What got me here...

Ok, Ok! I’ll write already! Geeeeez! I’ve been getting what I consider to be a fair amount of external pressure to write…and now have a blog. You can see that I haven’t written anything here since I set this up sometime last week although I’ve been toying with the idea of this for a few months.

Last week my friend, Mel, sat me down in his office and said, (to paraphrase), “Log onto wordpress – now – and set up your blog. You need to write.” Being a person who just loves to be told what to do, my immediate reaction surprisingly wasn’t, “Oh sure! Yeah…I’d be delighted!” I had my reaction.  I breathed. I logged in. Thus the first posting.

A few days later, I told my web designer extraordinaire, Brooke, at Cataluna that I’m going to need to add a link to my blog site on my Inspiring Insight website after I make a few other updates, given I eventually need to start to write more publicly.  I promptly received an email back from her stating that I need to get it together and write on my blog because my website now has a nice noticable click on link on the first page.  Great.

Being a wordpress and blog virgin, I also learned that I can shut off comments by my reading audience which I’ve decided to temporarily do until I find out how much time this new adventure is going to take me, get over myself and get though this initial whiny phase.  Thank you for your understanding that I don't need comments while I'm cleaning myself up and anticipate that some of you will be more than happy to give me feedback about my attitude later.

Over the next few – or likely several – posts, I’m simply going to write the history of what got me to this place.   My goal is to eventually write things that will you will find inspiring.

What I need to get out of my system - by DOING this is write.  Vincent Van Gogh said, "If you hear the voice within you say 'you cannot paint', then by all means, paint, and the voice within you will be silenced."  Being in the transformational training world and working as a coach for well over a decade, I know the only way out is through...

Yes, I’m resistant to writing.  I even write quite a bit. Yet the story about my resistance is becoming rather fascinating to even me. You’ve heard of that saying, “What you resist persists”? You’re reading this today as proof that the resistance concept must be a Universal Law, like what we consider gravity on this planet to be, as I’m posting this today from what all started in the summer of 2005. (The story that goes back to 2005 will be posted later when we talk about the ineffectiveness of resistance).

In a more recent past, I decided to Google myself, Cindy Daniels, last summer and I couldn’t find me...until somewhere on page 3 – like half way down on a LinkedIn sight. What’s THAT about?! I knew my company, Inspiring Insight, showed up first on Google then realized there is only one company named that, at least online. I’ve even had the cindydaniels.com domain name parked for years until I get around to figuring out what that site’s going to be about, not realizing I couldn’t even be identified via the biggest search engine on the planet. In my own personal oblivion, I didn’t know how many of 'us' there actually were and how insignificant my identity was to other than my family, friends and colleagues.

Since I decided to blog today, I thought I'd Google me again this morning.  Heck, it's been over a half year.  I was excited to see that Cindy Daniels on LinkedIn was ranked #1.  Then I saw that I was the 23rd Cindy Daniels on LinkedIn.  Sigh.  Next was Cindy Daniels on Facebook.  Not my face.  This isn't a crisis.  It's simply not ok with me. How am I going to be doing my work as an inspirer in the world if I can’t even be Googled, for crying out loud?

After my first Googling incident, I decided to do a survey last fall which included 3 requests. In a nutshell: 1) Why do you do business with me, refer people/business to me or hang out with me? 2) What, if anything, would you find of value for me to write about if I had an active blog? 3) Short testimonials regarding the value of our work together or connections.

I found myself humbled responses to questions 1 and 3 as well as the sheer amount of feedback. I am deeply blessed with the most amazing people in my circle. With regard to question 2, I found myself amused and often laughing hysterically to much of what my friends and colleagues would like to encounter in my blog. (You read that correctly above…my original question said “active” blog...I'm working on the "active" part of it).  The comments ranged from “something shorter than you usually write” (funny, yet not likely) to sales, new ideas, inspirations, marketing, my life, communication, consciousness, humor, business, relationships, balance, write like you talk (love that one), energy, success stories, coaching, wisdom, growth, fun, transformation, goal setting (oh, lord, the list is much longer...you get the idea) to “just write about your crazy life…I like the entertainment!” That said, the story continues later…