Brain Dumping

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It’s been almost a month and a half since I made a challenge to myself to blog every weekday (while taking weekends off) and I made an unexpected realization during this time.  I often hear writers say that writing is therapeutic for them and when my sister (in law) started blogging, she told me that it had become therapeutic for her as well.  I understood that, but I never thought that would be the case for me.  I understood it in the way that non-work related creative outlets that I engage in, like painting, photography, drawing, etc were therapeutic for me.  I consider writing to be a creative outlet, but I do not consider myself to be talented or necessarily good at it, but I enjoy it.  I think I thought that things you had a talent for could become therapeutic, not things that you were not talented at.  Therefore, I never thought I would see it as therapeutic.

I was wrong.

My brain is always in overdrive and only semi-shuts down when I (finally) fall asleep at night.  My brain is constantly buzzing with thoughts, ideas, and random things.  Blogging here has given me an outlet to dump the contents of my brain.  I worried that I might run out of things to write about when I made the challenge to myself, but my running Evernote list of things to write about continues to thrive and grow.  I dump thoughts from my brain at random times into the list and then choose something when I sit down to write.  I am finding that my brain feels…less full.  I feel like I have literally removed some of the thoughts that were taking up space in my brain.  I’m also starting to think that my growing list might also indicate that outside of writing, I might talk too much.  Does a lack of things to write about correlate to a lack of things to talk about?

It’s therapy.

My brain feels more rested in a weird way and I think it’s because I have been blogging.  I think dumping my brain out here on this blog is giving my brain and thoughts room to stretch their legs and move around.  I never thought that I would be one of those people to say it, but blogging for me has become therapeutic!

2014 Business Makeover: Free Branding Review

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January is the universal month for new resolutions and goals for the year. All over social media I keep seeing “New year, new me” statements and a lot of resolutions are related to appearance. So, I figured why not for businesses? Your business cannot physically work out or eat better (your employees can), but you can evaluate your appearance — your branding. So…I’m going to be your brand consultant in 2014, for free.

Free? No strings attached?

Yep, free and with no strings attached. You will not be added to my email list (unless you want to be), no obligation to use any of my design services, no catch. I will have you fill out a questionnaire so I can learn more about your goals, review what you have and give my recommendations. If you want to hire me to do what a recommend, awesome! If not, that’s ok, but at least you will have a roadmap for some things to do to improve your branding efforts.

What’s in it for me…and you?

For me, creating awareness. I will get you thinking about things you may not have been aware of before. Also, you might just hire me if you think I’m awesome enough (just being honest). For you, you have nothing to loose by having your brand reviewed, only knowledge/insight gained.

If you would like for me to take a look at what you have going on, fill out this quick contact form below:

Working Around Short Comings

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Do you have short comings that make things difficult as a small business owner?  A disability to work around?  I have a little of both.  I have a disability, that I won’t disclose today 🙂 and a few perceived short comings that I have to work around.  I am an introvert, I have way more right brain functionality than left (not a numbers person), I am a control freak, I have ADD and sometimes have a tendency to procrastinate.

In spite of it all, I refuse to let my short comings deter me from accomplishing my dreams.  It just means that I may have to get there on a different route than others take or in a different way.  What’s important is that I am finding ways to work around my short comings and finding the path that is right for me.

I would love to engage in some dialogue with you about perceived short comings that you may have and how you are working around them.  Scheduling, setting a routine, making to-do lists, setting reminders and calendar due dates helps me a lot on the ADD and procrastination front.  I wrote previously about dealing with my introverted-ness and business here.  What are some ways you work around your short comings?  Let’s talk in the comments below!

Fixing Jetpack’s Publicize Issues

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I have been using Publicize within WordPress’s Jetpack to post new blog posts to my social media networks for a couple of months now.  At first, it was great!  I was even able to configure things to use my new custom shortlink when it posted on the networks.  Somewhere along the way, things went awry.  First, I noticed that on Google+ it was not posting the featured image, but my header graphic instead.  Next, LinkedIn disconnected from the service and I received an error message every time I tried to reconnect the service.  Last, Facebook disconnected and when I reconnected the service, nothing would post even though it looked connected.

I finally got everything straightened out,  but I thought it might be helpful to post my fixes to these problems in case someone else encountered them.

 

Featured Image Not Posting

I found that some other users were reporting this as a problem on both Google+ and on Facebook.  The problem resided in the meta tags and the use of the open graph format that Facebook pioneered.  I won’t get too technical, because I’m not very good at explaining technical things…I just understand them…sort of.  For some, part of the problem was a conflict in the way their SEO plugin handled those meta tags.

I use All in One SEO pack for SEO on my site and there is a “social meta” add-on available.  Using the add-on, I was able to over ride the Jetpack Publicize settings with those I set within All in One SEO pack.  It also allowed me to set what image I wanted to show when a post is shared from my site.  This solved my image problem.

 

LinkedIn Re-connection

From the Publicize support pages, I figured out that I needed to have revoked the access on the LinkedIn side of things prior to trying to reconnect the service.  Once I revoked the access through LinkedIn, I was able to reconnect from my site.

Here are the steps to find application settings in LinkedIn:

  1. Log into LinkedIn and click on “Privacy & Settings”
  2. Click on the “Groups, Companies & Applications” tab.
  3. Click on “View Your Applications.”
  4. Click the checkbox next to WordPress.com and the “Remove” button.

Facebook Not Posting Anymore

The problem with Facebook not posting was similar to my re-connection problem with LinkedIn.  I needed to have revoked the application’s access prior to reconnecting the service.

Here is what I did:

  1. I disconnected Facebook from Publicize (sharing in settings) in WordPress.
  2. Went to App Settings on Facebook and removed WordPress.com
  3. Returned back to my site’s backend and reconnected Facebook.

If you are having similar issues with this plugin, I can’t guarantee that what I did will work for you, but it might save you a little time, if these are a fix!

 

 

Being an Introverted Freelancer

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I am an introvert, a freelancer and an entrepreneur.  However, I did not learn that I was an introvert until a couple of years ago.  My mother is an introvert and my father is an extravert.  Because I have the personality of my father, I have always been branded as an extrovert and my introverted ways often confuse people.  I make instant friends in one-on-one and small group situations almost everywhere I go and I am often told that I am funny and fun to be around.  However, people are confused and sometimes offended, when after meeting me I decline requests to get together frequently and socialize on a regular basis.  When I explain that I am an introvert and what that means, most people either do not believe me or do not understand introversion and think something must be wrong.  Most people think of introverts as shy people that are unable to socialize in any way.  While this may be true for some, for most it is that it takes a lot of energy to turn “on” and stay on for an extended amount of time.  Because of my personality and how I am when I turn “on,” people do not believe that I am an introvert.

As a freelancer, being an introvert is both a blessing and a curse.  The freelance lifestyle fits me as an introvert because I can work in the solitude of my home or some other solitary place without the distractions that come from being in an office environment.  I do not miss not having coworkers, water cooler chat and company activities either.  In most cases, any face-to-face business meetings that I have as a freelancer are only with one person or a small group, which for an introvert is very manageable.  However, as an introvert it means that I am unable to do a lot of face-to-face meetings on a frequent basis.  It takes a lot out of me and I need time to recharge in between them.

When I first started thinking about taking my freelance business full-time, I thought I needed to start networking to get the ball rolling and I joined a networking group.  The group was great!  However, it was a nightmare for me because of my introversion.  My time spent in the networking group is what eventually led me to figure out that I was not actually an extrovert, but an introvert with an extrovert’s personality.  In other words, I have my extroverted father’s personality and my mother’s introversion.  I felt a bit lost because I knew I needed to find a way to bring in business, but networking groups and events just were not for me.

The solution for me has been technology.  Instead of networking face-to-face, I do so digitally through social media and email.  As my client list grows, so do the referrals, which has helped immensely in terms of how much networking I need to do.  I also changed the format of my business to be more digitally based.  I use my website to take inquiries for services, email to correspond, an online project management platform to manage large projects, a cloud based invoicing system to bill and collect payments and online signatures for contracts.  Doing things in this way helps me interact, communicate and work with clients in a way that works well for me as an introvert.  It also removes a lot of pressure to have to turn “on” as much and allows me to focus more on the work that needs to be done.

I do still occasionally have face-to-face meetings and it is sometimes necessary to pick up the phone and call a client, but I do not have to do so very often and I can schedule them.  Before I learned that I was an introvert, I often wondered why I felt so tired and drained after interacting with people.  I also felt bad to dodge phone calls and decline get together requests.  Being told constantly that I had to attend networking events was also very frustrating.  Learning that I was an introvert, what that means for me as a freelancer and how to work around it has been a great thing for me.  I ran across this article on the Huffington Post this past summer and I was able to check off almost all 23 items.  If you think you might be an introvert or you want to gain a little insight into introverts, read this article:  23 Signs You’re Secretly an Introvert