Tag: chris brogan

  • 3 Reasons Your Story is Important to Me

    This post is in response to Chris Brogan’s post and challenge about the importance of story in our lives. 

    A few month’s ago when I was at a crossroads in my life I watched a video that posed several questions.  To me the questions were so profound that I wrote them down and have pondered them many times since.  The question are:  What is my calling?;  What if my calling is my story?; and What if my story is where I am right now? 

    When I first had these questions posed to me through the video I had 2 reactions.  First, “cheezy” and second, after they lingered a while, was “wow”!  The second question was a bomb shell for me.  What IF my calling WAS my story?  You’d think at 43, that I would have all of life’s big questions answered, but what I find is that the farther I go down the trail of life the more questions I actually have.

    What if my calling was my story?  What if I was not only the narrator, but a character in my own story.  What if I was also a co-author, not just in my story, but in the stories of others and vice versa?  These were all questions that came to mind as I pondered the my own emotional and intellectual response to the initial questions.

    So why would your story be important to me?

    First, it is in hearing other’s story that I realize that I’m not that unique and yet still uniquely me.  We are all travelers in this life, sharing similar experiences and yet we have very different responses and outcomes.

    Second, by the mere fact that you are reading this, our stories are now intertwined.  Maybe not like a best friend, husband, wife, son, daughter or someone very close to us, but we still are connected.  I have come to realize that MY story is not just my story, but the coalescing of my story with those around me as well.

    Third and by all means not last, your story and you are important to me.  Every person is truly valuable and when one single story is not heard we all suffer loss.

    I hope that this post along with Chris’ in some way inspire you to realize that you have a story, it’s important and you get to co-author it.

    Have a great day and make your story great.

  • Oh, ‘dem Sweet Beignets

    Some time ago Chris Brogan wrote a post, that I'm still thinking about partly because I love beignets and secondly I tend to be slightly OCD (just kidding, I think) and can not stop thinking of something until my thoughts have run their logical course.

    Chris' post was about doing one thing very well and I have to say that Chris is correct, not every brand is built on a single solidly identifiable widget, but many are.  It doesn't mean that you have to be one dimensional.  It is important to have a few complimentary products or services.  Maybe one of the best examples that I can provide is from my previous life as an adventure racer.  Our team was made up of four individuals and we often had special duties that we elected to fulfill for each race.  My role was second navigator and pacer.  For some reason I have an odometer built into my brain that can get you to your destination within a few meters of the actual spot and I can also tell you what pace you are walking and running.  Many runners I know have that same sense so I'm not that unique, but I could do that at night, on a trail, in a dark forest with a combination of walking running and still get the team where we needed to be.  I say this not to brag, but simply to point out that I had a "brand" of being a great pacer so guess who got that job every time?  Sure, I did and that's okay, because I really enjoyed it.  I could have done other things like navigator, encourager, transition help or one of the many other "jobs", but I did one thing very well and concentrated on that.  Of course, we were a team so we all helped out doing whatever it took to be successful, but we also had 1 or 2 things that we specialized in and that made our team function well.

    So what's your specialty?  What widget do you make or piece of insight that you can bring that is uniquely you?

    Thanks,

    Mat