A little momentary break from weaving posts...
I am a huge fan of Steve Pavlina and his blog, http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/. He is kind of my role model.
Who the heck is Steve Pavlina? Well, he is kind of hard to define. Some people would possibly mention that he is kind of a wacko, because he is anti-corporate employment, and is into raw foods, and is a polyamorist. But most people would say he is a personal development blogger. But I don’t call him that because 1- that isn’t why he’s my role model, and 2- he kind of came upon that profession by accident. It is, however, how I discovered him.
Steve Pavlina originally started out making video games. Then he started blogging about the business of making video games. But more people were interested in his personal development business tips than his actual game making info. So he focused on that and his audience grew from there. Now he is one of the most successful bloggers in existence. And while his theme is personal development, he actually blogs about, well, pretty much whatever the hell he feels like.
From his articles about business tips evolved all kinds of topics of his own personal interest, from how to wake up at 5am to finding your life’s purpose to making raw fruit pies. Steve has now written a book called Personal Development for Smart People and holds Conscious Growth Workshops in Las Vegas. Steve was at one point in his life in the poor house, but now he is a millionaire. And he got there by doing one key thing: paying attention. He paid very close attention to what his audience wanted and gave them more. Ironically, what they wanted was to read about him paying attention to things – particularly to himself. And he is brutally honest with himself and others in the process.
Steve is not your typical self-helpey kind of guy. His formula is very simple: do your thing, and tell people about it. That is all he really does. He thinks about what he could do in his life to improve himself, does it, and blogs about it. How amazing is that?! Of course, he does also have the technical knowledge about getting blog traffic and things, and he also has writing ability. But those aren’t things anyone can’t learn on their own. So, it’s not like he has some big secret. He just lives life to the fullest and shares.
For a long time I tried to do exactly what Steve Pavlina does – live my life and blog about it. But something about just copying his formula doesn’t work for me. There’s some kind of magic dust in what he does that makes his content so awesome, and I can’t seem to grasp it. But even beyond that, I don’t really want to grasp it. That’s Steve’s thing, not mine. There’s a magic Jen formula out there somewhere. There’s a magic formula out there for everyone. The way Steve found his was paying attention, so that is what I have to do. That is what we all have to do. Pay attention to what you love doing, what you love to focus on. Pay attention to what you are good at and what people want from you. What gets you attention from others? What do people always ask of you? If you keep paying attention to these things, your magic dust will appear right in front of your eyes. You won’t even have to try to form it. Suddenly one day, you will just say, “Wow, well, I guess this is what I need to do!”
I haven’t figured mine out yet exactly, but I know it is one of 3 routes, but probably is a combination of all of them. I know it has to do with writing. I know it has to do with social sciences. And I think weaving has something to do with it because I can’t stop weaving. So currently I am paving all 3 paths and we shall see where it takes me. I know one day I will have some secret magic dust that is simply just my name, like Steve Pavlina’s.
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