How To Play The Game Of Blogging

After I sold my company, 2 years ago, I knew there will be some inactive time for me. I mean, once you’re an important player and you sell your part of the territory, expect that you’ll be asked to take a break for a while. After all, it’s not ok to start to compete against your buyers the next day after the selling. I won’t go into the technical details of what a “non-compete” agreement should contain, because this is not the main point of the article. The main point of this article is to share what I’ve learned by playing the game of blogging.

The Beginning

The only thing I was able to grow and maintain on the online field, after I sold my business, was my personal blog. No more markets, contracts, niche strategies or online alliances. No more online business: just a personal blog. Although I did blog every now and then even before I sold the company, I never did “professionally”. All of a sudden, the selling of my company became a great opportunity to begin something completely new. With all the associated risks of starting something from scratch: not knowing the right tools, making mistakes, not being a native English speaker and so on.

The Lessons

This blog, as you know it now, was started in October 2008, under a Romanian domain dragosroua.com. In July 2009 I changed the domain to dragosroua.com. That was one of the lessons I had to learn the hard way: if you blog in English, keeping your blog under a localized domain name is not ok. You do need a .com, otherwise you’ll end up in a secondary index of Google.

A few months ago, the blog was moved to another hosting facility, outside Romania (in United States, I’m happily using the cloud hosting package of RackSpace). That was another lesson I had to learn the hard way: the physical location of your hosting company influences your ranking in search engines (at least Google).

As of January 2009 I started to actively promote the blog, becoming active (some say that I become even too active ) in social media outlets like Twitter, FaceBook and StumbleUpon. Until then I was under the firm impression that “if you write it, they will come”. Another huge mistake. You gotta promote your blog, otherwise you’ll never reach to your audience. Why? Because blogging is like any other publishing business, only it’s taking place in an incredibly crowded market. There are literally hundreds of millions of blogs out there. I can hardly imagine another business on this Earth where you have such an incredible number of competitors. So, if you want to really make your voice heard, you gotta work for it.

Many of these lessons, mistakes and other interesting things, like monetization and promotion, were described in two milestone series: The First 6 Months Of Blogging and The First Year Of Blogging. Feel free to read them at your leisure if you’re interested in some historical data about my blog. Now, let’s get to the meat: how to play the game of blogging?

Know Your Availability

If you’re into blogging, you gotta know beforehand how much time are you willing to allocate to it. All those stories about how a stay at home mom become instantly famous after she published a blog are bullshit. Pardon my French.

Don’t get me wrong, you can get lucky pretty early and get featured on some of the largest social media sites like Digg and Delicious, and get enormous amounts of traffic in a very short time. It can get up to several dozens of thousands unique users in a week interval.

But that’s not success. You may have 5 minutes of fame and then you’re out in the cloud. Nobody will know your name anymore. Being successful as a blogger means to control your exposure, to predict the impact of your work and to constantly measure and influence the results. And that requires time. It requires discipline and commitment.

Starting a blog “only to see how it works” will never work. You gotta commit to it at least one year – in my persona experience, at least – before jumping to conclusions. Blogging is not a part time job. Unless you want a part time job that will pay you nothing.

So, the most important thing about playing the game of blogging is to know your availability.

Know Your Expertise

The second thing that’s very important after your physical availability is your expertise. You gotta be good at something. Even if you’re a stay at home mom, you gotta be good at this: being a stay at home mom. If you’re a programmer, you gotta be good at programming. If you write about self-improvement, be honest about what it takes to be in the self-improvement field.

Why is that so important? Again, because of the competition. When you compete against dozens of millions of blogs, you can’t fake it. You can’t pretend you’re a guru in some field and then just copy and paste other people articles. It won’t take you far.

On the contrary, it will take you down pretty fast. One of the most subtle mechanisms of blogging is what I call “reputation”. It’s a very special mix of expertise, trust and persistence. If you’re good at what you do, if you’re honest and you’re writing on your blog for a reasonable amount of time, you’ll get reputation.

And, believe it or not, reputation is the cornerstone of a blogging business. Not traffic. Not AdSense. Not affiliate deals. All of these are just tools or metrics. The core of the business is reputation. That will make your audience buy the products you create or refer. Keep this word in mind: reputation.

And, without, expertise, reputation is literally impossible to be created.

Know Your Audience

The third important thing in the blogging game is your audience. The fundamental difference between the traditional publishing and blogging is the interactive part of it. Blogging is not unidirectional, like a printed magazine. It’s open and alive. You get in touch with your readers instantly, via comments. And they want to talk to you, the real person behind the blog. They don’t want a corporation, they want a regular guy who’s honestly sharing his life. That’s what gives them inspiration, motivation, hope.

At some point during your blogging activity you’ll make a great discovery: you’re not writing for yourself, you’re writing for your readers. As simple and stupid this discovery may seem, it’s an incredible attitude shifter. The moment you’ll realize you’re sharing for other people, you’ll change the way you blog.

You’ll become interested in their needs, rather than in yours. You’ll become interested in their reactions and their attitudes and those reactions and attitudes will become triggers for your next blog posts. You’ll create a multidirectional, alive and useful product. You’ll create a real, significant change in the world. And that’s the only thing that really counts at the end of the day, when all the traffic and revenue stories are told and forgot.

By knowing your audience, you can evaluate your real impact to the world.

Identify Partners, You Can’t Do It Without Them

The fourth most important thing at playing the blogging game is about partnerships. You won’t get far without partnerships. Why? Again, the main answer is competition.

The blogs ecosystem is an incredibly complex web of interactions, links, authority and trends. This web is changing constantly and the chances that you will survive as an isolated blogger are incredibly small. You need a solid team of partners who will support you. Partners that you will support too, enforcing the power of your links in the blogging ecosystem.

But there’s another reason besides competition for partnerships and that’s also about reputation. Many times you’re evaluated by the friends you have rather than by your own deeds. And in such a very complex web like the blogging web, when time is extremely precious, you simply take for granted some references without verifying them. And that’s where your partners are starting to matter big time. They will extend your authority and reputation onto you. And of course, you will extend your own authority and reputation onto them.

The way you’re choosing your partners is also a statement of your own values and sometimes tells more about yourself than what you’re actually doing.

Hydrate Yourself: It’s A Marathon, Not A Sprint

I can’t emphasize enough on this one. Although if you took the time to actually read all the first 4 principles of the blogging game, you should have understand this by now, I’ll say it again anyway: it’s a long, long journey. Whenever you get tired, demotivated, hopeless or just sad, remember you’re not at the end of the journey yet.

Just keep playing the game.

The Master and You

I love gratitude stories. You know the type: a disguised master meets a beginner. With his sharp intuition, the master sees something in the beginner that he didn’t see: a certain talent, a quality or a precious personality trait. And, without revealing his true identity, the master gives the beginners a chance. He points him to a specific direction or just push him to do some work. Make him use his precious, yet hidden talent. In years, the beginners become a new master.

And somewhere near the top of his career, the beginner, now a master, remembers that story and tells it to world: “If it wasn’t for that master, I wouldn’t be here now. He saw something in me that I didn’t. He made me chose my path. Thanks to him, I am now a master, ready to teach others.”

I’m telling you, I’m in love with these stories. That specific moment in which the master sees “through” the other person is the key. That moment is the ignition of a new existence. That subtle moment in which the reality veils are transparent changes an entire life. What’s interesting is that most of the time us, the beginners, don’t even realize that. We just follow somebody’s advice and, magically, everything starts to “click” around us. We’re suddenly on the right path. And we don’t know we actually met a master until 20 years have passed.

Seeing the Invisible

Now, how exactly a master sees “through” a person? Is this specific ability something you learn? Or something you just naturally get when you’re born? Is this a gift? A special talent? I always was curious about that.

Browsing through those gratitude stories, an idea popped out. What if?…

What if the master doesn’t see the invisible? What if the master is not aware of any hidden talent in the beginner? And he’s just planting a seed? Now, that’s something to think about, right?

What if instead of seeing something which is already there, he is just imagining something that could be? Maybe the master is just “seeing” the beginner in 20 years as a master, nothing more. He trust the beginner to become a master. Maybe there’s nothing really special about that beginner and all that’s happening is just a simple, human hope that the master set up for the person in front of him. “Just do that, and everything will be fine with you”, tells the master, and the beginner, relieved and sure that now everything will be fine, start doing what he does best.

The more I read those gratitude stories about masters and beginners, the more I’m inclined to think that masters are just setting up high expectations. They see something, but what they really see is something which is not there. Yet. It’s just a hope, a potential. In the end, it’s the beginner’s hard work which makes that hope real, not that hidden quality.

Meet Your Master

If there’s nothing magic about those masters, if they’re human just like us and they don’t need anything supernatural to “see”, it means we can play a little game. If all you need to be a master is to set a high hope, why don’t just do it yourself? Like right now.

Let’s start a game in which the players are you and the future you.

Pretend you’re the master. Play this role. Look at yourself and “see” something you want to become. The person you’ll be in 20 years from now. How is that person? Happy? Balanced? Successful? You’re the master, you can “see” that person anyway you want. You’ll make a difference around you? You’re going to create something fantastic? See it. Remember, you are the master, you can see it.

And once you focused on that image, just tell to yourself that everything will be fine. “Just do your best and everything will click around”. And keep thinking to yourself: “I’m the master and I know that for sure”.

All you have to do now is to follow the master’s advice. Start doing your best, relieved and sure that everything will be fine.

As innocent as it may seem, this game is really, really powerful. Because it makes you understand the only real difference between you and a life master: the life master knows that everything is possible. That’s the only difference between a beginner and a mentor: the mentor knows through his own experience that there aren’t any limits to what can be accomplished. Maybe he tells you to insist on a certain quality you have, but it’s not that quality which makes you stand out and be successful. It’s your own work and determination and trust.

Nothing is really impossible. Just think about it…

Give Yourself A Chance

What if you are the master who sees something in yourself nobody else’s sees? What if you plant a seed so valuable yet so hidden in you that, within years of constant effort and work, will make you the master of your own life? Why don’t you give yourself a chance?

20 years from now, near the top of your career, you’re going to tell one of those gratitude stories I love so much: you’re going to thank to yourself.

How To Get From A To B In 5 Random Steps

When I was a teenager I spent a lot of time by myself. I don’t think I was the only one, by the way, being socially impaired is common stuff among teenagers these days. And I’m sure it was like this for centuries.

During those lonely moments my mind started to invented games. Maybe to avoid boredom, maybe to prove myself that spending time alone was a good thing (which wasn’t, of course). Thing is that out of this rather strange period of my life emerged one of the most challenging, useful and fun self improvement techniques I ever experienced.

It’s called “how to get from A to B in 5 random steps” and it works like this: you pick two words, which are the start point and the endpoint. Those words can represent things, concepts, actions, whatever your want. Then you force your mind to find 5 ways to get from A (the start point) to B (the endpoint). Those 5 steps must have something in common but they aren’t forced to follow any logical blueprint. You are the one who creates the connection between the steps. Doesn’t matter if it’s something very personal, as long as it does retain a semantic link along the way. And you must go through only 5 steps, not 4, not 6. A chain of 5 semantic links between 2 concepts.

Sounds a little bit more complicated than it is. So, I’m going to give you 3 short examples (and yes, that means I still do this):

From Cheese to Car

1. Step one starts from realizing that cheese come from milk. Number one word is “milk”.
2. Step two acknowledges that milk comes largely form cows (it can also comes from sheep, but I chose cows). Number two word is “cow”.
3. Cows are eating grass, of course. Number three word: “grass”.
4. One of the most simple pleasures in life is to walk barefoot on the grass. Number four word: “barefoot”.
5. One of the most funny images I recall from being a child is Fred and Barney, barefoot, driving their Stone Age cars. Which leads us to the final word: “car”.

cheese -> milk -> cow -> grass -> barefoot -> car.

From Red to Leg

1. The first thing that comes to my mind is from Karl May’s Winnetou (one of my favorite heroes) and it’s a red skin Indian. Which makes the first word “Indian”.
2. But you can’t really picture an Indian without making room in the picture for a bunch of cowboys. Word number two: “cowboys”.
3. And where the cowboys used to live? Of course in the “wild wild west”, which is step number three.
4. That “wild wild west” was the beautiful background for one of the largest quests in modern history: the quest for gold. Word number four: “gold”.
5. And what can you make with gold: a bracelet for a leg. Which leads us to the final word, “leg”.

red -> Indian -> cowboys -> wild wild west -> gold -> leg

From Squirrels to Diamonds

1. Squirrels are nuts for nuts, right? Word number one: “nuts”.
2. And nuts are usually found in the forest, right? Let then Forrest Gump join in. Step number two: “Forrest Gump”.
3. I will never forget how Forrest lives a wonderful life owning a bunch of apple shares, at the end of the movie. Step number  three: “apple”.
4. And what Apple did in such a way that it completely changed the market game? Iphones, of course. Step number four: “iphones”.
5. An iphone isn’t trendy enough if you don’t put a shiny and completely useless diamond case around it. And that leads us to the final word: “diamonds”.

squirrel -> nuts -> Forrest Gump -> apple -> iphones -> diamonds

I think you now got the idea. Getting from A to Be in 5 random steps is really fun. I used to do this a lot and as I already told you I still do it from time to time.

But doing this for fun was just like the visible part of an iceberg. Deep down, under water, serious things happened, slowly. After a few years I realized that behind this technique was a huge potential. Of course, I had access to this potential all the time, but never at a conscious level. It was hidden in a shiny, useless game. But at some point I realized that the real power of this technique appears the moment you understand that A’s and B’s can be anything you want. Like real things. In your real life.

Replacing The Ends

Now let’s take it serious for a moment. Let’s replace the A’s and B’s with real life situations. Like making A your current situation and B the future, desired situation. Your medium term goal. Let’s say you want to get from broke (A) to rich (B). Or from sad (A) to cheerful (B). Or from single (A) to a happy relationship (B). Ups, that’s a huge shift, isn’t it? Now those random steps are all of a sudden incredible doors to new opportunities, right? Those mental connections are creating new paths. Real paths for real things.

Take a break and think for a while. Try to identify your A’s and B’s. Try to see what you don’t like right now (the A’s) and how would you like it to be in an ideal world (B’s). Put your A’s and B’s on a piece of paper in front of you and try to go from start to end in 5 random steps. Above all, make it fun. Make it like going form squirrel to diamonds, or from red to leg. Don’t let your mind chose a walked path. Let it free, wandering and making surprising choices. That’s the spirit. Now you’re having fun, right?

Seriously Playing

There are at least 4 huge benefits of this apparently innocent and useless game.

1. There Is No Correct Way

There is only your way. Too often solving a problem is becoming impossible because we’re trying to apply correct, or proven techniques. Well, “correct” doesn’t work all the time. If it’s proven, it only means it worked in the past, there is no guarantee it will work again. But out of habits we prefer to froze our mental paths and chose only what was once sure. Playing this game will unfroze those patterns. Will make you understand that there is no “correct” way. There is only one way. Your way.

2. It’s Your Life

Since the base rule of the game is to create a meaningful connection from one point to another, but only from your own life experience, it will strengthen your own universe. Maybe you would have chosen something different at the squirrel and diamonds exercise. I chose Forrest Gump. Because in my universe Forrest Gump has a special place. Or so I think. In your own universe there might be someone or something else. This is why your own life is precious. Nobody else can have it. Enjoy it. Respect it. It’s your life.

3. Train Your Brain For Opportunities

Playing this game will shift your brain behavior in ways you never experienced. I’m not joking. And I’m not exaggerating either. If you constantly fracture your reality in random ways in order to get from A to B, your brain will start to see things it never saw before. Because you’re actually training it for that. You’re forcing your brain to see new stuff and incorporate it in your thinking patterns. The most visible consequence of practicing this game for several months is that you will start to actually spot opportunities around you. Real life opportunities.

4. Prepare For The Unknown

If it’s random, it can’t be predicted, right? It’s unknown. And practicing the unknown in a controlled environment will make you better at facing the unknown in an uncontrolled environment, which basically is what we call real life. If you’ll encounter some strange, unpredictable situations in your projects, well, you’re going to react with a lot of less stress than usual. Hmm, yes, it happens. It’s that randomness, you know? Facing the unknown and reacting to it on the spot is part of life. Actually, is one of the best parts of life.

Can You Do It?

Now, really, can you do it? I think it will be fun. I’m going to poke some of my preferred fellow bloggers and see if they will respond to this and how. So, basically I’m challenging them to write a post with (or about) how to get from A to B in 5 random steps. Might be an example, an exercise, several exercises, whatever. Just for fun. Steven, Mike, Jonathan, Stephen, Kristy, Bunny, Luciano, Steve are you in? Really look forward to see your mental connection from whatever A’s and B’s are crossing your minds right now.

Oh, by the way, if you’re not among the poked bloggers but  you do want to join, don’t be shy. Just write your own A to B in 5 random steps post and link back here, so we all know what you’re up to. And let the randomness begin. And the awesomeness. As one of my dearest virtual friends once said, there’s no charge for awesomeness. And that friend would be Kung Fu Panda, of course.

Working Out Your Money Muscles

Playing the money game is something really fun, when you do it with an easy heart. And by that I mean that whenever you focus only on the money part and lose the game part you derail yourself from a path of joy and learning. Making money is just something you do in the process of creating value. The focus must always be at creating value, not at money.

In today’s post I’ll share some of my money game experiences, I will show how money can be compared with a fitness workout and I’ll take a closer look at one very scary notion related to money, and that would be debt.

The Money Game

For me money is just a source of energy. I wrote about that before so if you want to know how you can make money with a purpose, just go and read that post and return here a little later. If you already read it, than you know what I mean: each time you interact directly with money, you break an energy flow. And direct interaction with an energy flow can be really dangerous. You should consider using switches for manipulating money, the same way you manipulate switches for electricity, in order to light your room or make it warmer.

Money is just a part of a game, is something you use in the process, is not the process itself, nor the goal of your actions. People tend to forget this and they do it especially when one part of the game become a little naughty: when they are caught in debt.

Debt and win are just two faces of the same coin (ironically, I use a money object in order to describe a money concept). If you win money in the process of creating value that simply means you have more resources than you had in the beginning. If you used more money than you had at a certain point, well, you just created a debt. The problem with debt is that is very often perceived like a threat or a burden. And it surely is, as long as you don’t know the value you created with that debt. If you used that money in order to build something, you created a certain value. (If you didn’t and just spend it on a shallow lifestyle, well, that’s another problem and your debt should really be a problem for you.) But if you created value, your only question is:

Is my created value bigger than my debt?

If the answer is “yes”, you’re on the safe side, and the money game is working for you. If the answer is “no”, well, you should do your best to create more value.

That’s what makes the difference between successful people and losers. Successful people know all the time if their created value exceeds or not their financial debt. And most of the time, that value is well over the debt. Losers (sorry for the term, but it’s the most appropriate term I found for this category) never know where their created value is compared with their debt. At the first sign of a debt they consider something is wrong and stop doing everything, start complaining, become irrational or simply run away. (more…)