blogging

What The Weekends Should Be For

At least for me, my work week is packed full of writing. In other words, I spend my time at work just putting out tons of information from my mind. For you, that can be in the form of something else, but the idea remains the same.

When it comes time to plan out my weekend, I am then faced with trouble. I want to be productive, but I am mentally exhausted. What can I do to keep myself from being lethargic without missing out on much-needed rest?

For me, the solution is reading. After days of spouting content from my mind, it is actually refreshing to just take in some profound insights from something else. Escapism if you will. The key is to find something that isn’t just entertaining, but thought-provoking as well. In other words, if it isn’t interesting enough for you to talk about the rest of that week, you’ve probably wasted your time.

JN

A Simple Way to Boost Your Online Influence

If you’re like me, you hate seeing your Klout score drop. It happens, however, and is pretty much unavoidable that your influence online is either going to plateau or decline. The law of entropy and all that.

It seems like some people don’t have a hard time with this. They share and post content daily that is absorbed by a loyal network, and they make it look like a breeze. A lot of factors go into why some people are more influential than others, but it usually comes down to how valuable your content is.

Increasing your content’s readability and value is, in fact, the simplest way to become more influential, as long as you’re sharing it effectively. So, how do you become better at producing valuable content?

One way is to narrow your focus. You’ll hear this everywhere. People say that the more specific your message is, the more people will respond to it. That’s definitely true, but it’s only half the battle. What you really want to do is become an expert in that category (we love to skip that part).

We need to be absorbing valuable content from other people constantly in order for us to become real opinion leaders. The reason is because people will see through you if you post a bunch of articles about cooking when you know nothing about it or even if you don’t even make an effort to making your cooking unique and remarkable.

Opinion leaders become what they are because they pick a topic they love, learn everything they can about it, and share their unique perspective on it to a correct audience. This is an intricate, yet overall simple way to look at it.

Let’s say you are doing a music blog like I have in the past. You’ve picked music because you’ve loved music all of your life and you want to share your tastes with others. Maybe your mission is to help people discover new music that is hard to find. Another mission could be to show off how good you are at predicting what songs will become hits (that’s a fun exercise). You then attend concerts, watch tons of music videos online, and have frequent discussions with likeminded colleagues. You’ve then created a network of people you have interacted with online to attain your goal of learning about your topic. You then have the resources you need to launch your full-scale music blog and the followers will flock to you.

The best part is that picking a topic you are passionate about propels you to maintain and keep your blog up-to-date, mostly because by then, this has really become a part of your lifestyle.

JN

Review: ‘Revolution’ Pilot

If you haven’t watched the pilot yet, I strongly suggest you do before reading on. You can watch for free here: http://www.nbc.com/revolution/video/pilot/1415378

The basic premise of Revolution follows one key theme: what would happen if all of our man-made electrical devices just stopped working? Cars, airplanes, lighting, even batteries are now completely useless, as something has disrupted electrical currents.

Revolution follows this idea opening with the “blackout” which takes place during the present, and we see how this sudden change immediately affects the world. The show fast-forwards 15 years to our main characters, who are embarking on a mission to save a family member from a ruthless militia. Along the way, we are shown hints to why the blackout happened and who knows about it, and the show teases us with flashbacks to the day the blackout happened a la “Lost.”

It’s an interesting mystery for sure, but what has people really rooting for the show is how it lends itself to spirited adventure with the reasonable implementation of muskets, swords, and crossbows. The action scenes are actually dynamic and fun to watch, making it a lot like Pirates of The Caribbean meets Fallout if that makes any sense.

That said, the pilot has its issues. Mainly the characters. I don’t really like Charlie, the female lead, as she seems like a pretty boring narrative device. Her main function is to bring the other characters together, but it’s not very exciting yet. I’ll give her more episodes, but I don’t like what I see yet. The other characters standing alone are much more well-conceived, especially Maggie and Miles. Maggie is a botanist that uses trickery to win her fights, although she doesn’t seem to fit in the cast ensemble just yet and doesn’t get much screen time.

Miles could be the show’s saving grace as the reluctant hero who bests an entire platoon of militia soldiers single-handed. Easily the best action scene you’ll see on TV these days.

Other characters don’t make much sense yet, such as Nate, the show’s villain yet hero who works for the militia and has a thing for Charlie. Aaron is a former Google employee who is nothing more than a comic relief who we’ll hopefully see come to his own as this group’s “Sokka.”

Oh and how could I leave out Giancarlo Esposito, who can only be described as Revolution’s own  Gus Fring. His performance was great, of course, but we really need to see him evolve beyond his usual sharp-tongued villainy.

Overall, the show has plenty of promise. Enough, at least, for you to get plugged in now and see where this goes. As long as the characters begin to find their rhythm amongst each other and the writing continues to catch us off guard (the second-to-last plot twist was very well-done), we could have an addicting (for a good reason) show on our hands.

Also, people are crying foul over supposed plot-holes surrounding how this world has been shaped after 15 years. All I can say is wait. I’m sure we’ll see valid reasons for why society has developed into what we see in the pilot, and I’m confident they can pull it off.

That Moment When You Have Nothing

Image

Is the moment you realize you have everything…you need.

I cross the Howard Frankland Bridge every day, which is a bridge that connects Tampa Bay to Clearwater. Today I was going over all of the issues and problems I have ahead of me. Bills, challenges, jobs, and really just making sure my life is moving towards a goal that I won’t regret. Something that future me will thank me for.

I got to the point where I lamented over all of the tools and resources I didn’t have and how I could miss out on opportunities that I see others grasping for.

It was at that precise moment that I crossed the Howard Frankland Bridge. This is a several mile bridge over the ocean that is a spectacle to see in the morning. The water is reflected perfectly, and you are just barely above it. It was then that I realized how fortunate I am to be living in such a place. Not just Tampa Bay, but even being in America is a blessing I frequently forget.

Perhaps I won’t get everything that I want and maybe some of my goals won’t be attained. So what? I have everything I need, not at the least including my drive to thrive in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Image courtesy of tampabay.com

How Do You Know if Something is Truly Valuable?

Image

Not too long ago, I held something extremely valuable. For you it may be a person, job, hobby, pet, etc. Something happened out of my control and weeks later, it was no longer valuable to me. This is a strange phenomenon because I truly believed deep down that I fully cared about this, but now I feel nothing but a void. All it took was a couple of steps.

If something is truly valuable to me, that won’t happen so easily. This is because:

Value is as inherent as it is relative.

The more relative the value in someone or something, the less value they are capable of controlling over you.

This seems obvious, but causes mind blisters for me to grasp.

Image Credit

A Different Take on Job Interviews

Most people will tell you what to wear, what time to show up, what to say, and how to shake their hand. All great advice, but here’s something I’ve picked up on. The best way to brand yourself is with stories.

Interviewers want to feel like they’re talking to a real person. Someone who is just reciting memorized words off a script comes off as unable to think on their feet. That’s why stories sell yourself as a person, not just as a candidate. They make you likable because the interviewer is learning more about you through something more relevant than small talk.

Example: an interviewer may ask you why you are applying for the job. An honest answer could be that you think the company has great values and you like the culture. That’s a good answer. Here’s a better one: well I was researching your company and I really wanted to find out what you were about. I liked what I saw, so I asked around. People spoke highly of you guys. In fact, one person said…

That story tells the interviewer many positive things about you, things that lots of similar blog posts beg you to apply. So, the next time you are on the hot seat, consider using honest storytelling to draw the interviewer into what makes you their ideal candidate.

 

When Tragedy Strikes

Don’t stop. I did, and I regret every minute of it. I let the hunger for success wane because something got in my way.

The people with real ambition and drive will only come back stronger when they lose everything. It’s like how you begin a story or role-playing game with everything, only to lose it all somewhat through. You then rise to the challenge, keep going, and return to a status far above what you achieved the first time around. While life may not be a virtual reality, the rules still apply to a larger, crucial, and far more rewarding reality.