Humans are wired for story. And according to Lisa Cron, author of Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence (*affiliate link), " [w]e think in story, which allows us to envision the future ."   In other words, our stories signal to others how we will act.     What is a story? Leo Widrich defines a story thus: " [a] story, if broken down into the simplest form, is a connection of cause and effect ." Telling a story is the most powerful way to activate our brains.   In today's world where every device is connected and potentially sending information about us 24/7 (depending on what settings you may have inadvertently set or not realized were set by default when a new feature was added), it's more important than ever to actively curate your story.   What's holding you back from telling your story?  

I hate doing things that waste my time. I also get annoyed when Pageviews are bandied about. A 2013 study by Incapsula revealed that 61% of web traffic is from bots. Is your target reader a bot? Mine's certainly not!     Don't get me wrong. I too obsessed over my site's Pageviews. When I reached 500 posts on this site, I shared my growth in terms of visitors and pageviews, knowing full well that I'd gamed the numbers, especially for 2012. Sure I posted consistently. I posted a lot. But was it quality--making a difference to anyone? Did it allow you to get to know me? No and no.   A quick pause. When I'm talking about "gaming the numbers" I'm not talking about buying clicks or traffic. I'm talking about writing and posting content that attracted traffic, for example Tuesday Shoesday, Thursday Purseday (once a meme, but no longer), Font Friday, and so on. These were strong hashtags and many women were searching for them. My target reader then l...

Creatives and solo entrepreneurs are incredibly privileged.   We're able to define our work days, set meaningful goals, and do work that matters.   We've left rigid schedules where we were required to be at a desk during specific hours. We've eliminated the bureaucracy of performance reviews and TPS reports (anyone else an Office Space fan?).     But if we're not careful, we can go to far. We can fail to see our progress. We can miss milestones and think we're failing.   Without SMART goals and regular reflection on those goals, we can run the risk of being busy for the sake of being busy. Remember that cliche, work smarter not harder? If we're not looking at what's on our plates and asking ourselves if it's taking us towards what we want out of life, we run the risk of waking up one day with regrets.   What aspects of corporate life have you incorporated in your business?