is we've come on our journey.

Anytime we set out on a new journey, we need to stay focused on the steps we need to take to accomplish our goal, but only by reflecting on the progress we've made do we really understand the layers of our successes.

Oh and my review of "Flaked" - a little serious, a little dramatic but in the first episode it misses on making any real connection with the audience. Truthfully though, I can watch anything that has Will Arnett and will give the series a few more chances.

After that I'll have a better idea of what the show is working toward thematically.

In retrospect we see.

Defining Your Passion Will Take Your Productivity From Good To Great

What's Your Passion? 

There are countless charlatans, Internet Marketers, and 'Self-Help Guru's' that claim they can help you find your passion.

Find it they say, and everything else will fall into place.

The claims they make about productivity, self-improvement, entrepreneurship and goal setting all comes down to the idea of passion.

Passion.  That's the subject of discussion today.

Everyone knows what passion feels like, but how do you define it?

Let's play a little simple game.

Imagine:

It's late at night, you're alone, not quite asleep but not awake either.

It's dark and quiet.

Until the knock on your door.

You check your phone, it's late, you don't have any text messages or missed calls.

It's not cold outside but it's not warm either, so you slowly sit up in bed before turning on the lamp from off your nightstand; in no-time you've wrapped a robe around you, and switch don the sequence of lights to the bedroom, into the hall, toward the living room and front porch.

The whole of your house is now glowing with LED light as you unbolt the door.

You crack it open and POOF, nobody's there.

You start to close the door and it's jarred open.  Not by a hand, not a foot or tool, but by something. 

Where it's head should be is a long snout with a tail switching around like a cat tail.  Long and slender the proportions seem almost human, but not quite. Panicked you push harder, only to have the door fling open and as this thing stands in the foyer.  You stare right into its milky, opaque eyes. It looks like a blind man, no, not a man, but a man-thing.

It opens it's mouth, it's lips pull back to reveal teeth like long, razor-sharp stalagmites before it makes a noise that is simultaneously a squeak-click before a calming, soothing baritone says to you:

"I'm ZCHvKcl - or in your tongue, Greg.  Where I'm from is insignificant, but I have a number of questions.  If I may, I have a short amount of time before your atmosphere eats away at my lungs, may I ask you three questions about humanity, and in return I'll tell you about the future of your species?"

 What would you answer?

Would you want to know what is in the future?

Would you humor a seemingly non-threatening creature?

Would you take the time to answer him, knowing that the answer to the future of humanity is the reward?

What Would You Do?

He wants to understand why we fight, we we wage war on one another when it's entirely obvious we are the same species.  So why are we inclined toward violence to resolve our issues?

The second question is about why we treat the only hospitable place we know of so poorly?  We pollute our water, belch gas into the air we breath, and depose of our refuse in the ground we need to grow our food.

Finally the third question.  He (assuming it's a "he") wants to know about passion.  What is it, why do we all claim it and act upon it?

How would you respond?

Passion is defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as:

"1)  a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something 

2)  a strong feeling (such as anger) that causes you to act in a dangerous way 

3)  a strong sexual or romantic feeling for someone"

In this case, let's focus on the first definition.

Let's break down the definition of passion into it's clauses.

• A strong feeling - we all have those, but how does that help us?  - 
• of enthusiasm or excitement - this is a little better, it allows us to understand what we should be feeling - 
• for something or about doing something - Ah ha!  It's about getting something done in a strongly emotional way. 

So how do you answer you're visitor?  What does passion mean to you?

If you tell him that it's about a strong excitement to do something, you've defined passion better than most.

When you hear, "what's your passion" or "find your passion, find your path," know that it's about finding that one thing that you can do with ebullience and joy.

It's the thing you want to do rather than sleeping or eating, or in some instances even sex.

For some, it's music, with others it's writing.

For painters it's about the colors and brushstrokes. There are people who absolutely love cooking and can spend a whole day in the kitchen without knowing if a nuclear weapon went off outside.

Your passion is the thing you can do and lose all track of time, all sense of the outside world.