Last night, I was sitting on my couch in the living room, contemplating life (which is something I frequently do these days, with a cigar to boot).   

Photo Credit:  OG-Made.com

As often happens, my thinking mind swirls with a lot of thoughts that seem to zigzag back and forth like atoms and molecules in flying around in space, without any seeming sense of order.

One of those thoughts was about this blog.  Even though I intuitively know that I’m making a difference here, I sometimes get sideswiped by moments of doubts.   We all have them.   

What I was thinking last night was, Am I really making a difference or is this all for nought? 

Mind you, this doesn’t happen very often but being the deep thinker that I am, every once in a while these kinds of thoughts have a funny way of sneaking past the trapdoor, flooding my consciousness.  Every time that happens, I am sometimes surprised a short while later with signs of divine confirmation from the universe (remember the butterfly story earlier this summer?).   

A case in point:  This morning while I was having my first cup of coffee, I was astonished to discover that a handful of blogs had written something positive about Adversity University within the last 24 hours or so.  I even got an SOB award from influential blogger Liz Strauss over at Successful Blogs!  

No, no, that that kind of SOB!  It means “Successful and Outstanding Blogs.”  What made it special was that it was totally unexpected.  I had been aware of this cool award ever since I came onto the blogging scene in 1996 but never sought it out.  What more of a confirmation could I want?  I mean, my goodness, that really made my morning, you know?  In my excitement, I forgot to take careful sips of scalding coffee and ended up gulping down the whole thing!  Ouch!

I also want to recognize the following bloggers for recently exposing AU to their communities:      

soupornuts.com – Chris Melton included Adversity University in his article ”Problems versus Opportunity – It’s all a Matter of Perception.”  (sound familiar?? – perception is my fave topic!).  By the way, if you know of someone who has been touched by breast cancer, you might be interested in telling them about the “Pink Rotater.”   More information can be easily found at his site.     

Zane Safrit Business Life Blog - I don’t know how the CEO of Conference Calls Unlimited found me but he wrote about AU a couple of times, the most recent being in an article called “Keep Learning, Keep Growing.”  He has a very interesting angle to marketing – have you ever heard of “Duct Tape Marketing”?  If marketing is your kind of thing, I would suggest you check out his blog.    

Angela Maiers Educational Services- Every month she lists her favorite blogs with reasons why she likes them and then offers unsolicited (but welcome) tips on how they could be even more powerful.  She did just that with Adversity University in yesterday’s post, “November Blogtipping:  Edublog Style.”  Due to her educational background, she’s in a good position to offer compelling public platform ideas.  What’s funny (well, it’s not really THAT funny) is that I had actually been thinking about what she suggested in that post but hadn’t done anything about it.  For example, I’ve been wanting to add videos (with me talking directly to you!!) as well as incorporate more images in my blog posts.  A divine sign?  Well, thanks to Angela, I will start doing that right now with images (see below), later bringing on videos, even podcasting!   

Make it Great!- Of course, you all know Phil Gerbyshak, another very famous blogger and self-proclaimed relationship geek.  My heartiest thanks goes to him because he’s truly taken the art of pimping to another whole new level.  I once did that for him many months ago with a post that you can see here.  Not only did he give me an opportunity to guest blog for him (the entire month of October), but he also conducted a two-part interview (Part I, Part II) with me at “MIG!” and ended up printing it in an electronic newsletter that goes out to hundreds of other subscribers outside his blog (generating valuable exposure for AU).  Hats off to you Phil!

Please excuse me if this sounds something like an academy award acceptance speech where I’m thanking everyone in sight but I simply cannot help it.  I’ve talked about the power of gratitude numerous times and what it can do for the person expressing it. 

What a better way to do it than on the Internet, through this blog, where potentially thousands, maybe even millions of people can see it?  How powerful is that?  The more people who know of my gratitude, the more others are touched by my personal experiences and the more I create what I’m grateful for! (Cartoon Credit:  Cartoon Stock).

Having said that, I also want to let all of my email and RSS subscribers know that I am thankful for their loyalty, especially when I made the transition from the Blogger to WordPress platform.  I appreciate the fact that my work continues to inspire and motivate you.  For the most part, I was able to move many of you (i.e. Feedblitz email subscribers) from the old feed/old blog to the new feed/new blog without much of a hassle.  HOWEVER, for those of you who are RSS subscribers, there were some mighty challenges, which will be covered in a separate post in the next couple of days.  Please be on the lookout for this so that we can get this thing straightened out once and for all.          

The most gratifying part of blogging for me is personally interacting with visitors and subscribers almost daily through private email exchanges as well as the public comment section.  There is nothing more exciting than to have a meaningful conversation with you because not only does it make for a lively community where ideas flow freely but also where alternative thoughts are introduced, some of which I had not previously considered before.  It’s fun, fun, fun so please keep commenting!

In closing, I wish to announce that something else also happened last night while I sat on my living room couch.  In the midst of swirling thoughts, I suddenly felt a strange compulsion to walk over to the bookcase, bend down and retrieve two green booklets on the very bottom shelf.  Those booklets turned out to be deeply personal dairies that had not been read since 1995,  when they were originally written.  That was the year I made enormous amounts of money on Wall Street, was in better physical shape in my mid-thirties then when I was in my twenties, not to mention countless of exciting bedroom escapades, all of which would probably make for a racy Hollywood movie! (Photo Credit:  Alex Holden)

But something else was happening that year.  I was shocked to see a darker, more sinister side of me appear on those pages, much of which I had totally forgotten about.  There were names of people who I have no recollection of ever meeting but they were supposedly my dearest, closest friends.  It made for one very interesting and late night reading.  The contents of those dairies made me feel nostalgic, making it rather hard for me to drift off to sleep.  It wasn’t until 2 am when I finally laid my head to the pillow.  More to be revealed in the next post!  Stay tuned.

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Until then, have a great rest of the weekend!  

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