ProBlogger: 5 Surefire Ways to Never Get Noticed by Anybody

5 Surefire Ways to Never Get Noticed by Anybody

Posted: 26 May 2012 07:09 AM PDT

This guest post is by Steve of thecodeofextraordinarychange.com.

I’m a quiet man. Shy in some circumstances. I like my own company and my own time.

Left unchecked, these qualities would be enough to ensure that I lived out the rest of my life as a small man in a tiresome job, never making a difference and never getting noticed by anybody.

But I can’t imagine a worse hell than that. Really, I can’t.

I know that I’ll never leave my fingerprints on the world unless I deliberately engage with it, and I’ll never put my dent in the universe unless I get out there and punch at the edges. You need to leave a trace; you need to affect the world; you need to be in the light.

Here’s how people spend their lives in the shadows without ever being noticed.

1. Don’t pay attention to what matters

The most unhappy people on the planet are those who don’t listen to and don’t pursue what matters to them most. They won’t have set out to be unhappy, they’ll simply have their lives eroded by the continual exclusion of what matters to them in preference of what they think they ought to be doing.

What matters to you is what counts. What matters to you amounts to a hill o’ beans. What matters to you is enough.

You always notice someone who honours, expresses and demonstrates the things that matter most to them.

2. Don’t stick your neck out

Raising your head above the parapet might just get you an arrow right in the kisser. So valuing your face, you decide to stay put, crouched behind the safety of the castle wall and safe from the vicious marauders.

Only thing is, there’s a whole world beyond those walls. A world that needs you to be a part of it and people who want to see you rise. Safety is too high a price to pay for dying a long, slow death.

You always notice someone who stands up when everyone else remains seated.

3. Don’t show any heart

Science and logic are good allies to have these days. Building a high-converting sales page, writing magnetic headlines and creating a solid business plan are all good things to do among many others, but if those things become your sole focus then you’ve already lost.

You become so focused on the cogs, levers and whirring wheels that you lose site of why you switched the contraption on in the first place. You’re so busy operating the machine that the difference it can make becomes forgotten.

You always notice someone who weaves heart, honesty and vulnerability and into their actions.

4. Don’t raise the stakes

There’s no prize for running the three meter sprint. You don’t get an award for writing a dirty limerick. There’s not much point in attempting the perilous trek across your back yard for charity.

The easy stuff is easy; any Tom, Dick, or Harriette can nail it without thinking too hard or risking much of anything. But if there’s nothing at stake for you personally then are you really in the game or just treading water and kidding yourself about the waves you’re making?

You always notice someone who’s willing to risk their world for what they believe.

5. Don’t innovate

When life gives you lemons, what do you do? Do you make lemonade, or do you complain that you really wanted to make a peach cobbler and that the large pile of lemons on your floor is just too yellow and lemony?

If lemonade isn’t your thing, make a lemon meringue pie. Make candied lemons. Make a to-scale model of the Taj Mahal out of the darn things if you want to. You don’t have to do what’s expected or what everyone else does. You can create something wild, unpredictable or unexpected from what you already have.

You always notice someone who builds something surprising from what’s right in front of them.

So. What’s your next move?

Steve is a superstar confidence coach who helps you build an extraordinary life. He also makes a fantastic ragu, and while he can't promise you a batch he’ll promise to help you put your dent in the universe, which is probably a better deal. Get more of him on Twitter and Facebook.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

5 Surefire Ways to Never Get Noticed by Anybody

ProBlogger: What Blog Products Are You Working On?

What Blog Products Are You Working On?

Posted: 25 May 2012 07:00 AM PDT

At the start of this month, I began releasing details of this year’s ProBlogger Training Day.

This is a big event for me and my team, and there’s a lot to organize. The Training Day won’t take place until October, but already we’ve spent months organizing speakers, booking venues, releasing earlybird tickets, and so on.

Around the same time I put out a call for alpha testers on the new ProBlogger Marketplace we’ve been working on.

Something that occurred to me as I was busily preparing these announcements was just how much work goes into the products and services we bloggers offer. While these kinds of tasks don’t need to be overwhelming, they do take time, and energy, and planning.

Not that simple…

For those who are merely testing the waters with their audience, or want to get something out the door and into the market quickly, getting a new product up and running might be a relatively straightforward task.

But once you’ve been blogging for a while, and you get to know your niche and audience well, you’ll know that your products need to meet certain standards if they’re going to have any chance of success.

At that point—and beyond—every new product requires more work from you. You need to consolidate the constant research you’re doing as you engage with readers, make sure your product ideas fit with your overall blog strategy, plan or conceptualize the product itself, and maybe do a “proof of concept”—some kind of test-run that gives you some idea of the audience’s interest.

And that’s before you’ve even got into the process of building the product (or service offering) itself!

So there is a lot to do, and I think bloggers can put themselves at a disadvantage by believing that making blog products is simple. That can lead them to become overwhelmed, disillusioned, and disappointed before they’ve really given products a go.

…Nor that difficult

That said, once you’ve got your head around what’s required of a project, completing it really is about grunt work: sitting down and getting it done. Not just putting in hours, but putting in effort. Working hard, but also working smart—and knowing when the time you’re dedicating to completing something won’t pay off.

I think one of the more overlooked aspects of being efficient as you create products (or in any aspect of efficient blogging) is keeping an eye on your strengths, and playing to them as much as possible.

Don’t outsource something just because you can get it done cheaply, for example. Outsource the things you don’t do well. Don’t choose to build a product just to keep up with the others in your niche, if some other approach to monetization would suit your unique talents better (there’s a reason why I don’t build blog software products!).

While we may overstretch sometimes, and that may lead to a failure or extra hurdles that need to be overcome, they’re problems that can be worked through. The important thing, really, is to make the effort.

What products or services are you working on?

We’re all making the effort—I know we are! And you know a lot of what I’m working on—the QLD blogging adventure, the ProBlogger Training Day, and the marketplace, among other things.

But what product or service ideas are you working on? And what challenges are you facing?

You don’t have to give the game away, but we’d love to hear of your efforts in the comments, so we can build up a picture of the hard work we bloggers are doing behind the scenes on our blogs.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

What Blog Products Are You Working On?