In our continuing Digging Deeper series we turn to chapter two in John Maxwell’s book, Becoming a Person of Influence. This time it is the subject of nurturing other people. John brings up five main attributes that make up this special quality. I would like to take these qualities one at a time and show you through some personal examples, bloggers who used these to reach out to me and to other people and how that helped them reach a huge audience.
To become a nurturer you need to put your focus on other people and help them develop…
1. Positive Self Worth. In my early days as a blogger it would feel really lonely putting up a post and having little or no feedback. It was like throwing something into the wind and have it float away, never to be seen again. This is where Rosa Say came in. With her feedback on a few of my early posts, I felt empowered to write more. She always has a positive and nurturing spirit that has helped me and hundreds of other bloggers succeed.
In the early days it was also nice to visit Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger. His posts lifted the profession of blogging to a higher level. According to Darren, not only was blogging a worthwhile endeavor, but it also could be a profitable one. His posts helped me in many different ways, but helping me to see the positive aspects of blogging was very important.
2. Sense of Belonging. One of my early mentors in blogging was Steve Pavlina. He had started his blog six months prior to my blog and I always felt like Steve was like a big brother. He offered positive feedback and his blog was comment heaven in the early days. He put a link to my blog on his site and commented on my posts from time to time.
It’s funny, but in the blog-o-sphere having someone link to you is a big thing. It definitely gives you a sense of belonging. Once Steve linked to my blog, my traffic started to increase and suddenly readers were commenting on my posts. I started to find other blogs that I liked and started linking to them. Suddenly I was part of a growing experiment in communication called blogging.
About a year ago I met Liz Strauss over at Successful blog. She has taken the idea of community and has really run with it. She came up with an idea to review and link to successful and outstanding bloggers. She calls these blogs SOB’s and provides a colorful badge to everyone she links up with. She took the whole idea of a blog community to new levels last year when she collaborated with Phil Gerbyshak and other relationship bloggers to
create SOBcon07, a blogging conference held in Chicago. Her blog has become a weekly collaboration event ever since.
3. Perspective. After I was blogging for a few months and my traffic was increasing, I ran into business blogger, Yaro Starak. Yaro helped me develop a new perspective on blogging. He talked about finding your niche and helping others by writing pillar articles on your subject of interest. His blog tips series helped me focus on my evolving category of personal development. I went from just a casual commenter to some one who was really interested in the field.
4. Feeling of Significance. As my blogging became more frequent and my writing became more focused, Rosa Say offered me a membership in her growing Ho’ohana community. This was like reaching blogging nirvana. All of a sudden I was part of something very special. I was suddenly part of a community of bloggers that I had incredible respect for. With powerful voices like Dwayne Melancon, David Zinger, and Tim Milburn this was humbling to say the least.
Collaboration with others is so important in business, your personal life, and especially in blogging. Trackbacks and linking are some of the best ways to develop community on the web. With these simple tools it is quick and easy to offer off site resources and link to pillar articles that really make a difference.
5. Hope. Now that I have been blogging for over two and a half years, I look ahead to what is next. I want to say a big thank you to all of you who have read, commented, and have been a part of this blog. You have inspired me to keep writing and to make a difference in the world. We have some exciting new things coming soon, including a new look and some great new resources.
Blogs come and go, but two of my favorites are celebrating third birthdays this week. Three years is a long time to keep writing and sharing and both Steve Pavlina and Darren Rowse deserve and big round of applause for keeping at it. Steve is offering a look back at his polyphasic sleeping experiment while Darren is giving away prizes at his birthday fest.
When blogs have been around this long it gives me hope for the future. I think this experiment called blogging is just starting, I can’t wait to see what the future holds…
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