If someone with TONS of money came along and asked you how much you would charge them for your dreams – what would your price be?
If they went one step further and asked how much you would charge to give up every right now and in the future to ever pursue your dreams – as in you could never ever do one solitary thing to fulfill your dreams – what would you charge then?
If you don’t have a blog you need to start one – like today – like now.
A few years ago I watched something about a guy in the US who would travel across the country – stop at random places – pick up the city or town’s phone book – pick a random page- then point out a random person – call them – ask to go their house and if he did get invited he would go and here’s the point: every time and I mean every single time he went to someone’s home they had a story to tell. And not just any story but a remarkable story to tell.
He illustrated that every single person has something to say- something amazing to share.
The internet has done remarkable things for us – it’s an insult to it’s ingenuity to not take advantage of it.
One of the bloggers who has inspired me exponentially is Seth Godin – every day he shares something with the his followers – with the world. If you go to his blog he tells you that his blog will change your life – I have to say it’s changed mine.
I tell people my blog will inspire them and I believe it does.
What will your blog do?
I was listening to a food blogger on the radio the other day. Listening to her share her love for food was delicious.
On mommy24.com, a site I started as a blog, I share stuff that is sometimes hugely personal not because I want to live my life in the open but because some times the power to effect change is far more important than the need to be anonymous.
My brother is an excellent marketer – for years he has been talking about starting a fantastic project I believe has the potential to revolutionise the businesses he offers his idea to – years later that project is still just talk – if only he could start somewhere – if only he could start with a blog…
One of my friends is mad about cars – if you ever need someone to sell your car – give this girl a ring – she has this thing I can not help but call magic touch when it comes to wording car sales – she has sold cars for all of us who are her friends – why she doesn’t have a blog and start a multi-million dollar online business I can not tell you…
My own husband- oh goodness! He is an incredible artist – he did an amazing project that blew me away and when he exhibited his work – his was among many artworks on show but people who saw his work could not leave – so overwhelmed by his 50 painting project were they that they just could not walk away- why he doesn’t blog and share his love for art- I cannot tell you…
One young woman I know only through work and is a facebook friend is the wittiest person I know – her humour is incredible – sometimes I visit her page just to get a chuckle – why she doesn’t have a blog and share her genius is beyond me…
The amazing thing about blogging is no longer do you have to look for media platforms to express your love and passion for something – you can do it all on your own – on your terms! Heck people are making a sweet living from blogging!
You don’t have to do it for money- but isn’t there anything you love or are so passionate about you want to share with us?
Don’t even get me started on some of the awesome businesses I’ve come across that don’t have a web presence let alone a blog…
I could go on and on… but I won’t-
All I’m saying is for crying out loud get off your arse and bloody well start a blog!
P.S. blogs are free to set-up so blah with excuses….
It’s not something to be proud of.
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions simply because I loathe that kind of pressure even if it’s self-inflicted.
But this year – try as I might this issue of being tardy with time would not stop nagging at me. I didn’t mean it to be a resolution but it keeps rearing its head and I am trying.
So here’s the thing – being late is disrespectful.
I find it odd that anyone would be proud of being disrespectful.
I think I need to explain myself here – time is a very precious commodity. None of us have much of a say about how much time we’re given – It’s like someone once said (OK you got me it was Oprah who said it)- she said: this moment, this very moment is the only one we know we have for sure. The rest (and I say this) is just hope. Hope that we’ll have that next hour. That next day. That next year.
But let’s stick to that day for now – there are only 24 hours in it. Each hour only has 60 minutes. And each minute sixty seconds – it ALL adds up. Every single person on the planet only has those 24 hours. They can’t increase that number. So when you (or I) are late we’re taking someone else’s time – they need it and we are forcefully taking it. Sugar-coat it all you like – but that’s theft.
Dr Phil (I know I know- I promise I don’t watch as much TV anymore)… Anyway Dr Phil said this better to a young (might I add white– cos it’s not just us black folk guilty of this) woman who said she was ALWAYS late for EVERYTHING and didn’t know why.
She probably expected Dr Phil to allude to some deeply embedded secret in her past that was feeding into her not honouring her commitments timeously – but no! Tell It Like It Is Dr Phil said to her “You are selfish and self-centred! You think yourself so important that you expect the whole world to just wait for you…”
And that I believe is the truth. I don’t want to be that person who doesn’t respect others. Everyone is busy and everyone has (important) things to do.
So I’m not quite there but it’s like my husband says – it starts with the decision. I just had to make the decision that I would be on time. Whatever excuse I would have for being late was lame, foolish and disrespectful.
Second I had to monitor what I was wasting time on when I had to be getting somewhere on time.
And it’s silly things that make us late: Indecision over what to wear, speaking to long on the phone when we should be on the move, tending to things that are really not important right now… the list goes on.
African time. I loathe what it’s come to mean. To be on time does not mean abandoning our Africanness – it does mean though that we are respectful of others. And we live knowing that life is so precious BUT it’s lived in the confines of time. To be late is to waste someone else’s life.
The most poignant part of the movie Stepmom for me was when a dying mom takes her young daughter horse riding in the middle of the night and asks her child to do something very profound. Knowing she won’t be alive to see some of those intensely precious moments in her child’s life she asks her to please carry her along in what will be the special moments in her daughter’s life.
“Take me with you,” she pleads with her daughter.
I think of that movie now and I wonder how many of us, while alive, leave ourselves behind. How many of us have these special moments of our lives but are not present to enjoy them? I urge you to take you along. Carry You with you in this journey.
There’s an exercise in my Personal Branding Program that often reveals to my clients where the bulk of their time and life’s energy is spent.
It’s a telling exercise that for the most part shows that far too often we abandon our dreams in the rat race.
During the program some of my delegates have spoken flawlessly about the roles they play in the organisations they work for – but when I ask them to tell me about (what they say is) their passion- what they enjoy doing – they can hardly string one solitary sentence together.
Some people suffer this state more than others. But for the most part many of us at one time or other shelve our dreams, pack away the things we love and dedicate every ounce of our energy in building empires for other people.
I received my new batch of books yesterday – I haven’t read a book in over two weeks – an absolute travesty! So to open my box of new reads – it was a joy I deliciously savoured. Why was it such a sublime moment for me? For the past couple of weeks I have switched off from me. I have been pouring myself in so many other things that Hannah had taken a back seat for a while. I’d rolled my dreams and ambitions in a camp bag and tucked them away.
I’m rolling into the weekend with a nudge to not forget about me. To realise that my own empire is just as important – in fact more important than anyone else’s.
I encourage you to value your dreams the most. Be as fluent about what you want to achieve in the course of your life as you are about the role you play in someone else’s ambitions. For the most part most of us work in what essentially is someone else’s dream.
My empire is what matters to me. It’s the legacy I want to leave behind. It’s the story I want my son to tell one day. Inspiring people to build their own is part of my empire. Abandoning my own construction is to hock my most priceless gift for paper that has an ever diminishing value.
It can sometimes be a lonely road being a leader. It requires more than passion, more than balls of steel and more than the desire to succeed.
Sometimes being a leader requires a resolve to do things that seem completely insane. It’s easier said than done.
I watched a profile of Michael Burry on Bloomberg last night – and he said something quite profound about what made him a leader in his industry:
“The way I go about investment is very different and I just like to find my own ideas.”
In that profile someone says this about him: “Michael Burry is disposed to doubt the conventional wisdom – That’s how he finds opportunities.”
It’s worth watching this profile – I can’t go into the detail of it here – but for me the long and short of it is this: Burry wasn’t successful only because he had balls of steel (in a situation that is reported to have given him a bleeding ulcer) – he was successful because of his resolve to stand by what he believed to be absolutely true.
Every day I believe we are given the opportunity to rise to the position of leadership in some area of our lives.
At times this call may be one that has great opportunity to change lives. Even if that change is (for the short-term) only for ourselves. Oftentimes the challenge is this: will we stay steadfast in what we believe (and lead)? Or will we be swayed by and follow the masses?
I have yet to meet a successful person who broke tremendous ground by being a sheep.
Hannah Viviers is a financial journalist and founder of Mommy24
With all the hype about Facebook going Public here’s what caught our eye – the person second only to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg is mom of two, Sheryl Sandberg.
She says “The most important career choice you’ll make is who you marry.”
And about your kids Sandberg advises: “Don’t leave the workforce to have kids and not return because you didn’t get that job you wanted before you left.”
Sandberg stands to make billions once Facebook goes Public – Read the full story here.
At a TED conference Sandberg spoke about why the entire world has too few women leaders. She gives us some very practical advice on how we can change this.
Even when that voice in your head says you’re not good enough…
Even when your opponents roll their eyes…
Even when your nearest and dearest say “Maybe it’s just not for you”
Even when you get exhausted and everything tells you to quit
Even when it’s hard and there seems no end in sight
Even when you find yourself walking this journey alone
Even when all seems utterly impossible
Keep going
When you arrive, when you receive, when you conquer – you will come back and tell us how you did it – and we will be inspired.
