Tag: strength

Prepare for Your Success – Part 1

prepare_for_fitness_success-cover-1162

The biggest mistake that people make is focusing exclusively on where they want to be instead of preparing for where they want to be. Someone may want to publish a book or have a successful blog but they aren’t prepared to receive it. What will happen if the book does blow up like you want it to, are you prepared? What if one of your blog posts does go “viral”, are you prepared? It’s not just about the end goal, it is also about the journey. I want to encourage you today to prepare for where you want to be. I wanted to provide blog and writing tips but I’ve decided to split this into multiple posts so it’s not too long because I know you got places to be. Today’s post is on mental preparation.

Mental

  • Nerves and Doubt is a Part of It

Don’t let others deceive you and don’t deceive yourself. You’re always going to be nervous before embarking on something that is truly life changing. You’re always going to have that fear or that doubt in the beginning and truth be told the only way to overcome that doubt is to do the very thing you’re absolutely nervous about doing. I always say that if you ever get too comfortable that’s when your humility is not as strong as it needs to be because you should always be just a little bit nervous before embarking on something great. Why is that? Because that uncomfortable nervous feeling is where the growth happens. No one ever did anything in the comfort zone.

  • Stop Telling Everyone Your Plans

Discouragement doesn’t just come organically but we also invite it. Not everyone deserves to know what you plan to do and how you plan to do it, especially people who don’t deserve to know. Spell casting is real and all it takes is the word. Words are spiritual and they live. When someone speaks negatively about your life they are trying to cast a spell on you whether they know it or not. Stop telling hateful people your plans and surround yourself with people who will support you. Remember, destruction is always loud just as the tree falls and hits the ground. However, the seed grows with no sound. Grow silently.

  • Surround Yourself with Like-Minded People

Steve Harvey said that if nine of your friends are broke then you’re going to be the tenth. If eight of your friends are smokers, you’re going to be the ninth. We’ve heard the saying repeatedly, “Birds of a feather, flock together” because they do. If you’re truly trying to grow your business or writing career, surround yourself with the people who are where you want to go. Don’t be intimidated by their success or jealous of it, feed off it. Mimic it. Work ethic is great but effort directed in the wrong places is counterproductive. It won’t do you any good. Chances are if someone is more successful than me it’s because they’re doing something that I’m not. That’s motivation for me to find out what it is.

  • Learn not to Respond to Negativity

Silence is a beast. Listen, many of you don’t know me and I don’t say this to be mean or to say that we can’t develop a closer relationship at some point in our blogging journey’s together as we become more acquainted and of service to one another (wow, that was a long sentence lol), but it’s the truth, you don’t. If you knew me, you would know that I am not the most liked person in the world. People hate me fiercely. They annihilate me and my family on and off social media both for who I am as a person, for what I believe in, for the things that I say, and for just being me. I don’t count this as a bad thing, in fact, it’s a blessing and I pray for the people who I have loved but who have given me hate in return. In fact, I know that many of you will one day grow to hate me too and that’s OK because I know what I do this for and it’s not to please any of you. I say this because if you’re going to be successful at anything in your life you have got to learn not to respond to negativity. You’ve got to change your perspective on life itself and stop listening to people who tell you your silence represents guilt or fear.

The true mark of maturity is when someone hurts you and you try to understand their situation instead of hurting them back. Silence amid the storm does not make you weak or incapable. It means that you’re meek and humble. You’re humble because you are not concerned about what you can say to lift yourself up above someone else who has torn you down. We’ve got to get to the point in our lives where we can understand that how we overcome adversity shines a light on who we really are. When you can hear something bad about me, something so unbelievable (because chances are it’s a lie) and still stand with me, that’s when I know that you know me as a person. It’s not the good times that you really get to know a person, it’s in the struggle that you find out just how real people are. If you have to jump in someone’s face or say something bad about someone because they said it about you that doesn’t mean that you’re fearless, it means that you are weak.

  • Spotting the Haters

Investing time in haters will halt your success. Point blank and period. If every time you bring something to someone they have something negative to say about it, that’s a red flag. They don’t have to agree with you but real friends will at least give you some insight into what you’re doing. They don’t just disagree but they give you something you can take back with you. You have to get to the point of understanding that everyone can’t go where you’re going.

  • Be Yourself

I know this sounds cliche but you’d be surprised how many people compromise their personal integrity once they think they’ve reached a level of success. Even in the blog world some of you start changing up your ways to please new followers. The truth is that things will constantly change but you have to stay true to who you are because who you are becomes your brand.

When Oprah started out she didn’t know what a brand was, and even though she’s a named brand today it wasn’t because she intentionally set out to be that, she just did what felt right to her. In fact, when she started The Oprah Winfrey Show everyone (except one person) said that she would fail. The point is that you are only successful being yourself. I hear people time and time again talk about how authors should be more personal on social media. That we should talk about more than books but more so of other things that we like and that’s cool if that’s you.

The reason I’m not as personal on Twitter, for instance (since I’m on there the most) is because I’ve never been that way on social media. Even when I was on Facebook I didn’t talk about walking the dog today or my favorite color. I keep telling ya’ll that I’m a private and laid back person so social media for me is just business and that’s how I use it. This isn’t to say that it’s wrong to get more personal online but that’s just not me is the point.

It don’t matter how many times people say it that’s not going to change my social media habits because it’s just not who I am. The same with this blog. I’m not changing the name of my blog, not even to my name. Is that a good strategy? It’s a great author branding strategy. Is it me? Nope.

I have this one blog post that I did not expect to do well (8 Ways to go from Author to Authorpreneur). I wasn’t trying to be someone giving advice, I was just sharing (as I always am) what I do and how it may can help you. Everything in that post is something that I did, that I literally put into practice myself and I wanted to share it with you. In short, I was just being me and it turned out to be one of my greatest PBS Blog posts (far as engagement is concerned).

In all things, to yourself be true. That’s what people are attracted to. You don’t have to change up because your subscriber number is growing or because the social media guru tells you to do this instead of that. Only do it if that’s what you would do anyway. Only do it if that’s already in line with who you are.

Yecheilyah Ysrayl is the YA, Historical Fiction author of The Stella Trilogy. She is currently working on her next book series “The Nora White Story” about a young black woman writer who dreams of taking part in The Harlem Renaissance movement and her parents struggle to accept their traumatic past in the Jim Crow south. “Renaissance: The Nora White Story (Book One)” is due for release July 15-16, 2017. For updates on this project, be sure to follow this blog and to subscribe to Yecheilyah’s email list HERE.

Endurance

Black woman sitting with eyes closed outdoors

Endurance, the prominence, comes like a splashing dose of faith. Like scars praising the scarlet letters on my skin. As if strength poured forth from the sky and left its prophecies etched on the calcium of my bones. It’s courage far braver than purple hearts or bleeding pens on the white paper of a soldier’s goodbye. Like a car accident that knocks me off my feet but does not kill me, I get it. Nineteen years later the irony of life and death finds itself a home in this house of poetry.

13 Things Mentally Strong Writers Don’t Do

Excellent article to help jump start your writing week! My favorite Post Quote: “We can’t control Amazon’s rules or Smashwords’ terms of service. We can’t control whether an agent accepts us. We can’t control whether Barnes & Noble lives or dies. We can control getting the words on the page. We can control building a brand capable of driving book sales. I see a lot of writers wasting a lot of energy over issues where they don’t have any control. That energy is better used elsewhere.”

*Comments disabled here. Please see original post*

Author Kristen Lamb's avatarKristen Lamb's Blog

Screen Shot 2016-09-02 at 6.20.28 AM

As y’all know I do a ton of reading and this includes lots and lots of blogs and articles. Over the holiday I ran across one article that just had me jumping up and down and yelling, “YES! THIS!” The Business Insider article “13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do” is based off Amy Morin’s book (which I highly recommend).

It doesn’t matter if we strive to have a healthy marriage, strong kids or a killer career, these tenets cross-apply to all areas of life. Mental toughness is a key component to being successful. Yes, even for writers.

So I figured I would tinker with this and make it more directly apply to writers and what we must do (or not do) if we long to do well in this career. Thus, today we are going to discuss 13 Things Mentally Strong Writers Don’t Do.

#1 They don’t waste time…

View original post 2,503 more words

True to Yourself

2015-08-28-1440784333-4444415-istockbeyourselfpencilsaug282015570x238-thumb

This is a repost. I thought this would be a good time to remind us of something very important when navigating the online world.

Stay true to yourself.

The major similarities I see that unites all social networking forums is that you’re bound to have people who are not being honest about their intentions, and what they plan to achieve by taking part in the online community. Of course, we have to expect that any time there’s an opportunity for people to wear a mask you’re going to have these kinds of situations. This is, after all the internet, and is filled with people who wear a façade. People whose fingers do not transcribe the truths concerning the inward man. In a world as endless as the internet, it is easy to get lost in the hype moving throughout the cyber world. It’s easy to pretend, and to become someone other than who you are. If you’re just naturally wicked, it is also just as easy to pretend to be a good person, though your heart is a web of lies and deception.

When you’re gliding along the social world, it is easy to get distracted from your primary goal and what you set out to accomplish. Further, it is just as easy to start to take on the same thoughts and opinions of those you’re around the most. This is perhaps the most important aspect of online writing that I believe is important for new and experienced bloggers. For the mimicking of purpose to fit in can creep up on you if you let it. By creep I mean that changes do not enter our lives all at once but piece by piece. Slowly and with great patience change chips at you until you have  adapted into something or someone else.

being-true-to-yourself

Blogging, probably more than any social platform is exciting, educational, and inspiring. However, just like every other social platform the truth is that there are more snakes out here than there are angels and they are not your friends, buddies, pals, or playmates. They’re not here to take you to the movies and hang out with you because you liked their post or followed their blog. In fact, they may just be writing your death letter while sending a smiley face.

For instance, in the blogosphere, there are those who often complain that they are not interested in gaining more followers, or networking and such and such. While this isn’t the thought process of most, I am convinced that some of you are not being true to yourself in regard to what you really want from your blogs. Some of you actually care about gaining more traffic but for whatever reasons, you’re afraid to admit it.

Truth is, I think someone can still care about growing their blogs or company without compromising who they are. I believe a person can genuinely care about increasing subscriber rates, expanding networks, and building relationships while maintaining their integrity. I believe there are people who care about these things not because they want people to praise them, and not because they bask in the attention from others, but simply because they’re reaching people, even if only two out of two-hundred are actually paying attention.

In updating this post, I came across two very interesting articles. One from the blogosphere and the other from an article posted from LinkedIn:

Amazon’s New Reviewing Rules – Could it Affect Authors in the Future?

10 Things Successful Entrepreneurs Don’t Do (Themselves!)

You may be asking yourself, what do these articles have in common?

The first article speaks about Amazon’s changes in reviewing products and the other talks about the importance of investing in third party sources to help to build your business. One of my favorite excerpts is:

“Time is an entrepreneur’s most valuable commodity. Yet one of the biggest problems for small businesses and startups is that the founders are wasting their time trying to do it all. We euphemistically say we “wear lots of hats” but the truth is that entrepreneurs are often trying to save money by doing it all themselves. This can be a huge mistake. There are some things that are better done by professional and are better delegated or outsourced.” – Benard Marr

This made me stop to think about the Indie Author Community and how it relates to the first article concerning receiving free items in exchange for reviews. I started to think critically about this and happened upon the epiphany that Self-Publishing didn’t get its stigmas from poorly written books alone. No, there is something else to it and it is possible that Marr is on to something.

Close up portrait of a young african american woman looking out window when working on laptop

If Independent Publishing is just as important, if not more, than any other entrepreneurial business, and if it is to be taken just as seriously and handled with just as much professionalism, why is it that Self-Publishers invest as little money, time, and effort as possible in this very important field? Why is it that everything must be free for us to trust it? The first article is very interesting in that we may be coming upon a time where authors have to pay for reviews or invest some kind of payment. While I hope not, article two is a great conversation starter into why this may be the case for our future considering Self-Publishing is an act of entrepreneurship.

Amazon is changing things obviously because of the level of fraud out there, and we can be sure that giving away books for free in exchange for reviews is bound to change with every 5 star rating given to an obviously crappy book. While I’m hoping this won’t be the case, the truth is that amazon has a reputation to uphold  and like every other wise business person or company, understands that  free does not always guarantee quality. It’s the reason we pay more for name brands because we know that what we’re getting is top quality.

How does this relate to being true to yourself?

I like thinking differently and speaking on subjects that make people scratch their heads. It is what makes me who I am. I don’t have to be like you, think like you, or agree with you. This is an attitude we should all have. Otherwise, you can be easily influenced by others opinions and thoughts. In short, you have no vison and no goal, and the reason behind your actions is empty.

So, you wanna start a blog? Then do it with authority. Own your words and stand by your decisions and your goals. So what if you’re a nobody, so was Oprah at one point in her life. So was Stephen King, and so was your beloved JK Rowling. Pay no mind to what others say or think of you and never ever depend on man to validate you. Stay true to yourself and why you set out to embark on the journeys to which you find yourself. People fall in love with other people, not echoes. What is success? You choose. Dare to be different. Change the game.

To Be Real

the-velveteen-rabbit-by-margery-williams2

Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

“The Velveteen Rabbit,” also called “How Toys Become Real,” is a children’s novel written by Margery Williams and illustrated by William Nicholson. First published in 1922, the story was Williams’ first and most popular children’s book. If you’ve never read it before, the story is about the journey of a toy velveteen rabbit learning about love and what it means to become real.”

*******

People talk a lot about realness today, but few people understand what it means to really be real. The phrase “Keep It Real” is prominent, yet many people are not willing to hurt for it.

“He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these.”

Why is wisdom measured by old age? I suppose its because by the time your hair is gray and your knees buckle and you can’t walk as far, by then you’ve gone through enough heartache to know real. You see, you’ll never be real without going through the furnace of affliction. Yes, diamonds are beautiful, but they had to go through much pressure to get that way. The truth is that we learn early on to hate ourselves because we learn to fight against disappointment, to buck against pain, and to despise trial. We learn not to rejoice in the bad but to complain about it, never once considering that such pain is reaping strength in our favor. As a result, we end up being fake most of the time because we’re not strong enough to be weak.

“Of what use was it to be loved and lose one’s beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.”

This. This most painful, most humbling of a moment. Now, you’re real.

The Velveteen Rabbit

Faith is Stronger Than Doubt

Why push myself? I do what I do not because I think I’m somehow better than anyone else. I do not immerse myself into work because I think I have it all. I know that even in what I know, I know nothing. I work hard not because I’m perfect. I’m loyal not to gain praise or approval. I do not publish Self-Pub tips and promote authors because I’m someone special. Do not speak with such integrity and confidence because I’ve made it. Most of what I post terrifies me. Who am I to advise? To instruct? To teach? Who am I? Little ole me with less than 1,000 subscribers, barely any reviews and even less social media followers? Who am I to speak as I speak and say the things that I say? I do what I do because faith is stronger than doubt, just as love is stronger than hate, courage more potent than fear, and light stronger than darkness. My faith pushes me to write without fear of judgement and to speak the truth even when my voice shakes.