who are you? who am i?

Laying in bed about to hit the pillow, I stumbled across “Who are you? Who am I?” by Giselle Maclean, a wife and mother who works in the financial industry. Though writing is her passion, she hasn’t pursued it fully. Realizing that her purpose is to write, she plans to make it her career by the end of 2010. I was captivated by her heartfelt and inspiring story as well as the endearing letter she’s written to her future employer…

I recently decided to write a letter to my future employer, to find someone in this great big world to hire me as a writer.  As I read it now for the umpteenth time, I need to start believing that I am my future employer.  A writer’s boss is their willpower, their determination and their tenacity for finishing their work.  So when you read the letter, remove the word writer and insert your own brilliance.  This letter is for you.

This is a letter to my future employer. Once my future employer reads it, they will know to get in touch with me right away and hire me.

Dear Future Employer:

I am a writer. Without writing I would cease to be.

Each person is born with a spark of creativity. As children, we allow ourselves to unearth our passion for life. We draw, write, act, sing, and play. We inhale and exhale creativity like it was our last breath. We understand why we are here. Then a shift occurs. We start to grow, and we begin to forget. As we forget our purpose, our creativity dwindles. At first, the spiral is slow, but with age, time, and new responsibilities, the speed increases. For many of us, we watch in silence as who we were becomes a part of our past. Even with my enormous love for reading and writing, I too, was headed down that path. The day I became a mother, I was able to end the spiral. I felt renewed as a person and a writer.

My first love is writing fiction. Though for the past few months, I have focused on non-fiction articles. For reference to my writing style and competence as a writer, please review my Blog Break Free A Little More Each Day . For your convenience, I have also included hard copies of articles from my Blog.

Why should you hire me? For the past nine years, I have forged a career in the financial services industry. While I hold a profound respect for my company and the people I work with, it is not my passion. Please note that I am more than happy to provide references, from Managers, co-workers, head office personnel as to my work ethic and general demeanor. I am proud of the work I have accomplished and the name I have built for myself in my company. Imagine the future that awaits the both of us as I incorporate my past experiences with my love for writing as the foundation of my new career.

I thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I believe that each moment of our lives leads us to a point where greatness is achieved. Our paths are now intersected and a decision is about to be made. I am ready. Ready to write your next article, blog post, editorial, or book.

Yours truly,

Your Future Employee

Fantastic and very touching letter, I think. You can feel her passion and zeal for writing. And I think she exudes confidence and authenticity in the way she writes. Best of luck, Giselle. I’m confident you’ll make it your career by 2010.

Who are you? Are you working in a profession that represents you?

Related: Gary Vaynerchuk on how if you do what you love, you will win.

Su.pr might become the hub of your social media empire, according to Tim Ferriss

Came across SU.PR today, a new URL shortening tool, when browsing the blog of Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, a provocative book about living a luxury life now. I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it yet.

Anyhow – Here’s why Tim thinks it might become the hub of your social media empire:

Prior to SU.PR (pronounced “super”), I had to use ping.fm for updating Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn at the same time, bit.ly for basic analytics like click-through, scattered tools for viewing retweets, and nothing allowed me to schedule tweets well.

It was all a serious pain in the ass.

SU.PR fixes all of this and adds much more. In one place, I can now:

- Submit my content to StumbleUpon’s 7.9 million users with each post
- Have my best content showcased in a right-hand sidebar for each page I link to (here’s an example)
- Get suggestions for optimal posting times: get more traffic per post
- Schedule as many tweets or posts as I want, for any time
- See my click-throughs in real-time
- See retweets for each post, including the biggest influencers (ranking coming soon)
- Post to Twitter and Facebook at the same time, with more platforms in the pipeline
- Use my own short URL (i.e. www.fourhourblog.com/ab123) instead of someone else’s branding

The result of it all? More traffic. StumbleUpon has jumped to almost 10% of my total traffic per week, delivering as many as 24,000 unique visitors to a single post in less than 24 hours. In short, SU.PR totally kicks ass. It saves me headache, gets me better results through smarter analytics, and drives significant monetizable traffic.

It won’t steal your Google juice either. Use one line of javascript or install a simple WordPress plugin (both available later this week) and you’re set to SEO.

Sweet. Sounds like a solid product that I can’t wait to try out.

Upon checking out Su.pr, I was impressed with their distribution strategy and announcement plan. Why?

• First off, collaborating with Tim Ferriss was a brilliant marketing move for StumbleUpon. Together, they created a solution that appeals to him and many.
• Tim being a prolific blogger, his reach is wide (and his audience is dead-on for this sort of tool).
• Also, with Tim being part of the development process, his enthusiasm is extra high.
• To trial the service, you need an invitation code – the scarcity and exclusivity generates demand.
• To get an invite code, you’re encouraged to follow the @StumbleUpon twitter account. Talk about a smart way to drive following and usage quickly.

Seemingly brilliant (and simple) from a short-term buzz and engagement perspective. I’m interested to see how they’ll use these communication tools (and what else they’ll roll out) to engage and sustain the momentum long-term.

Less thought, more action and ongoing bliss.

Do you ever find yourself thinking too much about the things you have to do instead of just doing them? Do you stress out by your own thought of doing that activity because you think it might take more time or attention than you think you have at that moment? As a result, you may move that activity down your task list to attend to later (or never). You may even get upset with yourself because you realize you could have completed the task hours ago had you stopped thinking and started doing. Or, maybe you procrastinate and wait until the last minute because the pressure of time causes you to eliminate all distractions and focus only on what’s critical in completing the specific task. You may even find that by waiting until the last minute you become less prone to overthinking and overanalyzing the action at hand.

Does this sound familiar?

If so, one of two things is probably occuring:

1. you’re not passionate about the work that you do — the feeling of obligation causes you to overthink, put off and perhaps avoid completing the action. (if so, stop right now and confront the cold hard facts for what they are: no amount of effectiveness training, time management skills, productivity tips and tricks or goal setting know-how will replace the critical missing ingredient of your life: passion.)
2. you’re passionate about what you do but you allow thoughts — the illusion of the past and the future — to control your present and ability to act as you truly wish.

speaking specifically to number two, by not using your mind as a tool, you allow compulsive thinking to impede your ability to create and do. as a result, something as relative as time is the only force that pressures you to think less and do more. by having say 30, 60 or 90 minutes to complete or act, you unconsciously still your mind and feel the energy of the moment. you separate your mind from the doing process, and you write and act (as i am now) from a place of internal energy.

it’s in these moments that you’re truly feeling and being in the moment, without precious attention and energy directed on the unchangeable past and uncertain future. by focusing all of your attention on the here and now, you’ll find yourself acting on your present happiness. you’ll set yourself up for experiences that awaken, enliven and take your breath away. you’ll set yourself up for action that expresses the ongoing bliss you already feel.

Mike Walsh on Discovery and Ambient Awareness: Be a Kid Again

Leverage Software CEO, Mike Walsh, talked tools, techniques and processes for discovering information last week at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Dallas.

Your typical PowerPoint presentation? Not so much. After a 7 am back-and-forth and still in bed texting session with Mike last Tuesday morning, we decided on the topic of Discovery and Ambient Awareness. Mike then used copy paper and a sharpie to convey his thoughts and ideas while flying from San Francisco to Dallas last Wednesday. Photos of these thoughts were used to finalize the deck, included below.

Tweet-back from IMS attendees on Mike’s Presentation:

samhiggins: RT @vedo: “be like a kid [again] through filtered discovery” @mwalsh #IMS09

4 days ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

vedo: “be like a kid [again] through filtered discovery” @mwalsh #IMS09

4 days ago from TwitterBerry · Reply · View Tweet

djjudah: @mwalsh said without reciprocity everything breaks down! Nice #ims09

4 days ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet · Show ConversationHide Conversation

justinlevy: I love that @mwalsh hand wrote his presentation then took pics and is using that for his slide deck. Definitely different & cool #ims09

4 days ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet

crbrowning: RT @AaronStrout: Getting a kick out of the fact that @MWalsh’s slides are all hand drawn. Adds a level of creativity/personal touch. #ims09

4 days ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

TheRecruiterGuy: @mwalsh says Family Guy is most inspiring TV show for him (creatively speaking) – liking this guy more and more, LOL #ims09

4 days ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet · Show ConversationHide Conversation

live in the now.

if you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options:

1. remove yourself from the situation;
2. change it;
3. or, accept it totally.

by following this framework, i make the best decisions for me so i can live well in the now and enjoy life to its fullest.

how do you live in the now?

Chris Brogan on How to Measure Online Community and Social Web Activities

Earlier this week, I was at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Dallas, a conference dedicated to the future of business and marketing communications. I shot a ton of video (including my interview with Chris Brogan, pictured below), some photos, and over the coming weeks, I’ll be blogging about insightful sessions, stimulating conversations, and passionate people who are impacting the way we interact and communicate online. Stay tuned!

(photo source: Chris Brogan’s photostream)

Note: This was originally posted on my Leverage Software, online community blog. Head over there if you’re looking for information and tips on enterprise social networking software and the online community space…

“Technology is about connecting humans to humans.” – Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan, blogging genius and President of New Marketing Labs, a progressive social media agency encourages companies to be online, listen, connect, be human, and measure meaningfully.

How do you measure meaningfully? By doing the same type of measuring companies did decades ago. For companies participating in online community and social web activities, business metrics should be used to measure success.

Poor measurements include:

• # of pageviews
• # of comments

Better measurements include:

• actionable clicks over pageviews
• sales calls over views
• prospects and conversions over comments

Other Measurements to Consider:

• blog sentiment ranking
• keyword rankings
• email marketing open rates

Questions to ask yourself:

• Who bought?
• Who was retained?
• Who felt a change in customer service?

Tip: Grow bigger ears by setting up a listening station. This will help you learn what people are saying about your company.

do you write to make people think? or, do you write to make people feel?

today, i was delighted to come across tim berry’s blog. i found tim because he linked to my last post about simplifying life and focusing to live life well. (thanks again, tim!) after spending some time on tim’s site, i was captivated by how quickly i felt like i knew tim. his writing evokes past memories, honest emotions and genuine feelings. i felt very touched after learning about him.

here’s how tim describes his blogging journey:

I wish my mom, my dad, my grandparents had kept journals. I love my almost-90-year-old dad and I’m very proud of him; I want to be like him, as I age. I love his stories, but he doesn’t tell enough of them. And I loved my mom’s stories, and her opinions, and chatting with her in the kitchen, until, 21 years ago, she died.

I wish I had their stories. I wish they’d kept journals. My dad lives on, my mom and grandad and granma and gram and Uncle Paul, and Uncle Buddy live on, but in memories. I wish I had more.

I miss the connection to my younger self that I might have had, had I kept a journal. This life that we lead, the emotions, the moments, seems so precious, but also fleeting. Growing up, falling in love, marrying, moving around, having children, raising them, watching them grow into adults, watching them have their own children. It goes by so fast.

And I confess I love writing. Period. The act of putting something into words that record it. A thought, an image, a moment. Describe it in words. I love that. I always have. Maybe even — although this is perhaps way too much to hope — a word of advice, or a thought that might help you get through a hard time, or a decision.

So this blog has mixed motivations. I’m sure I’m doing it for myself, but I’d like to think that I’m doing it as well for the five of you, my grown up children; and the five grandchildren I have so far and the sixth on the way, and those that haven’t started yet. I hope some day I’ll be able to pass on some of what I think, and feel, and remember. It’s in your DNA.

wow. that’s raw emotion right there, and i love it. it’s one thing when someone can write well, and make you think. it’s another when someone can write passionately, and make you feel. when i read tim’s words, i feel. thank you, tim. you made me stop, feel, and smile big today. i appreciate you.

simplify life and focus your mind to live well.

feeling unfocused? feeling stressed? have trouble sleeping because you can’t stop thinking? want to live life well every day? read on…

learning to eliminate stress by simplifying your life and focusing only on what matters is easier said than done. for me, happiness means having peace of mind, living in the present, and eliminating anything unnecessary so that i’m left only with that which provides me value. different things bring value to different people, but here are five tips that can help anyone f.o.c.u.s. on the important stuff.

f – figure out the cause. identifying what is causing you to feel unfocused is the first step toward change or elimination. take 10 minutes to think about why you feel unfocused and consider the activities that make you feel this way. perhaps you’re tired, have too many distractions, or your next actions are unclear and you’re unsure how to move forward. by identifying the root of the problem and solving it early on, you’ll save yourself the self-created stress of feeling like you can’t focus.

o - one thing at a time. focus defined is the art of concentrating interest or activity on something. your ability to master this art is dependent on how well you eliminate those things that prevent you from single-tasking. distractions come in many forms: thoughts about future tasks and to-do’s, difficult people, noisy locations, technologies such IM, twitter, Facebook, email, text messages and more. that’s why it’s important to eliminate unnecessary tasks, avoid difficult people, and get everything out of your head.

c – cut back. simplify your life. simplify commitments that don’t support your short and long-term goals. simplify information intake, routines, your cluttered desk and anything that you have too much of in your life.

u – use your mind as a tool. i often hear people say that they can’t sleep because their head is always racing and they can’t stop thinking. no matter how positive and helpful these thoughts are, no sleep is detrimental to our health and ability to focus. as someone who’s struggled with this in the past (and still does), the realization that my mind is a tool that i control seriously impacted my life in a postive way.

for me, i was always thinking and making plans for the future. i have many ambitions, goals, and i want to do do do do. all in all, i think this is a positive quality, so long as not all my time and energy is focused on events that have yet to occur. i’ve learned, and am still learning, to live in, enjoy and appreciate the present moment.

when you find yourself in a non-stop thinking pattern, ask yourself “what is my next thought?” (try it now. seriously. close your eyes, ask yourself and listen. pretty please?)

what happened? did your mind pause for five, ten, maybe fifteen seconds?

by asking yourself this question, you begin observing and listening to your mind for an answer. by taking this observational almost spectator role, you gain control of the thinking process. as you begin to recognize and become aware of your thinking patterns, your ability to use your mind as tool when needed will improve. welcome to living in the moment.

s – say no. learn to value and prioritize your time. be firm. know what you want. don’t apologize for it. understand what’s on your plate and be conscious of what space you have available for other activities. otherwise, you’ll end up doing things you don’t enjoy, or you’ll become overwhelmed with projects and assignments, and your quality of work and timeliness will suffer. for me, the biggest challenge with saying no is the fear that i’ll offend or hurt someone’s feelings. i’m learning to master these “no” strategies. (they’re targeted at freelancers but they’re also applicable to every day living.)

i hope being conscious and learning to master these five tips will help you do great work and live life well.

a smile a day.

something that made me smile today: my grandma wrote on my Facebook wall! Gram just flew home to England to visit her sister and brother-in-law and she used his account to let me know she made it safely. She also let my Mom, aunt, and cousins know. Case in point regarding why I love the social web!

Here’s a photo of adorable Gram (sporting the Miami Grandma sweatshirt I got her!) and super cute niece, Hailey Cate.

how culture (yes, culture) can grow your company to one billion in sales.

Does your company have a “no email for personal use” policy? Or, is employee access to the web restricted or tracked and reported to managers? If so, how do you think this affects the work ethic of your employees? Do you think creating guilt and paranoia among the assets most valuable to the success of your company motivates people to work hard and produce quality work? Think again…

Or, consider the opposite: does your company put the interests of its employees at the top? Is your company confident in your employee’s ability to produce quality work? And does your company give its employees the freedom to have fun and be creative? Now we’re on to something…

The key element in both of these situations is trust (or lack there of). Trust is the most significant element that drives any system or relationship. By trusting and earning the respect of the people who you choose to surround yourself with — whether employees, employers, partners, friends, family, business associates, customers, etc. — you’re honoring their abilities. As a result, (speaking specifically to the employee audience), you’ll empower those people or networks to do great work and be happy in the process.

Happy employees are your best advocates. They’re also instrumental to the short and long-term success of your company. If you think that an empowering and uplifting employee-centric culture has no correlation to your bottom line, think again.

Consider this…

Company A (with the “no email for personal use” policy) is establishing a culture comprised of fear and guilt. Fear that if you’re not working every second, you’re not being productive (human ≠ machine), and guilt for attending to personal matters.

Company B (who “gives its employees the freedom to have fun and be creative”) is establishing a culture of passion, trust and respect. Employees feel certain, confident in their abilities, and comfortable deriving and applying creative business solutions. They also want to do great work.

A great example of Company B is Zappos.com. Culture helped grow the company to more than $1 billion dollars in sales in just 9 years. Here Justin Levy explains how to build amazing culture like Zappos:

While in Las Vegas for CES I was given a copy of the Zappos 2008 Culture Book.  No, this is not a management book where Tony Hsieh, CEO, talks about all the great things he’s done or his team has done to grow the company to more than $1 billion dollars in sales in just 9 years.  This is a book that starts by asking a simple question on the first page: “What is culture, anyway?”  To answer this question, Tony sent a company wide email stating:

“Our culture is the combination of all of our employees’ ideas about the culture, so we would like to include everyone’s thoughts in this book.  Please email me a few sentences about what the Zappos culture means to you…We will compile everyone’s contributions into the book.”

What follows at the end of that email is over 460 pages of employees who responded to Tony’s email with what the culture of Zappos.com and what working for the company means to them.  If you had never read about the 10 core values that the Zappos.com culture is based on, you would quickly learn what they are after reading the first dozen or so responses.  Oh yeah, and the reason why you would know what those core values are is because the employees truly believe in them.  It wasn’t a PR, marketing or branding move.  It’s what these employees live, eat and breath by.  Want to know what they are?

Zappos Core Values

1. Deliver WOW through service
2. Embrace and drive change
3. Create fun and a little weirdness
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded
5. Pursue growth and learning
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication
7. Build a positive team and family spirit
8. Do more with less
9. Be passionate and determined
10. Be humble

It’s refreshing to hear of a company who truly understands the benefits of a great corporate culture and genuinely values the creativity and unique differences of its employees. Too often companies get caught up in controlling behavior or they are so “profit-focused” that they forget to show genuine appreciation for the people directly contributing to that profit generation. (Ironic, eh?) Zappos.com, I admire and appreciate your approach to company culture!