A while back at a
speakers conference, I got stunned looks from colleagues
when I said I still didn't have a mailing list or know how
to start one. Audible gasps. You'd think I said I ate a
kitten for breakfast. "But Milo, my mailing list is my life
blood! How can you not have a mailing list? How
many names have you already missed from your audiences?"
Coming home, I
succumbed. I learned enough about MailChimp to start this
mailing list via my website. But those other haftas? They
must have gotten jealous of MailChimp because they got
louder! Hafta redo that 2004 speaker website already.
Hafta overhaul that homemade 2005 demo tape. Hafta get that
third book done.
And there's a
problem with setting something aside nowadays that wasn't an
issue 30 years ago: Technology. You forget how to use the
software. It's like starting from scratch.
Every time I thought
of re-learning MailChimp…I found something else on the hafta
pile that could come first. The website. The video. The
video of a cat falling off a TV. Anything but following
through on making my eZine happen.
And so I declared
aloud to a number of friends that "Getting my eZine
out is
my New Years Resolution!" And here it is!
And you're thinking...July? Well, that's not SO bad,
right? Just one
leeeee-tle problem. That announcement was made at
the end of 2013, not 2014. It's not six months late. I missed a whole
year in between. 18 months.
So what happened?
Haftas.
I could let that
bother me, but the truth is, I think the results were worth the
guilt. Here's why:
All good. And now,
18 months later, if you're reading this, apparently I did
finally re-learn MailChimp. (Although I'm bypassing
about half of what it does using HTML to get
it to look the way I want...)
Everyone tells us we
should set goals and evaluate them frequently. "Have a
plan! Chart your action! Be accountable to your
intentions!" C'mon….don’t these people's phones ring? Don't
they get opportunities that take them off the mark? Doesn't
life happen to them?
Maybe it's the life
of an improviser. I think goals are fine, so long as they
don't keep you from saying, "Wow, look what I just did.
Okay, what SHOULD be next?" Because I had no idea last
January what an amazing year 2014 would be − my best in 14
years in business. The mailing list just needed to rise to
the top in its own good time, as it has now.
Future issues will
probably be shorter, less personal, and more business-y.
Maybe. We'll see.
The takeaway? People who
achieve all of their goals probably sacrificed something
else that the rest of us sidetracked to as we followed
instinct. Cheers to them and all that…but that doesn't make
us wrong if we don't.
Heck, if I'd stuck to my original
goals, I never would have become a coach…which is now 50% of
my business. I didn't plan on doing coaching; it
just came
to me via requests. Come to think of it, if I'd really
stuck to my goals, I'd be sitting in a cubicle right now,
writing computer code for San Diego Gas and Electric, counting the minutes til 5pm…
The next issue (I
expect) will
be announcing a one-day chance for a FRÉE download of my new
book, coming out soon. Preview details at
www.MiloShapiro.com/books/giveaway .
Have a Yabba-Dabba-Do-Day!
(now
go back to your email to read the
much-shorter articles in the rest of the original eZine!)
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