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It requires a lot of maturity to be aware of your circle of awareness. This is one of the areas where “ignorance is definitely NOT bliss”.

What you want is typically within your circle of awareness.

If “what you need” to reach your goals is outside of this circle of awareness, you may not make an attempt to get it because you just don’t know that such a thing exists.

So what do you do to get in sync?

Here are a few quick options:

1. Read more to increase your awareness: This is probably the lowest cost no-brainer option. Expand your library and you expand your awareness.

2. Find a Mentor: A mentor can help you raise your awareness sometimes slowly but sometimes in just one meeting.

3. Use the right tools: How can you find something you need when you can only search with “what you want”? That’s where tools like Rawsugar will come in.

4. Attend Events that stretch your imagination: If you have never been to a museum, go and visit one. If you have never been to an art exhibition go to one. Be curious and go there with an open mind.

The above are ONLY examples of ways of expanding your circle of awareness. Go ahead and stretch your imagination and find ways to stretch the circle of awareness.

All the best!

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Note 1: For links to the other 195 entries in the “Distinguish yourself†series, please visit my Squidoo lens on the same topic:
Squidoo Lens: Distinguish yourself

Note 2: The first 25 entries in the series have been packaged in a ChangeThis manifesto that was published on September 07, 2005. You can download that manifesto here:
ChangeThis Manifesto: 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself (PDF, Free)

Note 3: My latest manifesto on ChangeThis was published on August 6, 2008. This is a photographic manifesto featuring 15 of my mini sagas (stories in exactly 50 words). Here is the link:

ChangeThis Manifesto: Mini Sagas - Bite Sized Lessons for Life and Business (PDF, Free)

Always insightful Timo Wadhawan at Heartwood Studios shared this gem with me on Saturday.

Think about it as a tourist. You will find what you are looking for. You can be at The Louvre but not know how to enjoy the artwork or you can be at a park and be mesmerized by the trees and birds. You will always find what you are looking for.

You can easily extend this to our life. In a way we are tourists to this world and we will JUST find what we are looking for.

So, may be, MAY BE you are here because you are where you are JUST because you were looking to be there

There are so many things “to do” to grow your blogging empire. Search the internet and you will find a ton of advice. I have got here nine things that you should “not do” on your journey to blogging success.

So, here they are:

1. Mediocre participation:

2. Demonstrating Fake loyalty

3. Making Costly Requests

4. Engaging in Armchair Analysis:

5. Fake Identity:

6. Showing Authority without Credibility:

7. Attempted Takeover:

8. Endless Argument:

9. Copying content without Attribution:

All the best and have a great week ahead!

Trying to create a Yahoo! id for my son and these are the captcha challenges that I encountered. There were more complex ones in the beginning but I started captured a few of them:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

If you feel like being challenged today, why not try to create a Yahoo! Id for yourself?

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Note: For other 39 posts in the same series, please visit my Squidoo Lens on the same topic. Here is the link:
Squidoo Lens: Smile Please

Talked about an example of creativity very recently. Here is one more brilliant example

This is the photo from a recently concluded iSummit. Please watch the art work in the background. It is not part of the building.

This was a painting on the canvas created by attendees.

Real-time design crowdsourcing at it’s best.

Source: Flickr

Thanks to my friend Kiruba Shankar for pointing this out. I love it!

I am looking forward to the Services Industry Summit  Oct 6-8, 2008 at Las Vegas. I am the keynote speaker on the morning of Oct 7 and will be speaking on the topic called “The Fulcrum Effect”

A quick overview of talk is here:

The talk will include a few excerpts from my upcoming book

“BRANDTASTIC!”
Personal Branding 2.0

I am looking forward to meeting with the attendees who are all involved in leading Technology Professional Services Oraganizations.

I love this video on sticky notes. It is simply brilliant. Hats off to Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, the people behind Eepybird (creators of the video). The video is sponsored by OfficeMax and I am sure they are VERY happy with what Eepybird has produced. Simply brilliant!

EepyBird’s Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

The lesson here is that you don’t need a lot of things to demonstrate creativity. Why wait then?

Hat Tip: My friend Gerry Riskin

I love this mini saga (a story told in exactly 50 words) by Sterling.

Sterling is our Vistage Chair and has been one of my mentors for a LONG time. I am fortunate and thankful for that and this contribution.

Photo Courtesy: My friend Suresh Gundappa from Meditation Photography

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Note:

1. A mini saga is a story told in exactly 50 words. Not 49 or 51 but exactly 50.

2. You can download a photographic manifesto of Mini Sagas at ChangeThis. Here is the link - Mini Sagas: Bite-sized Wisdom for Life and Business (PDF, 2.9MB).

3. For a complete list of Mini Sagas, please visit the Squidoo lens “Mini Sagas“

I am using a personal example here but I have talked on this topic to MANY people and the experience has been the same.

Today I received a mail from an acquaintance. It was a long email about a milestone that their organization achieved. It included a detailed explanation of what the milestone was with quotes from company executives in all colors. Overall what could be said in one sentence was said in more than a page.

Remembering from earlier emails from this contact, I have never received anything in the past that was not a “Me Mail”.

There has been never anything that is of relevance to me.

Unfortunately from now on, I will move this contact to a “Me Mail” list.

I have a few other acquaintances who are in this list. All their emails are detailed descriptions of something that is
a) relevant to them
b) totally irrelevant to me

They are all on the “Me Mail” list.

Now, what do I do with the emails from people on the “Me Mail” list.

The answer is simple - Nothing.

Nothing at all.

I don’t have to bother to read them anymore because I am “almost certain” that there will be nothing of relevance to me in their emails.

Emails are usually read. MeMails are usually discarded.

I have talked to a number of people that I respect and their strategy, while not exactly same is similar on these topics.

Do NOTHING!

I am sure you are not one of the people who are sending MeMails. If you are, then I BEG you to stop sending them.

And, may be, MAY BE start sending YouMails

Cheers and have a great week ahead!

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Note 1: For links to the other 194 entries in the “Distinguish yourself†series, please visit my Squidoo lens on the same topic:
Squidoo Lens: Distinguish yourself

Note 2: The first 25 entries in the series have been packaged in a ChangeThis manifesto that was published on September 07, 2005. You can download that manifesto here:
ChangeThis Manifesto: 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself (PDF, Free)

Note 3: My latest manifesto on ChangeThis was published on August 6, 2008. This is a photographic manifesto featuring 15 of my mini sagas (stories in exactly 50 words). Here is the link:

ChangeThis Manifesto: Mini Sagas - Bite Sized Lessons for Life and Business (PDF, Free)

Blogging Starter Checklist is a lens on Squidoo that I started a few years ago. At that time, it was really a “starter checklist”. It has, of course, grown over the years and many people tell me that it is no longer a “starter checklist”.

It has become a collection of a more than 150 resources and articles on how to get your blog to the next level.

I have updated the checklist once again. In particular, I have added the sections called “Commenting Platforms” and “Spread the word” (for word-of-mouth marketing)

If you know of any other resources that should make the list, please add them in your comments here or on the lens. Thank you.

Here is the link to the lens:

Squidoo: Blogging Starter Checklist

Have a great week ahead!