Try to See Through
Sometimes I panic.
I get an email from Copyblogger or Problogger, asking me why in heaven’s name am I not doubling my traffic? What am I doing wrong, and I am doing something wrong – when I have lived in the blogosphere for 2 years and have nothing to show for it – have not engaged my readers, have not sold a product, have not made a name for myself out there. And that I should think, and think deeply, reflect on the things, the ineffective things, that I am doing, delve on the whys, delve deeper.
So the red alert goes on and I find myself on a mad scramble to go on Tweeter or Facebook promoting, and then reluctantly promoting, because I did not want to inundate my Facebook friends’ walls with (self-serving) articles that promote my blog. I know that yes, they may be enriched by it, but I also do not want to be a pest (because I am not a pest).
Sometimes these emails also tell me to produce content and a lot of content and more content, and I am pressured because I know that I only have so much time and a lot of obligations before I could churn up that content, and then I would promise to myself that I would write more content, be better at this, write more regularly, be more visible, engage.
And then two articles come my way, two articles from very famous, self-made persons in their own right, each with their own ways.
One of them is Robert Fulghum of Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I had to go to his website very recently because I mentioned in an article the book that he wrote – of how everything would be better if it were simpler. And I was pleasantly surprised because the guy can still write. In fact, in his website, he wrote an email to his friends apologizing because somebody set up a Facebook account for him, acting for him, answering for him, engaging for him, but it is not him. And that he refuses – and he apologizes profusely – he refuses to be a techie, refuses to be out there, that he would rather keep his small number of friends than gaining thousands, that technology scares him, the need to be out there scares him.
And then there’s Leo Babauta and he said, the crowd says that you have to do this and to do that, you have to market, be out there, have a product once a week, write articles twice a day, go on Twitter, go on Facebook, create all that noise – Leo Babauta says, No you don’t.
You just have to dance and stomp your feet to the beat of your own drums. You don’t have to be out there, you just have to just churn out quality content, and if your content is really quality enough, if it touches a person, if it resonates with someone, it will have no choice but spread like wildfire and you will get your popularity anyway, because you are credible, you are honest, you are good, you are understood.
Of course these two people can say what they said because they are already popular, because they are already out there, because they have no need, like (you or) me, to make a name and make it really good in this business that is not a business – this business of information. But a part of me agrees with them. A part of me just wants to shut down all the other voices telling me to do this and to do that and to make meaningless twits on Twitter that may or may not be equivalent to certain number of clicks for me.
I am still on the fence on this one, but I am leaning towards the opinions of Fulghum and Babauta, of them who espouse simplicity and quality of life, and silence and stillness, and again more simplicity.
Let’s see what happens. Maybe like a tree – you cannot see its growth, for 2 years you see nothing, like you are laboring for nothing – and then it grows up to be a sycamore tree (it’s a pretty big tree). Let’s just see if that happens.
Article by Issa. Painting by Danvic. Copyright 2009-2011.
Website: www.YouWantToBeRich.com
Email: issa@youwanttoberich.com
P.S. When I cannot get to a keyboard, I sometimes record my thoughts. And here’s the rough recording of the article above. To those who are auditory learners, maybe this is for you: Fulghum and Babauta
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