hoping Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Lisa Colón DeLay

On Using Better Words – 5 Tips

If you are using some of these words, you may want to rethink your profile bios on Facebook, Twitter, and the rest.

Avoid being hackneyed. Freshen. Liven it up.

Here are my FIVE Tips and a cool slide share I found on overused words.
May you really enjoy it!

1. Show the real you. (Are you fun, classy, funny, nerdy, crafty? Let it show in your bio.)

2. Be memorable. (Stand out in a good way. Be the highlight of someone’s day.)

3. Reverse-engineer what someone else is doing well and add your twist.

4. Limit the Obvious (It’s just dull.)

5. Remember your Target (Who are you hoping reads it? Speak to them, first.)

Top 10 Overused LinkedIn Profile Buzzwords of 2013 from LinkedIn

(So, you have to be responsible to not use the buzzword responsible. Got it.)

I hope you are glad you stopped by. Keep in touch…contact me to say hi, or linkup for future updates!

Supercharge Your Message with these 3 Secret Powers

Robert was a guy who wanted something. You could tell.

He wanted what a lot of people want. He wanted his idea out there. He wanted to get noticed and get recognized and make a better living. As an accomplished amateur guitarist he loved music and created a service focused at musicians. But, he couldn’t seem to get much traction.

After looking at his business and his marketing efforts I noticed something.
It was just below the surface but it tainted just about every Robert did.

Stinginess.

I didn’t come right out and tell him this, “Hey, friend, you’re stingy. People hate that. It’s like client repellant.” But, I did ask him a few questions and he stumbled onto the conclusion himself.

They were these 2 transformative questions:

1. What are your doing out of pure kindness to your target group?
(What are doing to simply serve this group, without hoping for or gunning for something in return?)

2. Are you empathizing fully with your group and their needs?
( What are their biggest needs and how does that make you want to respond? What will you do about it?)

A big shift happened. A light in a dark room moment.
(That’s what I LOVE about good questions. They shift things.)

It was like a wall broke down for him. He started thinking. Really thinking. Then he starting looking through a new window (perspective & worldview). New options and possibilities came into view. Discouragement vanished.

Instead of being centered on scarcity and never having enough (money, clients, opportunities, options), Robert started remembering how much good he could do.

Doing good felt good. Soon, it actually made him a better person for it. This new spirit didn’t extend to just clients, but his friends and family benefitted as well.

The new generosity of spirit made all the difference.

His empathy supercharged his efforts.

His message got out better this way.

Here’s what happened:
He started offering some of his services for free, no strings attached. This was valuable. Several musicians caught on and passed along his information. One of those leads provided consistent income almost right away. Then he reached out to a few local non profit groups and gave them some great work for free. They gave him some positive public testimonials and a few direct referrals. (He wasn’t helping them so they could help him in return, but after he gave of himself so generously, they wanted to help him out.)

His old message came off like this: “I have something and you need it. You should want this.”

Result? Dead ends and closed spirits.

His new message consisted of actions that worked like a megaphone. They said, “I’ll come along side you. Everything will be fine. I got this. No worries.”

People started searching him out. He didn’t have to work as hard to be noticed because his actions were secret super powers.

• Empathy

• Kindness

• Generosity

It drew plenty of attention. The right kind of attention. People were happy to pay him because they saw more value in his service. The stingy people that didn’t want to fork over any money for the value he brought them faded into the background. The more he invested and gave to the 80-90% of the folks that valued him, the better things got.

CONCLUSION:

Remember your Secret Super Powers.

If you’ve hit a wall with a project there’s a simple fix: If promotion, marketing, exposure, or getting your message out has stalled in any way, revisit your levels of 1. empathy, 2. no-strings-attached-kindness, and 3. generosity.

Reinstitute a lot of that back into your efforts, let go of the wheel, and see what happens. These secret super powers only work best if you put your true heart into it and live it out fully.

They are fertile things that birth the same spirit and goodness back to you.

Now some questions for you…

What message are you trying to get out right now?

(A project, a book, an album, a class, a service, a product, etc.)

What’s a way you can be more empathic and generous?
(In that spirit, let this be your first bit of exposure. You can share that here, if you’d like.)

Now don’t forget to sign up for the next post! (Sidebar)

Or you can read the next one on RSS.

If you’d like to share the joy, please like this on FACEBOOK using the button below.

Thanks for visiting and thanks for being awesome.

-L

5 Tips for Writers & Creators in 2014 (Infographic)

Valuable Content!

I’m making it my 2014 goal to give my writer and creator friends a lot of valuable content this year to help you get your message out, potently, all year long.

This will be a big year for you. You don’t just have to waste hours on Facebook, playing your phone Apps, or punching out blog posts 47 people read. You can offer related products and services based on your strong suits and build momentum.

If you’d like to gain a bit more recognition or make money on the side, I’ll give you a bunch of ways and ideas for doing that…and no, the point isn’t to somehow get you to buy something from me. I may offer some useful, related things to purchase, but most everything will be free.

More importantly, I’ll help you with the marketing and web optimization side of things, so you don’t have to spend hours researching it for yourself. That’s like having two jobs.

I was reading Preston Yancey’s blog post the other day where he laments, perhaps even sincerely,

I #don’t hashtag because #ithinkitmakesmelooklikeanidiot and I don’t #knowhowtodoit #right.

Maybe he shouldn’t have to worry about all that. It got me thinking that some people are in the boat right with him…and Jesus, Buddha, and baked goods.

If this is you…breathe in deeply and calmly. Slowly sip your coffee and relax. It will be okay.

You might not know all the big changes. For instance, did you know that Google has changed its main algorithm again? It affect searches. . .a lot. It’s had ripples…like layoffs. Some companies died because of it.

Getting noticed is harder than ever, if you care about that.

And unless you have a hefty following already, then, it matters.

(Rest assured, Preston does have a big following or Zondervan wouldn’t hand him two book deals. They aren’t people of faith precisely. They make take some shanks, but they don’t gamble. They are people who have a business to write about faith in a way that will sell, so they can have bread on their tables…in the wilderness, or, and more likely, in the classy subdivisions of city suburb in the Midwest.) You probably aren’t in Preston’s league.

If you want to just write for fun and the few friends that you attract from Facebook when FB feels like allowing your stuff in the news feed now, that’s cool. But maybe you’re hoping that doing something you love, like writing or creating, can also help you pay the internet bill a bit more, or even get you more exciting opportunities. That’s what worked for me. I write for other people more than ever at this point; and it’s fun to get paid for it. Really. It is.

You’ll find more of that sort of help here in 2014 in addition to other more familiar things you read here when I wax of the unseen and lasting things and get to use this space to explore, in both writing and deeper thoughts.

But, this is the announcement that I’m ready to help and share the info I’ve researched and the work I do in the MARCOM world.

To get us kicked off, these are the 5 Best Tips for starting your year off right. These trends are important to consider as you work and create in a noisy world.

Considering writing a blog post about the challenges of changing technology. What might you do or not do about it this year. I’ve made this infographic easy to embed to help you get started, if you want it.

Did that help you? I hope so!

Do you have writer or creator friends, too?
You can share the knowledge. Go ahead and embed this right on your site, if you’d like.

See you soon.xo

(connect with me or sign up for updates in the sidebar)

Update on the Time Machine

Interested in Time Travelers Mints?
CLICK HERE.

Time to give you a tiny glimpse of what’s going on behind the scenes. (an update)

I’m building a time travel machine, as some of you know.

Well, sort of. That sounds really grand to say “I’m building a time machine”. It seems like it should involve a Delorean. It doesn’t. That’s just the movies. Real time travel is painstaking and boring hard work, like everything else that is a meaningful project.

OFFICIAL UPDATE:
So far, in the initial first tests the “machine” takes you back in time to a beautiful day or forward in time to a day with very poor weather. You can’t pick the day.

I was surprised and, to be honest, disappointed by that bit. I’m a novice at this stuff (obviously) and I got more than a few of my calculations and instrumentation configurations dead wrong. Correcting it completely could take nuclear power, and I just don’t have the resources for that…yet.

I’ve had to become more resourceful.

(This is another reason why my jetpack work got sidetracked in late summer. Shortly after learning to weld a mishap with a grey squirrel, a metal harshness and headset, and a PVC cannon style concept went awry, I settled in for a long, but probably safer, haul with short interval time traveling work and animals without bushy tails.

But, back to the weather travel.
Yes, I was hoping for a time machine in the strict sense, but maybe this glitch has happened for a reason. I do prefer late Spring to November weather. I’m still working on it and I have several other prototypes in the works too of varying sizes and capacities. All of it is in the very early stages.

Let me be clear:
I don’t have all the kinks worked out, and I haven’t actually traveled in time, personally, because I’ve been too frightening of being caught in bad weather with no chance of escape back to my own time, or of being stuck in the past on a gorgeous day. Never returning to family and friends isn’t something I’m up for, even on a good day.

I’ve been able to visually see and document what is happening through the power of properly placed technology (sort of like a periscope and a camera thing with some twisty bread ties and hot mess of petroleum jelly), but I haven’t made any trips yet myself. It’s risky, so I’m sure you understand.

Early RESULTS:
The test data seems to indicate that time travel occurred for about 11 seconds, until it didn’t.

Now before you are tempted to mock me because that is a rather meager number, I’ll remind you that the Wright Brothers only flew off the ground in the skeletal airplane-tpye contraption for just 11 seconds and everyone thought it was a very big deal.

Besides, I don’t want to get caught up in the hubris of mentioning statistics or worse: starting to show off, and besting myself as my own worst enemy. (For instance, listing the seconds as they increase during each trial, when they happen to. This could easily lead to emotional elation followed by terrible despair–the ruin of many creative people. Also I don’t want to shift my thinking to inadvertently assume I’m doing all of this just for your approval, and it could come to that.)

Again, it’s still early into the project.

The point is to stay focused and refine the instruments the best I can.

I’m documenting all the stories of my work, travels (or near-travels), and mishaps, and I’ll be sharing them with you in a collection in a few months (via a Kindle Book). God willing and if I don’t blow up…

or change my mind.

Now for the best part.
I’m synchronously building a few contraptions –one-off pieces– and other related ephemera for your own adventures, your personal collection of unusual things, or conversational props you can take out at cocktail parties. There will be a Kickstarter campaign to dole those out. More on that in time, so to speak. I’d like to see if it works out first in the future before I actually do it. But, if I can’t lengthen the traveling to a few months into the future to know, this will not be possible. Presently, that sort of result is “iffy” at best. I may just risk it anyhow. Clearly, I’m debating it with myself.

FOR FURTHER UPDATES
Tweets and reports to Facebook will be sent out from time-to-time using the hashtag #weathertravel.

If you want to keep up with the project or view the occasional pictures, see the occasional video, or learn when the items will be up for grabs search that hashtag. [Also my email list will get updates, so that’s another option, if you’d like to sign up in the side bar.] Many of the items will also come with their backstory included and written out for your amusement and records in short form. It will also include any usual related situations associated with it. There’s one about a prairie dog and a whiskey flask, for instance.

Another particular item is a ring device. It looks like jewelry but it is a non lethal (I think) mini travel device. I hope to get a photo up of it soon once it’s ready. It’s not as powerful as the bigger pieces, as you might imagine, but I think you’ll like it.

Moms, Don’t Wait for the Book Deal

In a conversation I had recently with some writing friends (friends that regularly write…and all of them mothers), I realized that they all were hoping to be discovered through blogging to land the book deal they wanted. It happened to a few people and they really hoped it would happen to them. They were really trying to make it work. It was frustrating for them. Some felt jealous, some bitter, some resolved to prove they could do it.

It’s really an out-of-date idea this blog to get a book deal thing. Maybe 7-10 years out-of-date, or more…though once in a while it works.

It’s like playing Powerball. It seems like you could win big, but you never do. It’s someone else.

There is a whole industry propping up this idea of landing a book deal too. Billions and billions of dollars are wrapped up in it. There are conferences, agents, tons of ebooks, paper books, articles, and whole websites to help you do blogging and writing better and to help you get published or build your platform that will interest and convince publishers. But the actual premise of all this is like the cassette tape. It worked once, and was considered normal, but now there are better options for your talents. Ones that feel more deeply meaningful too.

David Jones via Compfight

Over the next few months, I’m going to be going in depth about how you can actually make money writing.

It’s not by freelancing,

blogging and guest blogging,

selling website ads,

getting a book deal,

or self-publishing.

What could it possibly be then?

More on that soon!

It’s also about a entire shift in what success means.
The truth about the dream? The “prize at the bottom of the box” of all that hard work isn’t the big book deal. Many with book deals will tell you the true tales of woe dealing with editors and publishers expectations, exhausting obligations, and accountants who repeatedly want you to prove you are a legit option. Then, in the end, you are left to market the whole thing yourself anyway. This doesn’t apply if you’re famous or infamous though. (Plenty of people try to drum up controversy to get noticed and it works for a few people, but it’s not a winning idea and can turn you into a bit of a monster, it seems.)

Most authors don’t sell more than 1,000 books. Most. (My agent told me that.) When then do sell any, they get about a $1 or less per copy in royalties. Some dream!

That is a terrible return on all the hard work and the time invested. The other options are better ones. The prize you thought you wanted? It doesn’t exist. Not really. That’s the secret they won’t tell you. They can’t tell you that! The industry still needs you to believe that the prize is good enough and still available. The sooner you make a new path for yourself, the better off you are.

But, that doesn’t mean your dream of success should be over and your talents unused. Not at all.

It just takes adaptation and some cleverness. I’ve been consulting folks on how to make the shift, like I did. I’m going to open up the process for you too.

A few years ago, I saw the change was just ahead. Wicked. crazy. change. I did something no one would even think of doing. I had an ace in the hole, but I let my literary agent go. I don’t like to say “fired” because he did nothing to deserve it. I told him I needed to change direction and we amiably parted ways, and we mutually ended our contract.

He’s a good agent with an incredible track record getting deals and has represented some best-selling books. He turns down most who approach him. He was really really surprised, obviously. I went on instinct. I decided to not stick with convention and the known outcomes in the “formula” to be a successful author. The machine of publishing is deteriorating leviathan. The better fit for me is picking my own path and utilizing technology. I’ll be sharing how in the next weeks and months.

I decided I wasn’t going to wait to get picked. I didn’t like the game. I decided to not be a part of a failing system that was starting to heavily rely on celebrities (all with ghostwriters btw) or gimmicks to keep their publishing houses running. I wanted OUT.

The move seemed asinine, at least on paper. (At that time three of my writing friends had tried to get this agent’s interest and got shot down, and I was letting him go? HUH? Since then loads of others have been rejected too. I had him for the taking but I said “no thank you”.) Yet, it opened me up creatively to do my best work and find my own prize, not the phantom book deal carrot held out just out of reach by a whole industry propping up the slick myth.

It really was the day I went Pro. I’ll let you in on a few secrets I learned in the next few weeks and help you find a way to come into your own creatively as you let go of the false or shoddy promise of landing a “great book deal” or signing with great agent and making it big. That is so 90s.

Don’t get me wrong, authors sometimes get signed and blogging still helps get deals…rarely. But in the end of the whole process most authors are deeply unsatisfied or underwhelmed. Not just because they reap so little, but because they have so little control in the process, the machine of it. The good news is the gatekeepers don’t hold on the power as they once did, and technology has created new doors.

The book deal that seemed so amazing? I can buy her book for $2.99 at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet just 3-6 months later. (I do it all the time.) The system is busted, but the word isn’t getting out.

Stayed tuned for more. The gloves are coming off.