Category Archives for Articles
To Find Your Writing Voice, Accept Your Changing Self
What sets you apart from the fellow writer at Starbucks who is also nursing a cup of joe for six hours in the name of free wi-fi?
Your hustle, industry connections, bylines in fancy places, or superior Moleskine notebook, you might think. Sure, all those things factor into the grand scheme of the #writinglife, but there’s one important piece that you might forget to include: your voice.
Like DNA, your writing voice makes the words you’ve click-clacked out at two in the morning or scribbled into a notebook on a bumpy bus ride connect specifically to you. With any luck, it resonates with your desired audience, brings them to your website, or makes them start buying your books, and BAM! — you become a thought leader, successful businesswoman, or published author.
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How to Choose Your Entrepreneurial Influencers and Harness the Impressionable Brain
If you’re a human being (which, if you’re reading this, I assume you are), I’m sure you’re well aware that we as human beings are social and impressionable creatures. No matter who you are — introverted and extroverted alike — we all need human connection to learn, grow, and excel in life, as well as in our chosen fields.
Granted, there will always be lone wolves who prefer to opt for solitude, believing that people only distract them from achieving their goals and their other pursuits in life.
All the same, our ability to communicate through language, gestures, and facial expressions, our simple ability to navigate the world — going to the loo, doing push-ups, using money to buy things — is reliant on the impressionable nature of the human brain, and our social interactions to date. Even someone who is self-taught likely became so not only through tinkering on their lonesome, but perhaps also through observing someone else, reading books, watching instructional videos, or — my personal favorite — asking Google.
These are all learning platforms — resources for the inquiring mind to plumb — and they are all products of humankind. I want to talk about the often untapped resource of influencers or, more romantically, heroes, in the entrepreneurial realm.
The Guilt-Free Guide to Vacationing for Entrepreneurs
It’s that time of year again. We’ve stuffed our bellies full of turkey with all the trimmings, and now the hustle and bustle of the holiday season is upon us.
You might be thinking about how great it would be to take some well-deserved time off from the daily grind. But can you?
Does simply thinking about taking time off make you break out in a cold sweat, worrying about all the work that won’t get done while you’re offline? Do you feel guilty when you’re not working or at least thinking about your business?
Why You Should Stop Trying to Think Outside the Box
“Think outside the box.” It’s basically the mantra of creativity, drilled into the minds of schoolchildren and executives alike.
As a writer under pressure to come up with creative, original content and ideas, I’ve even repeated it to myself — something I’m sure many writers and entrepreneurs can relate to. We’re always striving to stand out from the crowd, and we’ve been told that thinking outside the box is the way to do that.
“Think outside the box” has permeated our approach to creativity and defined the way that we evaluate ideas. But what does it actually mean — and does it really help us with creating original content?