How to Make Almost Every Article You Write Go Viral
by Guest AuthorThis is a guest post by Bamidele Onibalusi. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.
Is there are sure-fire approach to making every article you write go viral online?
Maybe not, but you can do some things to significantly increase the chances of any blog post you write going viral.
I have been publishing articles on my blog constantly, and on other blogs in the form of guest posts, for years now, and in the process I’ve been able to observe my most successful articles and guest posts. After noticing a common theme among these articles, I decided to write another article based on the formula I discovered and it was also a big hit.
It is very important for you to realize that the definition of “viral” varies, and depends to a great extent on your audience. For example, at the time of my experiment, most of my blog posts average 200 – 300 views depending on a lot of factors, and the very lucky posts get around 500 views (all in a month of the post being published). However, the majority of my most successful posts get read by around 2,000 people in the first month they are published.
In other to ensure my approach isn’t just a fluke, I decided to try it by submitting a guest post to Problogger, and that post sent almost 2,000 visitors to my blog after it was published, thereby resulting in an approximately additional 600 subscribers (I will be linking to the post later in one of my examples). I will be sharing the approach with you below, and I’ll also be giving you a few more tips to increase the chances of your success.
Tell a Story
I know this isn’t new to you, and you’ve probably heard it hundred times before, but believe me, it works! It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing a sales copy or whether you want to publish the next big post on your blog, telling stories can mean the difference between success and failure.
If you take a look at the internet you will notice that almost every niche is saturated with millions of blogs giving “practical” advice on how to achieve something, making people doubt the effectiveness of these tips. People read about new guest blogging tips every day, and they read about freelance writing from people who have never tried either of these things. The reality is that people are tired of reading the same thing over and over again, and as a result are confused about whether to take action or not. In a lot of cases, your readers will probably scan your articles and press the big “X” button in their browser after a few seconds. You can easily prevent this from happening by telling stories.
The difference between a normal blog post and a post written from the story approach is that the formal is just theory, while the latter is a practical example of what the author did. The former is just a “writing”, and the latter is an “experience”. In reality, people are tired of reading articles, they want to read experiences, and they want to be assured that what they want to do will produce results.
If you’re a blogger you will notice that most readers hardly read your content, because time is very valuable to them and they have to choose carefully what they spend their next five minutes on. Now, ask yourself, if people can’t spend five minutes reading my article, will they be happy to implement my tips?
By telling stories of your experience, you will help allay your readers’ fears by showing them you have implemented what you’re telling them, and they might even decide after they see the result of what you achieve on your blog.
How to Tell Stories that Work on Your Blog
To be sincere with you, there is no set approach to writing stories that work on your blog – what matters most is to tell your story in a way that your readers can understand.
For example, you can easily publish an article listing a few lessons you learnt from implementing a particular strategy (say the “strategy” is what you have always preached to your readers on your blog). You can share a personal and emotional story telling your readers how you went from being “nobody” to being “somebody”, and you can share a story about how you achieved a particular success.
EXAMPLES
Since I’m so positive about this approach, I think I should share some examples with you below. Below are 3 great examples below – two from my blog, and one from my guest post on Problogger.
1. My Journey from a Poor Fatherless Kid to a Successful Blogger
It was this post that made me realize the importance of telling stories, and even though it was only talking about me and my struggles, as well as giving people tips to overcome theirs, it ended up garnering a lot of attention within a short time.
2. 3 Tweaks that Helped Double My Blog Traffic Almost Overnight
This example is my guest post on Problogger, showing people a few tricks I’m using to grow my blog traffic and increase my readership. I don’t have any stats as to how many visitors the post got on Problogger, but considering the amount of visitors it sent I’ll say it was pretty successful. The post sent me over 2,000 visitors, and led to over 600 subscribers.
I’ve written a lot more articles following this approach, and they all have views in the thousands. The above are just a few examples I think will buttress my point.
Concerns about being too Personal
To be sincere, the first example above was the first really personal post I wrote on my blog, and I was forced to write it after being constantly “disturbed” by one of my readers to write something like that. I was afraid about people not reading the post, because I believe people are too busy to care about what’s going on in my life. I was surprised by the traffic I got the day the post went live, and also by the traffic to the post for the next few weeks after publishing it.
In fact, that post instantly became one of the most commented posts on my blog after it was published; with almost half the commenters saying it was “Inspiring”. Just so you know; there are thousands of people waiting to read your story out there, because it is the motivation they need to forge ahead – publish it, and they will happily refer their friends to it.
You Need to Realize this, Though
Like we were thought in school, 0 x 0 will always be 0, so don’t expect having huge success with your blog with little to no traffic.
If you’re getting around 100 or more visitors to your blog in a day then this approach should work well, but if you aren’t, you can start building it up. If you have enough traffic, this approach is guaranteed to work, if not, nothing is guaranteed to work.
There are a lot of ways to build traffic to your new blog, and you can read articles in the promotion category here for better ideas.
One tip I think you might want to try if you’re not that sure about your traffic is to look for a unique way to feature some of the top bloggers in your field without diluting the effect of your story. Once it is live, send them each an email telling them you featured them, and asking them to share it if they love it – if they do love it and share it, your post will get enough momentum to make it go viral. If you’re looking for the latest tips on freelance writing, guest blogging, and writing articles that work, make sure you check out YoungPrePro.- via Daily Blog Tips
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Wednesday, May 16, 2012
How to Make Almost Every Article You Write Go Viral
Saturday, April 21, 2012
How to Issue a Great Apology - Tim Donnelly
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So you messed up. Big. How do you explain your company's misstep to the public? Just say it: "I'm sorry."MAKE IT BETTER. Sometimes, telling your customers "I'm sorry" is the best way to remedy a failure. And how you say it matters.
JCPenney landed at the center of a firestorm earlier this month over a shirt it was selling to girls, bearing the slogan: "I'm too pretty to do my homework so my brother has to do it for me."
Internet commenters registered rage at what they saw as a sexist shirt promoting girls' looks over their brains by tweeting, e-mailing, and signing online petitions. The pressure forced JCPenney to pull the shirt immediately. But the company did get credit for acting quickly and issuing an apology statement right away.
"We agree that the 'Too Pretty' T-shirt does not deliver an appropriate message, and we have immediately discontinued its sale," the statement says. "We would like to apologize to our customers."
Knowing how, when, and why to issue a smart apology can be the difference between a public-relations hiccup that can be smoothed over. and a flap that could end up dragging your company into the muck. While the long-term effects on JCPenney aren't yet clear, observers say the honest and sincere apology may have saved its reputation. What's the trick? Experts share these tips on crafting the perfect apology.
When Apologizing, Make Sure You Use the Right Words
Some people are averse to issuing apologies or even using the word "sorry" because they worry about implicating themselves in guilt or malfeasance. But experts say erring on the side of caution and issuing a prompt apology can save you headaches down the road.
"As long as someone apologizes well, it doesn't mean they're taking responsibility," says Lynn Gaertner-Johnston, founder and business-writing specialist at Syntax Training who has worked with REI, Microsoft, and Russell Investments. "The really important thing to recognize about apologies is that they are a very smart thing to issue. In order for the client or perspective customer to get over the bad feelings, we have to issue the apology. It helps the other person release their anger about it."
Most experts agree that an apology letter should open with a salutation and a warm greeting, which helps you soften up the recipient, says Julie Miller, founder and president of Business Writing That Counts and author of a book by the same name.
Then, you should acknowledge the issue you're responding to straight on without hedging too much. Gaertner-Johnston says you need to include the words "apologize," "sorry," or "regret" at some point to really hammer the point of the message home.
"You have to have those words so it can be an apology," she says.
The most important thing is to own up to own up to the mistake. Caryn Starr-Gates, a business writing professional with StarrGates Business Communication, says you can acknowledge the issue getting into the gritty details of what went wrong.
"What does matter is coming clean, being a grown up. You're taking the blame for what happened and you want to know how to make it better."
"What does matter is coming clean, being a grown up," she says. "You're taking the blame for what happened and you want to know how to make it better."
Make any Apology Personal
The format of the apology depends on the relationship you have with the client or customer, but most apologies are issued via writing, whether it is in an e-mail, a formal letter, or a message on a company website.
This is not the time for form letters, re-used templates or pre-recorded messages, Miller says. You should be personalizing it as much as possible to describe the exact nature of the incident.
"That way, the recipient will not feel like a nameless, faceless cog in the wheel but rather, will appreciate that someone took the time to find out what happened," she says. "This ties in directly with the precept to be authentic and sincere."
You can engage the recipient further by asking them to accept your apology. Some companies even go an extra step and follow up an apology letter with a phone call or e-mail to check back.
Get the Timing Right for Your Statement
If you feel like an apology is due, the worst thing you can do is to wait too long and let your customers get angrier—and tell friends about it. Experts say you should be sending out an apology as close to the incident as possible to minimize damage, much like JCPenney, which acted within a day once the controversy arose.
"That way the bad feelings won't be able to foment or go viral in any way," Gaertner-Johnston says.
Even if you aren't fielding complaints about the incident, be proactive by issuing a statement right away, Starr-Gates says. The statement is usually best when it comes from the responsible party at your company, or, if they were let go due to the incident, the person's supervisor.
"You still come across as a concerned person," Starr-Gates says. "This is people with whom you are doing business in some way. You want to leave them gratified that they're doing business with you."
In the cases were someone requests and apology that you don't agree is deserved, you're left with two options, says Paul Lima, a business writing trainer who has written several books on business writing.
"You have a decision to make: take the high road and smooth over the bump in the relationship, or hold your ground, defend your action and understand that problems will probably persist," he says.
Talk Openly About any Corrective Action
Whatever form your apology takes, you need to end it on a positive note by telling the recipient what corrective action you will take. It could be something as simple as promising better communication or something as elaborate as free airline miles.
Avoid putting the blame on the other person: for instance, don't say, "You didn't confirm the meeting," but instead say, "Sorry for the confusion over the meeting."
"That does not help them to move on," Gaertner-Johnston says. "It was just a backward apology that was really lame."
Talking about what corrective action you plan on taking lets the customer know you are aware of their concerns and want to improve.
Of course, even the best, timeliest apologies might be nothing more than a learning experience for next time.
"You have to be willing to accept the other person may not forgive you," Starr-Gates says. "Ask how you can make it better."
Tim Donnelly is a freelance writer and managing editor of Brokelyn.com. His work has appeared in Billboard, The Atlantic, Thought Catalog, and The New York Post. @TimDonnelly
Want to increase growth and avoid more losses? Want to out compete your competitors? Want to bring new products and services to market faster? Want to be more agile? Contact Innovation and Growth Speaker Jim Woods. Jim works confidentially with start ups, governments as well as profit and for profit enterprises.
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Jim Woods is president and founder of InnoThink Group. A global management consulting firms specialized solely in helping organizations of all sizes in all industries catalyzing top line growth through strategic innovation and hypercompetition. Jim has over 25 years consulting experience in working with small, mid size and Fortune 1000 companies. He is a former U.S. Navy Seabee and grandfather of five. To arrange for Jim to speak at your next event or devise an effective growth strategy email or call us at 719-649-4118 for availability.james@innothinkgroup.com
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Friday, April 20, 2012
Daniel Goelman on Leadership: Want Creative Workers?
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Philip Glass, the contemporary composer, works on his new compositions only between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. That’s the time, he says, when his creative ideas come to him. When filmmaker George Lucas needs to write or edit a script, he sequesters himself in a small cottage behind his house where he gets no calls or visitors.
A lesson in managing creativity can be found in the work discipline of such inventive geniuses: A protected bubble in time and space fosters the imaginative spirit.
That notion challenges some prevailing wisdom–particularly the assumption that upping the pressure on workers will squeeze more innovative thinking out of them. Many managers assume that just calling people into a high-demand brainstorming session will get everyone’s best ideas out on the table.
That is dead wrong, according to new research on the creative process. In a knowledge economy, where competitive advantage comes from leveraging the most innovative ideas and executing them well, leaders at every level would do well to reflect on these findings.
In a study led by Teresa Amabile, a director of research at the Harvard Business School, researchers asked more than 1,000 knowledge workers–members of research-and-development, marketing and information-technology teams–to keep daily diaries. This data trove revealed a disconnect between how managers think they can best support creative efforts, and how those who are actually making the efforts assess what helps them most.
Small Wins Count
When the researchers asked managers to name the most effective ways they could encourage creativity, the most frequent response was praising people for good work. When they asked the workers themselves, the No. 1 carrot turned out to be providing ongoing managerial support of their daily progress. Only 5 percent of managers got this right. Daily progress toward a large goal, even small wins, primes positive moods and catalyzes creativity, the Harvard study found.
Members of creative project teams also described the most common ways managers unwittingly undermine creative work. These ranged from dismissing an idea out of hand to ignoring suggestions to torpedoing an employee’s creative project, for instance through an abrupt reassignment or a cavalier change of mind. The researchers advised managers to set clear goals and then let people accomplish them in their own ways.
Aha Moment
The Harvard researchers also recommended that supervisors protect workers’ time and resources so they can have periods of sustained focus on their projects. This advice–to manage staff time well–is supported by new brain research that reveals what happens at the moment of Aha! Joy Bhattacharya at the University of London has found that in the moments just before a creative insight, the mind is typically relaxed and open to new ideas, as indicated by an alpha brain wave.
As the Aha! approaches, there’s an abrupt shift marked by high gamma-wave activity. This indicates that far-flung neural circuits are connecting in a new network. A third of a second after the peak of this activity, a novel idea floats into the mind.
This finding indicates that creative insights can’t be concocted on demand; they need to ripen. The first step in the creative process typically involves immersion in the problem and current thinking, and then gathering any information that might be relevant. But in the next stage, intense effort should give way to letting what is known as the “cognitive unconscious” work on the problem by making novel connections.
Constant distractions interrupt the mental space where creative insights simmer. That’s why so many Aha! moments come in the relaxed space of downtime — when we’re doing something other than tensing to be creative.
Lessons From Google
Anyone whose work involves strategic thinking can learn something from the findings. The usual method for devising a competitive strategy is to come up with an idea and then analyze its value. The trouble is, no one tells you how to come up with that idea in the first place.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who created the innovative search formula that became the basis of Google Inc. (GOOG), know something about that process. They have instituted Google’s famous once-a-week day for employees to work exclusively on their pet creative projects. Long before Google existed, 3M set aside 15 percent of employee time for the same thing.
Another trendsetter was Xerox PARC, the legendary Silicon Valley research center known for insulating its creative staff from competitive pressures and giving them time to reflect, explore and collaborate. Xerox PARC is the birthplace of a plethora of computer-age basics including laser printing and the graphical user interface that gave us windows and icons.
In a day when the use of innovative ideas provides a competitive edge, it’s good to understand how squeezing time and people can unwittingly squelch creativity, hurting an organization’s future. The best advice for someone who manages innovative thinkers is to nurture the conditions where creative ideas can flow most freely.
Tags: Emotional Intelligence -->Comments are closed. --> via danielgoleman.info
Want to increase growth and avoid more losses? Want to out compete your competitors? Want to bring new products and services to market faster? Want to be more agile? Contact Innovation and Growth Speaker Jim Woods. Jim works confidentially with start ups, governments as well as profit and for profit enterprises.
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Jim Woods is president and founder of InnoThink Group. A global management consulting firms specialized solely in helping organizations of all sizes in all industries catalyzing top line growth through strategic innovation and hypercompetition. Jim has over 25 years consulting experience in working with small, mid size and Fortune 1000 companies. He is a former U.S. Navy Seabee and grandfather of five. To arrange for Jim to speak at your next event or devise an effective growth strategy email or call us at 719-649-4118 for availability.james@innothinkgroup.com
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Thursday, April 19, 2012
The Uses and Abuses of Optimism and Pessimism
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It's happened to me many times; maybe it's happened to you. I'll be walking down the street, deep in thought, brow furrowed, lips pressed together as I mentally project myself into the future: How will I handle that meeting next week? What do I need to do to make sure tomorrow's dinner party goes smoothly? Will the project I'm about to turn in be received well, or should I take another crack at it? "Hey, you there!" a random passerby calls out, interrupting my concentration. "Lighten up! Smile!"My usual reaction is to scowl. I'm as happy as the next person (that is, moderately happy most of the time, psychologists report). But I don't like being commanded to be positive—all the time and no matter the circumstances. Sometimes, smiles just aren't what a situation demands.Yet in recent years it feels like we've all been ordered to "think positive" by an army of experts in any number of fields. Doctors inform us that optimism improves our health and helps us live longer, reduces the risk of stroke, even. Corporate coaches advise us that optimistic employees earn more money and climb the career ladder more quickly. "Positive psychology" researchers broadcast studies showing that optimistic people are happier and have more friends. In every way, it seems, optimists bask in the sunshine of the world's approbation, while pessimists mope in the shadows.
"It's gotten to the point where people really feel pressure to think and talk in an optimistic way," observes B. Cade Massey, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. Massey's research shows that, when asked to forecast the outcomes of events like a financial investment or a surgical procedure, study subjects make predictions that they know are overly optimistic. Yet they also say they wish to be even more optimistic than they already are. Clearly, many of us have drunk the optimism Kool-Aid: We view optimism as an unqualified good, an all-purpose remedy for everything that ails us.
But a more nuanced view is emerging from the lab. Researchers find that optimism and pessimism operate not only as fixed points of view but also as mind-sets we can adopt as needed, rose- or blue-tinted lenses that we can put on and take off depending on the situation. Such a targeted use of optimism may actually be more effective than a blanket policy of all optimism, all the time.
Psychologists are even daring to challenge the preeminence of optimism as our most sought-after state of mind. While not confusing America with, say, France, they contend that pessimism also has documentable virtues. "In America, optimism has become almost like a cult," says Aaron Sackett, a psychologist at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. The faith we place in positive thinking is not merely naíve but fails to capture the complexities of human motivation.
For decades psychologists—and, following their lead, the general public—have thought about optimism and pessimism as "dispositional" traits: stable and relatively unchanging ways of approaching the world, essential parts of our makeup. You just are an optimist (hooray!) or a pessimist (boo!). Dispositional optimism and pessimism are easy to evaluate. Researchers can measure them by giving subjects a quick pencil-and-paper questionnaire (In uncertain times I usually expect the best....check), and "by now there are thousands and thousands of studies on these constructs," says Edward Chang, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.Strategic optimism and pessimism, on the other hand, are more difficult to investigate precisely because they depend on specific situations. Harder to capture, they have eluded investigation. "But," says Chang, "the field is starting to recognize that many of us use these mind-sets in a flexible way and that this flexibility has a lot of advantages."
At the same time, optimism's poor relative, pessimism, is emerging from the shadows. "In this country, pessimism comes with a deep stigma," notes the Michigan psychologist. Take the study that asked subjects to read descriptions of two people, one optimistic and one pessimistic, and to imagine meeting them. Subjects predicted they would like the optimist and said they would not want to talk to the pessimist, that he would not be very friendly or sociable—that he was probably depressed!
For Americans, longtime adherents of the positive-thinking doctrine, pessimism means being a gloomy, dreary, sad-sack loser. But that's not necessarily so. Successful people often employ pessimism in a strategic way to motivate and prepare themselves for the future, recent research indicates. It's simply not the case that optimism is "good" and pessimism is "bad"—although that's how we've been encouraged to think about them. Rather, both are functional. And both have value.
If both optimism and pessimism are functional, you may be wondering just what is it that they do. "Optimism and pessimism are feelings about the future," explains Yale's Massey. "They help us manage our expectations and our actions moving forward."
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Jim Woods is president and founder of InnoThink Group. A global management consulting firms specialized solely in helping organizations of all sizes in all industries catalyzing top line growth through strategic innovation and hypercompetition. Jim has over 25 years consulting experience in working with small, mid size and Fortune 1000 companies. He is a former U.S. Navy Seabee and grandfather of five. To arrange for Jim to speak at your next event or devise an effective growth strategy email or call us at 719-649-4118 for availability.james@innothinkgroup.com
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Success: J.R. Martinez and His Backward Fairy Tale
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Fireworks spit and sparkle in the background. Glittering confetti rains down. J.R. Martinez is hoisted upon shoulders as he pushes a weighty, bejeweled trophy above his head. The audience erupts in a frenzy of joy.
That was the scene millions of Americans watched—and expected—last November, as 27-year-old Martinez won the Mirrorball Trophy and the Dancing with the Stars title of Champion. It was a perfect ending to a sort of reverse fairly tale—a story in which a handsome young football star becomes a disfigured veteran, yet finds fame, fortune and happiness.
When Jose Rene (J.R.) Martinez found himself in Iraq at age 19, he was dazed and, well, 19. “Everything happened so fast,” he tells SUCCESS. “I was young and didn’t process the fact that I was going to war. I didn’t really know what my purpose there was.”
Less than a year earlier he had been a senior in high school and a talented, Georgia-state championship football player with hopes of going pro. But he was injured before graduation and his dreams were put on hold. He joined the Army with the hope that it would later pay for a college education—a college where he could try his hand at football again and keep his NFL ambitions alive. In September 2002, he underwent Basic and Advanced Training and then spent the holidays back home in Dalton, Georgia, partying with friends and family. In March of 2003, he was deployed to Iraq.
On April 5, the Humvee he was driving hit a land mine in Karbala. Martinez was trapped inside, pinned behind the wheel. As flames swept over his skin (“I saw my hands being burned, it was so painful. I was screaming and yelling at the top of my lungs,” he recalls), Martinez saw something: a vision of his sister Anabel.
The Element of Magic
Martinez’s El Salvadoran mother immigrated to the United States in TK to make money to support the two daughters she left behind. Here, she became pregnant with Martinez, and the plan was always to bring his sisters to Georgia and reunite the family. But the older girl, Anabel, died of a congenital illness at age 7, before Martinez ever got the chance to meet her. Now, in a burning combat vehicle in an Iraqi desert, she appeared to him as a 5-year-old version of herself that he had seen in a photo. “I really thought I was going to die,” Martinez tells SUCCESS. “But she was calm and peaceful and said things were going to be OK.” Seconds later, Martinez was pulled from the truck by rescue workers.
He was immediately put into a medically induced coma and woke up a month later in the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. There, he spent three more grueling months enduring skin grafts and routine—and painful—“scrubbings” to remove dead tissue. Though he was grieving for himself, the hospital staff asked him to speak to a newly admitted burn patient who was really struggling with his condition. Martinez entered the young man’s darkened hospital room (burn victims don’t like to see themselves, explains Martinez) and talked for 45 minutes about hope… about all the things they both still had to live for. As Martinez left his bedside, the patient opened up his window curtain.
Martinez was released with burns covering 40 percent of his body, a face that looked like a child’s wet-clay sculpture (when he saw himself in the mirror for the first time after the horrific explosion, he thought he looked like Freddie Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street), and nothing to do but collect disability checks.
Instead, he went back to the hospital to volunteer and talk to more burn patients, to help them pull back the curtain a bit on their despair. He spoke about hope and moving forward and, in the process, helped heal himself. Martinez made it is his new life to inspire people to overcome the hardships in their lives. He started a new career as a motivational speaker and soon became one of the most sought-after figures on the circuit.
When a friend told him that the (now canceled) daytime soap opera All My Children was looking to cast an actual Iraq veteran for a guest role, Martinez ignored the Hollywood stereotype of superficiality and went to the open casting call—and got the gig. The character he developed outlived its initial three-month appearance, though. He was a cast member for three years.
Soon after, Dancing with the Stars called. The rest is history.
The Moral of the Story
There are plenty of lessons we can learn from a man such as J.R. Martinez: Persevere. Never give up hope. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Make lemonade out of lemons. Beauty is on the inside. Be positive. When a door closes, look for a window. Dance. And all of them are valid, beautiful and relevant. But they are also all messages we can buy framed from an office supply catalog.
Martinez’s most meaningful lesson is perhaps one about choice.
Listening to and trusting the vision of his sister was a choice. Getting over his anger at what happened to him was a choice. Making it through his surgeries and treatments with gratitude toward his doctors and nurses was a choice. Putting himself out there for rejection is a choice. Giving back to the community is a choice.
During recovery, he says, the best choice for him was to simply go through the motions of therapy and daily hospital life. “It’s human to look behind everything for meaning and to ask why. Why did I lose so much at only 19? Why was I the only one in the Humvee to be burned? But instead of thinking too much and dissecting everything, I had to choose to just be in the moment and get through it. At that point, that’s what being positive meant for me. I was angry and I had to grieve, but I didn’t dwell. And not dwelling was a very conscious effort.”
There’s a common belief that positivity is a character trait you either have or you don’t. Or that it’s something that simply happens to you after a big, life-changing event. From his shortened bio, it might be easy to believe that optimism is Martinez’s hard-won reward for enduring hardship. After all, his life follows a classic story arc: innocence, tragedy, then a redemptive road that leads to happy ever after. Martinez is now a star—an actor/dancer/writer/speaker who made People magazine’s 2011 Sexiest Men Alive list. He has a gorgeous girlfriend, Diana Jones. If that’s not “happy every after,” what is?
If his life were a movie—and it probably will be someday—the screen would go black on a shot of him and his DWTS partner, Karina Smirnoff, flying across the floor.
But lives keep going after the cameras stop rolling. “Every morning when I wake up, I choose to be positive. It’s not always easy. I’m human and I have a lot of bad days. I still face difficulties. It’s a choice every single day,” he says. He even admits that there is “pressure for me to always be ‘inspirational,’ but some days I don’t want to be that inspirational guy. I want to stay home and feel sorry for myself.”
Ever After
Everyone, Martinez says, has obstacles—whether it’s debt, divorce, unemployment or illness—to overcome and choices to make. “You can’t always control the things that happen to you. But you can control how you react to it… how you let it affect you. Even if you lose everything else, nothing can take that power away from you. Every single day, every single minute, you have choices. Do you let the traffic make you mad? Do you let some rude person get to you? If someone tells you your idea is terrible, do you get discouraged?” Only you can discourage yourself, says Martinez. “When I look in the mirror, I see a confident, handsome man. We all have the power to control how people react to us. We have to own what we have and what we’ve been given, good or bad.”
Whether or not you believe in visions of the deceased; whether you think that the “power of positivity” is the jargon of local-news-show anchors; whether or not you give a flying flip about celebrity reality shows, the power of that choice is undeniable.
Martinez’s life is a visceral, physical reminder of that power. His very body, from his scars and crumpled ears to the way he spins, floats, glides—all those words that express effortless dance—across the stage, sings a song about the beauty of choice, the beauty of choosing hope.
The purpose of his time in Iraq, a mystery to him at age 19, turned out to be something that he could never have imagined.
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Executive and Business Coaching Jim Woods is president and founder of InnoThink Group. A global management consulting firms specialized solely in helping organizations of all sizes in all industries catalyzing top line growth through strategic innovation and hypercompetition. Jim has over 25 years consulting experience in working with small, mid size and Fortune 1000 companies. He is a former U.S. Navy Seabee and grandfather of five. To arrange for Jim to speak at your next event or devise an effective growth strategy email or call us at 719-649-4118 for availability.james@innothinkgroup.com
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Friday, March 30, 2012
Jim Rohn - The Day That Turns Your Life (and business) Around
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Jim Woods is president and founder of InnoThink Group. A global management consulting firms specialized solely in helping organizations of all sizes in all industries catalyzing top line growth through strategic innovation and hypercompetition. Jim has over 25 years consulting experience in working with small, mid size and Fortune 1000 companies. He is a former U.S. Navy Seabee and grandfather of five. To arrange for Jim to speak at your next event or devise an effective hypercompetition strategy email or call us at 719-649-4118 for availability. Subscribe to our free innovation and competitive advantage newsletter. Don't miss a single new business idea!
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