Synergy

All the self help books preach positive attitude and if you believe in it you can achieve it.  It sounds so simple but it’s bullshit.  What they don’t tell you is that Everything Must Fit.  For a business plan, an invention, or even your personal goals to work or be successful, all components must align perfectly.  I’m going to use this blog as an example to explain exactly how this idea fits and how it relates to EVERYTHING YOU DO.

The Blog Build

A blog is built by key pieces that all must work together.  If any of the pieces are missing, you cannot achieve maximum potential.

The URL – The URL should pertain to what the blog is about.  Rnningfool.com misses this mark because it doesn’t explain what the site is about.  It speaks to me personally as in I like to run and I’m a fool but a general audience isn’t going to pick up on this.  A website should have a primary goal and that is what should be in the URL.  If I wanted to give running advice I’d hope to get the URL runningadvice.com or something similar.  

The Title – Every post needs a title and I think that it should be short and leading.  It should make the reader want to read on.  To be perfectly honest, I’ve written 1,700 posts and haven’t found one title that is a sure fire hit.  The title is only a snippet of the post but should give a general overview of what you will be writing about.  Make it curiously amusing.

The Content – The most important part.  The content should pertain to what your blog is about.  Let’s use the running advice idea again; the blog would give posts about running advice.  Examples would be attire, shoes, form, workouts, eating, and anything else that pertains to running.  I know it sounds simple but unless every post you write is about the exact idea your blog is about, it isn’t going anywhere.  This blog is a good example of that.  Rnningfool.com has no direction.  I write about whatever I want about but there is no focus.  All content is not pointing towards a dedicated idea.  Unless I earn a following because THEY LIKE ME, I won’t get Google traffic because I don’t have any specific direction.

The Readers – The people who read your blog have to want to interact.  A community needs to start and it will snowball from there.  People have to come to your website and comment on your posts and become part of what you are doing.  This blog will get a few comments from friends which is wonderful but the idea of random people coming to the site and commenting on posts is what will separate this from a person with a blog to an actual website.

The Pictures – An image is a powerful way of connecting to the audience.  I used to just put up any image I could quickly find just because I know there is an idea behind every post should have an image.  After some thought, I realized each image has to pertain exactly to the what the post is about.  That top picture in this post is what has to happen for something bigger to come from these posts.  All aspects, including the picture and it’s meaning, have to make sense.

The Promotion – How to get new readers?  How is this post going to reach any new eyeballs unless I personally do my part to make it happen.  I have to share the link on Facebook, Twitter, forums, and other blogs to promote my work.  If I’m proud of it, I have to get it out there.  It’s rare something takes off by itself.  It takes dedication towards getting it known.  With virtually no following this is a difficult task but not a deal breaker.  Continuous effort is needed.

Conclusion

A wonderful part about life is that you are constantly learning.  Throughout my 20’s I spent a lot of time learning about myself.   I learned how to take responsibility for my life, the proper ways of treating other people, and garnered invaluable life experience.  Once you start to feel comfortable in your own skin, then it’s time to take that out into the real world and make something happen.  I would considering making something happen if you are able to build an idea into substance.  Substance is reaching many people with information or  improving / simplifying life.  For my entire life so far, I’ve only concentrated on myself because that is hard enough to master.  With age and wisdom, this idea of everything fitting together is what will propel me further into life’s greater offerings.

This post doesn’t only work with a blog.  A restaurant works the same way as the build process I described for a blog.  They need excellent food, friendly and expedient service, gripping advertising, inviting atmosphere, and a pricing structure that works.  If any part of this is missing than the restaurant will not achieve maximum capacity.  An idea is only an idea.  A great idea can go horribly wrong in let me count the ways.  Life is incredibly tricky because of all the aspects it takes to succeed.  I think it’s what makes it so enjoyable.  Nothing is easy and it requires work.  Not just work, but pointed work.  I didn’t have an understanding of this in my younger days but luck only happens to a small percent of the population.  To the rest of the successful ones, it requires incredibly time consuming work.  The payoff is worth it though because when hard work is rewarded with success, there is no greater feeling.