Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

— Robert Frost

One of the things that has always attracted me to social media is that it allows me to get a glimpse into other peoples’ lives. Reading blogs like In Over Your Head from Julien Smith, or Levite Chronicles from Jon Swanson gives me a snapshot into what someone else is thinking at that moment. Following people on Twitter like Christopher Penn and Danny Brown provides a stream of real time thoughts, feelings and inspiration. Facebook allows me to instantly answer the question “What ever happened to…?” as I pick up where I left off with friends from over the years.

We are more connected to each others’ thoughts and feelings than we have ever been. We can literally follow along as people go about their daily lives, but more than that, in an instant, we can become involved in the story. All it takes is one comment, one reply, or one small note to open up doors we never thought possible.

Thinking of how we’ve intertwined our lives thrills me. I am close friends with people I never thought I’d have an opportunity to meet. I’m doing business with people all over the world, many of whom I’ve never met in person. We’re bonded together, with some sort of technological epoxy, and that bond is not easily broken.

But an issue starts to occur when that bond becomes too significant. We begin to pay too much attention to everyone elses’ life and we start to forget our own focus. We look at all the brilliant people around us, and we start to compare ourselves to them. “Is this blog post going to measure up?”, “Am I saying the right things?”, “Am I the next [name of favourite social media guru]?”

I learn so much from my friends out here in this world. Every day I’m given new things to think about, new ways to expand my business, my career, my spirit. But the minute I start to get too wrapped up in other peoples’ thoughts and opinions, I need to take a step back. I need to get re-focused on my own path. I’ve got to check in with myself every now and again to see where I am on my path.

It’s important to have mentors, it really is. I’ve had some dandy ones, and I still do. Everyone needs people to look up to and learn about success, and failure, and everything in between. It’s all fine and well to be inspired by someone’s achievements, but never, ever, EVER aspire to be “just like” anyone.  Look around you. See those people who are succeeding the way you want to? You can have that too. But you can’t do it the same way they did. Why? Because everyone’s path is different.

Let’s say your dream is to be the CEO of your own successful company. You see someone you know doing this and you want it too; he’s building his company, getting lots of clients, speaking all over the country, and starting to rake in the dough. You begin to study how that person got there, and you start to realize a few things. First, his spouse has a really good full time job, and they were able to afford to be a one-income household for a while. Second, they don’t have kids to feed. Third, he’s got an investor on board who has put forward a good chunk of change to get things moving.

But you’re a single mom, with big rent and big bills and you absolutely can’t afford to give up your day job. You don’t have any investors, and don’t have the time or the money to travel around to try and get some, either. Suddenly your dream of having your own company starts to fade. You go back to life as you know it.

And that is where the problem lies. We spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to others. If you want to be the CEO of your own successful company, it doesn’t matter HOW you get there. What’s important is that you get there.

We all travel our own path in this life. Our lives intersect with others, sometimes very deeply, as with our family, our spouses, our friends, and our mentors. But in the end, it’s just you. You are the one who has to get out of bed every morning and decide what you’re going to do with your life.  You are the one who knows your circumstances better than anyone, and you are the only one who can decide what step to take next. Oh sure, you can ask advice from those close to you, you can read and learn and share and ask questions. But it’s you, and only you, that has to make the decision.

Lots of single moms with little time and less income become successful businesspeople. They do it because they figure out how to succeed in spite of their circumstances. They don’t compare themselves to others. They listen, and learn, and absorb information. But then they make decisions based on what they know deep down inside.

We only get one shot at this life. One shot. If we spend all our  time living through other people, trying to be just like everyone else, then we’re going to wind up on our death bed wondering why we never accomplished much. You can’t achieve anything on someone else’s hand. You get the hand you’re dealt. You must play it. So stop trying to live everyone else’s life, and start living your own.

Go on, then…what are you waiting for?

Photo credit: John-Morgan on Flickr

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I wasn’t always a writer.

In the 11th grade, I had to take after school English tutoring because my grammar was so atrocious. It was my only hope of passing the class. I worked my butt off with my “its and it’s”, and my “there, their and they’re”.  My teacher told me that in the end, I’d probably pass the class, but I’d never really be much of a writer. I just didn’t have an “aptitude” for it. I got the C+ I needed and moved on.

I didn’t write for years after that – unless it was absolutely necessary. I dreaded anytime I had to sit down to write a letter, or put together a script for a college class. I certainly never wrote for fun. Every sentence was a struggle. Mostly they’d come out in very boring, flat phrases, with simple words. They certainly didn’t paint a picture of anything interesting or striking.

Oh sure, I was good at other things. I had an “aptitude” for music. I could teach. I was very organized, and extremely creative. I ran with the things I was good at, and had some good success early in my career. But all along, I wished I was a better writer. I wanted to enjoy it. I had all these ideas swimming in my head and I wanted to know how to write them down so they made sense. But the voice of my teacher still rang in my head “You’ll never be much of a writer.” It’s amazing how one negative experience can hinder so much.

Today, when people ask me what I do, I usually say “I tell stories”. I now identify myself on this blog, and on my other online presences as “a writer”.  I’ve found my voice. It wasn’t easy, but for anyone with a desire to express themselves (and in my experience, that’s just about everyone), it is totally doable. Here are some ways you can start to find your voice. And this doesn’t just apply to the written word, either. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about DNA in his upcoming book, Crush It!. Some people are programmed to be writers. Some are programmed to be in front of the camera. Some are visual artists. Others are musicians. Finding your voice is finding that way that you uniquely express yourself.

Practice practice practice. Nothing comes easy. Even people who seemingly ooze natural talent still have to put in hours and hours and hours of work. My friend Greg Wyard is one of the most talented musicians I know. He can play anything on an acoustic guitar. I mean ANYTHING. Like Bohemian Rhapsody. You have to hear it to believe it. Greg is a totally natural talent. He was truly born with a gift. But does he come by it easily? Not at all. He’s been playing for more than 30 years, and to this day, he STILL practices up to 8 hours a day.

Malcom Gladwell says you have to do something for 10,000 hours before you can be considered an expert at it. So if you really, really want to find your voice – you have to practice your craft, a lot. Don’t believe me? Go read Jon Swanson then. He’ll tell you everything you need to know about deliberate practice.

Fear is for wusses. It’s really scary to put yourself out there. To write something that you know other people will read. To put yourself on video or create a work of art that other people will see. Your biggest fear is that people will think you suck. If you don’t try at all, you can’t fail. That’s a nice, safe place to be, right? Too bad it’s boring as hell.

I was told to my face that I would never be much of a writer. Imagine my fear of putting fingers to keyboard and starting to write this blog two years ago. I thought all my ideas were dumb. I thought my bad grammar would make me seem like an idiot. But I did it anyway. I decided not to care what people thought. I did it, and still do it, first and foremost for myself. Because I wanted to practice. Because I had something to say (even if it was to myself). Imagine my surprise when people actually started to respond positively to what I was doing. Suddenly, my fear had been replaced with pride.

Don’t be a wuss. Sit down, and just start. You’ll be amazed where you end up.

Don’t strive for perfection. Imagine if we were all perfect? If every idea we had was 100% solid, and nobody ever made an error? Imagine how dreadfully awful that would be?

One of the things I love about writing this blog is when people disagree with me. It gets me fired up to have someone tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. It makes me downright giddy when someone gives me new ideas or a new way of looking at things.

Expression of ideas, whether it’s the written word, video, audio, music, or visual art, is about bringing something out that is inside.  Five people could write a blog post on “Finding Your Voice” and they’d all be completely different. Your voice is unique, and that means that people might not always see things the same way. A piece of art that I like may look horrible to someone else. That’s the beauty of living in an imperfect world. We all perceive things in our own way. Don’t try to be perfect at any of this. Just try.

Finding your voice is about digging deep, sometimes to a place that will make you a bit uncomfortable. But once you’re there, you’ll find richness beyond your wildest imagination. Take the first step. Sit down, and do it. You won’t be sorry.

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I love being inspired by other people’s blog posts. Speaking of inspirational, have you met Jon Swanson? I’ve been a fan of Jon’s for well over a year. His blog, Levite Chronicles, is one of the first blogs I go to every morning. Jon blogs about life, faith, family, work, new media…really, a bit of everything. What I love about Jon is how he so thoughtfully and carefully crafts each post, in a way that leaves you with a sense of clarity and plenty to ponder.

This morning, he wrote a wonderful post called “Accumulate or Collect”. It’s required reading for my post so go read it now. I’ll wait.

Great, you’re back.

Jon describes his enjoyment of coffee (we are kindred spirits that way) and the many coffee mugs he has as a result. Despite having vast quantities of mugs adorning the shelves of his office, he considers himself an “accumulator” of mugs as opposed to a “collector”. He goes on to cleverly point out that a collector “has discernment”, whereas an accumulator has none. Collectors are meticulous about what they collect, how they categorize and label things, and how they track the value of their collections.

My brother collects coins. It’s obvious that it’s a collection because it’s all perfectly labelled, organized and tracked. He knows what he has and how much it’s worth to him. In other words, he isn’t just accumulating a random pile of coins on a shelf in his office.

Accumulators, on the other hand, may like the things they have accumulated very much, but they don’t necessarily have a rhyme or reason for it. Jon accumulates coffee mugs. I accumulate fridge magnets. I don’t really care where they come from, as long as I get them while I’m visiting a place, or they are given to me by someone who has been there. They aren’t labelled, they are just stuck on my fridge, willy nilly. They are an accumulation.

Jon’s article teaches a great lesson about how we deal with the information that comes at us. We can just accumulate all this stuff in our heads, and not really put much thought into it, or, we can start to really collect that information – meaning sort it, discern it, get rid of what doesn’t work, make use of what does.

And that brings me, naturally, to social media.

Followers, followees, friends and fans. Anyone who is in to social media has some combination of all of these. It’s the foundation of this vast online community we’re in, for without that two-way connection none of this would be effective.

Have you ever really sat down to think if your base of connections is a collection or an accumulation? If you put it in context of Jon’s definitions, then an “accumulation” of connections is just that. It’s not thought out, not categorized. It’s just a whole lot of numbers. If your goal on any of the social media tools is to just have the most friends or followers on your list, then you’re missing the point. If you are simply accumulating numbers, then you aren’t making real connections. If you are sitting around, tracking (and caring) if your numbers are growing steadily or if you are in steep decline, then you are missing the point. If you are complaining to every person that unfollows you, you are missing the point.

Collections are what it’s all about. I can pretty well categorize my social media connections. I have business connections, friendship connections, people I just joke around with, people who I am fans of, and people who I learn from. I have categories for subjects, too. There are people I talk to about music, entrepreneurship, books, tech gadgets, video, or pets. Do people fall into more than one category? To be sure! I suppose, if I wanted to get really fancy about it, I could map my connections, see how it’s all linked.

What’s important with a collection is that even though each item in the collection may have a different purpose, they must all do one thing – provide value. If I collect postage stamps, I’m not going to have a big pack of regular stamps that you put on a letter in my collection. They are noise to my collection. I am going to seek out the unique, interesting stamps though. The ones with stories. The ones with something to contribute to my collection.

My networks are the same way. If I follow or friend someone who only contributes noise to my conversations, then I don’t find value there. It’s nothing personal. I may not see the value, simply because the content of that person’s stream is not aligned with my interests. Someone else may find tremendous value in the same person.

The people I welcome into my network are the ones that are providing me with something unique, interesting, entertaining, and valuable. To me. It doesn’t mean it has to be valuable to you. It’s my collection. The beauty of collections, because they are meticulously put together the way you want them to be, is they become uniquely your own.

So, to accumulate or collect? It’s a provocative question. Look around your network. Is your collection something you’d be proud to show off? But more importantly, is your collection providing you with value?

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