Instigator Blog

Here are 5 more submissions to the Group Writing Project where we all answer the question, “What I Learned in 2006?

• Carolyn Manning does her annual self-analysis. Her first point resonates very strongly with me: “No amount of ‘wishing it so’ will hurry a plan to its outcome.” She’s 100% right.
• Ted Demopoulos has some insights into what’s needed after you’ve written a book. For any aspiring writers, Ted’s lessons learned are critical.
• Robert provides 6 things he’s learned in 2006. He’s gone through some tough work experiences and some personal successes, all of which have taught Robert a lot.
• Ron McDaniels hones in on one big lesson learned. He’s learned about when to pull the plug on initiatives that aren’t working. Really, Ron’s talking about realizing that change can be good and is often needed for success.
• Jon Swanson is Mr. Inspiration if you ask me. And he’s learned a lot this year. The first thing he’s learned? He learned he can still learn. Smart man that Jon Swanson.

To-date we’ve raised $210 together for charity! Thank you!

I’m donating $5 / post written, and you’ve still got until Sunday, December 24th to participate.

Starting this week I launched a group writing project asking the question, “What Did You Learn in 2006?”

The response has been amazing! I’ve posted 15 submissions already. Please take a look here, here and here. There’s a lot of great writing; people opening up, sharing their lessons learned, ranging from motherhood to business and more.

For each submission I’m donating $5 to charity.

There’s also some great book prizes to be won!

And, here are 5 more submissions:

• Robert Hruzek takes a somewhat offbeat approach with what he’s learned and it’s well worth the read. It’s hard not to laugh when you discover that 1 in 18 people have a 3rd nipple.
• Michael Stammer has a great list of things he’s learned including one of the best ones I’ve read so far, “The time to make my friends is before I need them.”
• Shawn Hessinger is rumored to be writing upwards of 10 posts about what’s he’s learned this year! Woohoo! In the meantime, his first one is about the fact that he’s truly learned he’s an entrepreneur.
• Katelyn Thomas learned some great things about her stamping hobby. Most interesting to me is the fact that such a strong community can exist around a hobby. That’s a fun, lighthearted but powerful reality.
• Paul Merrill (who lives in Nairobi) learned that what he knows isn’t necessarily right along with a few other things.

You have until Sunday, December 24th to contribute. Write a blog post answering the question, What Did You Learn in 2006? Link it back to Instigator Blog and tell me about it. That’s it!

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This year was all about finding opportunities and change. 2007 will be a further evolution on those themes.

Reflecting a bit on opportunities and change, I’ve come up with 3 business rules to live by, rules I’m going to follow more closely and we’ll see where they take me.

1. Work With People You Want To. You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose. That has little to do with anything but I can’t get it out of my head.

   My point is simple: Pick your partners carefully. Work with people you want to work with.

   I hope never ever ever to break this rule again. Ever. Seriously.

2. Don’t Try And Ride Other People’s Coattails. It might work for awhile but there’s a very good chance it’ll end badly. Either they’ll dump you or they won’t live up to their promise or what you perceived the success would be. Getting mentored is not the same. Mentors are good. Expecting others to make you successful is not good.
3. Operations and Administration Suck But They’re Essential. Most people find administrative and operational tasks boring as all heck (cause they are!) but they’re critical to business success. Budgets, managing finances, running a lean organization … not particularly fun but worth every bit of effort. Vision, dreaming, big picture — all good, but if you don’t handle the nitty gritty details, watch out. Take some time each week, each month, each year to put your house in order. Find ways to save a bit of money, streamline operations, double check that the machine is well oiled.

Oftentimes, people know something but they haven’t truly learned it. That’s the case with my 3 business rules. Intrinsically I’ve known for some time these are rules I should follow, but it’s only this year that I really learned to follow them.

This post is part of my Group Writing Project where we ask, “What Have You Learned in 2006?” Please read the submissions made so far by some awesome bloggers:

The group writing project ends December 24th — you’ve still got time to participate.

Did you enjoy this post? Find it helpful? Amusing? Interesting? Please subscribe via RSS to this blog’s feed for new content in the future.

Over at my b5media blog Startup Spark, which focuses exclusively on entrepreneurship, I’ve launched a Carnival of Entrepreneurs designed to collect as much quality content related to entrepreneurship as possible. This is the second Carnival I’ve run and I’ve been very pleased with the quality and diversity of content.

Please check out the Carnival of Entrepreneurs, visit the various blogs listed there and maybe you’ll contribute for next week!

The Carnival goes live every Wednesday. It’s easy to send in a submission.

I can’t help but be inspired by the submissions people are sending in for this group writing project.

I asked the question, “What did you learn this year?”

People have responded with a whole host of different things. I’m thrilled I was able to inspire a little bit. More importantly, I’m thrilled that people are sharing. One of the best ways for us to learn is through others. If you learned a great lesson this year, share it! By sharing it you’re helping others learn. It’s always easier for us to learn from other people’s hard work and mistakes. You make a difference sharing your thoughts openly with the blogging community. Don’t ever think you don’t.

Here are 5 more submissions to the group writing project. Please take a look.

• Eliza summarizes some worthwhile lessons learned about blogging. Blogging works on so many levels. I’m a poster child for blogging success, and there are millions of others just like me, plugging away, expressing themselves, making money, making connections and having fun.
• John Ounpuu realizes that learning from experience works. One of my favorite messages so far is from John, “One of the things I learned along way was how alarmingly easy it is to lose sight of your convictions when you’re focused on execution and all of the minutia it entails.” Ain’t that the truth…
• Zorak has some very personal lessons learned and I applaud her for being open and honest. It’s not always easy, but it works.
• Lance Turner lists some lessons learned from the world of business and job hunting. Lance talks a lot about putting yourself out there to find great opportunities. His very last one is particularly intriguing, “People always believe what they read. So write it right the first time.” Something to think about.
• Terri Fitzgerald reminds us about the importance of family. And she learned a bit of HTML too! Good stuff Terri!

You can participate too! Write a post about what you learned in 2006. Link back here. I’ll donate $5 to charity and you could win great prizes.

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