More and more successful marketers are telling you to be yourself, but they also tell you to be different. It can sound like a contradiction, and in some ways it may be. But, being you IS different. There is no one out there that’s just like you. That automatically makes you different. So, how can you also BE different? Do you find this “being different” thing as elusive as I do? Or maybe I just look too hard?

The only thing I can do is present things like I would present them and hopefully that makes me different. I’ve struggled with this blog for quite awhile. Yes, my own damn blog. (yes, I used the word damn.)You would think it would be simple. It’s Patti Stafford. That’s who I am, but yet, the blog struggles. Why? Because “they” have told me I need to be pick a topic, I need to be an expert and build a target audience. Well, I AM an expert. I’m an expert at being Patti Stafford. She’s full of questions, has very few answers in a lot of things and a lot of answers in a few things.

“They” say you/I should answer questions on the blog. What if I have more questions than answers? Why can’t I just ask questions and maybe a gazillion other people have the same questions and they need to feel like they aren’t alone. They need a place where they can say, “Hey, I have the same questions and the same struggles. I’m so glad I’m not alone in this.” People need that too.

Tiffany Dow has been talking about this a lot lately too. I haven’t let many comments at her blog, because it would turn into a blog post. And, I wanted to share it here.

The truth is, I’m all over the place. I don’t have a specialty (except being me.) Some days I’m into list building, some days it’s salesmanship, some days it’s marketing and some days I’m just a writer with my head stuck in a computer screen. There’s nothing in online business or marketing that’s jumped out, grabbed me by the throat and said, “This is it. This is you. This is what you have to do.” You know what? I’m fine with that. I’m fine with that all day long. The only time I’m not fine with that is when “they” tell me I shouldn’t be fine with that. I need a niche, a field of expertise. Blah! I’ll just be me and post what I want. I hope it helps someone or gives them a laugh or helps them not feel so alone, but I have to be the only expert I can be, and that’s being me.

If you’re struggling to find your niche and your specialty, I have a solution. You be you. I’ll be me. Let’s see if we can’t rock this online world with awesomely cool, real people. (Yes, I do still use words like awesomely cool…but that’s another story from another book I was reading the other day.)

There is one quote I love:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Howard Thurman

Will this lead to great success or great failure? I don’t know, but it sure beats the heck out of trying to be someone I’m not. If being the real me doesn’t win you over, being a fake me sure won’t do it. The same goes for you.

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear your comments or your struggles. If you’re subscribed by email and don’t feel like you want to follow my many directions, I completely understand. There’s an unsubscribe button somewhere. ;)

You can also read my last blog post and see that these things have been on my mind for quite some time: Complacency, Direction, Playing Small, Playing Business

Well that’s some title isn’t it? What does it all mean?

The past few days I’ve been thinking about business, comfort zones, goals, drive, direction, where we’re going or not knowing where we’re going.

Let me give you a little back story to begin with. I’ve “played” at business for quite awhile. This year I decided to get serious and I have made steps forward. I do step out of my comfort zone, but I never really push it. I haven’t taken the time to create a solid business plan, or an actionable plan. It seems I’m always too busy “playing” business to do business. I feel like I have to spend most of my time writing—which is “working” my business and not really “running” it.

Even though I have gotten more focused in recent months, I feel I’m at that stage of being lost again. I need definite plans. I need structure. I need drive.

I was talking to Kevin last night and I was probably berating myself to a point—although I’ve learned over the years not to do that. I was telling him that I don’t push myself. I don’t take massive action. I don’t throw myself out there. And then, more as a side thought and a bit under my breath, I said, “Maybe I’m not desperate enough.”

His reply shocked me a bit, but also solidifies what an awesome husband I have who pays attention to what I do. He may not know about my business, but he does pay attention.

His reply? He said, “That’s what Lynn Terry said. I listened to that show months ago and that comment stuck with me.”

So, my awesome husband watches Lynn Terry TV. How cool is that?
Here’s the video that Lynn made on the subject of complacency—which can be translated as not being desperate enough to go for what you want.

I’m being a bit complacent right now, but I am thinking (and reading about) getting a solid foundation in place. I’ve found some good resources on creating a business plan over the weekend  and for playing a bigger  game.

I recently read, The Barefoot Executive, and while it inspired me, it also started my line of thinking this week; why I don’t play big, or have a solid plan, or know exactly where I’m going (or where we’re going, Kevin and I are a “life” team.)

By not doing that much work related stuff this week, I feel like I’m losing traction, but I also know and feel like I will be more empowered when I actually sit down and create these plans—work through them. Make big decisions. Follow through and take more massive action.

Where are you at in your business? Do you have a solid plan? A solid foundation? An actionable plan? What do you need?

Share your thoughts so we can help each other out. Or feel free to leave some advice—we love advice too.

To your success!
~Patti

P.S. No writing sprints today. We’re being complacent, remember? LOL

I had a really nice birthday. It completely wore me out and has taken a few days to recover.

I don’t have pictures of everything we did. We were too busy to spend the day snapping pics, plus at the Titanic Museum they don’t allow cameras inside. They would have taken our picture using a backdrop, but I wanted a picture of us sitting on the Grand Staircase–not us standing in front of a backdrop of it. Pfft!

There were a lot of rude people there, hogging the displays. It would have been much more enjoyable if they had let smaller groups of people go through. But, it is a business and even though they only allow a certain number each hour, I would have preferred a smaller number.

As you “board” the ship, you are given a card with a name on it and a bit of history. I was Clara Hayes, aged 52. A first class passenger, I might add. Oh yeah! Kevin was Thomas Knowles, one of the crew members. At the end of the tour you get to find out the fate of the passenger’s name you’ve carried. We both survived.

Silver Dollar City

Our big outing was Friday afternoon. We ate at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, and then spent about 5 hours walking around SDC.

I took a few pictures. :)

This first one is a culinary school/class. I mostly loved the azalea bushes, the rose bushes and the house. I could live there.

And here’s another angle of it.

Next is the giant swing, at the giant barn. No we didn’t ride it. The only things we rode were the Tea Cups and the Train. I know, we live life on the edge. LOL

This is a picture of the giant rooster on top of the barn.

This image is a grain silo climb. It’s next to the big barn. You sit in a seat and hoist yourself up to the top with ropes. You then let go of the rope and repel down to the ground.

Running next to these two attractions is the River Run. It’s round rubber boats floating down a man-made river.

The last few pictures are just various things we did.

Me modeling a trendy hat in the toy store:

Kevin and I in front of the water wheel at the swinging bridge:

A shot of me standing at the end of the swinging bridge by the water wheel.

A large chalice we liked in the pottery store:

There’s a ton of other things to do and see at Silver Dollar City. We just didn’t spend the day taking a lot of photos.

After our excursion to the Titanic, we headed to Springfield to eat Chinese and hit our favorite store: Brown Derby – The International Wine Company. I don’t have pictures uploaded here, but I have them available at Facebook.

Two days of fun with my awesome husband. A girl can’t ask for any more than that.

Times in the online world and the IM world have changed. In the past, when doing business dealings or communicating with clients, possible partners, and even the people who leave you comments, it was common place to be very professional and business like.

Now days, the common advice is to be more friendly and personable. That’s all fine and dandy. I like that. But, I know me and sometimes I chatter too much. Of course there are times that I rarely chatter. And talking to me in person, you might think I didn’t have much to say. However, put my fingers on a keyboard and I can be a chatterbox.

I guess that’s a little misleading when people want to chat with me on Skype. They probably expect someone who is about to jump out of their skin and talks 90 to nothing. I’m really not like that. I’m content to sit and listen to others talk, but like I said, give me a keyboard or a chat box and away I go.

I have a lot of chatter in my head. I keep intending to use all of that chatter as blog posts, but never seem to get around to doing it. I’ve learned that people like informative posts, they want to learn from you. They also enjoy reading a good yak now and then, especially if it’s humorous or controversial, or even both depending on how you deliver your controversial message.

So what’s your blogging personality? Do you like to chatter once in awhile and post something totally unrelated to your niche? Share a bit of yourself on occasion?

What’s been your experience with doing this? Which types of post seem to get the most attention and the most response? I’d love to hear your thoughts so just leave a comment.

Have a great day!
Patti

image credit: http://www.jamboree.freedom-in-education.co.uk/w’s%20craft%20corner/Chbox.htm

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in Oz, clicking your heels?

I’ve concluded that every time I decide to give this blog more love and attention, I get really busy in other areas. Of course, I’m busy writing. I may be turning into a writer-holic again. That’s perfectly fine with me. I spent so much time in burn out, and then a lot of time convincing myself the burn out was over. I’m finally hitting my groove again. Yay!

My Projects:

I’m still working on Sassy PLR. Selp Help PLR seems to do best there, so that’s my main focus of writing for that. I just released a 15 article pack all about motivation and life balance. That’s my biggest pack so far. I had a good time putting that one together.

Occasionally, I throw stuff at my Low Carb PLR site. It’s very tiny right now. I am working on a new pack for it.

I have two other BIG projects in the works. One is a plr membership site for travel. It’s World Travel PLR. The launch date for it is April 2. I’m really enjoying the research. In fact, I get so lost in reading about some of these places, that it cuts into my writing time. I will have to work on that scheduling. But, it’s totally cool to love your job. People would rather hear that you’re behind because you love your job, instead of because you goofed off. However, I do have my goof off down time.

My other big project is “to be announced.” I have a partner on this one and we still have a lot of details to work out. It will also be a membership plr site.

I have some other “side” projects too. I will be ravamping my content course just a little bit and promoting it more in the future.

And the newsletter. No, I haven’t forgotten the newsletter. It’s still hanging on, although I need to pick a few areas of focus for it and stick to them.

So, that’s the updates for me. Do you have any big or small projects you’d like to share? What are you working on? I’d love to hear from you!

~Patti

Just playing around with this new plugin! Scroll to the bottom if you’d like to purchase this plugin for your own use. It has a lot of cool stuff you can use. See my previous post using some elements of this plugin.

Change fonts and sizes!

Yes, click this link to get access to the WP Sales Elements Plugin!

I was going to call myself a stinkin’ cheater, but I combined it into stinker. Why? Because I am so gonna cheat on a blog post today.

It’s been a busy week, but I got a pack of PLR out and another one almost ready. And I discovered this morning that my baby girl is coming for the weekend.

My cheat is to link you to other things I’ve written.

My post at Blogging Tips today was a Blog Round Up where I shared some of the best stuff I read this week. Go check it out!

And my next cheat is a link to the PLR I released today. It’s in the personal development niche. If that’s your thing, go grab it here.

Better run. I still haven’t done much housework. It’s not bad, but Kevin is a bit pickier than I am and he may freak because it looks like we live here. ROFL. No, that’s not an exaggeration, he is that OCD sometimes. :) But, I adore him.

Have a great weekend!

Some days it’s hard to decide what to write about. You want every post to be your best. You want to give your readers some valid and valuable information, but it often eludes you as to what to share this time. Lynn Terry  recently shared a blog post about being consistent with your content. It seems that many of us have trouble in this area because we often leave our personal lives out of the equation. It should not be this way. We are real people. We scrub our toilets just like everyone else. Well, unless we hire a housekeeper to do those things. I’m not there yet. I still scrub my own toilet and mop my own floors. It’s not always a glamourous life. There’s also a lot of days I sit here thinking the only thing I have to tell people that day is I’m jamming out with Billy Squier or Iron Maiden, but I don’t do it. Would people really want to know that? Well, yeah, I think they do. It’s no secret that I’m an 80′s metal head who also listens to Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven.

I’m also the kind of person that feels completely blessed when I have a spoon and a jar of peanut butter. I don’t have to have a steak dinner every night. In fact, there are many nights when I have a spoon and a jar of peanut butter and call it dinner.

Do you want to hear about these things? My mundane day to day life? Well, if you don’t then you probably don’t want to follow me. I want to bring more socializing into my blog. It is my blog, has my name on it. I can do that. If you follow me on social media you already know that I don’t share biz-related stuff very often. I have a mixture that I’m happy with. I would say it’s about 60% inspirational, 10% of my silly self, 10% of my business related stuff and about 10% of promoting other people’s stuff. I know, that’s only 90%. I reserve 10% to be opinionated and for weilding my duties as a grammar nazi.

I often give advice over at Blogging Tips about being yourself and adding yourself into the marketing mix, but I don’t always practice this consistently. People really do want to know you. That’s how you create friendships and a following. At least that’s my opinion. In all my years online, I’ve rarely ever followed just a name. I follow people. People have faces. They share the bad times and the good times. That’s the kind of people you want to follow. I even follow some of the richest people in the world. They have funny kitchen mishaps and pet problems and share real life things too.

So, as part of my New Year goals, I will be more personal. If I can’t share the latest and greatest gadget, I’ll share my life. Okay, I’ll skip the bathroom cleaning, but otherwise I will show me and my life on my blog.

What’s on your agenda for the week? Any great plans? I love to hear about your life and business too. Just leave a comment and feel free to be you. :)