7 Things I Learned From My 5 Year Old Girl

A few weeks ago it was Bianca’s 5th birthday. As always, each year I write a post about what I learned from her during the last year. If you want to read the previous posts, here they are, in order for one, two, three and four year anniversaries.

1. Diplomacy Is Easy

Last year Bianca’s mother and I parted ways. For me it was an incredibly relieving and lightening event and I’m increasingly happy with this new context of my life. But for Bianca there were a few difficult situations. Although I do my best to keep a normal communication flow with her mother, glitches are occurring every now and then. I can’t control those glitches (being only one part of the discussion). The only thing I can do is to manage them. But at some point I realized something absolutely incredible: Bianca was actually helping me around. In a “childish” and selfless way, of course. Every time I had one of those glitches, she was doing her best to smooth things out. Again, I don’t think it was a conscious plan. I think she is just learning how to handle both me and her mother in this new context. And she’s doing this with a fantastic sense of diplomacy. I literally learned from her when and how to talk and when and why to shut up in a variety of situations. And I’m still learning this.

2. If You Don’t Know, Ask Around

Last year was the year of “why?” questions. I already told you that she is a diplomate. But that only means she is picking the right time to ask his gazillion questions she had to ask, not that she is not asking at all. I had to answer, as usual, the weirdest questions you can imagine, but that only made me realize how powerful this option is. When you don’t know something, just go around and ask. Don’t guess. Don’t imagine. Say out loud what you don’t know or what you don’t understand, or what you think is wrong. Chances are that your questions will be answered sooner than you think.

3. Being Happy Doesn’t Need A Reason

Bianca is happy about everything. Of course, there are contexts which are not pleasant for her, as for anybody else. For instance, every time we split after the time we spend together, she is sad. But after she finished with this separation sadness, she’s happy again. She expressed what she had to express (and I never try to refrain her from doing that) and then she returns to her natural state. Which is being happy just about everything. Too often we forget that. Too often we prefer to cling on our own sadness, or anger or frustration long after the cause of whatever bad feelings we had disappeared. And in this process we create tons and tons of reasons for hating our life. And we forget that we don’t need reasons for being happy. Happiness is an unreasonable state of our being. It’s also the fundamental state of our being.

4. Adaptation Is Evolution

In the separation process Bianca had to deal with a lot of changes. She moved away from her house, she changed school and she had to cope with a lot of new persons from her mother new or old circle of friends. But she coped with this incredibly well. Sometimes I think she has some magic powers that she summons every time she needs to overcome something in front of her. But then I realize we all have these powers, we all have this incredible ability to adjust and adapt, we just have to find it and let it manifest. After I identified this ability in Bianca I soon realized that I had this too. And so the processes of reverting back to parts of my old life I lost in the last 5 years or reinventing parts of my new life started to unfold much faster than before. I hardly remember how I lived just a few months ago. And when I do, I hardly recognize the reasons for living the way I used to.

5. Thirst For Learning

During last year she started to learn how to write and read. And she’s doing it like all the time. This isn’t like she has some time for doing her homework and then going back to “play”. She is learning every single second and her curiosity never stops. Somehow, she finds a way to enjoy and mentally devour every single piece of new information that enters her horizon. She learns lyrics from radio tunes. She plays small dialogues. She tells stories about her friends at school. Every single second she learns. And whenever I’m with her I refill my curiosity too. As adults, we lost this. We think we know everything. We weakened our curiosity muscle and let boredom conquer everything we have inside.

6. Test Newcomers

Bianca is never engaging into direct interactions. The first few seconds are for testing. Yes, this is against social norms. When somebody is saying “hello” to you, the norm is stating that you should instantly reply with a “hello” too. Well, Bianca doesn’t really give a damn about this norm. And I’m so happy that she doesn’t. She only engages in new interactions (if she engages at all) after at least 20-30 seconds of attentive research. This initial period of testing is so important for any new encounter we have. We give in to social games and we move forward based on dry convention and not on our own feelings about the other person. Sometimes I think my life would have been completely different if only I would take the time to test all the newcomers in my life, just as Bianca does.

7. The Will To Win

Lately, we started to play games together more and more. She really wants to win. As I am more of a “just playing the game is good enough” type of guy, her attitude is a very good reminder to pursue the winning game. Yes, the journey is the destination, but winning every once in a while, focusing on the victory, well, that’s something that pushes us forward. And Bianca really a has a lot of this. Every time after I finish a game in which she won, I carefully study her joy. And, little by little, I start to incorporate this desire to win too. Yes, being in the game is what counts.

But boy, that victory feels so good, isn’t it?

Finding Your Inner Monkey

Following up my first post in 2011, in which I declared that all I want in 2011 is to tame twelve monkeys, a lot of friends or blog readers seemed to really pick up this notion. I received a lot of wishes in the form of “good luck with your monkeys” or something along those lines. People seemed to be nicely impressed with this approach.

But reading between the lines I realized that there might be a little bit of confusion surrounding this. As a matter of fact, I think there is a lot of confusion. People seem to think this is something rather funny. Well, it’s not something funny. It’s not like going to zoo on a Sunday afternoon. It’s a twelve months long challenge! Maybe using the word “monkey” made everybody think I’m just fooling around.

Well, I’m not. So I decided to write a separate blog post on this topic.

What Is A “Monkey”

An inner “monkey” is a drastically undeveloped part of yourself. You may think at it like a long term goal which was never attained. Or like a deeply buried dream you never dared to dream until the end. Or something you declared to yourself you’re going to follow up through, but never did.

A “monkey” is a goal frozen in its evolution. Like a genome which was never able to reach the human form. It was only strong enough to mimic its human shape but at the core level it’s just an unfinished project.

That’s the first part of a “monkey”. It’s about its lack of completion and unfinished nature. But there is more about it.

There is also this part which is wild and playful. Whenever you start dreaming at something you’re in a playful state. You don’t have constraints or deadlines. You’re just projecting a desired reality. You’re playing. Like a monkey jumping from one tree to another.

This wild nature of a monkey is something precious. In the first stages of any dream we have we’re enthusiastic and playful. Just like a monkey jumping around. That part is somehow lost until we eventually finish the project. Somewhere along the way we forget how to dream. We loose our initial enthusiasm. We may reach the human stage, but our inner “child” is dead.

Why Taming A “Monkey”

And here’s where my approach is different. I don’t want goals. Those goals will kill the initial playful phase. Will take away the enthusiasm. I don’t want to transform that monkey into a human being. All I want is to tame it. To make that monkey obey my wishes and commands. But at the same time to keep its playful nature and to fool around with it, if this is what I want. It’s like having a pet. A monkey pet.

Goals are ok. Reaching goals is a very fulfilling thing to do. I myself wrote dozens of posts on goal reaching. But taming monkeys is something completely different. It’s an attempt to complete and refine that underdeveloped part of yourself, but at the same time to keep its wild, playful and enthusiastic nature.

How To Identify A “Monkey”

Theory is nice, but let’s get practical. How to identify a monkey? Well, this is what I use. It’s just a list of 5 simple questions.

1. Is It Something That Is Dragging Around For A Long Time?

For instance, you cannot say you’re having a “monkey” if you just started a new, exciting project. That’s not a monkey because it’s too “young”. A monkey should have a long evolution within yourself.

2. Is It Something Inspiring?

It cannot be close to your real nature if it’s not inspiring you. Take the time to think at it for a while. If it’s a very precious dream you had, something that is making you smile when you think at it, then you’re on.

3. Is It Something That You’re Afraid To Take Action On?

Sometimes, those unfinished parts of ourselves seem to be suspended in a realm of non activity. It’s like you’re afraid to take action on it because it will break the pleasure of just dreaming about it. Well, if that’s the case, you got yourself a monkey.

4. Is It Something Personal?

It’s gotta be personal. It’s gotta be something that is somehow inside of you. Originated within your deepest, most personal layer. If it’s just a task you’re avoiding to do at your job, well, that’s not a monkey. It’s plain ol’ procrastination.

5. Is It Something That You’ll Still Enjoy Having After You’ll “Finish” It?

Remember that you’re going to manage that monkey. If it’s just something you want “now” and forget about it, well, this is not a “monkey”. It’s just a desire. But if you know you’ll enjoy having and playing with that thing, well, you got yourself a monkey.

How To Tame A Monkey

This paragraph is a work in progress. I don’t know now how to tame a monkey (yet) because I just started. All I know is that this month’s “monkey” is an app I wanted to publish on the AppStore for a long time.

I think there are at least 6 months since I decided I will publish it, but didn’t write a single line of code. So yes, question #1, “is it dragging for a long time”, the answer is “yes”. Also, it’s something that is very inspiring for me. It’s an app that will allow people to connect to each other in a completely new way (that was question #2).

For some reason, I was always afraid to take action on it. Because, at the technical level, there were some black spots on my knowledge map. And I was afraid to explore those spots. Question #3, of course.

As for questions #4 and #5, you can bet it’s a personal thing and it’s also something that I will have to manage for at least one year, if not more. So, my monkey was completely identified.

Back to the taming. I’m working on it and the monkey is starting to respond to some commands. But we’re far from having a complete response. I will update my status in a few days.

Also, the good thing is that I have a wonderful time doing it. This is a very playful monkey.

Life Is A Pitch. And Then You Win

I can’t take credit for this title. At least, not for the whole title, only for the second part. The first part is actually the name of an event at which I was invited just a few days ago. It was a four hours long event dedicated to young entrepreneurs, specifically web entrepreneurs. I was part of the panel and my job there was to give to the attendees as much info as I could about how they could make a pitch as interesting as possible for a potential investor.

Interestingly enough, at the same time I was part of a larger event, Venture Connect (briefly wrote about it here). In this one I played even a bigger part, as a board member, evaluating businesses which expressed their interest in receiving a funding round. To make a long story short, we selected 11 online business to be presented in front of an audience formed by investors. One of the things I did the other day was to train the selected entrepreneurs. What was the training about? Pitching, of course.

As much as I want to talk about these events in greater detail, I won’t do it. Simply because I want to talk about something else.  But I won’t leave this topic without saying that Life Is A Pitch was just a small part of the biggest event dedicated to the online industry in Romania, NetCamp. I am still involved in this event, both as a board member in Venture Connect and as a speaker, I will have a presentation in the last day.

Now, let’s get back to our pitch problem. Why is a pitch important? What is a pitch, anyway? And what exactly you can get out of a successful pitch?

A Little Bit Of Background

3 years ago I decided it’s time to sell my business. It took me about 14 months from the start to end. I pitched my business in front of 7 potential investors and entered in negotiations with 2 of them. Both went up to the due diligence process but in the end only one remained.

Looking back at the entire succession of events I can see now that the most important part was the first one: the pitching. That part carried the seeds of the entire process. The unfolding of all phases was contained on that  initial spark.

What Is A Pitch?

In short, a pitch is an opportunity, limited in time and space, which will create a positive disruption in your current status-quo. Two parts agree to evaluate a situation (in this case, a business) and, if they come up with a common plan, they put the basis of a transaction which will transform that situation in a better one. For both parts. The pitcher will receive support (financial, logistic, know-how) and the investor will receive an amplifier for this money.

A successful pitch will have to give a consistent answer to the following 5 questions:

1. What is my business about and how I make money? Product or service description.
2. Who am I and who is in my team? Skills, experience, organizational culture.
3. What is my market? Where do I move and how this market looks like.
4. What makes me different? My unique approach and added value.
5. Why should somebody invest his money in my business? A very concise answer. Investors don’t have time.

As simple as it seems, many experienced entrepreneurs are shifting away from the basis and try all sort of spectacular approaches, hoping that they’ll catch the investor eye for a second more than the last pitcher. Well, they didn’t. As a matter of fact, the more complicated, convoluted and elaborated a pitch is, the lower the chances to get a one to one conversation with the investor. Big part of my training the other day was about keeping the entrepreneurs on the “keep it simple, smarty” track.

And one of the things I kept saying to them was about a success story we had at the first edition of the event. It was about a job-related business which received 500.000 EUR in funding after they participated at the event. Their pitch was dead simple and confident.

How To Make A Life Pitch

After the training session, while I was driving home, something hit me. A thought was circling into my mind, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. And all of sudden, I realized it in a simple and incredibly powerful sentence: if you ask properly, you will receive. I know, I know, I had the same reaction. The religious approach of “ask and you shall receive”, (which, by the way, is not only in the Cristian Church). All that blah-blah from the Law Of Attraction. It all comes down to this, after all. The way you ask. Or, in other words, the way you pitch your “investor”.

As I got home, I started to look again at those questions and realized that they are applying almost unchanged to any life pitch you can make. When you ask for help. When you ask for divine support. Or, if you prefer, when you invoke the Law Of Attraction (substitute the receiver of your pitch with whoever you’re comfortable with). A prayer is just another word for a pitch in front of a benevolent investor, who is able to put his good will into your life. Changing your life for good, putting it on a new track. So, you’d better be prepared when you’re ready to face this “investor”. You don’t want to lose the next round of your life financing because you made a lousy pitch.

So, here are the re-written guidelines for a life pitch.

1. What is my personal mission statement? What do I actually do in this life. People have a hard time to understand what they really do in their life. What is their direction. Where do they actually go. Because you can really set sail to some destination and get there. That’s what a personal mission statement does (among other things).
2. Who are the people I love the most and what makes us powerful together? You’re not traveling alone. Never. You carry around people who are precious to you in many ways. People you love. People that makes your life worthwhile living.
3. Who are the beneficiaries of my actions? What is the life market in which I’m acting right now? That’s a very important answer. Too many times we forget who are the people who get the hit when we blow up something. Or who are the people who get the benefits of what we call work. They’re very, very important. Because they can validate us.
4. What is my unique contribution to this world? How do I create value? What is my unique selling proposition. How do I put this into a phrase? Am I the cleverest guy on the planet? The nicest? The most lovable? Take an honest look at yourself and find what makes you different. Even if that was the most difficult thing to bear for you. Or especially because of that. Too often, your biggest liability is in fact your biggest asset.
5. Why should I be worthy of living a better life? Be brief. The “investor” is incredibly astute and he’s also short on time. There are so many others pitching their own life pitches as we speak.

Just try to give a consistent and coherent answer to all of these. In the comments, if you want. On your own blog, if you have one (just send a link back so I know about you). And let me know if you got your “one to one” conversation with your “life investor”.

And also, if you actually received the funding your life need to make that huge, positive disruption.

7 Magical Ways to Use Curiosity as a Personal Development Tool

This is a guest post by Makenzie Kelly, @makenziekelly.

“Judge a man by his questions rather than answers”, Voltaire

Some say curiosity killed the cat.  I say what doesn’t kill the cat, makes it stronger!

Curiosity has been classified as a nice-to-have attribute of a person; it definitely hasn’t been a reinforced attribute by our education system because some feel curiosity may not really serve a purpose.

“It is amazing that curiosity survives formal education” Einstein

Yet, Einstein and other notable scholars have developed entire theories, solved unsolvable equations, and come up with amazing solutions to our world’s problems by solely being curious. How does curiosity work?

• Curiosity allows us to ask questions
• Curiosity is innocent, so we can be curious about anything, there are no limits
• Curiosity allows exploration
• Curiosity has no room for judgment
• Curiosity spurs amusement and fun

How can you use curiosity to further your personal development?

1. Ask A Lot Of Questions

And don’t just ask questions that have easily solvable answers.  I remember my son at five years old once asked me, “Mommy, why do I always confuse my left and right, but I never confuse my up and down?”  Such a simple question, but the answer befuddled me…and the question was a valid one.  Questions in their simplest form draw our attention to a problem, and then curiosity starts digging into the problem.

2. Use Curiosity To Melt Resistance

If you are meeting resistance in a certain area in your life, get curious.  If you are angry, sad or bitter, get curious about why you‘re having those feelings. Curiosity does a funny thing and melts away your self-judgment about the issue at hand that may be bothering you.

3. How Can I?

When you are faced with a problem, use your curiosity, start asking questions and wonder “How Can I” solve this problem.  When we get our mind out of reactive mode, get curious about the resolution, our mind reacts more positively and we can intuit more comprehensive solutions.

4. Let Your Mind Run Unhindered

Start writing down your questions and let your mind run free.  Sometimes the more curious we become, the more the questions can freely flow out of our head onto paper.

5. Engage Your Subconscious In A Conversation

Curiosity is a tool to our subconscious.  We don’t like being judged, neither does our subconscious.  But we do like it when people ask questions about us and engage us in conversation.  This is exactly what we do to our subconscious when we get curious, we engage it in a conversation.

6. Reframe Your Problems

Realize that we cannot solve a problem if we don’t know what the underlying question is.  Curiosity helps to frame our problems in such a way that we can answer them.

7. Extinguish Boredom

Ever notice how young children never seem to be bored? Their minds are jumping from one exploration to the next, hands and feet in tow.  Their insatiable curiosity about the world eliminates boredom.  In fact, I doubt that boredom even exists in their cognition!

Curiosity is so innocent, and often overlooked as a useful tool for personal development.  We tend to want to beat ourselves over the head with perfecting our existence on this earth.  Instead of trying to be perfect at bettering yourself, try just being curious.  What can you get curious about?

Makenzie Kelly is a Time Rescue ™ Expert and Avidly Curious about Time!  An entrepreneur and paramedic she retired from a Multi-Million dollar business and give up a 6-figure salary to have more Time and Freedom!  She blogs about Ultimate Lifestyle Design at the Freedom Venture Project ™ Blog.

33 Questions For An Interview With Yourself

Today I’m going to interview somebody really special on my blog. And that would be you. Exactly, you, the one who’s looking at the screen right now. You are a very important person and it’s an honor for me to interview you. I prepared a list of 33 questions and I’m really looking forward to hear your answers.

Yes, this is an interview. With you. Why? Because you’re important, that’s why.

1. What Do You Do For A Living?

You may not know what you’re really doing for a living. You may think you have a job, but you’re actually just selling your time. And that comes down to selling your life. And that means you’re living your life by selling it. And you may not even know that.

2. Who Do You Love?

Is that your partner? Or somebody else? Do you love many persons at once? Just answer as detailed as you can to this one. We never seem to have enough time do really think at the ones we love. We can’t love someone if we forget to think about him.

3. Do You Have Enough Money?

That’s a very important question. You may have less money than everyone else in your group, but still have enough. Or you may have huge amounts of money and yet not enough to make you feel better. How much money do you need in your life?

4. Are You Healthy?

You may  be able to wake up every morning and go to work, but do you think at yourself as being a healthy person? The way you see your health has a huge impact on your reality perception. It’s like applying filters to what’s happening to you.

5. Do You Think You Are a Good Person?

Have you ever wandered what do you think about yourself from this point of view? Maybe we take it for granted that we are inherently good and all the other guys are wrong. But is this really true? Do you really think you are a good person? Why?

6. How Old Are You?

You shouldn’t just open your ID and do some math. It’s not the number of years since you’ve been born that matter here. But mostly how old do you feel you are. What’s your perceived age. Because, believe it or not, this is your real age.

7. Who’s Your Best Friend?

Do you have one? Is he or she still alive? Write his name and think at that person for a while. Write a short description of he or she. Where did you met first time? What were the circumstances? What makes that person your best friend, after all?

8. What’s Your Childhood Dream?

Do you still remember it? You wanted to travel the world? You wanted to just have a family and raise your kids? Is that what you’re doing right now? Has your dream become true? Or are you drifting away from it with every single day of your life?

9. How Often Do You Laugh?

Try to remember exactly how often do you laugh during a day. Is this a difficult thing? Why? Because you laugh so often that you couldn’t remember when was the last time you didn’t had a good laugh? Or because you simply forgot how it is to laugh?

10. What Makes You Smile?

List at least 10 items. If you can’t find 10 items that makes you smile, we have a problem. Don’t rush, take your time. Smiling is different from laughing the same way walking in the park is different from climbing a mountain. You’re just enjoying the walk.

11. Who’s Your Most Dangerous Enemy?

Do you have one? List his/her name here and a short story about how this enemy changed your life. Friends are making us do things for them, but enemies are making us do things because of them. Either way, they’re shaping our life and we must know how.

12. Where Do You Live?

Is this really your place? Do you feel at home there? How did you end up with it, anyway? The story of your house is deeply blended with your own life. Where do you feel at home is the most important place in the world for you. What makes it home?

13. Do You Think You’re Strong?

I would be really curious to know the answer to this one. I love strong people. They have this power to change their life and to create incredible things. What “strong” means to you? It’s a question of force? Or endurance? Of speed? Or intelligence?

14. What Was The Most Important Thing You’ve Done So Far?

Have you really done something important? Something that changed your life fundamentally? Or something that changed somebody else’s life fundamentally? Why was that important? Answer with first thing that pops out in your head.

15. What Was The Most Stupid Thing You’ve Done So Far?

Do you consider you’ve done stupid things in your life? I think everybody does but not everybody admits that. Most of the people blame the circumstance, the karma, the others, everyone except them. Do you have the power to accept you’ve done a really stupid thing?

16. Do You Love Yourself?

Like really, truly accepting everything about you. Does it happen to hate yourself? Most people do that without even being aware. Just answer the first thing that pops to your head, again. Usually, this is exactly how you feel about yourself.

17. What Do You Fear The Most?

That might be difficult. But also liberating. Your biggest fear is most of the time your escape door, if you face it with enough courage. Can you think at something that scares you really hard? Maybe answering to this question will really frighten you?

18. What Is Your Favorite Word?

You must have one, everybody does. It might be the one you’re saying all day long without realizing or it might be something that really makes you feel good when you’re telling it. Most of the time, there’s an unconscious link between your true self and this word.

19. When Was The Last Time You Cried?

Admit it. Everybody cries. Men, women, kids. It might be something you’re not very proud of, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happened. What was so powerful that really cracked you up inside? Think about it and let it emerge again. Make peace with it. If you can.

20. What Is The Best Thing That Could Happen To You Right Now?

In this exact context, what’s the only thing that could shift your entire existence if it will manifest right now? Many people tend to give a certain amount of money as a number, but in my experience this will only maximize the problems, not making them go away.

21. What Is The Worst Thing That Could Happen To You Right Now?

Again, what’s the only thing that could negatively impact your life right now in a way that you wouldn’t believe it’s possible? Between those two possibilities lies your entire lifespan. How is this lifespan? How large is your road are you traveling now?

22. Picture Yourself In 5 Years From Now

Not really a question, but definitely an interesting answer. Can you see yourself in 5 years from now? How would you look? How would you behave? You would do the same things are you doing right now? Don’t write a full story, a single, concentrated sentence would be enough.

23. Do You Regret Anything?

If yes, what exactly? If not, why not. Regrets are usually strings we didn’t pull entirely from our past, leaving us tied up to a context which is not longer real. Facing your regrets will reveal parts of yourself you thought you forgot. Important parts of yourself.

24. What’s The First Thing You Do In The Morning?

Just after you open your eyes. Is it a thought? Is it a gesture? We all tend to create a morning routine and it seems that this routine is shaping our entire diurnal activity. Have you ever thought what is the first thing you do in the morning?

25. What Are You Thinking Just Before Going To Bed?

Similarly, before you go to bed, you do have preferred thought. What is it? What makes your transition to the sleeping world without any major frictions? What’s your password to the dream realm? What if you would lose this thought suddenly?

26. What Was The Highest Point You’ve Ever Been To?

Was it a mountain? Or a huge city tower? Whatever feels high for you should go there. I don’t want to know the difference from the sea level, but what exactly you experienced on the highest perceived point you’ve ever been? Fear? Exhilaration?

27. If There’s One Thing In Your Life You Want To Change Right Now, What Is It?

Imagine you met a fairy tale and you have only one wish: you could change only one thing in your life. What is that thing? How would you like to change it? If it wasn’t this absolute power you just received, would you still wanted that thing to be changed?

28. What Are You Proud Of?

What is the only thing you’ve done that will instantly make you feel totally and undeniably proud of yourself? When you did that? What were the circumstances? Would you still do the same thing now?

29. Sum Up Your Life In One Sentence

If in the next 10 seconds your life will end, how would you describe it? Just one sentence for your entire life. Can you do that? You only have 10 seconds, so you can consider this a speed question.

30. Name The Thing That Annoys You The Most

Is this a mosquito humming? The sounds of a knife on a porcelain plate? Or is it people calling you in a certain way? Friends breaking promises? Being stuck in traffic? Try to remain calm while answering.

31. What Is Your No 1 Question To God?

Yes, it’s your interview, but if you would be able to address one question to God, assuming He will answer you, what would that question look like? What is the most important thing you want to know from God?

32. Do You Have Secrets?

If yes, why? If not, are you sure? What is your number one reason for having and keeping secrets? Are you afraid of other people reactions? Ar you ashamed? Or you just love to cover things for the pleasure of re-discovering them later?

33. What Makes You Laugh?

You do have something that instantly puts you in a totally laughing state, do you? There must be something that makes you laugh out loud. What is it? When was the first time you bumped into that thing?

Ok, I lied. There are 34 questions:

34. Are You Happy?

***

Now, here’s the deal. If you blog, feel free to copy and paste this article on your blog (with a link back to the original, of course) and answer each question at a time. Feel free to skip the ones you don’t like or don’t want to answer. But do keep the link back so I can discover you. I told you, you’re important.

If you don’t have a blog, maybe it’s time to start one just to answer this interview. Kidding. Or maybe not . Anyway, if you don’t blog, I made an ebook for you. Don’t worry, the ebook is completely free, no obligation. As a matter of fact, you can download it right here, right now, absolutely free:

33 Questions For An Interview With Yourself (2001)

Just print it out and write the answers at your leisure. Although I wouldn’t know your actual answers, you can leave a comment and just make me aware that you found some time in your busy schedule and completed it. Like this, I know the interview really happened.

Oh, and if you want to offer the ebook as a freebie on your site, feel free to do it, as long as you leave the content completely intact.

So, once again: who can pick this up? The answer is: anyone! You, especially. And you still wonder why? Because you’re important, that’s why.

Thank you so much for your answers. You may not know it now, but you really are an inspiration.

Translations of this post: 33 De Intrebari Pentru Un Interviu. Cu Tine – Marius Sigheti – Romanian | ConcettoEmozioneMusica – Italian

7 Questions To Answer Before Publishing A Blog Post

There was a time when publishing a blog post was easy. Just a few notes, jotted in a rush, a quick spell checking and then hit “Publish”. Well, it’s not anymore. At least for me. Besides the psychological benefits of “letting it all out”, a blog post has a much higher purpose. Again, at least for me.

On this blog alone, I have more than 300 blog posts published. I guess that somewhere around blog post number 200, I came out with a personal filter. A quality assurance system, if you want. At some point, just publishing whatever crossed my mind was not enough anymore, I needed something meaningful. Something that would create an impact, that would represent myself more than just random thoughts, rants or memories.

So, every time I am ready to hit the “Publish” button, I stop and look over those 7 questions. If the answer to all is “Yes”, I go ahead and let the blog post fly. If not, I move the post to the Drafts folder and move on.

1. Is It Useful?

Is this post actually changing something in my reality? Is something that I need to do? Sharing this will make a significant impact in my existence? Is there any way in which this blog post will improve my life? Answering “Yes” to these questions is the fundamental step. Of course, I usually use the short version: “Is It Useful?”

This puts blogging in a wider perspective. It’s not only a safety valve, ready to throw out a lot of internal garbage, shamelessly polluting the blogging ocean, it’s a way to make a difference, to create a better version of you. If you just need a place to puke your mental nausea, just keep a private journal, that will certainly help.

But if you let something out in the wild, you’d better make it count. Make it important for yourself. Make it something you would be proud of. If you post it just to have something out there in the blog, you’d better stop. It won’t make any difference, if you don’t really need it.

2. Is It True?

Every time I think of a blog post, I wonder if it’s something true. Or at least something that I can vouch for as being true. It must be something coming from my own experience. I think this is the fundamental difference between the new media, including the blogging phenomenon, and traditional media.

In blogging, everything you said is marked with your own touch. It’s your own take at things. It’s personal. Even if you talk about some specific news in an industry, adding your own point of view is what makes the blog post worthwhile. And I think I’m using the word “true” mostly as “authentic”.

If it’s not something true, authentic, the blog post will be melting pretty soon. As opposed to the traditional media, when the bare information, served quickly, is what matters, in blogging there’s your own point of view related to something of interest that’s going to promote your message. And the best thing you can do is to write from personal experience.

3. Is It Understandable?

That question is about how the blog post is written. Is it clearly outlined? The sentences are flowing nicely from one each other? Is it clearly described? It’s easy to read? The topic is clear? All those questions combined are giving the level of understandability. If I have trouble understanding what I wrote, I usually delete the whole thing.

Human brain is a fantastic machinery, but as with all machinery, you have to touch the right handles to get the best response. If you want to engage your reader’s brain, you have to send the right messages. You have to combine bare definitions with images and metaphors. You have to balance right brain and left brain triggers.

Making something understandable is not an easy task. But it’s a very rewarding one. And the good news is that once you engage on this path, you’ll become better and better at making things understandable. That in itself it’s a fantastic asset in any area of your life, not only blogging.

4. Does Anybody Else Besides Me Need This?

Are there any other persons who may benefit form it? A very personal story is not always a motivating story. It might be interesting to read but after reading, there’s not much to benefit from it. A blog post should enrich in some way other people too, otherwise, like for the first question, you’ll be much better keeping a private journal.

Many successful bloggers are covering this question with the sentence “write for your readers”. To a certain degree, I agree. You have to keep in mind your readers needs, goals or specific attitudes. But more than that, you have to write something that other people will find beneficial  in some way.

It doesn’t always have to be something funny. You can make your readers benefit from your writing even if you shake them a little. In fact, shaking them – as in shaking their beliefs, theirs ideas and their attitudes – will give them much more value than a funny picture. They may hate you in the beginning but they’ll thank you later.

5. Is It Shareable?

Will your readers feel the need to forward your blog post to other people? That’s one tricky question and I admit I struggled a lot with it in the beginning. There doesn’t seemed to be a clear model for a blog post to be shared and turned into a viral message. But after a while, I discovered some patterns.

First of all, in order to be shared by a lot of people, the blog post must respond a big “Yes” to the first 4 questions. But even if it does, this is not enough. To be shareable, a blog post must be more than useful for you, authentic, understandable and useful for your readers.

It must be written in a certain way. And that way is something that will make the sharer look great. This time is not about you, it’s about the reader. If your blog post will make him look (or be) like a smart, wit or knowledgeable person, he’ll share it. And he’ll be happy to do it.

6. Is It Easy Findable?

But besides word of mouth, which is the most powerful way to be promoted, by the way, your blog post must be found in other ways too. The most popular is search engine. So, before publishing I take some time to do a quick SEO survey on my blog. I don’t try to impersonate the Google bot, and for the sake of your mental health, I don’t advice you to do that either.

What I do, is to verify if there’s enough of a connection between the main topic and the words distribution. This doesn’t involve any complicated math calculus or tools, just a bird-eye read and simple analysis. It’s just like reading it with a simple SEO filter.

Places where I look for SEO hooks are usually (and in this order): post title, post slug, headlines and paragraphs. If there is enough wording matching the idea, I will publish, if not, I make the necessary adjustments, most of the time using synonyms or replacing some parts of the phrases.

7. Did I Enjoy Reading It?

Being the first reader of my blog means also I am the first – and the worst – censor. If I simply don’t like something I wrote, I simply don’t publish.