Leaving A Legacy For Your Readers
by Cheval John
Everyone wants to be remembered for the great work that they do.
They are determined to find the calling that will set them up to be in the position to leave a legacy.
That is why when they first set out on their first career, they feel that they are in the right calling for their life.
Things will be going well for a while until they have that pivotal realization that they are not in the right career.
Most of the time, the realization of being in the wrong career happens in their 40s and they suffer a mid-life crisis.
While some realize that they are not in their right careers in their mid-twenties.
The good news is that it is never too late to change careers.
Ken Dunn was very fortunate to come to the epiphany that he was not in the right career.
He spent fourteen years as a police officer doing private investigative work.
Though he was “enjoying” his work as a police officer, he knew that they was a bigger calling for him to leave his mark on the world.
He ventured into the entrepreneurial world and in the process had a seven figure business.
He then wanted to share his experience of running a business and had written his first book.
He went and found a publisher and a marketer who had claimed that they would be able to get his book to best-seller list as he explained to me in the interview on my podcast, What’s The Word?. #paraphrased
So he spent the $80,000 that they were charging.
Unfortunately, the book did not achieved best-seller list and they were a whole lot of errors.
That bad experience with a publisher led him to do more research in the world of publishing and led to his company “Next Century Publishing” which he rebranded it into the Reader’s Legacy Inc.
The company has been very successful over the years because it is almost like a social media site.
Meaning that the author has their own page and they can interact with their fans on a consistent basis.
It is like the Twitter of book promotion.
Because of this innovative way to market your books, he received a lot of media attention from the likes of Fox News, Entrepreneur.com and the Huffington Post.
Plus he recently held the first annual Reader’s Legacy Choice Awards held last month with speakers like Dorie Clark, Kimanzi Constable and Shannon O’Keeffe.
You can say that he has found his true calling and is leaving a legacy for the next generation of authors.
By the way, he relauched his first book into best-seller’s status and has written four other books as well.
So if you feel that it is too late to change course in your true career, don’t give up hope.
Eventually your true career will find you and you will be destined to leave a great legacy that will make the world a better place.
Enjoy Your Business Journey To Success
By Cheval John
You have ventured out on a new endeavor.
Whether it is launching a business or starting a podcast, etc., you want your endeavors to be a huge success.
You look at your competition and see that they are doing great.
You might even see that your competition is amassing a quick following within weeks and are profitable in the process.
Your first thought is “Why They Are More Successful Than Me?”
From that thought, you start comparing your endeavors to theirs.
You will be thinking along the way that you are not good enough to succeed.
When you fall for the comparison trap, you have already failed.
You have diluted your vision of what you want your business or podcast to be and are trying to copy your competition.
When that happens, you are only following the competition and not creating your unique voice for your business.
In addition, you are failing to provide value that would benefit the people who need it.
What you should do is not focus too much on the competition because you will end up creating their vision of your business and not yours.
Also, you should check out this awesome blog post, “How To Understand Your Competitors Without Falling Into The Jealousy Trap,” by Maria Ross, founder of Red Slice.
She explain the post in depth on my podcast, “What’s The Word?” last night about how she came up with the idea of the post and also falling for the comparison trap.
It is really valid because many of us always compare ourselves to other people who are seemingly more successful than us.
I have struggled with the comparison trap a lot of times.
Even though I have achieved a whole lot of goals like having my own podcast, running my own online media company, writing two books, spending an extended period of time in Mexico and Chile, or obtaining two college degrees, I still find myself at times comparing myself to others.
We have to remember that they will always be someone better than you in a skill like business, etc.
Also, you have to understand that they had to work extremely hard to earn their way to success.
That is really not a bad thing.
It is really awesome because you can always learn from them and see what they did to achieve their success.
I could right now compare myself to Maria because she is experiencing a whole lot of success as an entrepreneur while I am aiming to be successful as an entrepreneur.
I choose not to because I understand the journey that she has experienced to be where she is at today with her business.
So if you see a someone (example celebrities, etc.) who are seemingly achieving success very quickly in their new business or podcast ventures, just remember that they had to put in years of hard work and dedication to be where they are at and establishing their audience.
That alone should make you appreciate their journey and enjoy your own business or podcasting journey to success.
Like the old saying goes, “Rome Was Not Built In A Day.”
The Impact Of Social Media
By Cheval John
Many thought that social media was just a fad that would go away.
They did not believe that it would have a tremendous impact on the way we live.
There were different social media sites like MySpace, Friendster, etc.
All of a sudden, Facebook came into play and became a major player in the world of social media.
A couple of years later, Twitter inserted themselves into the social media space and have grown to play an important role in the way we communicate.
They have been other major sites like Pinterest and Instagram that has made the world more visual.
Now it is impossible to keep up because there is a new social media site popping up almost every day.
There is no doubt about the impact of social media.
That is why it has become an official day on June 30th.
Mashable started this tradition five years ago with it first conference in 2010.
Five years later, the event has grown to almost every city around the world with their very “own” conference.
The city of Houston has joined in on the party with their inaugural conference with dynamic speakers who have been recognized for their expertise in social media.
This event has been recognized by high ranking officials in the different cities of the world and in some states as well.
Social media has given many people, businesses and organization the opportunity to showcase their expertise and build their own brand.
One person that has taken her brand and built her business through social media is Melany Berger.
Ms. Berger started her blog a couple of years ago and has grown the blog to the point of where she has won many awards including this year’s Shorty Awards in the blogging category.
Ms. Berger earned the nomination because of her loyal followers on Twitter.
Her combined social media following is over 80,000.
Melany has stayed true to herself and did not deviate from that true personality.
Also, she engages with her audience on a daily basis that has played a major role as well in growing her following.
It has allowed her to work with some of the major brands like American Express.
That is the exact reason why businesses should be working with her because they don’t know how to interact with their customers.
They feel that social media is another mechanism to broadcast their message without listening to their customers.
The truth is if they want to succeed in this digital age, they must engage with their audience and not just sell.
And if they are smart, they should attend conferences that deals with social media in addition to today’s conference.
They will be glad they did.
Don’t Skip Out On Sleep
By Cheval John
If you are a college student, you might get in the habit of studying a lot with little sleep.
You might think that it is the best thing to do because of the amount of work you have to do in order to pass a test.
The same could be applied to someone who is running a business or an employee of a large corporation.
They put in the hours without little sleep while drinking a lot of coffee/caffeine in order to stay awake to get their work done.
They might feel that it is a badge of honor to say that “they got little sleep after putting in a whole lot of hours at their work.”
And the entrepreneur might feel that they can skip sleep because they are wearing many hats in making their business profitable
The truth is that nothing can substitute sleep
According to this article on Health.com, sleep helps to improve your mind and be more creative.
My guess is that the most successful people in the world recognize the importance of sleep and don’t allow the superhero syndrome to take over their life.
I can also guess that Anh Nguyen understands the importance of sleep as well.
So if you feel pressure about working a lot without getting a lot of sleep, stop and think about the benefits of sleep.
Because no paycheck or promotion can replace your health in the long run if you don’t get enough sleep.
Life Is What You Make Of It
By Cheval John
I can say that life does not always go according to plan.
My goal was to graduate from college at 22 years old, be in a full time position and be able to be financially independent.
That plan did not work out as I expected.
When I first visited the United States mainland, I knew I had wanted to live here one day.
I was curious to know what it was like to live in the U.S. mainland and had great dreams that it was awesome.
When I had graduated high school 16 years ago, I knew that I was going to have the opportunity to live in Texas.
I was supposed to leave on July 15th.
However, the flight that was supposed to arrive in my native St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, had a delay and made an arrival late.
That delay caused me to miss my connecting flight from Miami to Houston.
I had the choice on going on that flight and spend the night in Miami before leaving for Houston the next morning.
I decided to spend one more night home before I made the move to Texas on July 16th.
When I finally arrived in Texas, I was excited for a new adventure.
I had no idea that I was going to start college at 22 years old and graduated with two college degrees at 27 years old and 28 years old, respectively.
Plus I did not know that I was going to be fluent in Spanish because I thought that I could not learn the language because I had struggled with the subject in high school.
Or that I would be struggling to find full time work because of the “Great Recession.”
I did not expect that 16 years later, I would have still be living in Texas, have a podcast, be an author of two books and a blogger.
Most of the time, I wonder if I did not move to the mainland, would I have finished university at the age of 22 and working at a full time workplace?
All I can say is that I made the choice to live in the U.S. mainland and I had been able to cover sporting events as a freelance writer and also be in the fourth largest city in the United States.
I have not achieved my goal of being financially independent yet, but I am on my way.
No matter if you feel that life did not go as you planned it, always have hope and believe that your detour in life will lead you to achieving your goals that will allow you to make the world a better place.
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