Yes it’s true.  Sarah Nicole and I are having our 2nd Baby.  WOWOWOW!!  Social Baby #2!!!

If you’ve been following Successfool.com you’ll remember last year when my first daughter was born, we did a LIVE USTREAM the very next day and showed of my daughter Sadie Loren to the world!  (yes I was using Ustream back before it was “cool”)

That post was called “The Most Important Day Of My Life” and you can also see the live Ustream I entitled “Social Media’s First Baby”

Sarah, Sadie, and I are truly excited to welcome another addition into our crazy but fun family!

I feel like I’m gonna take over the world right now!

Family is EVERYTHING!!

COMMENTS WELCOME!

Jason Ewart is a Sydney-based transformation writer and speaker touring California in June 2009.  

(kudos to Funny Man Dan @funnymandan for the post title)

“Just because you are a character doesn’t mean you have character.”

- Winston Wolfe, Pulp Fiction (1994)

Recently, I had an opportunity to play a part in giving something back to the kids of our local community. This involved wearing a character suit of an oversized boy complete with permanent smile. A sweaty adventure as I attempted to not knock over any toddlers, caused by a limited view through the mouth of the character.

After several hours, I had a new appreciation for volunteers, and especially of life inside the big head!

Character development is an ongoing journey. Working inside the big head showed me that what was going on inside could be incongruent with the external. I made contact with the creator of the character to look for ways to bring life to the external.

One scenario really spoke volumes to me during the stint in the suit. As I stood near the jumping castle, a couple of youth came from behind and attempted to rip the head off the costume.

The head twisted slightly and a buckle or the fan unit scratched across my face, near my eye.

In that moment, on the inside of the big head, my thoughts were not healthy. They had potential of not bringing life to the character. After all, thoughts lead to actions.

Character is shown in circumstances. As I stood motionless, I re-grouped on the inside. It was very evident to me that what was going on inside the big head had the potential to impact the body language and actions of the character.

Thankful for the permanent smile!

As a business owner, entrepreneur or individual, is my character congruent with the message & values of my organisation?

Do I represent well?

“Character does count. For too long we have gotten by in a society that says the only thing right is to get by and the only thing wrong is to get caught. Character is doing what’s right when nobody is looking…”

Oklahoma Congressman J. C. Watts, speech at the Republican National Convention (August 13, 1996)

If character is doing what is right when no one is looking, or when you can “hide” inside the big head, what can we do for character development?

Set aside intentional time for reflection, journalling, meditation

Review values of self/organisation

Build accountability systems

Invest in health (diet, sleep etc)

Deliver on promises or communicate clearly & promptly if unable to do so

What works for you?

Please share them in the comments. My pen is at the ready.

What is the cost for NOT investing in character development?

]]> http://successfool.com/life-inside-the-big-head/feed/ http://successfool.com/life-inside-the-big-head/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Successfool/~3/ZwRVP9LuuVw/ http://successfool.com/social-medias-first-baby-turns-1/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:38:52 +0000 alejandro@successfool.com (Alejandro Reyes) http://successfool.com/?p=778

1 Year ago today my beautiful baby girl Sadie Loren Reyes came into this world.  That day completely changed my life FOREVER.  I wrote about “The Most Important Day Of My Life”

The day after she was born I did a Live Video Broadcast (go to 26:00 in the video below) for my friends and family and what happened next was pretty crazy.  You gotta understand that before this I had barely just started my blog and was trying to “make…

1 Year ago today my beautiful baby girl Sadie Loren Reyes came into this world.  That day completely changed my life FOREVER.  I wrote about “The Most Important Day Of My Life”

The day after she was born I did a Live Video Broadcast (go to 26:00 in the video below) for my friends and family and what happened next was pretty crazy.  You gotta understand that before this I had barely just started my blog and was trying to “make it happen” online…

I ended up tweeting that event and a lot of marketers, bloggers, & other folks from twitter ended up coming to watch this ustream.  This wasn’t a marketing ploy or anything, I was just really excited that I was able to utilize Social Media to show off Sadie to my friends and family.

The next day, I got soooooo many emails, tweets, dm’s, phone calls from people saying “Wow that was the coolest thing ever,” “I love your authenticy Alejandro” and my following online grew because of my daughter.  Pretty crazy huh?

Ever since then I knew that the key to making things happen in the Social Media arena is simple:  Be transparent, invite people into your life, and if you can put a smile on their face, you’ve won their hearts.

So I attribute a TON of my online success to my Sadie!

Sadie, I love you so much, you’ve changed mine and your Mother’s life FOREVER.  Happy Birthday Princess!!

Here’s some videos and some pictures of Sadie over the last year

Thanks!

=

The Video that started it all

sadie is dancing on 12seconds.tv

about to feed sadie & watch “From G’s to Gents” on 12seconds.tv

sadie just loves touching my face on 12seconds.tv

Sadie Loren is a Bee for Halloween. She has 3 other costumes on 12seconds.tv

Sadie trying to battle daddy on 12seconds.tv

Sadie dancing part deux on 12seconds.tv

sadie loves chris breezy on 12seconds.tv

sadie & daddy dancing on 12seconds.tv

]]>

Blogging has absolutely transformed my business.  I had blogged for SEO purposes over the last couple years but never blogged to build my own brand.  It’s been over a year since I first launched my blog and it’s a long time coming.  You can take a look at my very first video here.  Be warned, I’m pretty stiff

http://successfool.com/video-1/

Since I started blogging to position my brand out there in the marketplace, a lot of people ask me the question, “How do I start blogging,” How important has blogging been to your business.”

Well I’ll answer one of the questions today and then have my partner Justin Brooke answer you tomorrow nigh LIVEt on my Internet TV show SuccessfoolTV.  Justin has been ROCKIN IT lately with his blog.  Quadrupling his traffic for his already successful blog Site Fliiiiiiiiiiing!   (you gotta say it that way with the exclamation mark!!!)

How important has blogging been to your business?

I tell entrepreneurs and small businesses all the time… “blogging is the nervous system…the cornerstone of your online presence.”

Because of the success that I’ve had with my blog, I’ve been given the opportunity to speak at conferences, coach others how to use social media to grow their business, ran my own conference and the list goes on and on and on.

Listen, there’s so much traffic on these social media sites, we’re talking a LOT of traffic.  Twitter is the fastest growing social network on the Internet, Facebook is growing at over 700,000 new users everyday.  If Facebook was a country, it would be the 6th largest in the world.

So the goal for businesses shouldn’t be just to communicate with folks on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, and keep the conversation on those particular sites and try to offer products and services.  The goal should be to start a conversation with these people, add amazing value to people’s lives, then funnel them back to your blog (NOT a lead capture page) where you can add MORE value to their lives.   THEN, if you do a good enough job, you’ll have an opportunity to win over their business.

So has blogging been important to my business success, ABSOLUTELY.

Here’s some of just a few benefits of blogging for your brand or business:

- Brand awareness
- Traffic
- Research
- SEO (search engine optimization)
- Building relationships with your customers, clients or prospects
- Can review products or services in your industry
- Lost cost marketing
- Positioning you or your company as the “thought leader” in your niche
- Reputation management

How important has blogging been for YOU?  Would love to hear what your stories.

On this live show we talked about:

- Twitter Fight:  Ashton Kutcher and Larry King Ashton will be the 1st person to 1 Million Followers on Twitter
- Justin Brooke’s blog growing like crazy because of CONSISTENCY and CONTENT
- How I was voted Top 10 Internet Super Stars of 2009 (please vote for me at the bottom)
- Product Launches with Product Launch Rockstar, Chris Brisson
- I also showed off some AMAZING paintings by my friend David Garibaldi (follow him on Twitter)

Please use the RETWEET button up top and let your friends know.

Also, What did you like best about the interview with Chris Brisson?

Ever had one of those days when you notice that the only thing stopping you is you?!

One of the biggest assets for entrepreneurs and business leaders is the ability to silence self doubt and globalising, test assumptions & the like

The biggest win is often between the ears.

As a dominant visually wired guy, I have found my “portfolio of evidence” to be helpful for these moments.

The portfolio documents photos of wins, when I overcame (predominantly mental) obstacles that were a stretch or a fear.

The photos could be compiled in an album, or a slideshow or they may be displayed on a pin board in your strategy room.

The evidence will shut up those doubtful questions with definite proof that you can because you have!

It may be a captured moment of a presentation where you nailed it or when you closed a deal. On a personal level, you may have built or cooked something for the first time.

What story do you need to remind yourself of?

How can you capture it for the future?

Let the memorials spur us on, but may they spur us on to even greater endeavours so we don’t rely on the old stories or trophies like Al

Four touchdowns in one game!

Keep writing stories.

Keep creating portfolio volumes.

Are you one who is carefully selecting the blogs you visit and comment on because they have ‘Do-Follow’ set up? Yes, I know, you get links this way - but are you really contributing to building a solid business and brand? If you are aiming for adding links in order to get better page ranking so that you can feed viewers to your ads, maybe you are gaining a little. But will they ever return? If you don’t make the effort to create value on your site, you will be forever seeking first time viewers because that’s all you will have - is that what you want?

I got started on this topic because of a post on one of the blogs I read pertaining to blogging. Blogger Maki of DoshDosh just put up a post titled, “The Unhealthy Obsession With Do Follow Links” which I suggest you go read right after you are done here. I won’t repeat everything he said here but just say, he poses the question of the validity of restricting yourself to commenting only on blogs with Do Follow set up for the express purpose of getting back links. And with the validity of the short spammy comments that don’t contribute to the conversation.

Now I’m certainly not going to try to put words in Maki’s mouth, you should read his post for yourself, but I can tell you my take on this, which I’m suspecting may not be too far off of his based on what he has said. With this obsession for link building many are fooling themselves into thinking they are actually building something that will last. First, I wonder how long it will take Google to come up with a method that detects and qualifies comments? They have already found ways to lock out other forms of spammy activity - can you say Google Slap!

Secondly, are you aware of how things are shifting within the online marketing world? With all the social networking sites exploding all around us people are showing that people respond to people more than some artificial hype. Is this full circle? We are back to basic word of mouth being the most potent mode of marketing. For years the internet marketing tried to cover over this with all the hype that was developed just to get eyeballs on to a page. However, if you are looking to build a real business with a meaningful brand this kind of focus is short sighted.

I have only been involved online and learning about online marketing for about 3 years but have seen major shifts take place in how it is being done successfully. Even the top ‘gurus’ in the niches most highly susceptible to hype style marketing, ‘Internet Marketing’ and ‘Work From Home’ have shifted to providing tons of quality information for free. It appears that the way forward if you want to build a brand for yourself and your business, is to be real, and provide quality and value.

And certainly one way to bring value to your site or blog and to the readers, is to actually participate in and contribute to discussions that benefit those people. When you put intelligent ideas in your comments readers will be more likely to follow your link to your blog to see what else of value you have to offer. I think, in the end, that a real human following from a comment is of higher value than a Google Bot. It’s real people who ultimately do business with us, are we assisting them with this action or are we hoping to accidentally capture them? Are you involved with what your audience needs and wants? Are you helping them get it? Are you directing them to other useful sources?

Here’s the trick, if you want to get good at something you must immerse yourself in it. And it can be very helpful to align yourself with others who are doing the same. You can actually kind of form a mastermind alliance with others just by who you associate with in your blogging. Follow those who are deeply in tune with and developing that which you are interested in and get involved by making comments on their blogs and making posts on your blog that really contribute to the conversation. And this must be more than, “really cool post man!” . . . ‘Dude’, come on, wake up!

If you are working on building yourself and your sites as your brand, the shallow comments will do you little good, in fact they will more likely knock you down a few points with your readers. You may not have figured this out yet, but if Google can program it’s computers to pinpoint the shams real humans can do it too - and usually quicker. Now if you are operating with a business model that only cares about traffic, any traffic, to get ad clicks, then the shallow, “cool man” comments will get you some mechanical links. Go for it, as long as it lasts.

But realize that at some point more bloggers will set up filters to not allow short comments - it’s only a matter of time. Because what happens on popular blogs is that someone who really cares about the topic and wants to learn more from reading the comments, like the author, must wade through all the trash. Just like the famed ‘Google Smack’ on all the trash site developers, the system, which here on the net is ultimately people, will tire of wading through the trash.

Get a clue from what is going on in the online world of business, people are fast realizing that the best way to build a business and a respectable brand is to be real. Sure we all click on ads and we marketers use ads, I don’t think that will go away, but the trend is towards offering quality and value.

Your blog readers will respect you far more if they see that you are involved with real meaty discussions with others that are adding value to the subject.

If you are afraid that you will loose your blog readers to another blog if you mention it in your posts, you are missing the big picture. You will gain more respect by leading them to other high quality resources, and if you are really contributing - they will have a reason to stay with you, both for your recommendations and your contribution. Short sighted fear will hold you back!

By getting involved in quality interactions with other bloggers you are creating collaboration,and through collaboration everyone wins. You really are tapping into the ‘mastermind’ concept even if not officially set up. When a group of minds get together on a particular subject they are each enhanced by the interaction. Ideas beget ideas and spark more ideas much faster than each individual can alone. And everyone reading this interaction gains more as well.

You can also apply all this too articles as well. Yes it’s great how you can get a nice link from posting an article on an article directory, but what you really want is real live readers that are impressed enough to click on the link at the bottom and go to your page. The article has already pre-qualified them, they are now a better viewer or your page than one that came from a search.

So, I guess the first thing to decide is, what is the business model you want to operate with? Will you continue to chase traffic alone or will you build a brand which becomes viral in it’s own right where people invite people.

John

]]> http://successfool.com/do-follow-blog-links-are-you-fooling-yourself/feed/ http://successfool.com/do-follow-blog-links-are-you-fooling-yourself/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Successfool/~3/CPPjxGlrcro/ http://successfool.com/most-awesomest-social-media-show-ever/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:17:21 +0000 alejandro@successfool.com (Alejandro Reyes) http://successfool.com/?p=667

WOW.  Last night’s Live Broadcast of Successfool.com’s 1 Year Web Birthday was a HIT.  We interviewed some of the most amazing business folks online last night.

You heard me rant, you saw me dance, and you saw the passion last night no doubt.

Thanks so much for a great year and we’re doing it even bigger this year.

Hear interviews from:

Angel McClinton
Ed Dale
Coach Deb
Michelle MacPhearson
Sierra Friend
Lewis Howes
Preston Taylor
Justin Brooke

What was YOUR favorite quote or part of the show?  Leave your comments below & Tweet…

Wow, time fly’s when you’re having fun!!

This is a BIG DEAL to me and would mean a LOT if you came.

Successfool.com turns 1 this Wednesday, April Fool’s Day and I’m doing a LIVE Ustream Birthday Bash with all of my friends at 6pm Pacific  (9pm Eastern) time on Successfool.tv

Tweet this event by clicking here —>>> Tweet This!

Wednesday night we’re doing it REAL BIG, you’re invited!

Here’s what to expect on SuccessfoolTV:

- the Successfool Rants & Raves
- Free Book Giveaway
- Special Guests
- Discussion on how I built the Successfool Brand
- The State of the Fool

Tweet this event by clicking here —>>> Tweet This!

Make sure to to join the Facebook Fan Page as well Successfool Page on Facebook

Are you one of the many who has jumped in to the use of social media for marketing purposes? You are not alone, this is a very fast growing phenomenon. The question comes up frequently, just how is the best way to do this? It takes time, so as with any aspect of business, we should be looking at how to best utilize the time we allot to it. What results do we get for a given amount of effort.

Of course this leads into the questions about where, what and how. For most of us, we just jump into something we have heard about and dip out feet into it to see what happens. Now we all know that trial and error is the most heavily used mode of learning for human beings but that when we have a foundation of knowledge when we start, we are not starting from scratch. And acquiring new information with which to make our attempts more specific helps to speed up the process leading to some success.

This thing we call social marketing is no different. It is still very new to most of us but there are some people who have been at it for several years, so some results are now coming out as to the questions of where, what and how.

Now some people just will get a lot of followers in Twitter, Facebook or whatever just because of who they are. Already having some star status of some sort will attract people for no other reason. Like Steve Wozniak who on set up ‘votewoz’ on Twitter to tie in with his participation on the TV show Dancing with stars. On Feb. 26, 2009 he had about 200 followers and by march 24th he had over 62,000. Now can most of us expect that kind or rise in Twitter, not quite! Will his notoriety and web savvy help him win Dancing With Stars, who knows!

But there are some people who have been able to get some really good direct results from their efforts with social marketing. I suggest, those are the people to watch and study. There are Twitter rating sites like http://twitterholic.com/ where you can see the lists of how Twitterers rank. You can find people to watch here. Look for those high ranking and successful in your field or in the area of social media marketing you want to participate in such as @MariSmith or @barefoot_exec or @mariaandros .

Research is starting to pop up around this social media marketing thing such as the study that Michael Selzner just did called “Social Media Marketing Industry Report” where he polled a whole bunch or social media users to gather the most asked questions and the answers. A very detailed report with much to learn based on real experience rather than just what is being passed around.

And, I know all I mentioned here for the most part was Twitter, just keeping it simple. It all applies to the whole area of social media which leads to my final point. Which avenues do you use? Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, blogging, Digg and all the other modes of social interaction may each be more or less effective with your type of business or even niche. So part of the process is to discover the best ones for you. You can look to others in your same field and take notice of what they are doing. Does it appear that they are successful with a particular method? They may point you to where the poeple you want to influence hanging out?

As with anything, keep your eyes open for who you can learn from and what you can learn from. Of course you will need to tailor it all to what you are doing, which brings us back to trial and error. But, hey, with picking up some knowledge and pointers it becomes easier and faster to progress.

John