One of the perks of working for a Jewish organization is that you get the major Jewish Holy Days off. This week is the start of Sukkot – so Monday and Tuesday are days I get to be home.
Yesterday I spent the day lazing – I didn’t shower (which is gross), I didn’t brush my teeth (don’t tell my dentist), and I just generally wallowed in my own filth for a while. Before you decide this is just too gross, stick with me for a second.
This morning when I took my shower, it felt like I was coming back to myself. I was scrubbing off the filth of the last couple days, and as it washed down the drain, it felt a bit like a metamorphosis – the butterfly coming out of the cocoon.
You’re probably thinking to yourself – why all the flowery language and the focus on your personal hygiene? I’m getting to that.
This past weekend, I attended the annual Minnesota Blogger Conference (#MNBlogCon), and one of the major themes that each speaker (at least the ones I heard) touched on was that your blog, and your focus, may change.
And that change isn’t a bad thing.
The keynote speaker, Jennifer Kane, started the conference off with a great presentation about being fearless with your blog. Instead of using stock photography, she pulled all of her images from Beyonce’s Lemonade.
I think we can all agree that no one is more fearless than the Queen B herself.
Jennifer had some great points in her presentation that really struck me.
- Try new things
- Meet your audience on their turf
- Get comfortable with failure
The last one made me pause. No one likes to fail, but it’s a natural part of life. We can’t all be the very best (insert Pokemon reference here), but failing teaches us a lot about ourselves and gives us a place to start when we’re learning and trying new things.
Jennifer also said that it’s important to:
- Get some perspective
- Find and use your voice… even if it’s uncomfortable or ugly
- Get comfortable with haters
Jennifer’s last bit of advice involved three things she wanted us to think about regarding our blogs:
- Does the work move you?
- Does the work love you back?
- Does the work have love in it?
I blog about my personal life – if you’ve been following me for a while, this is probably readily apparent. However, I don’t blog about everything: there are aspects of my life I don’t or haven’t yet touched on, and things I’m passionate about that I haven’t included.
The TL;DR of this post can be summed up as this:
The content of this blog may change over the next few weeks/months/years as I move towards making it the best I feel it can be. And I hope you stick around for the ride.
Stay tuned for more take-aways from the Minnesota Bloggers Conference in future posts. But in the meantime, stay fierce.
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