Personal

What You’re Avoiding

Garth Beyer

During a PR team meeting about time management, it was noted a recurring issue of meetings is they go longer than they’re supposed to, typically by five minutes or so.

I had a suggestion for how to have more productive meetings and typed up a decent email explaining my suggestion for improvement, my reasons for it, one concern about it and one overall realization. I was going to send the email to the PR director, but I called myself out on my action. Why in email? Why not in person?

The reason is that it’s less personal. It’s because I feared the idea would get rejected. After all, it’s easier for both of us. The director can email back saying thanks for the suggestion and that’s that. No feelings hurt.

It’s critical we notice the ways we avoid rejection, the ways we avoid being vulnerable, the ways we avoid failure and make the tough decision to overcome.

 

Stay Positive & Personal Is Best

How To Get Comments On Your Blog

Garth Beyer

It's Time To Get Comments On Your Blog

This goes beyond asking at the end of the post for users to comment.

There are benefits to not allowing comments on your blog: no criticism, no trolls, one less things to keep an eye one, you may become influenced by what people say they want in a comment.

But there are also benefits to allowing them: there is often a diamond in the rough (positive feedback), it gives you a chance to connect with someone new, it allows you to practice not taking criticism personally.

Instead of asking readers to post a comment without reason, there are a few better options.

It matters what platform you use: If you’re gung-ho about getting comments on your blog post, you might be better off using a platform like LinkedIn. It’s much easier to put yourself in a community platform that has active commenters rather than starting a blog from scratch and trying to get comments. Think Reddit, Medium, LinkedIn.

Use your voice: I mean, really use your own voice, make each post you write personal. By doing so you are likelier to get friends and family and coworkers and colleagues to hit the comment button because they respond to you as a person, not as some robot spitting out information.

Make blog posts completely question based: Mental Floss does this in a great way with their Friday Happy Hour. This way it is less about you trying to interact with someone and more about getting your tribe to interact with one another.

I’m thinking of a number between 1 and 30. Guess it right and I’ll send a free PDF version of my book Transformation: The seminar that saved me from myself. Leave your guess in a comment below or tweet at me @thegarthbox

 

Stay Positive & Go Curate Some Conversations

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