Who hates to write? I’m beginning to think that fewer and fewer people enjoy writing these days. Face it, we all take shortcuts: in electronic communications, you is often shortened to u, are becomes r, and so forth.
Am I the only one who finds this irritating? Doesn’t anyone write in full sentences any more?
Lest I get sidetracked early on, the purpose of this post is to inspire you to find your inner author. There is great power in the written word.
As you know, one of the hats I wear is website developer. I am currently leaning heavily towards recommending WordPress as a content management system or CMS. Consequently, most of the sites I am developing these days are driven by WordPress. I tend to attract Web clients who don’t want to have to rely on an outside webmaster to make minor changes to their sites. With the Thesis theme that I recommend, this is especially easy to do.
Yet these same clients often balk at the idea of posting periodic blog updates, themselves. “You want me to write? I hate writing!” From a purely technological standpoint, I strongly encourage such clients to overcome their dislike of writing. I say technological, because search engines love blogs! Search engines are always searching for fresh content to index, and what better way to bring their focus back to your website with each new blog post?
Many of us underestimate our writing skills. I have a dear friend who loves storytelling, always has a great joke to share, and often has a message that many could benefit from hearing. As a gift a year or so ago, I set him up with his own blog, including registering his full name as his domain name. Sadly, he has yet to write his first post.
If you really dislike the physical aspect of writing (whether with pen or keyboard), how about purchasing an inexpensive digital voice recorder—or discovering the DVR features already built in to your smart phone—and simply recording yourself? You could then hire someone else to transcribe (and, ideally, edit) your message.
Regardless, I am convinced that every one of us has a message worth sharing with the world. I’ve always said I want to leave this planet a better place for my having been here. To the extent that I can inspire others to do the same, I shall achieve that goal.
Back to the power of the word. I have attended many conferences over the years. At one a few years back, one of the presenters made the claim that public speaking is the highest paid profession in the world. I was intrigued—so intrigued, in fact, that I ended up purchasing his public speaking seminar. What I learned were techniques to persuade the audience from the front of the room to run to the back of the room and part with their money to purchase my products. The only problem was that I had no products to sell.
What I realized in all of this, though, is that it is not public speaking that is the highest paid profession in the world, but sales. Public speaking simply emphasizes the power of using words to persuade. George Foreman said it best:
I learned something early in life. If you sell, you’ll never starve. In any other profession, you can find yourself out on the street saying, “They don’t want me anymore.” But if you can sell, you will never go hungry.
The sad thing in all of this is that I had already experienced the power of the word ten years earlier. In 1996 I took a lot of time out of my consulting business to learn the ins and outs of IBM’s database DB2 and its companion language SQL. From this I wrote The SQL Series of Courses. Those courses still earn me royalties to this day! I learned the power of producing a product once and getting paid again and again for it—i.e., the power of leverage. Yes, 1996 was a difficult year financially, but boy the payoff has been sweet!
Fortunately for me, I love to write. I have always been a good letter-writer. I’m sure this was due in part to growing up in a Coast Guard family and moving around a lot. I’d make close friends in one place only to have to leave them a few years later. But letters allowed me to maintain close friendships over the miles and over the years. To this day I correspond with friends from elementary school.
So what do you do if you don’t love to write? Resign yourself to a life without harnessing the power of the word? Hardly. I’ve already mentioned one technique you could use: record your voice and have someone else transcribe and edit your words. But if you think about it, why not just leave your voice recorded? Podcasts are becoming more and more popular. You could conduct teleseminars and webcasts. Streaming video is easy to add to a website. There are many examples right here in my own blog.
Just recently I learned an interesting fact. Who do you think makes more money: Singers or songwriters and lyricists? Actors or playwrights and screenwriters? Yes, there are some very highly paid performers, but in general it is the writers who make more money. They get royalties every time their song is played on the radio … and they tend to write many songs for multiple performers. It gets even better when a song they wrote gets re-recorded by additional performers.
We all have a message to share. I am finding that mine is a combination of demystifying technology® for my Web clients and demystifying prosperity™ for my fellow network marketers. What is your message? I strongly urge you to find your voice and experience the power of the word, written and otherwise.
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