The goal of reading for learning isn't to make it through as many books as possible in a given amount of time; it's to squeeze meaning and/or inspiration out of them. How to Read a Book is a blueprint for how to do exactly that.
Have you ever wondered which direction to take your content marketing? After finishing up my most recent series of blog posts, I had to make a decision on which direction to take my next series. In addition, it was time to perform an analysis of my overall strategy during the past year. I needed a method of digging up answers to the following questions: Which posts of mine have done well in the...
This week I finished reading Made to Stick by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. The book is centered around six principles of sticky ideas and is geared toward marketers, writers, leaders, coaches… anybody who has ever needed to get a message across.
Job titles, income, social following, successful businesses, free time, attitude about life, physical fitness, excellence at a hobby…These are things that I see other people excelling at over myself daily, and if I’m not careful, comparing myself to them on one of these metrics can potentially strip me of contentment with who I am, and what I am good at.
If you’re following along with the blog, you’ll know that this is week number three of my gainful unemployment. One of the biggest challenges that I’ve had to face this week is maintaining momentum, and knowing exactly what to work on. The former I handle through a mixture of Trello, Evernote, and Google Calendar. One of the biggest tricks, however, is to maintain that momentum–To manage my...
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the BaconBiz conference in Philadelphia. The conference overall was a mind grenade of great advice and inspiration. One of the key concepts that kept coming up was the idea of focusing on benefits when writing about your product, and not just the features. For example, which is the more compelling reason to continue checking out a product?:
I have a pretty busy life. With 4 children under 5 years old, and a wife who works in the evenings, when I’m not working at my day job, I’m changing diapers, fixing dinner, or cleaning up before my wife gets home, and I head to bed after a little bit of time together to discuss our day. I’ve tried staying up late to get more done, and when I was in my 20s, that was a pretty valid option. However...
Okay, I admit, this post has a double motive. Earlier tonight I was flipping through LinkedIn and was looking at several key businesspeople to follow. One CEO that I admire is Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo! Inc. When I clicked on Marissa’s LinkedIn profile, I noticed that she only had 138 connections. Most CEOs have several thousands of connections, so this was intentional as she is VERY selective...
This is the first of what I hope to be an ongoing list of blogs and websites that I take a few minutes to analyze and pull out useful tips based on what the site creator is doing right. For my first of these types of posts, I turn to Laura Roeder’s successful blog, LKR Social Media.
You start a blog, promising that THIS time you’ll stick to it for one reason or another. You stay strong for a short period, posting regularly…you are loving seeing the posts start to add up. You check your analytics, watching for the hockey stick growth–that never comes.
HI, I'M RYAN. I believe the best way to learn and remember is by writing things down and sharing them with others. This blog exists to help me synthesize and process my journey towards self-improvement.