On Sundays I’m looking back on the past week. How did I perform towards my goals? How did my blog do? And how am I keeping up with my productivity habits? 

I’m starting the weekly review cycle again. Kind of missed it actually.

Blog performance

This week I was back at blogging again and back at getting in contact with my blogging friends through mail and twitter. Twitter is a lot of fun, and a great way to get to know people. If you’re on twitter you can follow me, and I’ll follow you back so we can have a chat.

Anyway, the stats for the past week (weekly changes will be updated starting next week again): 

At a first glance both subscribers and visitors stayed on more or less the same level. Technorati authority is dropping fast, that’s probably due to the fading effect of Priscilla Palmer’s personal development bloggers meme half a year ago. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted.

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Disclaimer:
There’s a large group of people out there, that firmly believes that there is a secret to success. If you are a hardcore believer of this theory, you will regard this article as an attempt to dodge the question or a blunt evasion of letting you in on the secret. You’re probably right too. The secret can’t be freely available, because that would forfeit the status of secret and you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

The secret of success, it’s a mysterious concept that appeals to the imagination of a lot of people. If it’s a secret it must be something really valuable, otherwise it wouldn’t be kept a secret. If only “they” would let me in on it, then I can be successful too. If only someone would tell me…

It’s the lazy man’s conviction: “Successful people make it look so easy, they must know something I don’t. If only they would tell me, I would be successful too.”

Why do people insist on believing that there are such things as secrets, or magic or tricks that successful people use to be successful? Wake up people! There is no secret, there is no magic and it’s not a trick! Face it: there is no secret!

…but there is an ingredient

The ‘secret’ ingredient of success is a liquid. It’s prepared with a fair amount of dihydrogen monoxide, some parts sodium chloride, a pinch of 2-methylphenol and one part 4-methylphenol. The bad news is that it can’t be bought. The good news is that you can make your own home brew.

One of the most common ways of preparing a dose is by standing up, placing your right foot about two feet in front of your left foot. Now place your left foot about two feet in front of your right foot. Alternate this while increasing speed for about 10 minutes and the secret ingredient will appear in a thin film evenly distributed over your body.

That’s right, the secret ingredient is sweat! Edison has been telling us that for over 150 years now:

Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. - Thomas A. Edison

Edison does leave an opening though, there can’t be a secret in the perspiration (yuck, gross!), so it must be in the inspiration! If only I knew what was in the 1%… if only, because then… Yeah right! BS!

The 8 secrets to success (most of which are pretty sweaty)

Richard St John defined his version of 8 secrets of success. He has a short 3 minute, funny and inspiring talk about them at TED that’s definitely worth a look. In the talk he answers the question a teenager once asked him: “What’s the secret of success?”. Unable to give a swift answer to that question, he talked to a lot of successful people and defined 8 common factors that they had in common. These 8 factors are:

Passion and Ideas could be labeled as the Inspiration traits, although Ideas arguably is a Perspiration trait. Richard says: “There’s no magic to Ideas, anyone can be creative.” Ideas are generated by listening, observing, being curious, asking questions, solving problems, making connections… Yep, that’s definitely a Perspiration trait as well.

So 7 out of 8 are Perspiration, and only one is Inspiration. That’s still almost 90% sweat, and that still is the main ingredient of success.

So success is all work and no play?

No.
Definitely not!

Work, or putting in sweat, is the largest factor in being successful. You could be successful in almost anything if you just put in the 90+% perspiration, but to keep it fun and sustainable over the long run, it’s important to find something your passionate about.

Now that’s not easy to do, and a lot of people don’t know what exactly they’re passionate about. I struggle with this on regular basis myself. It’s just important to realize that finding your passion is an activity; you have to look for it actively to find your passion. It won’t pop up in your head someday, while you were waiting for your passion to find you.

And the best way to look for it, is to start working on stuff that you like. If you like to do something, feel satisfied about, have fun doing, feel proud about, look forward to something, that’s when you’re touching on your potential passion.

If you put in the 90+% perspiration on those subjects, it still will feel like a lot of work to be successful, but at least you’ll have fun doing it.

Image by minkymonkeymoo

This is not your regular ho-hum weekly review. It couldn’t be, because we’re well over three weeks into this month and I have yet to publish a new post. So much for weekly…

Why have I been silent for so long? To be short, for three reasons:

• Ski Trip in Switzerland
• Self awarded extended break from blogging
• Family outbreak of Norovirus

The Norovirus wasn’t a lot of fun… Patient zero was my son, followed after two days by my wife and another six hours later I fell victim too. Along the way we infected some other people as well, so we quarantined ourselves for the recovery period. Being sick with all of us at the same time was challenging, some things you don’t want to take turns in I can tell ya!

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.” - Lao Tzu

Taking the extended break

Anyway, I liked being away from the blog when I was in Switzerland to such a  degree that while driving back to Holland I decided upon extending it for another week. Not that I’m contemplating to stop or anything, I just liked the mental distance from writing. Sometimes the best way to go forward is to stand still first. So that’s what I decided to do, stand still and just let the blog be the blog for a while. It was liberating and very refreshing.

I’m thinking about how to express what that period did to me, but I’m finding it hard to find the right words. It did not designate it as time to think about the blog, or as time in which I did not have to write, or in which I tweaked design or coding or something like that. It was purposeless, and that’s what was great about it. The blog just existed, it just was there, without my attention. Maybe it’s about letting go, maybe that’s the next step. I don’t know, but I think it might be. That week was about letting go, I did not have to blog, have to write, have to achieve goals, have to be accountable. I just was, and the blog just was.

The Norovirus was a blessing in disguise, because it forced me to extend that period even longer. And it deepened the experience as well. That virus hit me hard, to the point where I just felt like I couldn’t do anything. Not even read or watch television, just sleep or be awake (and care for my wife and son every now and then). My mind did something wonderful though, I started to process. Not think, just process. Without effort from my side, no conscious effort anyway, things fell into place, patterns emerged and creativity started to flow. My mind was doing spring cleaning it seemed (and my body was too). And the virus kind of forced me to undergo this.

Because doing wasn’t getting in the way of thinking, and thinking wasn’t getting in the way of feeling, there was room for just feeling. Don’t know if feeling is the right word, but because I wasn’t doing or thinking, a space opened up in me to see and connect to my path, my legend. There was room to realign. Not consciously realigning, it was an unconscious process. I realize this sounds vague, but that’s the best way I can describe it. It was refreshing.

Emerging patterns

One of the patterns that emerged was that I focused too much on the ‘getting’ part. So much that I lost connection with what I originally wanted. My goal of getting to 2500 subscribers is a great example. I was focusing so much on getting the subscribers, that I lost connection to what’s really important. Making a connection, being valuable, provide meaning, learning and sharing genuinely, growth! Those were are my motivations for this blog. On a tangent there are other motivations, like earning a buck, personal branding and so on, but they are secondary.

The thing with those motivations is that they are not directly quantifiable, and as such hard to measure. So you look for tangential metrics to measure progress, or give you a hint of your progress at the least. I found it’s important to keep connected to the original motivations, because if you fail to do that, the metrics and the goals are going to lead their own lives and take over.

This insight came to me last week. I have to focus on my original motivations that revolve around giving and growing, and be open to the getting part without focusing on it. I need to let go of the getting.

Trust

When the virus hit me last week, I was forced to let go too. I had to hand over my recovery process to my body and trust that it would do okay and that it would tell me when I needed to do things. My body was in control, and I had to trust it. That’s letting go, and it only feels good when there’s trust.

Letting go and keeping peace of mind at the same time, requires trust.

• I trust that when I let go of focusing on getting well, I will recover anyway.
• I trust that when I let go of focusing on the getting part, I will get it anyway.
• I trust that when I let go of being in control, I won’t be out of control.
• I trust that when I let go, it won’t be gone.

I feel I just made a big step.

I hate going to the dentist. Ever since I was about 14 years old, a visit to the dentist never came without a follow-up appointment for a treatment. I tried my best to prevent it, but to no avail. I also tried not doing my best … that obviously didn’t work either.

The torture treatment sessions were a story apart. I don’t respond very well to anesthetics, they work kind of slow on me. So one of my dentists (I’ve had several) simply didn’t believe me when I said I felt pain after getting a shot, only to get numb for hours after the torture treatment was over. The next one didn’t believe in anesthetics (which was fine by me, because it didn’t make a difference anyway), but he kept on passing guilt on me for needing treatment (I grew to dislike this guy very much).

Now the father of one of my friends is my dentist. At least I can laugh with this guy, because I like him a lot. The treatment and the anesthetics still are no fun and even at 31 years old, I’m procrastinating big time when it comes to making that dreaded regular check-up appointment.

So what’s with the dentist story?
So imagine what my first associations were, when I got to preview a book titled “What can a dentist teach you about business, life and success?”. Insert sounds of high pitched screaming dentist drills, and feelings of nerve pain down your jaw. Not pretty.

After shrugging those associations off, I really got curious about what the answer to that question was going to be and started reading. And I was pleasantly surprised.

Dr Joe Capista is the dentist we’re talking about here, and he’s also the author of the book. In the book he tells his life story, about how an average Joe with a vision of becoming a dentist grew to a successful businessman leading a multi-million dollar dentist operation.

The concepts in his book, like the circle of balance and the success triangle are not really groundbreaking if you’re an avid reader of personal development and business literature (like myself). They contain value and if you’re new to the matter they can be very useful to both areas.

What I liked about his book is the story. Joe Capista realized early in his childhood that he wanted to be a dentist (that was beyond my powers of imagination by the way). He set out to realize that dream, only to get massive amounts of obstacles presented by life. For one he was simply told he wasn’t smart enough and that he was never going to make it. Take that when you’re a child!

But Joe pushed on, and eventually made it to a dentist school, graduated and started his career. Joe is very successful, and not only on the financial measuring stick as he will point out in the book. But what’s interesting to read is that he isn’t a self-made man. Joe accepted mentorship, he listened, he learned and grew along the way.

Joe isn’t talking about how great he is, or how brilliant he has done stuff or how extremely talented he is. In fact he does the opposite, he tells the story of an average guy with a clear vision, determination and the guts to accept help. Kind of like the story that would apply to most of us.

“What can a dentist teach you about business. life and success?” by Dr. Joe Capista is launched this week with a massive Amazon promotion. Ordering this book makes you eligible for over $2000 of other products. If you want to learn more about the guy, check out his blog.