My 100th Post!

Yesterday’s blog post was my 100th post! (It was also my 30th birthday).

So in order to celebrate, I have decided to give my top commenter on the blog , Loren Pinilis, a $15 Amazon voucher as a small way of saying thank you. Well done Loren!

I would also just like to say THANK YOU to all my subscribers and followers, and every single person who has visited my site. It really has been a fun journey for me, and my hope is that something of my heart and passion for people to live life fully and intentionally has come across in my writing, and helped you in some way.

Thanks for reading. Until next time.

Tom

Vote For This Blog!

Following my blog being Freshly Pressed and getting a bunch of attention, someone nominated me for the 2011 South African Blog Awards. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but apparently if you make into the top 3, you get to go to an “event” in Joburg. And my wife really wants to go to an “event”.

So, if you are a regular subscriber, have read a few posts, or maybe have just stumbled upon my blog and like what you see, please take a minute to vote for my blog. Voting closes this Wed 9th Nov! You can just click on the badge to the right –>

To those of you who have been faithfully reading and commenting, just want to say thanks for your support and encouragement. My goal is to create insightful, relevant content that you can put to work in your personal and professional life, and I will continue to do my best to keep the fresh content coming!

If you’re new and looking to get a feel for what this blog is all about, take a stroll through some of my most popular posts below:

• 16 Tips to Simply Your Life (And Increase Your Productivity)
• Mastering the Art of Self Discipline
• All The SIngle Ladies Put Your Hands Up!
• 6 Things To Stop Caring About Today
• 4 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do Kettlebells
• Real Men Tell Great Love Stories
• Do PowerBalance Bracelets Really Work?
• Life’s Too Short For TV
• 3 reasons Why I Love My iPad 2

Thanks again!

Digging Ditches – How I Got Freshly Pressed.

So last week one of my posts got Freshly Pressed.

What this means is that my post was featured on WordPress.com’s homepage, where each weekday, ten posts are selected from around 450,000 new blog posts!

What it also means is a lot of traffic to my blog… like 85 000-hits-in-10-days-kind-of-traffic!

So, needless to say it has been quite a buzz! Especially for someone whose previous record for a post was 350 hits, and who didn’t even know what Freshly Pressed meant.

So, how do you get featured? Well, according to WordPress, it’s all about the content. In a very helpful post Five Ways to Get Freshly Pressed they offer great tips for blogging that I think any blogger should follow, to get featured or not.

But let’s be honest, while I agree that content is king, there are a lot of great blogs out there with great content who still haven’t featured. Of course, there is always an element of “right time, right place” that factors in.

But here’s the bottom line – if you want to get featured, it’s all about “digging ditches”.

Steven Furtick sheds light on a story in the Bible where a guy named Elisha asks God for rain (read asks God to feature his blog on Freshly Pressed), and God responds by saying, “Dig some ditches first, and I’ll make it rain.” In fact he says, “Make this valley full of ditches.”

The truth is none of us can make it rain.

None of us can orchestrate “right time, right place”. No one can control the circumstances that ensures the editor reads our post. But what we can do is dig some ditches in the meantime – follow all the advice we can get, spit out quality content consistently – and prepare for the day when the rains will come and fill those ditches!

Keep plugging away. Writing your best. Checking your spelling. Using great images. Adding tags. Thinking of compelling headlines.

All of us can decide to write no matter what, even when it hurts.

And I think this principle is true for much of life. Some people just arrive. They write one post and “BOOM!” – instant traffic and fame. But for the most part, behind the scenes of great bloggers like Seth Godin and Michael Hyatt lies hours and hours of faithfully plugging away and the digging of many ditches. Malcolm Gladwell says that if you want to really shine in any field or skill, you’ve got to put in the hours… 10,000 hours in fact.

So… to all you aspiring bloggers out there (I include myself in this), keep on digging! Eventually the rain will come.

Thanks to WordPress for giving me the opportunity to get Freshly Pressed. Right now I am singing in the rain!

[Insert Catchy Blog Title Here]

cheesy photo from stock photo website of happy smiling couple doing happy things

[First, insert funny/controversial/shocking statement to grab readers attention]

[Now tell a funny anecdote or personal story to endear readers to you the writer]

[Next ask a relevant question related to above mentioned story/anecdote]

[Segway from question into main content ie. what you really want to talk about]

[Give two or three relevant and practical applications for readers]

[End blog post with a hard-hitting/thought-provoking question]

There you have it – the formula for a successful blog post! Designed to ensure increased traffic to your blog, and satisfied readers at the end of the day, right?

Yes and no.

Formulas are great. We use them to sell products, attract clients, improve our health, maintain our relationships, and even help people grow spiritually. We devise 7 habits for highly effective people (one of my best books by the way), 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, 5 languages of love and 101 ways to win friends and influence people.

And a lot of the time they are bang on the money. I guess that’s why they become formulas. Because they work.

But not always.

Sometimes life is just too complex and their are too many shades of grey to apply a formula and expect results. Sometimes life throws us random curve balls that we could never have anticipated or prepared for, and that blindside us on some idle Tuesday morning. Sometimes I guess we just have to figure things out on our own as we go.

And while that doesn’t always make for an easy life, it certainly makes for an interesting one!

And so, may you live your life beyond cliche formulas and prescriptions. May you embrace your existence with all it’s uncertainty and mystery, and may your life not be easy, but interesting!

Writer’s Blog

I am a maven by nature. I love gathering, collecting and sharing information. I love reading blogs. I follow a number of writers, authors, pastors and leaders, all of whom have blessed me incredibly through their personal blogs. I myself have tried numerous times to set up my own personal blog space. A space to wrestle with myself really. A place where I can jot down the unfiltered and wandering thoughts bouncing around in my often confused skull…

But I just can’t seem to get it going. Every time I do, I sit back and look at the pretty pictures and well laid-out design devoid of any actual writing and then just when I am about to put the proverbial pen to paper I stop and wonder… why? Who is going to read this anyway? Is it worth the effort? And that’s when i just throw it in.

But alas, here I go again. This may be the first of many blog posts, or it may just be another epic fail…