A Book That Changed My Life

Otherwise known as: my review of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking.

I heard about this book from a source that provides the occasional nugget of wisdom, Twitter.

The tweet in its original glory

Maybe I was susceptible at the time (it was November last year) but I clicked the link and it was one of the first (of many) books I purchased on my Kindle. I should also point out that another friend was interested in reading it that I didn't know about at the time, but he has good taste so it's worth mentioning.

So you could argue, that it was the tweet that lead to the book that changed my life.

But hold up, you might have heard me spout this claptrap before. Over a year ago, I referenced a book I read called "It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be".

I didn't really mention the content of the book other than it was inspiring and admired the serendipity in which I came about to discover it.

Make no mistake.
I was fucking right.

A little over a year of reading that book I got to:

• travel Europe in the best holiday I ever had
• self-publish my own book
• lose 20kgs in six months
• run my first half-marathon

Well another book came along and it was this. 

The book had me laughing, smiling knowingly, and nodding. Applying techniques from schools of thought such as Stoicism, Buddhism, the writing of Eckhart Tolle, and even the Mexican Festival of Death; Oliver Burkeman sows together a compelling argument for making the most of what you have.

The book is wonderfully articulate and is by a better writer than me.
So I'm calling it like I did over a year ago this book was life-changing and for the better.

How come I'm crapping on about books? Because I was told to.

I remember reading article from VICE a while ago, called the guide to Adulthood.

It had this awesome quote:

If you consider yourself a “full-grown adult” and have not read (like, completed, cover to cover) a book of any sort in the past three months, you are probably someone we never want to be friends with. TV and movies are great and all, and it’s good to keep up with carefully curated show selections, but if you look forward to making it home in time to catch The Big Bang Theory or whatever, you’re probably hopeless and should be sure to only befriend similarly boring people so you don’t turd up conversations. Non-fiction, medical journals, fiction, whatever, just read a fucking book already.

Words to live by.

This set a slow motion chain-reaction of events to spew forth:

1. Announce on my OKCupid profile that I was "I want to get a Kindle, but am not sure of how much I would use it."
2. Bought a Kindle
3. Read several books some months later
4. Realised how stupid I've been all these years

I've since read about five books which is more than I did last year, and thus spurs on the title of my next blog entry: Books I'm reading and why it's f***ing important.

Pissing Excellence and Backing Up Again for Next Year

The best way you can get back at your enemies is by pissing excellence.

-me, Being Bi-Bi: a memoir on mental health and sexuality, November 2012

It's one of the last sentences in the book, and it works on so many levels. The best way you can get back at your adversaries is by being better. That might be an opponent, a demon, a troll, and probably a lot of other things as well. I won't dwell on them though, because I'm showering them with excellence.

This year, I wrote a book. I mentioned it when this blog started (in its current incarnation) and I finally got there. I got to deliver a heart-felt speech in front of my nearest and dearest at the launch party, and the feeling of seeing my book in print, and on Amazon are some of the proudest moments I've ever experienced.

Me delivering aforementioned speech (right) and hugging my beautiful sister afterwards (left)

I also set out to lose 20kg. I got there too. I learned a lot about myself along the way, including that there's better metrics for getting healthy, but after failed starts I was finally able to shove it to my detractors.

Sticking it back (forgive the toenails, I get in-growns very easy and prefer my feet to be ugly)

I ran a half-marathon. With a time that speaks for itself. That's sweating excellence.

When I'm partying or otherwise having a really good time, I sometimes take stock of the situation and think to myself - how can I have or do more of this?

This year was phenomenal. But how can I be even better? Okay I'll do more of that.

It's a principle to live by, and reminds me of what a poster on the Inthemix forums once said (paraphrasing):
If you're doing something and it's annoying people, do more of it.

Just replace "annoying" with "pissing excellence".
There you go!

So I've created a list of goals I want next year, and that I'll deliver upon:

• Produce another major piece of creative workI have another idea for a project that I'm going to dedicate a future blog post to, but the current idea is to take on a medium different to a book: YouTube. I want to chart the path to one million cumulative views, and document the progress across digital platforms. One million views in a year. Let's see. 
• Travel to New York
  This city has been itching at me forever, I need to scope it out as a potential place to live, and make my mind up on it. I won't know for sure until I see it.
• Run a marathon
  A colleague told me that there's not such thing as an easy one. I've been loving running and I'm going to take this on.
• Take up meditation
  I really enjoy this concept and after doing an introductory course I want to make this a regular habit.
• Kickbox regularly
  A friend and I agreed to take this up in the New Year, I've done bits and bobs in the past and want to make this a habit.
• Yoga regularly
  I'm fortunate enough to get free yoga at work, I'm going to enjoy this and develop it into a habit too.
• Save $X a month
  I'm shit at saving, it's time to fix that.
• Pay off CC debt
  I'm a grown man now and want this iced too.
• Join a sporting competition
  With my newfound fitness, I'd love to have one last stab at Aussie Rules or to resume tennis. It's a bit hard with my affinity for travel, but committing to, and accomplishing a season's worth of sport while I still can would be fucking unreal.
• Kick arse professionally
  This year I was nominated for the B&T 30 Under 30, it was nice to be recognised, but I want to do something even more kick arse this year. I don't really talk about my day-to-day on here, but I would like to achieve a similar milestone or better in 2013.
• Learn to code, a language, or improve my overall design abilities
  I know this one is vague, but improving my language, whether that be digital, verbal, or creatively is something I would like to do in 2013 and will be pursuing this one aggressively.

Ambitious? I'm actually thinking it's not enough. But we've got to start somewhere, and having this list in front of me will go some way. Is it right to plan this far ahead? Is it natural? Do I know what will change between now and six months from now? Are persistent fear-based questions a weak writing device?

Only time will tell.
I've got this.

5 tips on building an audience (what I sort of know)

My number one source of traffic is a Gabriel & Dresden retweet.

Yes, I did favourite this Tweet for future reference

I've looked at the numbers, and I'm not taking the piss here. A disgruntled tweet from myself got picked up, retweeted, and is the cause of the biggest spike in my not-so-humble blog yet.

It was all downhill from there

The retweet linked to an article I wrote stating how hard it was for me to let go of my love for a duo I used to adore. It's essentially a negative piece, yet they (or whoever controls their account) had the humour to retweet my statement, resulting in a large spike the likes of which this blog has never seen before.

I chose to open with this example for an article on 5 tips on building on an audience as a somewhat comic indicator of the fact I still don't really know what I'm doing.

Looking at the graph above you can see a cumulative growth in page-views. So I guess you could say I sort of know what I'm doing. But there's a metric shit-tonne of stuff I don't know (and for that matter, don't care to know sometimes).

But given that I haven't updated in a month or so, I'm going to bestow upon you my 5 tips on building on an audience.

1. Cross-promote

What my Facebook friends have to put up with at irregular intervals

The fact of the matter is that for most people, blog traffic is not going to come from having a "polarising point of view" or a "USP". It's going to come from charity clicks you get from Facebook, Twitter, and one or two from the others if you're lucky.

I quit Facebook a while ago. For a craven, attention-seeking digital whore like me, this was somewhat akin to dropping my smartphone in the toilet. This was a mistake. Subsequently trying to blog to my friends was an unpleasant, dirty, and ultimately unfulfilling experience. And that's not just because the phone didn't work.

It's a quick-win, so just chuck it out there and enjoy the flak you'll get from your friends for pimping yo'self.

2. The rules change

Two comments back in 2001? That was practically half-the-Internet then

I started this shit a long time ago. And as evident from this blog post, I still don't know very much about building an audience. But what I do know is that the rules change in the online landscape, and a lack of readiness to adapt to these shifting conditions can see your e-cred plummet like mine.

I started OpenDiary ten years ago as a stream of consciousness download of my thoughts, feelings and poor future, present, and ex-girlfriend. Ten years later I still treat it as a stream of consciousness download of my thoughts, feelings, and as an active deterrent for future boyfriends and girlfriends.

The lesson I have consistently failed to learn is that you need to adapt to the changing landscape, and as online matures, refine your voice in a way that's authentic and still resonates with your audience.

A readiness to adapt quickly can have huge implications for building your audience. Robert Scoble's G+ adoption has lead to minor-celebrity status in tech-circles, and Guy Kawasaki enjoys a cult-following for his efforts on the same platform.

I'm not saying always change what you do for the latest trends, but at least be aware of them instead of doggedly sticking to the same formula. Although that works sometimes too.

3. Read up

Did I mention I have a book coming out?

If you're reading up to this point you must have some, vague interest in the topic, and I'm here to tell you I'm no authority. What I can tell you is that there's a shipload of content out there where you can read up on things like building an audience, and here's my quick-and-dirty take on the good, the bland, and the ugly.

The Good

• The Oatmeal just released a comic on what it's like to be a writer. If you're one of the few people that hasn't shared this, then I urge you to stop reading this entry and read his article instead. It's much more entertaining and an example of what you should be doing (instead of what I do).
• Mark Pollard is a digital strategist in New York that I only know via following various digital tweets from industry folk, the article I've linked isn't specifically geared towards building an audience (it's more stuff), but his articulate life lessons and approach are things that I enjoy.

The Bland

• I have no doubt of it's efficacy, and it's a great resource, but ProBlogger fits within this category for me. It does a great job at blogging about blogging, but just typing that caves my head in and I think it's best to think of this sort of advice as the supplement rather than the main course.
• For a while there I read a similar guy called GoinsWriter - he has some solid advice on writing and some simple tips. In the end I stopped tuning in because it seemed like pretty basic stuff.

The Ugly

• People in glass stones should not throw houses, but JeffBullas approach is fucking ugly. It's methodic, process-driven link bait. Try and read some advice for nuggets of wisdom longer than half an hour and you'll end up stabbing yourself. There's no denying he is good at driving traffic, but this entry is about building an audience. And I think there's a difference.

4. Make the content interesting

Don't do what I continually do if you're interested in building an audience. Focus on interesting things. This may sound counter-intuitive, but the most interesting things are usually far-removed from your day-to-day.

It might sound paradoxical not writing about what you know, but humour me for a second.

Take someone you meet on a plane. It's a relatively unique experience where you can share as much, or as little as you wish. Now, if I meet someone that's on the plane that's into the internet, electronic dance music, and has a new gadget in front of them - we are going to get along like a house on fire.

Is what we discuss worthy of sharing with someone I incidentally meet later (say, someone who visits this blog?)

What if I sit next to an elderly hat professor who does most of the talking and regales me with stories about the war, how she met her husband of 50 years, and how she is a leading world-authority on hats worn in the last 200 years.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I only sort of know what I'm doing), but I felt 10x more comfortable sharing the information about the hat professor I met than the guy that's similar to me. It was interesting to share, rather than interesting to me.

This is a good rule-of-thumb. You can have that one. And if you don't get it here's a fucking list of content ideas for your next entry. But think of the hat professors out there first please.

5. Get your hands dirty

A somewhat impromptu shot of my hands

Above is an on-the-spot shot of me showing my hands. They are relatively clean. This wouldn't have happened if I didn't "get them dirty".

By that I mean, I knew uploading a picture of my hands is better than no pictures in the blog at all, and then I knew how to do that extremely quickly with Cameroid and Blogger's upload feature.

If I didn't get them dirty in the first place I would have never known these things. It's called experience and it's something you need just before you get it. If you accumulate enough of these things you'll need it less and less as time goes on.

Go out there and fucking do it.

When I went to the Emerging Writer's Festival, I asked the question in the Crowdfunding workshop: how do you know when to flick the switch?

Just like a break-up, there's never going to be a perfect time to do it. So just do it. You can do all the preparation, reading and research and you like - but there's no substitute for doing.

I've made a metric shit-tonne (I love that term) of mistakes jumping around in the digital space but ultimately I know a lot more from doing shit than holding back and wondering what the consequences would be.

Playing in the digital space is a wonderful thing, and you only learn that by doing. 

...Then when you claim to lay some semblance of knowledge to what you're doing, Gabriel & Dresden will come along and blow all your supposed "approaches" out of the water. Sort of.

I'll book some time to write this

I just cued up Jaytech Music Podcast Feb '08. For the ridiculously astute or bored, it opens with the same tune I play in my epic running YouTube. I'll have to get the name of the track one day. As it's one of the few sets I've bothered to download onto my work computer, it gets a lot of action. But why am I ambling around with text such as this? When I can start a much sexier paragraph.

Last week, I effectively raised $3,000+ to publish my book. That's right folks. After botched starts, and some missed deadlines, the book is getting published in 2012.

While I'm a bit lean on entries this year, it's been fun tracing back the journey. I hit the ground with an objective in returning to Sydney, and had booked a trip to the Emerging Writer's Festival the second weekend I was back. The experience was invaluable. Meeting like-minded people, hearing the same sorts of questions, and getting a sense of what others were doing and how it applied to me.

If you're one of the six people reading this and thinking of going - I urge you to next time it rolls out. It can be expensive to get there if you're not based in Melbourne, but in my opinion it was worth every cent.

You could chart the journey a bit further. I commented on the rise-and-rise of crowdfunding and how my book will get published. Pointing to the sites Pozible and Blurb, I pointed out that in combining the two I could cut out publishers altogether and do my own thing. I think it's around here that I mentioned something about putting what I know into practice, and decided to run with it.

But there were distractions. One day, I'd love to be doing my own thing and making an impact on my own terms. I expressed as much to a friend-of-a-friend who runs her own business. It was the wake-up call I needed, what the hell have I been doing with my book for all this time? It was time to apply the blowtorch.

And apply the blowtorch I did. Not everything came off. I had some ambitious ideas that may never see the light of day. One of my favourites was taking over the banner space of Inthemix Lifestyle forum with a banner and a call-to-action to buy my book. I smirk as I type and appreciate the irony.

But a lot of things did, and more importantly, people like yourself came through. I mean you, the reader. I put myself out there and started broadcasting my potential story to the world, and a lot of people placed faith in me and financed it.

I can only hope you enjoy the tale as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Even that time I was coming back from a train in Kiama and had written 3,000 words and at the exact time the battery decided to fuck out as I typed "n(o)" to the Microsoft Word save prompt. Yes, even then.

I deliberately used the term "broadcast" when talking about my potential story though, it's what drives me. The more I talk about dealing with the issues I've faced the more it can normalise it for others. I've got a very deliberate strategy in my approach and it's starting to come to fruition.

I spoke to an old boss about the potential implications of broadcasting this story. There's foreseeable outcomes and ones that will be harder to predict. I don't claim to have all the answers when it comes to running with this, but whatever's driving me shows no signs of stopping, slowing, or anything but accelerating.

You don't go to crazy and back without returning with some crazy ideas of your own.
Let's see where we end up?

Putting your money where my mouth is

I think I'm averaging an update every two weeks or so on this blog lately. And every time I look back on two weeks ago, I shake my head and reflect on what a fortnight it's been. This fortnight has probably been even bigger than usual in terms of personal milestones for me.

On Sunday, I flicked the switch on self-publishing the book. As I had mentioned in an earlier entry, my intention was to crowdfund the publication costs of the book via a site called Pozible, and then use those funds to self-publish on a site called Blurb.

I love that both these sites exist today, and that with some verve and a bit of a digital flair I can finally make a dream happen.

Which brings me to why I gave this entry this particular title. In my day job, I'm paid to come up with digital strategies and ideas that will work for very large advertisers. There's a backlog of experience, knowledge and things learned along my short career that I can apply, and the fluid nature of digital means I have to be ready to adapt and learn new technologies that I can integrate into potential solutions.

I am good at what I do. I work for a fantastic company, and am very appreciative of the opportunities that present themselves as a consequence of my employment. Over time, I've encouraged, coerced, and dragged large advertisers into the digital space with a fair degree of success.

But hold up, if I know so much about digital, how come I can't seem to get my shit together with this blog? How come the traffic it does is a pittance? And why can't I write compelling enough content to make people want to read?

These are hard questions to answer, and all I could say is that I write in my blog more for me, than an audience (although having an audience is nice).

Let's apply a critical filter to these questions I've posed. If I know so much about digital that I get paid to come up with strategies for large advertisers... why I aren't applying that knowledge to me and what I want to do?

Well the penny dropped a month or so ago. I think I mentioned feeling inspired, wanting to apply myself to something, and realising I had all the tools and capabilities to do what I wanted already. Get the fucking book done, I thought. And with my new found realisation - there were really no more excuses.

I had dropped the ball. And if it wasn't apparent when I was languishing, it was definitely apparent when I picked the ball back up. I announced my reinvigorated fervour to my friends on email, explaining my intention and how I'm working to a deadline. The question that bounced back could have cut me to shreds if it wasn't so true: "Is this the book you've been working on for ages?" Ouch.

So I have been putting my money where my mouth is, and in turn yours. I'll come back to how that works.

I am very, very impressed with this number

I've been busy. I've sought advice from my mentor, visited a life coach, had a photo shoot done, and filmed a pitch video. I've sourced more diligent feedback from the book and have a new deadline that I'm working to.

It's all been built around a singular destination - http://pozible.com/beingbibi - a site that is simultaneously drawing attention, capturing pre-orders, and raising funds for my book Being Bi-Bi: a memoir on mental health and sexuality.

One of the trickier things was pricing the book, as it depends on volumes I publish, and demand. There were a lot of variables at play, and wanted to be sure I wasn't put too far out of pocket, but at the same time didn't profit from the experience as that didn't feel right.

Enter an organisation called Soften the Fck Up. A group whose objective is to drop the male bravado when it comes to talking about not feeling okay, and bring down the rate of suicide - its the leading cause of death for adult males under 44 in Australia.

As can be read in Being Bi-Bi, it's an issue close to my heart, and any extra funds I raise from publishing the book will be going to this group.

Results have been very promising, and within the last week, we've managed to raise over $1,300 to help the book along and help this organisation. And that's something this writer can be proud about.

You've Got This

I got this.

I've been bandying it around a lot lately. And it's fun to say. This was my attitude going into the City2Surf, a 14km race from Sydney's CBD to its coast. I'd never run that far before without stopping. What sort of brazen confidence was this? I'd say a few things helped inform it along the way.

• Listening to People

Oddly enough, when people tell you things, they generally have your best interests at heart, and this was the case when I announced the bet to lose 20kgs.One particular member called me out on my use of the words "I hope". They said:

Don't "hope" for it, fucking work for it. You're an intelligent person Marshy, so don't let stupid food choices win. This time, make it a permanent lifestyle change so that there's no 4th try. Don't prove it to ITM, prove it to yourself.

EVERYDAY: eat clean food, train hard, sleep, and repeat.

It can be done. 

 The words resonated, as they should. The member calling me out achieved this transformation. Abosolutely awe-inpspiring.

• Training

You just fucking do it. There's no excuses. You make time. I've spent years looking for shortcuts, accelerating programs and burning out too fast, applying new theories to do anything but train. I get angry at old me just thinking about my old excuses. You find what works for you and you run with it. It's not meant to be easy, but it's not meant to make you hate yourself either. Once you start, they say 21 days is how long it takes to be formed. I don't know about that, but the thought of not running seems like a really, really stupid idea now. As does not logging what I eat, which is next.

• Look at what goes in your mouth

I hate diets. I really do. The concept of doing something radically different to your normal habits in some sort of sustainable manner does not make sense. They work for some people, but not for me. For my situation, I didn't need a diet, I needed a transformation. My habits were already terrible and I needed to make myself accountable to myself and learn along the way. The only way that seems to work for me is by tracking everything that goes in my mouth. And that's what I do.

Yep, I'm commenting on my own achievements

I don't envisage me doing this forever, but until I know enough to know when I can spoil myself and when I can't, I'm going to keep on loggin'.

And you do this every day. Every fucking day.
Then days like the City2Surf come up, and you get to wear a medal.

Look at me, I got a medal

I'm not there yet. And I don't think I ever will be, because I'll just keep shifting those goal posts.

You've got this.
.

Being Bi-Bi: A call-to-arms

A lot changes in two weeks.

I blogged about new intentions then. I wanted to reframe my endeavours, but I think even then, I was still a little lost.

That changed last Thursday on the 26th July this year.
I'd been exploring options, looking at where I could apply myself outside work, and the answer was staring me in the face.

The meeting was by chance, I'd mentioned on Facebook that I was looking at an MBA and whether people had any experiences with this kind of degree. A friend-of-a-friend shared a few thoughts, and I decided I should pick their brains over coffee.

So the night came along, the coffee turned into an after-work soda water, and I put it on the table.

I said I want to do something entrepreneurial. I said I've got business ideas that I want to execute on. I said I want to make a difference.

They probed, did I really? What's driving me? Don't I have a book I'm trying to publish?

Things snowballed. There was a twinkle in their eye that suggested I could do this. What was holding me back? I threw up a list of pathetic excuses. All of which were shot down. It's the time for action. This is the business I've been looking at.

We brainstormed.
And to be honest, since then the ideas have not stopped flowing.

I have registered Being Bi-Bi - the site with which I will promote my book. I started talking about it with people. I got in touch with a photographer friend for visuals. I started writing out a plan for finishing the book, building out the site, and for marketing the shit out of it.

There'll be more to it than this page when I'm done with this

This will work. I've effectively been a digital marketer for four years and it's time to practice what I preach. I'm throwing everything at this. There will be no kitchen sink left.

And I'll be blogging about the experience (naturally).

Check out this site I have for planning and sourcing help, I'm currently after a mentor/coach but there will be lots of other things.

And what do I hope to achieve? Any money from the proceeds will go to Soften The Fck Up - an organisation I believe in, and if you don't you should watch this video and try not to be moved.

It's coming. And no stone will be left unturned.