Ten New Lessons for Twenty-Teens

Jan – 2 – learning stuff already this year…

One – Puppies are like little kids- love me, cuddle me, feed me, notice me, or I’ll whine. Pretty easy rule for little kids and puppies – life is simple.

Two – have watched blog stats pretty consistently over the past few years. If the article is a “train-wreck” article where strong (entertaining) views are expressed, outrage is demonstrated on as many sides as possible – then readership (as measured by subscriptions) goes up for several weeks but slowly tails off if nothing but gardening articles are posted. So it’s really easy to spike your traffic and build readership simply by writing train-wreck posts. Nothing new there- wrote about this before but it’s entertaining to see it revisited.

Three – I”m fickle. I love the new idea – the new thought – the new concept – something to get my mind turning over and seeing how that fits into old schemes of doing things. This drives some people nuts (luckily not my Princess who listens patiently) and a great many writers can’t do this. Sorry to say but imho you have to learn to do this if you want to survive as a Net-preneur writer in this coming decade.

Four – I’m no longer worrying about what other writers are doing or why they don’t “get it”. A fellow writer put it succinctly – she wasn’t an entrepreneur, she wanted somebody else to provide her with a writing channel (but she wanted to make good money doing it). Mutually contradictory thinking now. Get over it – the number of “safe” jobs is decreasing rapidly. If you want to get paid for your “talent” you had better have some serious talent there – be one of the 1% that is a true talent. And then you still have to work your butt off because there’s always somebody coming along that’s better. (funny how talent and hard work go hand in hand)

Five – it’s becoming clearer and clearer there are multiple channels and ways to employ the Net to make a living. But it’s a brand new skillset and way of thinking and the multiplicity of combinations of old-new-created channels is staggering. And this is only going to keep on developing. New breed of buggy-whip makers being created as we speak.

Six – Seth Godin said it again It stands on it’s own. I paid attention last time – are you paying attention this time?

Seven – if I have to fail at something, then I want to fail at something that’s at least interesting and challenging. I’m no longer interested in plodding along. Life is way too short now for this kind of status-quo thinking. Consequently, I’m now developing 25% of my working day to brand new projects that may or may not pay off but…

Eight – I have to plant a bunch more trees this year. I got started on it last year but if I want to see a forest on my property, then I had better get my butt in gear. (How’s that for a life lesson to take to other areas of your life!) Hah!

Nine – all of these things may change tomorrow. I may learn something new to change them, something might happen to change my mind of one or all, or a giant flaming fireball might drop onto our ferry as we travel to the mainland. Who knows.

Ten – life’s a giggle.