Why become a blogger?

Greetings, blog readers, and welcome to my inaugural entry.

Fittingly, I am on a plane as I type this.  Although I had proactively managed my travel downwards in recent years, I’m doing my fair share of traveling these days as my business grows, and as my wife (last fall only!) and I enjoy our mutual love for travel.

I am returning from a personal/professional development workshop in L.A.  As a resident of Toronto, heading to L.A. in January for a course is a nice thing to do.  I am typing this blog entry into my Treo – one of the many technogadgets out there designed to, ahem, “improve” our lives and, oh yes, “save” us time. (As many of you will know from experience, the impact of these gadgets tends to be to speed up our lives, and “allow” us to work more often and in more places. Nice, very nice). But, I digress.

I must say, this venture is a new concept for me. Not just blogging, but writing, period. Sure, I’ve written many things over the years. I still write documents regularly, and in my profession, at least a few times per month I am expressing myself verbally to groups large and small, around the world. But, expressing myself in a casual, written form to an unknown audience is something new.

So, why have I joined the legions of “bloggers”?.  Why do I want to be yet one more person filling the blogosphere with pages and pages of electronically distributed babble?  Well, for a long time I have wanted to share my ideas in written form.  But, for many years, I didn’t believe I had anything worthwhile to offer.  Happily, I’ve been past that limiting belief for quite some time. Instead, what’s kept me from writing for the past few years has simply been a matter of insufficient focus and lack of discipline.

And now, that has changed.  So, here I am, writing.  I have a few books in me, waiting to come out, and I’ve decided this is the year for it to start in earnest.

This blog is part of making that happen: part of developing the muscle of writing; part of developing a body of ideas to draw upon, and, most importantly, a way to share ideas that, I hope, will benefit others.  Cheesy as it may sound, at the end of the day, that’s why I do the work I do.  I want to do my part in trying to leave this world better than I found it. When I get feedback from clients, friends, or colleagues who generated a positive result in their life because of something I’ve done, the feeling of satisfaction I get makes all the hard work worthwhile.  While I’m on the topic of contributing to the world, my invitation to you is that you find your own way to leave this world (your community) better than you found it.  I believe the rewards are well worth the work.

How often will I blog? (Note the use of blog as a verb here).  Who knows?  I have no set schedule, but I am committed to creating at least two entries per month.

So, here’s to blogging, and to sharing ideas!  Until next time, when I will address a REAL topic, rather than just talk about myself.