We Interrupt This Blog to Begin a Journey of Enlightenment

I’m going to be quiet the next few days because I am devoting all of my time and my attention to a campaign that I am extremely passionate about.

~ Me. ~

I am a hands-on learner. I learn by doing, by having something plopped down in front of me and the instructor saying, “Figure it out, and then come tell me how to use it.” (True story, I actually had a boss do that to me with WordPerfect many years ago.)

I have been bookmarking articles and advice and tips for weeks, months, years now until my ReadItLater is about ready to explode. Once they are bookmarked, I never seem to have the time to sit down and read them in their entirety. 

There are things that I want to change about me, about my blog, about my business, but if I don’t take a day or two (maybe three) to read, absorb, research and read some more, it is never going to happen and I am going to continue spinning my wheels for naught.

I started hanging out at Google Plus a LOT in the past several weeks and have met some really inspirational, cool people there. People like Julie DeNeen, William Martin, Carrie-Anne Foster, and Paula Schuck just to name a few. People who “have it together.” People who know what their intellectual worth is and how to value their time, and themselves.

Julie published a post yesterday that really started the avalanche of action brewing – How Much Is Your Brain Worth? It’s a really thought-provoking post, and I highly recommend that you read it. I am a classic underseller. I have done so much for so long for free that I honestly have lost sight of my true value and worth.

Paula has a virtual gold mine of great articles on her site as well:

• On What Planet Is Toothpaste Compensation for Work?
• Before You Ask Bloggers to Write for Free
• Five Lessons Learned from #BlissdomCA 2013
• Business Blogging Part 1: Five Ways to Find Your Voice
• Five Social Media Lessons Learned From My Clients

Copyblogger has a great article as well – The Simple Flaw People Forget When Trying to Grow a Business – which is nothing short of common sense really, when you think about it.

That’s just a tip of the knowledge base that is out there. A smidge of the support, advice, helpful tips that bloggers have shared.

I am tired of undermining my worth. I am tired of going to work every day and not receiving a paycheck. Every single day I am working on several things that take time away from my children, from my home (which has been in a perpetual state of disorganization the past two months), from my family. I cannot remember the last time I had a conversation on the phone with my sister without attempting to do three other things at the same time and only giving her half an ear.

Like Susan Powter said, “Stop the Insanity!”

I have been blogging for ten years now. Since 2004 I have been online and watched blogging explode, watched social media explode, watched internet superstars be born. I’ve learned a lot, but there is still so much more for me to learn. I know that this will not be the beginning and the end, that once I get the chance to read and absorb and research what I’ve been clipping and saving all these years it will just be over. It won’t. By the time a new week begins, however, I will be starting over with a sense of worth, knowing where I stand in the crowd, and what I bring to the table that nobody else can.

So the journey of enlightenment begins…