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I get emails from people who want to know if Start Something Today accepts guest posts. The simple answer is yes but we are very selective. These guidelines are just that – guidelines – if you have an idea then e mail me and we can discuss it.
As a general rule I will only publish one Guest Post a week. So the next question is – What kind of content do we accept?
The general principle is that it has to add value to our readers. Things that are related to doing business – we even let you occasionally promote your own business. It can be related to business ideas, creative ideas, blogging, Internet marketing in general, and it can also be derived from your own personal experiences. There is no minimum length for your post, but usually the guest posts have over 500 words.
Guidelines
- Your post must be original and must have never been published before on the Internet
- You agree to not publish the post anywhere else (i.e., in your own blog or as a guest post in other blogs)
- You can include up to two links in the byline, which will be displayed at the bottom of the post
- You can’t use SEOd anchor text for your links
How do I submit my guest post? We prefer to set you up as a contributor or possibly an editor but that all depends on your content.
If you have a post that meets the guidelines above, you can send it to me on the email paulatstart-something-today.com – if you click on the guest writer image that will take you to my e mail. Usually within 48 hours I will reply stating if we will accept the guest post or not. If I reject your post, you are obviously free to use it in your own blog or to propose it as a guest post to some other website.
I’m not talking about the brown things that monks wear when I talk of habits. I’m talking behaviour and thought patterns.
On one hand habits are like suitcases and bags that get in the way. On the other hand habits of behaviour that help us achieve what we desire.
Much has been written by many skilled authors over the years about habits. How to break them, how to improve them and I’m not about to try to compete with those writers. Just recognising that you have a habit is the first step and 90% of the solution.
In very simple terms habits are things that we picked up and employ every day without even thinking about it. As before they can be both positive and negative. The same dynamic is at work in our work. If you walk into any business and start looking around you’ll see good and bad habits. The good habits might be good customer service. For example following up with customers who have reported a problem with your product or service. A bad habit might be as simple as having a cluttered desk and being unable to find something when you need it. I just looked at my desk and realize that’s one of my bad habits.
So how do you decide whether a habit is good or bad? It’s really very simple. The question I would ask is “does my habit take me nearer my ultimate goal?” If the answer is yes all well and good I’ll decide to keep that habit. If upon examination my habit does not take me nearer my ultimate goal and then I have to conclude, based upon the creative process, that it’s a bad habit.
The more difficult ones to assess are those habits that are so small that I do not even recognize them as habits. So how do I assess them? It may be you need the advice and help of someone close to you who can dispassionately assess your activities and help you to see what is good and what is less good. You may find it helpful to diary your time and keep a record in 15 minute increments of when and how you spend your time.
In order to assess your habits in this way you need to have a very clear picture in your own mind of what you’re trying to create. If you tend to drift through the day without a clear idea of what your end goal is then I would suggest that you read Your life as Art by Robert Fritz. In this book he explains a very simple process, but once you understand what he is recommending, you’ll never look at your life goals in the same way again. Julia Frances put it so eloquently – “common sense in a poetic form”. It may not be the easiest book to read but it is one of the most profound in my experience. He also has a weekly newsletter which can be subscribed to at www.RobertFritz.com.
There I was talking with our daughter about or plans for the future and admitting that we were a long way from achieving them? She then came back, quick as a flash with something I’d taught her years ago.In essence what she suggested was:
- Know where you are starting from
- Find out where you want to end up
- Develop a strategy to get you there
So don’t forget to put into practice what you taught (or teach others). Go back and re-evaluate your learning and growing processes. Teach yourself as well as others.
While walking the dog this morning I had a moment to ponder why was I walking the dog? It gets her out and gets her some exercise. I get some fresh air and some exercise, not as much as she does, but it helps me to maintain my levels of fitness or even improve them.
Point 2 for today is “exercise is not a luxury – it is a vital necessity“. I we don’t use a muscle and stretch it then it will wither and die. If we don’t exercise we will lose the ability to do so. You don’t get fit or healthy overnight and conversely you don’t get unfit or unhealthy overnight either. The process is the cumulative effect of lots of small steps and choices that add up to one or other of those options. The best book on the subject is one by Jeff Olson called the Slight Edge. Well worth a read as it will add to your understanding but remember knowledge without action is fruitless.
Point 3 comes from a long held passion of mine – to keep developing. So what new skill have I learnt this week, what new hobby have I taken up, what do I now do better than I did at the beginning of the week. So what new skill or ability am I going to learn this week.
Whilst on holiday – a rare fine day in a wet summer – I came across something that I’ve know for years but had forgotten. How nice it is to receive a handwritten letter or postcard? When was the last time you made the effort to hand-write a letter? I used to write almost every day to my wife and children and some years I was away for 200 + days/year. Those letters are treasured and often re read and often bring about a smile or tears but the still produce a response.
Text messages and e mails and twitter don’t have the same effect. E mails bring me to tears sadly but all for the wrong reasons.
One company leading the swing back to letter writing is Papernation and the blog that goes with the site is always worth a peek.
As always these posts come with a challenge – who are we going to write to today or this week? Tell us what happened as a result. Go on encourage someone today!
On this mornings weekly team call we talked about the concept of ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ and I used the examples of the Freedom Writers from Long Beach and the film Pay It forward.
In the Freedom Writer’s film Erin Gruwell, a newly qualified teacher, takes on a class of ‘no-hoper’s and in the course of 2 years begins a movement, the freedom writers Foundation, that is definitely changing the world they live in and the world much further away – This film is in my top 10 and is a must watch.
In the other film, Kevin Spacey, challenges his class to come up with an idea that will change the world. One student suggests that if they get the Chinese population to jump up and down at the same time that it would knock the world off its axis. While the star of the film, Haley Joel Osment, comes up with a concept where he would do something that would help 3 people (it was something they couldn’t do for themselves) and then hope that they in turn would pay it forward.
My challenge for the next few weeks is to exercise the idea of Random Acts of Kindness – do something for someone that is of no benefit to you but makes someone smile, helps them values them, inspires them.
It needn’t be large, often the small things are best, but see what you can come up with and post your experiences on the site.
Go on – make someone smile today!
I’ve been in business for several years now and have the privilege of working alongside some of the brightest minds in business.These are people who have real experience of doing things that lead to success. I remember one lady Louise Fowler, who I worked with for 2 years and who to my knowledge built 2 £1/5 million businesses, who said “the fortune is in the follow-up” and it took me a while to really grasp what she meant. Follow-up is often talked about as part of the marketing process but in reality it is far more about building relationships and enabling people to trust you.
Follow-up can be broken down into two areas Active and Passive:
Active Follow-up might include:
- picking up the phone and calling a prospective customer/client and asking some very un-sales like questions like: “How are you doing”? If they’ve been on holiday ask them how the trip went. If you know that they had a daughter getting married ask how the wedding went. Don’t try to sell them anything – just ask them some open questions. Just find out what they like doing – kite surfing, flower arranging, extreme sports – just find out what they like doing. Continue Reading…
Every week a group of entrepreneurs gather on the phone to talk about a variety of issues and thoughts. Today’s discussion centred around the concept of reality. What is reality and how do we test it? All I Know – or more correctly what I’ve learned so far is that it’s all too easy to believe what others tell me is real when it truth it may not be.
For example: The UK Government’s view of what is real may be quite different from my own.
So be very careful to test your perception of reality. Now that begs the question how do we test reality? The film ‘Matrix’ was all about our perceptions of reality and taking the blue pill or the red one would dictate what reality was for us.
Start from a place where you test the simple things – food, your home, your family and then build on those. In his book, your life as art, Robert Fritz uses an illustration where he gets some art students to paint a brick building and they all paint what they see – a building with red bricks. He then alters their perception by getting them to look at the building through a pinhole in a card and paint what they see – this time the bricks take on a whole new colour – orange to be true to the story. The lesson is that our perception is altered by our surroundings. Test your surroundings and try to get a better understanding of your reality. Having done that then try to visualise what you are trying to create – that sets up structural tension. Then put into place small steps that take you toward what you want to create.
For example imagine that you want to have a more fulfilling relationship with your wife or partner. You first decide that you want to create something – in this case a better relationship (What you want to Create). Then you acknowledge current reality in that you get home late from work and are too tired to do anything (Current Reality). You now have structural tension in that you know where you are and what you want. Then you put in place simple small steps like planning in your diary to get home 1 hour earlier one night a week when your partner/spouse is free.
Do that for a minimum of 3 weeks and you’ll have the grounds for a new habit and one that is constructive and creative. Simply build in more steps over the weeks and with a supportive structure around you the impossible suddenly becomes possible.
Ok – its been a long time coming but what started out as a simple monday morning call with some freinds who shared a common goal (health in this case) has become something much more. Start Something Today is a beginning that might just lead anywhere – It depends on what we want to do and what we want to start – hence the name.
In todays economic climate we have recognised that we need to be proactive and actively create what matters to us. If we don’t do that we run the risk of getting stuck in a passive state where we watch the hurting world pass by and do nothing about it.
The key categories we have put in place ( we can add more later on) are the things we talk about most often. So here we are at the beginning of what I hope and Trust will be a wild ride where a few people get together to make a real difference and have a lot of fun in the process.
We will have some editorial guidelines to put in place but we have to start some where.
Paul Barton – excitedly
WE have today lived up to the title of the site START SOMETHING TODAY
