Just back from speaking to the San Fernando Valley WordPress Group about blogging and content creation. I had a great time and my audience seemed to appreciate the insight. A complete video of the talk will be online in a few days. Subscribe to my YouTube Channel to receive immediate notice when it arrives.
During my talk, we got into a discussion of why I blog and share stuff online. I told them discovery a decade or so ago when I finally realized the foundation of everything I do in my career and life. I only figured this out after looking back over several years of work and several jobs, but everything I do — in life and work — has something to do with education. I am at my best when I am teaching others — something — anything. Education seems to call to me no matter what I am doing or where I am. Sure, I don’t teach in a classroom like a traditional. professional educator, but I consider what I do teaching in so many ways.
Tonight, I was sharing my love of blogging, but also the many deep reasons you should blog. You can improve your life, improve your career, teach others new skills and facts, share those things that interest you most. You can also meet great people and even attract opportunities to you by sharing “what you do and how well you do it!”
Even more, teaching others energizes me greatly in my own life. I always come away from any successful talk or training session with a “teacher’s high.” It can often take me a while to come down from it so I can sleep. There is some special place inside me that teaching touches and I am constantly searching for opportunities to get my next “fix.” We should all be so lucky to find such a positive and useful addiction.
I think this desire to teach also drives my desire to learn. I am constantly seeking out new skills and information on a wide variety of topics. If some topic attracts my attention, I will often dive deep into it to learn all I can. I call this my “geek out” method of learning. When coffee interested me, I learned all about green beans, roasting and brewing — especially espresso. Beekeeping caught my eye and I ended up reading several books, listening to some podcasts and learning a lot, even if I never ended up having my own hive.
Many of the podcasts I listen to are designed to give great overviews of periods of history, scientific principles, literary discussions and more. In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is one of my favorites. Melvyn Bragg sites down with 3 experts in a particular subject or field and 45 minutes later I can guarantee you that you will know a lot more about something you knew almost nothing about before. I often listen to these shows on drives or when I am cooking. It seems a great way to make productive use of my mind while my hands are occupied with the necessity of making my dinner.
My best advice is to go out there and “get your learn on!” Learn something. Do something. Teach someone else. Then Repeat! It is a great way to make your life, and the lives of those around, better and better.
Previously on End of the Day:
- A blogging presentation and Q&A – Get your questions answered! – End of the Day for March 17, 2014
- Getting the “motivation snowball” rolling – End of the Day for March 16, 2014
- Parenting, parties and curfews, oh my! – End of the Day for March 15, 2014
- Tempus fugit – End of the Day for March 14, 2014
- Long dark journey into the office – End of the Day for March 13, 2014
- Science and Cosmos – End of the Day for March 12, 2014
- Why should you blog, podcast and share? – End of the Day for March 11, 2014
- Two decades past – End of the Day for March 10, 2014
- A day trip to Ojai, but a world away in my mind – End of the Day for March 9, 2014
- A job that doesn’t exist…and that’s OK! – End of the Day for March 8, 2014
- Finding time and space to be a couple again – End of the Day for March 7, 2014
- Joseph Claude Welch –March 7, 1998 — End of the Day for March 6, 2014
- Food, Glorious, Food – End of the Day for March 5, 2014
- Oh let it be over! One more sneeze and I am going to scream! – End of the Day for March 4, 2014
- Why are you so mean? — End of the Day for March 3, 2014
- You have to believe to blog! — End of the Day for March 2, 2014
- School Days, Kindle Books and the Library — End of the Day for March 1, 2014
- End of the Day for February 2014
- End of the Day for January 2014