What I've Learned from Bloggers Who Think Differently

I've learned amazing strategies from fellow bloggers... And as I keep reading blogger's posts I'm constantly finding the old noodle's stretched. And that requires me to keep changing... Do you find that to be true as well?

Bob Hruzek's "What I Learned from" challenge is out... I'm compelled to step up to the plate.

Streamline your site: Doug Karr fired BlogRush, Fuel My Blog and even Technorati. Doug maintains that keeping widgets and buttons and badges hurts more than it helps, for several reasons:

1. It prolongs the death of the service, or worse, provides an indication to a larger company or investor that they are actually worth investing in or buying.
2. It slows down my site by having to add more crap from servers that I have no clue can handle the load or not.
3. It clutters my site.
4. It provides me no useful data regarding my site and its statistics.
5. It doesn’t help promote my site. When there are tens of thousands of other schmucks, there’s no spotlight for you.

Here's the clincher that really struck home: "When I comment on another blog, 9 times out of 10 that blogger will come check out my site. I really believe that Search and Commenting are the two best methods for growing your readership - not these other sites." Are you subtacting or adding to your site?

If you look around my site I've collected quite a few badges and buttons, but Doug's really challenged me to streamline.

Recently I tagged bloggers for the Think Different challenge... Here's what I've learned...

How about subtracting negatives in your life? Rick Cockrum says, "Robyn, you’re making me think! Finding something I do that results in negatives isn’t the issue. Narrowing the negatives down, that’s the issue for me." Rick, thanks for your wisdom. I sense more of us struggle with this than we'd first admit.

Consider managing money for abundance...Live-Work Cafe challenges us to think about managing money for abundance rather than scarcity...

Like many others in the early stages of retirement, I'm determined to build my resources. So, my shift has two parts:

1. I have enough. I have always had enough. I will always have enough. All those little and big fear demons can take a hike. I refuse to feel financial fear and will work to increase my financial knowledge and capability to ensure that I have more than enough.
2. I have the ability to create even greater abundance. I love my possessions, and they are more than enough - whether a new piece of jewelry or an old spatula that belonged to my grandmother - to bring me joy when I look at them. I will cherish them and use them as a reference point when considering something new. I plan to look at the price tag and think of how I can add this sum to my emerging portfolio. Fiscal responsibility.

This gives me much cause to consider purchases more....You?

Listen and listen even more: Jackie Cameron reminds me to listen carefully when you're working with others when it's so tempting to give advice:

In my view the most important skill for a coach - and really for anyone - is to be able to listen. Listen , listen and then listen some more - holding on for a few more seconds to ensure that the speaker has really finished. The challenge then is to feedback what you think you have heard to ensure clarity of understanding - and then ask questions to provoke more consideration on what they have said. If the person you are speaking to does really just want to talk something through to reflect and gain clarity of the situation for themselves this can be invaluable.

Test your reality... Lisa Gates calls us out to "test your reality. Test your thoughts. Are you living at the effect of circumstances? Or are you creating your life from thoughts generated from the core of your being? In the past year, how have your thoughts shaped your reality?"

You've likely heard these tidy little quips:

Change your thoughts, change your reality.
Thoughts create reality.
Thoughts lead to feelings lead to actions.
When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Free yourself of expectations... From Donna Karlin I'm reminded that when I let go of expectations, I free not only myself, but others, too...
I recognize I have expectations and, when I drop them and no longer let them have any power over me in any way, I'm usually pleasantly surprised.

So when it comes to expecting someone to call, to care, to engage, to act the way I might in a specific circumstance, I challenge myself to think differently....to let go of all expectations which takes others' monkeys off my back, gives others the freedom to act from a position of their values and integrity (or not) and for me to live in alignment with mine at the same time, regardless of what others do.

Whew! Freeing!

Bob, I really sit at the feet of other bloggers to keep learning as I think very differently! I'm not the same person I was a year ago. These conversations are amazing.

If you'd like to participate in Bob's "What I Learned from" challenge... consider yourself tagged!