I’m thinking the Elbonians might be onto something here.
I mean, who likes sales presentations?
Oddly, this morning I was reading Seth Godin (as I often do) where he wrote about how to improve your sales presentations.
Category: Personal Reflections
Lessons learned about life; pearls of wisdom I’ve gleaned through pain, failure and honest reflection
Something To Read If Life Sucks Right Now, Or If It Will Again (If You’re Alive)
Oooh, here’s a great post by Darious Foroux: Read This If You’re Going Through Adversity. I’ve not hear of him before now, and discovered him through my friend Bernie Michalik (I love Bernie’s blog…go and check it out). I will take a deeper dive in Mr. Foroux’s work and decide whether to follow him further in the next few days.
We all go through the down times. Keeping our motivation through those moments is HARD. I get that, struggle with that. Darius has some good insights regarding keeping/creating momentum when life gets hard.
Since we all go through those moments, I recommend everyone take a minute or two and give it a read.
Quote of the day from Pat Benatar
Coming of age in the early to mid-eighties, Pat’s music and style greatly influenced me. I stumbled upon this quote today and though it the most perfect attitude towards life.
Podcasts, Walking and Getting My Act Together
One thing I’ve long enjoyed doing: walking while listening to podcasts. I love how I can be selective of what I want to hear. There are so many out there, with only a little effort, I can focus on whatever my “big rocks” are right now.
I’ve been working on making some life changes. Things like eliminating debt, truly managing my career (as opposed the series of happy accidents it’s been to this point).
In support of that, I’m focusing my energy on positive change, on listening to people who are moving the needle, so to speak. Sure, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I grow up. Actually, I’ve come to abandon that mindset. I’m focusing on what I want to do now, and what I want to do next. I’m thinking my career focus shall be “I make cool shit happen”. What do you think?
Today, during my walk, I listened to Gary Vee (aka: Gary Vaynerchuck, if you’ve not heard of him). I share with him the consternation of folks my age whining about millennials. But that wasn’t the biggest thing. Gary is always reminding you that you’re empowered, that you can make your dreams come true, and that it’s not easy. That’s why it’s called “work”.
I’m reminded, yet again, that taking on the challenge of driving my life comes with fears. Fears of the unknown, of failing, of looking like a fool. Yet everyone who’s done anything of real value in this life has faced all this. It’s been done before, it can be done now. It can be done by me.
Below is the link to the podcast in question. Let me know if you like it, the thoughts you get from it, or any other podcasts you recommend. I’m looking forward to hearing about it.
If you got value from this post, please give me it a “like” and consider following me.
“Too much”, or “I need to focus”
I love to write. I love blogging. Yet there are challenges. Distributing my focus lowers my effectiveness. That troubles me. And yet, though each site has meaning to me. But each site has costs, economic and otherwise. Every time I focus on one, I can’t focus on another.
I haven’t had an objective, much less a strategy on any of my sites. I love to write poetry, about Seattle, about sustainability, geek culture, about so very much. Each site has value to me. I hate the idea of neglecting one at the expense of another. Yet I also hate writing substandard stuff. I prefer to be proud of what I put on the internet.
This time in history has so many choices; a blizzard of potentials and possibilities. And I hate letting go of those potentials. Any of them. Yet I know that must be done to achieve ANY of them. How does one choose which baby to let die?
Perhaps overly dramatic, but it captured the sentiment I’ve been struggling with.
Thinking about the past, present and future
I’m in yet another transition period. Compared to so many of my friends, I seem to spend more time reflecting on transitions than most. I like to think it’s my thoughtful nature, but it quite likely simply stems from my plethora of insecurities.
Today I fit in time for an evening walk. The heat made it a bit less delightful, but otherwise it was fantastic. Walks are times for me to get exercise. My mind gets clear, my head empties of the running rambling commentary echoing about my mental recesses.
While walking (and listening to Debbie Millman’s “Design Matters” podcast), I got to thinking about my different blogging platforms. For some time, I’ve felt I’ve overdone my blogging presence. So I’ve drawn back quite a bit. I’m now down to three sites: this one, Not Just Seattle and QuestionsAll, my poetry blog. And now I struggle. Each site has cost, with hosting, domains and, of course, upkeep time. Each one has its own success. Poetry gets the most consistent readership, more WordPress followers, and far more “likes”, my main source of engagement. Not Just Seattle gets higher page views, at least for the more popular posts, and has the most subscribers. Then there’s this site. It’s not the most well read of my sites, very few subscribers, but it’s my name. I guess that’s the most “me” there is. It’s the highest ranked page for my name on both Google and Bing (note: on Google, this site comes up on page 2, since this other Carl Setzer, who opened a brewing business in Beijing, getting featured in such publications as Forbes and Fortune, has stolen so very much of my SEO).
Each site gives me something, fills me with elements of joy. My personal challenge, though, is to streamline my sites. The goal: one site. I’m starting to think that’s a foolish dream. Yet I would like to lower my spend some. Of course, I could focus ways on making the sites cover their expenses. Hmmm….
I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. Do you prefer one of my sites over the others?
I do appreciate my readers oh so very much! You all mean the world to me.
Wishing each of you joy and peace.
Defining “Grown Up”
I love this comic from xkcd.
It sums up a key idea I’ve been meditating on lately: that we get to define our lives. We get to choose what “success” means to us. We don’t need to be stuck in the destructive loops of our culture’s history. We can find a new way forward. That’s a key beauty of life today.
When I consider Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain’s suicides, I think that there’s something inherently wrong with our culture’s definitions about success. We need to work to define “success” so that we’re feeling fulfilled as we progress. I can’t imagine anything more miserable to achieve everything we’d dreamt of, and feeling empty and miserable.
How many tabs do you have open?
Yeah, I’m a chronic tab opener. It’s one of my ways of managing work. For example, I’ll open an email in a new tab to ensure I don’t forget to response today. Or, right now, I’m checking on the status of several projects I have in permitting at the County. As I’m crafting one report, having all of them open at one time is helpful.
I know that having gobs of windows open in Chrome can impact performance. That is countered by efficiency, in my opinion.
But, well, I’m a certain kind of geek.
Moving Forward
Easy to look back
Yet that sucks our energy
That we need to grow
The Perils Of Writing
This writer’s journey
Fraught with perils of the heart
Facing down my fear
As I write, my mind drags out random, destructive talk. The act of posting challenges sensations of inadequacy. Thus I post, refusing to let the destructive voices within me win.