Clarity, perspective, the ah-ha moment; call it what you will, but unplugging for a week did not produce the direction and vision I anticipated. There have been a few times when life and work got in the way, but for the most part I have been running on this hamster wheel since March of 2011.
Even though I was officially unplugged for the past week, I still had my iPhone so it wasn’t like I couldn’t see all the activity. And Sunday when I finally got back to my computer to clean up and catch up it brought up the age old question, “does any of this really matter?”
As I sat contemplating what to write for my Monday post, I had several topics I could have easily touched on especially coming off a guy’s golf outing, but I had nothing; no desire to even post or jump back in the game for now.
How sustainable is your success?
As you scratch and claw your way to something you can reasonably call success, how sustainable is it really? If you took a 30-day moratorium, would there be anything left when you came back? If you are a solopreneur, probably not much, unfortunately.
At least in my day job I have a highly qualified team of people that have only one job to do while they work for me and that is to make Billy look good. I say this jokingly, but to keep it real simple, if they are making me look good then everything is working like it is supposed to.
I don’t have that kind of street cred with my social platform and as I see alliances and partnerships being formed, I have to ask, “is it still just a time suck or is it leading to sustainable success?” In other words, who is going to pay me for my time?
I also like to poke fun at myself for never making any lists, but I have made plenty and most recently my dear friend Adrienne Smith was kind enough to put me on her My Blogging Friends Rock list. And I do rock in case you were wondering; hey, it was a legitimate recognition, she wasn’t just giving me a mercy nod…:).
But what does that really mean? What if you are (or are not) the featured #FollowFriday? That and $3 will get you a Venti Redeye at Starbucks. Does this kind of recognition catapult you to the next level or is it just a feel good moment?
And my friend Adam does have a Starbucks story btw…..
I’m not very social anymore
As I try to evaluate my purpose and direction I have come to realize the extent of my socialness is in the blogs. My non-social friends think I tweet a lot and should know about every current event regardless of where it is occurring because surely someone tweeted about it.
I don’t know Jack Squat……….
99% of my tweets are coming from Triberr or when I promote someone else’s post; is that really being social? Is that being effective promoting others?
Does that make me king of the hill or is it still just a house of cards?
20 months into this thing, nobody still cares if I go to Starbucks so don’t look for me to tweet about it.
What does it mean then?
It means my posting schedule could change and instead of being Steady Eddie, it could be more along the lines of when the mood strikes. This applies to my commenting as well; I really want to spend time with all my friends, but I’m looking for a hall pass as it will be on as a time permits basis as well.
I want to start interacting again with my tweets; this means I will be more selective on how I promote posts and will be looking for ways to encourage feedback or acknowledgement. It is still ok to have two-way communication through tweets, right?
A new platform. I’m on LinkedIn pretty much in name only. However, I do know it is the most robust business platform so I will be devoting more time here to find ways to use it more effectively. Out of all the platforms, LinkedIn probably is the best fit for my business efforts in social. Also, now that my son is on board at Lanier Upshaw, I think LinkedIn will be a worthwhile social platform for him to become familiar with.
Finally, I plan on taking more of an ownership interest in the Lanier Upshaw blog. There is plenty to write about and hopefully I can de-mystify some of the unknowns consumers have to deal with in the world of insurance, other than just buying a policy.
Drum roll please…
That’s it; that’s my epiphany ’cause that’s all I got. You wanted direction; well, you got mine for now.
It could change next week.
Stay tuned on Thursday as I will have Erin Feldman dropping by; I tried to give her my blog but she wouldn’t take it. However, her post will be very timely indeed. She knows how to Write Right.
Insurance broker; principal/owner @LanierUpshaw, Inc. FSU grad; Auburn dad; interested in people & relationships, who you want to be when you grow up. I also love to write. Social I can do, do that well and everything else is easy.
The truth will set you free. Or so they say. Whatever you decide, I’ll be around to remind you that you have other aspirations than being an insurance magnate. For example, there’s that novel of yours still waiting to be written…
Ah yes, now might be the time to put the pedal to the metal on that one; thanks for the encouragement sir.
Wow Bill – this is big news!!! You’re getting involved with your corporate blog!?!? In my opinion, the key to LinkedIn is the use of the groups. Very powerful. Are you bailing from Triberr? Or are you just going to ‘x’ out more accounts? (Please not mine!!)
I would never X out yours; I always pimp my friends……..:).
I have never given LinkedIn a chance so I’m looking forward to educating myself on it’s benefits.
Thanks for the drive-by; always a pleasure to see you.
Bill, that’s the beauty of 20 months of experience, isn’t it? Frankly, I expect that you have seen enough and read enough to give you a solid sense of what to do. Change is good otherwise there would be no evolution. I’ll be around and will keep an eye out.
That Erin Feldman is a great addition to the arsenal. You are lucky to get her.
Cheers Bill!
20 mos….the grizzled veteran….
It has to be fun and I’m ok w/ having a purpose too; we’ll see how it goes.
Erin is the real deal; look out for her Thurs.
Well, what can I say that we haven’t discussed before? When the honeymoon’s over and the lustre rubs off, how does one stay motivated to stay the course? Some days it feels like you’re pushing a string uphill with your nose. What’s it all about (Alfie)? Some days I just don’t know. Cheers! Kaarina
Probably much ado about nothing; it’s interesting to see how the threads connect and who does what to keep people around.
It’s the people who keep me around; otherwise, there is a lot of silliness indeed.
First off, Bill, I came over to congratulate you on your headline, which is really funny and unusual.
Secondly, I think the living brain is under construction all the time. Sorry that unplugging for a week didn’t sharpen your focus as expected. Maybe you didn’t yank the cable hard enough and a few rogue electrons followed you to your sanctuary.
Thirdly, this whole thing — social media, trying to ride the wave of popularity or scale the wall or climb the steep hill of it or whatever visual metaphor you happen to favor right now — this whole thing is as important as you make it. Just like any other relationship in your life, you devote yourself to social media as much as you want, and the power it has over you is the power you give to it. That you cede or concede. I don’t know, both verbs really sound fine right now.
Posting when the mood strikes is not as bad as all that. And yes, sharing through triberr is social and I for one appreciate every single time you RT my stuff or stop over at the blog to share some of your unique brand of humor. Always a pleasure to see you there.
I figured you’d bring some sense to all of this; it’s only as important as you make it.
The people keep me around and I like hanging around your place; I’m always working my brain there.
Good to see you sir.
It makes me sad that you don’t do social much anymore. I understand, you are busy, but you are wrong…I do care about your run to Starbucks. I love those sorts of tweets and they are often the springboard to nice little conversations, sometimes long ones. I tweet about bacon, or grocery runs, or how I’m watching something on Netflix. It is put out there as a sign post, “Hey, I’m just hanging out watching a bit of zombie apocalypse and would love to chat, too.”
I tweeted a link to my book, yesterday. I made it all pretty with a quote from one of the reviews I’ve received. It was the first such tweet in over a week, and before that, probably a month had passed since I tried to promote Henry, but that is okay. I love the social aspect of social media. The business stuff I can always turn on, but the friend stuff is what keeps me engaged. I hope you will not give up being social forever, because Twitterville is a better place when you are there.
The friend stuff is what keeps me engaged too sir. The social aspect I understand; it’s all the other stuff that I feel like maybe I have fallen behind on……..but only in my mind……….most have no idea what I’m doing here……:).
We had 4 Hawkeyes in our golf group last week; good guys indeed.
I can never give up being social; online and off. Good to see you my friend.
Bill, you’re doing great stuff here, but a little refinement wouldn’t hurt, if only to make sure this blog and all the time you dedicate to it aligns with your needs. If it’s not working for you, it’s not working.
I’m with you on reconsidering how to use Triberr. Margie Clayman wrote a great post about it here: http://ow.ly/eSMyh The point for me: there has to be a better balance than what I have now. There’s more to life than blog traffic. I’m not blaming Triberr, but I need a better strategy for using it.
Erin’s coming on Thursday? Cool! Talk about going from one end of the stylistic spectrum to the other… You may want to reinforce the blog’s foundation, there may be some sway and pitch.
Blogging is my networking vehicle. I see some people working very hard and the blogging/social is bringing much more recognition than real dollars.
Realistically, my guess is the top 2%ers are making the real money and the rest are chasing damn hard, just to get by. If I put that same effort into my day job it wouldn’t be unrealistic for me to make $500k; so I have to ask myself do I want to work that hard at two jobs?
However, I do want to stay plugged-in and I really do like the social part of it. It’s a constant challenge for me to find the right balance; how much is enough?
Thanks for your kind words sir; much appreciated.
I have been tweaking and adjusting for a while. My focus has been on determining what my goals are and if this time here is serving that. It is part of why I don’t get around as much as I used to. The game requires a change up and dust off every so often and sounds like you are in the midst of it.
Trying to find the right frequency is always a challenge because it is always changing too.
Yes, I am in a contemplative, changing mood.
Hi Bill, So glad you’re back. The Internet isn’t the same without you. No matter what your new direction is, I will follow on that path. I have a feeling you can make even corporate insurance entertaining and engaging.
Follow me like a cult, huh? I won’t make you drink the Kool-Aid………..:).
I appreciate you ma’am.
Well-said, Bill. I have found that my greatest epiphanies, and life changes, take place when I am unplugged from my usual routine. Generally most of us wait until we have some catastrophic illness or accident to take stock. Glad to see you are back and look forward to the new direction.
Life is short, success usually fleeting, we all need to take some downtime and look at where we’ve been and where we’d like to go.
Sometimes we get so far down in the weeds and most of us are on an island in here; it’s hard to find the thinking time unless you unplug.
Life is way too short for me not to have a good time, so that is a big driver of my direction too.
Thanks so much for your thoughts; I do appreciate them.
Good to see you back, Bill! When I go off and come back, I just let my pictures do half my talking, because I am like that and it suits/fits me. I find that online begins to fatigue me, even as I am spending more time offline. Since I am on emai/skype/chat/phone/face-to-face with most of my friends – I am happy – popular or not. Most times, that matters more than anything else.
I hope you enjoyed your time off. Lotsa love! Vidya
Happy is a good way to be. I really do like the social part of it, but sometimes it makes me question where am I going with this?
I had a great time off; good friends, good food, good times indeed.
I am back in some form or fashion; I’m still trying to get my bearings however.
I hope you have been well.
I am right there with you Bill. I went through that myself and now I am finally working revamping my blog, building my first product and not rushing to put out something for the sake of doing it. I have had my off days and only posted once a week and my excuse is that life happens and rather than moan about it, I just move on. At least I get something out and people like it. Whatever you are doing, we know you will be back because you are BILL!
Are Bill or The Bill?……….:)
It would be too hard for me to just shut down; but it might be a different version of me. My biggest fear is not being able to give back enough to my community; but I’m sure parts of that will change. Like I said, just give me a hall pass until I find my new level of sustainability.
It is so good to see you; thanks so much for dropping by.
It will be interesting to see what you do with your company blog… Honestly, I’ve never read it, but I will take a look at it.
Insurance can be such a boring subject, but I can see you adding some personality and humor into it – just what talking and learning insurance needs : )
I’m sure Marcus has provided some solid ideas on strategy..?
I have found that you ‘get out’ what you ‘put in’ to anything in life, really.
You just have to decide where’s the best place to invest the best piece of your life to get the things you really want out of it.
Time is a valuable commodity, invest it into things that really do it for you : )
Cheers Mr. Bill!
Fortunately, I have a lot more time than treasure to give and can pick and choose how I use it. I really enjoy the networking in the blogs but at times I have to step back and ask myself ‘why?’
There was a time we were thick as thieves w/ Marcus, huh? He’s definitely a man on a mission and I just hope his road to success and all this time he has to spend away from his young family to chase his dream is what he thought it would be.
Stay tuned; we’ll see how the insurance thing goes. Maybe I can go on the road as the insurance comic……….:)
Hey Bill
My wife told me I was putting too much pressure on myself to get things done on my blog, commenting everywhere and sharing etc. So I’ve cut back too, only one post a week and not so much sharing and commenting.
My full time job is looking after the kids after all, so that has to take priority.
I’m pleased you’re back, for what it’s worth. I hope one day we can have that beer and get the whisky flowing.
It’s very easy in the early days to let it consume you. I had reached what I thought was a sustainability point but after unplugging for awhile, it has been somewhat difficult to be enthusiastic getting back to even that level. That is why I mentioned some new directions.
Thanks for your kind words; it is good to be back, let’s see what that continues to look like going forward.
It’s great that you’re back Bill. I understand how you feel, I do feel some of the same things and I’m also kind of struggling to find the right focus. My “problem” has been that all my clients are Norwegian and all the fun things I’ve been doing has been when I’ve been writing in English. But that doesn’t generate any money or new clients. So, I need to find out if I am doing this for fun, or if I am doing it to get more business, or maybe both.
What I do know is that this social thing is a lot of fun, and that I’m meeting so many awesome people. And, that I’ll be following your every step, even to LinkedIn with your insurance thing
I’m very attracted to fun; most of the times it does not make money, but it keeps me happy.
I’m sure I could be doing some things from my social platform that would bring increased recognition to me and my day job that would help me financially. But then again, there are things I could be doing IRL, that would help that as well. My biggest challenge is if I start down that road with my social platform it has to be sustainable; I don’t want to get half-way in and shut it down because it’s too much like un-fun work. Plus, it’s one of those things you can put a lot of time and effort into and make very little money; that same time and effort if spent in my day job will guarantee results.
I like the social aspect of it; that more than anything will keep me around. I’m just looking for a new sustainability level again.
Good to see you out of the spam, sir.
Glad to see you back bill and glad you didn’t run with that Hall Pass and never look back
(Great movie!) Yes, I tried to take a week off but sometimes a post just has to be done. It does feel like a rat race on some days trying to get all your tweets and shares in here and there. We must be selective even on Triberr. I don’t share every tribe-mate’s post. But those that have content I like and are in my realm of tweets may be shared. It still all takes time doesn’t it? We must prioritize and move on as Sonia said. Good luck whichever direction you run with.
There are certainly a lot of moving parts and trying to pick and choose which ones to keep up with can be challenging. Plus, it’s like being home sick and seeing all your friends outside on the playground.
Catching up, I just made most of it go-away. I wasn’t even going to try to read and respond. My Triberr friends I know I posted and everyone else got the X.
Oh well, life in the big city, huh?
I’ll figure it out; thanks for stopping by.
Okay, I know you’ll be around, but if it is in a way that makes the whole thing more enjoyable — then I think that is a revelation of sorts. We’ve spoken about this a lot; I know how hard it can be to make that posting schedule with a FT gig IRL. It’s tougher, I know, when the end game is not clear. Hopefully, this schedule will get that spring in the step again.
And I do have starbucks story… Maybe I should tweet about it.
I had already skinnied it down to what I thought was sustainable; but after being gone it sure was hard to get enthusiastic about catching up again…..and I’m still working on it.
I’m too social just to go away, but there might be another version of me going forward. Only time will tell….
If the weather stays like this, we’ll have to go shooting again.
Good to see you.
Yeah Bill, you rock so the title of my post was appropriate and I had to list you first.
I’m glad you took your week off but I hope you don’t fade out. I know, sometimes we look at the things we’re doing and ask why! Would anyone really miss us but the answer would be hell yeah. I know that you’ll do what’s right for you in the long run but I think that all your social activity online will benefit you down the road. I also believe that you can bring new light to the insurance industry if you post more on your corporate site. Hey, we can all learn from Mr. Bill!
I’m going to go checkout the Starbucks story now. See ya!
~Adrienne
Judy Dunn had a post today that was very timely for me; she talks about her evolution.
I like to network and I like to tell stories; there should be a place in here for that, right? Some of the stories might even be insurance related, huh?
Thanks for the mention; it was very much appreciated.
You know what’s interesting about this? Most of us who’ve been blogging for any amount of time have gone through this very thing. Is it worth the time? What’s the ROI? What am I getting out of it (besides some traffic and social shares)? Good on you for figuring out what’s important to you in this whole world wide web. And, in case anyone was wondering, Billy DOES rock!
Hola; as far as figuring it out, that’s yet to be seen but I’m working on it.
Just like golf and tennis, I like to play and I’ll put enough time into it to make it enjoyable; however, it will never be my profession. Similar to blogging as I like to network and I like to write (and have people actually respond to what I have written).
I know there is a blend in there somewhere to make it applicable to business as well, so that will be my journey.
I have hit the wall a few times but usually pick myself up and carry on; it’s hard for me to stay away from the people…..:).
Thanks for your thoughts and support.
Take me to your blogger!
Blog on…
Don’t trust the chicago woman!
No kidding, huh?
Bill: Hey man, nice to be here man! I love reading your posts! I am in the same boat as you because I can’t go too long without everything on my blog going down the drain. I don’t have a certain posting schedule, but my goal is two post a month. I want to complete a new post every three days and schedule them, but I am just getting going with that. I got distracted not too long ago and wasted some time, but I am back on the ball and writing away. it would be nice to have post scheduled a few months in advance, in case the unexpected happens which it always does. As for income, I have some ideas for a future product and I want to make it super awesome so it can spread on it’s own and make me money on auto-pilot. I did some extensive work on few products, but I have trashed them all (Not literally) because I didn’t feel they were quite what I wanted as a finished product.
Anyways, that’s just me. Wish you the best and don’t stress over posting too much. Be free and live in the present. I am sure that passion will come come back and you’ll be writing away!
Best Wishes,
William Veasley
Hey William, long time no-see. Thanks for your words of encouragement, you never know when someone reaches out that it might be just the thing you need to keep you going.
Good luck on your journey and your projects and I hope you have a fantastic week sir.
Looks like everywhere I go, people are talking about showing up. And you show up every time, that in my books is half the battle! And even if you don’t right now, you do it a little later, that’s okay too. As long as you are not making me lose millions, I am fine with you being irregular!
And really, you are most social blogger I know…
Now we don’t want to be too irregular now, do we?……..:)
I do have fun and don’t want to run away just because it got a little hard. Once again, it means finding a sustainability level and still being present, right?
Good to see you; I hope school is going well for you.