Dear Mr. My Samsonite Luggage,

Thank you for showing me the importance of writing a comment policy. Your recent comments – all three of them – have bypassed Akismet only because you actually wrote them yourself and they fit the content of the blog post. Akismet may not be smart enough to mark them as what they truly are: SPAM. Yet that’s what they are.

Yes sir, not only automated messages are spam. Empty comments that pretend to be real comments are spam too, but to be fair: you had no way of knowing. I had not composed a comment policy yet, so I’m not angry with you. Only disappointed.

You see, both of us know that the only reason you commented on all three posts is not because you were compelled by the geniality of the posts themselves. Nor were you blown away by the likeability of my person, or the imaginative writing on my humble blog. No sir, what you were truly attracted to, were the follow links in my Top Commentators section in the sidebar. Three comments would bring you to the top, long enough for Google to notice.

And I can’t even blame you. I made that list a follow list. And then I cut back on my posting frequency, with a reduced reader engagement as a result. It’s up for grabs. I know. But you made that clear to me.

I’m quite fed up with you actually.
You and your fellow spammers.

You steal something that’s simply too precious to me. Time and attention. You don’t deserve it, yet you get it. You con me into giving it to you, and in my book that’s stealing.

So I’m closing the gates. The only mention you’ll get is in this post, as your comments have been deleted. The Top Commentators list is now a no-follow list and a comment policy is in place. I require real names now, not keyword heavy grey hat seo follow link names and other rules real people don’t mind (but I know you’ll hate).

Maybe that’ll reduce the amount of comments on this blog, but to be honest…I’d be glad to be rid of you. I prefer quality over quantity everyday.

And as far as Samsonite goes, I love that brand. Just know that I would never buy it through you, or give you the satisfaction that one of my readers would.

Now go on and create something of real value.

Bye now.

Yesterday I replied on a comment on this blog and I suddenly realized that I hadn’t even mentioned on this blog the fact that I became a father again. So here it is: on May 15 my wife gave birth to a healthy daughter. Her name is Esmee.

I had announced her birth on Twitter, I even mentioned briefly that we were on the way to the hospital because my wife was going into labor. To which @soniasimone quickly replied that I had to get off of twitter In fact I didn’t see that tweet until after Esmee was born.

Esmee is a little over a month old now, and she’s been giving us a hard time. She cries a lot! And although the start was quite different than with our son, her crying behavior grew into something similar as what we experienced with him. So we’re already working to find out about possible food allergies or intolerances. It’s heartbreaking to see a little baby experiencing so much intestinal discomfort.

But due to this, both my wife and I spend a lot of time and energy comforting her, trying to get her to sleep, struggling to get some sleep ourselves and making sure that our 2 year old son gets enough loving attention too! It took up so much time, that we’re having a hard time doing anything else really. In my spare moments, I try to find a job, connect with people on LinkedIn, write for the blogs or answer my email. Oh…and learn some PHP and MySQL on the side. And I have been thinking a lot lately (what else is there to do when you have to walk around carrying a little one?).

One of the things I hadn’t even mentioned before on this blog, is that I have started writing on a Dutch blog as well. It’s called De InspiratieKamer (The InspirationRoom) and it’s a multi-author blog (there’s 2 of us for now ). The blog is focused on developing creative and presentation skills for people in educational and entrepreneurial organizations. The web presence of De InspiratieKamer at this point is only a blog, but we’re working on expanding De InspiratieKamer to a full set of services, both online and offline.

So if you speak or understand Dutch, please hop on over and take a look! I’d love to hear what you think. And if you like what you see, don’t forget to subscribe to De InspiratieKamer by RSS, email or twitter.

I just read the book Brida by Paulo Coelho. It’s about the quest and eventual initiation into witchhood of a 21 year old girl with a desire to learn magic. The story has a lot of religious fragments and messages – as do most of Coelho’s books – and they are nicely mixed into the neopagan storyline and combined with lessons from nature and life in general.

In one fragment Brida sits on a mountain together with Magus, one of her teachers, and they watch the sunset. During the last moments of the sunset both of them say a prayer. This is Brida’s prayer:

Lord,
help me understand
that all the good things in life that happen to me
do so because I deserve them.
Help me to understand
that what moves me to seek out Your truth
is the same force that moved the saints,
and the doubts I have
are the same doubts that the saints had,
and my frailties are the same frailties.
Help me to be humble enough
to accept that I am no different from other people.
Amen.

I love the core message of this prayer. The saints are ordinary people, just like you and I. They are not special people, they have the doubts, questions, and weaknesses too. We are the same. There may be a saint in all of us. The only way they have set themselves apart from us is by their actions.

They didn’t give in to their weaknesses or to their doubts. Their questions lead them along the path to new answers, and to new questions accompanying those answers. They had a force driving them (and you and I can find that too!), wanting to find a truth.

It is by their actions that they became special, not by who they were. They were simply ordinary people, just like you and I.

Photo by jayhem

Sometimes it’s hard to start a post. This is one of those posts. I figure that the best I can do is just to start writing and see how the post turns out to be.

I have been missing in action lately. I was missing for a reason, and it was a direct result from a decision I made right after I decided I needed to talk to a lawyer. I needed a lawyer to make sure that my employer, or rather my former employer, was following proper procedure in laying me off. They wanted me out of the company, and they thought we had already agreed upon that. Needless to say, we were in disagreement on that matter. Things weren’t very pleasant and I felt I needed a lawyer to assist me. Without going into detail, the way things evolved only firmed my belief that I made the right choice.

At the same time I knew about the many stories of people blogging or twittering about their job affairs on the internet and all the unwanted side effects to them, and to the companies they worked for. I did not know how things would evolve, but I knew that the potential of saying things I might regret later was a lot higher than usual. Better safe than sorry. So I decided that I would not take part in any online conversations as long as things were not in the clear. They are now, so I can lift that self-imposed restraint.

In short, I’m out of a job.

That sucks big time. Especially in these difficult economic times and with a baby coming within a month. I will have a lot more private time when the baby is born. I would never have been able to spend so much time with my family as I will be able to now. Always look on the bright side!

The past couple of weeks have taken a lot of mental energy from me, as soon as you’re in a conflict that changes the nature of your energy. I thrive on creative energy, and this was not a creative conflict. The conflict has been resolved for almost two weeks now (the paperwork took some time though), and in those two weeks I have been rethinking a lot of things. This is a turning point, and I can now see that the past year was a transition year. Although that insight can only be made in hindsight. There’s much more to be said about that, but that’s for later posts.

I know that the blogging pros say that it’s bad practice to apologize for not writing in a while, or even to mention it in a blog post. I learned a lot from the pros, but that doesn’t mean that I have to mindlessly mimic their opinions in my behavior. This is me explaining why I have been missing in action. And that does not only go for the online world. I have been missing in action for a lot of the offline world as well. I’m not sorry for that, because it was the result of a conscious decision. It does mean that I have to spend some time calling and explaining things to people that have been affected by this decision.

So from now on, I’m no longer MIA.
I’m back, alive and kicking (and looking for a job and other ways to make money).

Photo by fontplaydotcom

This article is a reprint of an article by Christine Kane. I usually don’t reprint articles, but this one is right up my alley, and a great companion to How to sabotage goals with 47 simple words. Enjoy!

A few years ago, I was in a car with the promoter of one of my performances. He had picked me up at the airport and was driving me to my hotel. On the way, we talked guitars. We got onto the subject of Olson Guitars, arguably the best guitar in the whole world. At one point, the promoter said, “Yea, well, in my entire life I’ll never own an Olson guitar.”

There was a time when I’d let a remark like this slide on by, even adding my own “me either” to the mix.

Now, I can’t. Yoda steps into my head and says, (in his Yoda voice) “So certain are you. Always with you it cannot be done.”

So, I turned to the promoter and said, “You are NOT allowed to say that!”

This is because I know the power of language. When you know that words become things, it’s hard to let language slide.

I can’t help it. I have a rule:

Friends don’t let friends speak crappily.

Language is powerful. Words can create reality. Even if my promoter friend doesn’t know how on earth he’d ever get his guitar, it doesn’t mean he should cut off the possibility with his own words.

If you’re wondering how to begin watching your words, here are 7 practical language principles for becoming a better creator of your life.

1 – Eliminate “never” and “always.”

Never and always are words of hysteria. “I always mess everything up!” “I’ll never figure this out!” “I’ll never get an Olson Guitar.”

First off, it’s not true. If you always messed everything up, you wouldn’t have made it out of the womb.

And second off, extreme words are designed to hook you. It’s just your emotions taking a joyride. You’re more powerful than that.

2 – Use AND instead of BUT.

“But” dismisses the statement before it. “And” includes it. For instance, “That’s a good article, but it needs some editing” isn’t nearly as encouraging as “That’s a good article, AND it needs some editing.”

“I love you, but…” is another great example of the dismissive power of “but.”

3 – Avoid “Should.”

Should is a heinous word for many reasons. It is victim-speak. It disempowers its object. It negates desires, thereby making it harder to make choices. It adds a nebulous energy to the decision making process. Use empowered language instead: “I could…” “I would…” “I am choosing to,” “I would like to,” “I don’t want to,” or “You might consider…”

4 – Stop calling yourself depressed.

Also stop allowing anyone to tell you that you are depressed. When you call yourself “depressed” or “obsessive compulsive” or “ADHD” or whatever – you’re claiming this thing. You’re calling it forth with the most powerful two words in our language: “I am.” That creates very little option for the transformation of this condition.

5 – Delete the word “hate” from your vocabulary.

“Hate” has lots of energy. When you use it, you send lots of energy out into the very thing you “hate.” Even if it’s negative energy, it’s still a powerful force, adding its charge to that thing. You’re also depleting this energy from your own spirit as you say it.

6 – Be “great.” Or “wonderful.”

A disease of the creative temperament is a belief that we must be authentic at all costs. So we can’t answer a simple “How are you?” without delving into an in-depth scan of our emotional temperature.

Try this instead: When people ask you how you’re doing, just say, “I’m great!”

I used to think if said this, then I better have a good reason for saying it, like I just won the lottery or something. I thought it would make me look suspicious, and people would start to wonder if something was wrong with me. But then I did it. And you know what? Most people don’t care why you’re great. You’re saying it for you.

7 – Pay attention to the music of your speech.

You know how some people? They talk in question marks? And you have no idea why? But it makes you think you shouldn’t really rely on them? And it makes you not want to hire them?

The music of your language says a lot about you. If you let your sentences droop like Eeyore, (”Thanks for noticing me.”) or if you do the uncertain question mark language, take note of what attitudes are causing this. These patterns are created for a reason. Even if it feels like faking it at first, generate confidence as you speak.

Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine with more than 4,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at www.christinekane.com.

WANT TO SEE HUNDREDS MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?
See Christine’s blog – Be Creative. Be Conscious. Be Courageous – at ChristineKane.com/blog.