creativity

A letter of gratitude to Seth Godin

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When I was playing the conversation cards game with a group of friends, The question I got was: Who has had the most significant influence on your life?

My answer was: Seth Godin.

Have I talked about Seth Godin here before? Oh yes, I have!

I started reading his daily blog in 2009, a few years late to his daily blogging practice. A year later, I ordered his currently widely-acclaimed, newly-released-at-the-time book, Linchpin. That was the first book I read by Seth. He has published 21 books.

In 2016, I ordered the Titan book by Seth Godin, a mammoth of a book that was a collectible and included his best-of blog post writings of 2010-2016. This book is still the heaviest thing I ever ordered online. 

One of the coolest stories I have about Seth is that my photo/name is on the inside cover of his book The Marketing Seminar, which was launched in 2018. Seth wrote the book based on his workshop with the same title (TMS for short) that I took part in as soon as he announced it a year before. After he wrote the book, the graduates of the first four cohorts, like me, were offered early-bird copies and were encouraged to post book reviews (which I did but no longer can find). We were included in the book cover as a thank-you for participating in TMS. A marketing genius, isn’t he?

After that, I took many workshops by Seth; The Podcasting Fellowship stands out. I took it twice, once in the summer of 2018 and then in the fall of 2019 because I did not do the work the first time. 

A few weeks later, I took the altMBA workshop with Seth Godin, the best immersive learning experience with Seth and his team of coaches. I graduated from the 35th cohort, the last cohort before COVID-19. 

In February 2020, I was about to meet him. I booked a ticket to Europe to attend his keynote speech, but when COVID hit, the conference got canceled, and I was refunded. 

His book, Your Turn, was one of the most motivational books I have ever read; I gifted a copy to a friend.

I gifted his book The Practice to my creative mastermind group in 2021. 

I loved his gift to the world, Stop Stealing Dreams that I paid someone to translate into Arabic so I would share it with my community. I then had to review the translation to make sure the translator captured what Seth meant, but I didn’t finish that because I found out that it was already translated to Arabic by someone else, so I did not publish it.

I have yet to read Seth’s latest book, The Song of Significance, but I’m sure that based on what I heard in this interview with him by fellow altMBA and podcasting course graduates, I will love it. 

What did Seth teach me?

• He convinced me I have a voice I need to use to express my opinion or make assertions as he says. He told me that our online world means we all have microphones.

• He encouraged me to create my podcast before podcasting became cool here in the Arab world. I launched it in 2020.

• He redefined creativity for me and made me believe I was creative even though I did not paint.

• He redefined what art means. It’s work, done with care, that changes people.

• He defined discipline and generosity for me by writing a daily blog post for nearly 20 years, publishing 21 books, and shipping tens of meaningful projects.

• He made me fall in love with the word Ship; “If it doesn’t ship, it doesn’t count”. Because of you, I am writing. 

Seth, thank you for everything, 

Thank you for the light bulbs, discomfort, and lessons of integrity, respect, and empathy. You taught me how to care about my work and legacy and be an indispensable professional and freelancer.  

I am forever grateful for you and hope to tell you that in person one day.  

A letter of gratitude to Seth Godin

Chapters, Seasons and Goals

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When someone calls me to say she’s been stuck in her goals lately, I first ask her: What season are you in?

But I also should ask: What chapter are you in?

Both words, chapter and season, translate the same to Arabic, which might confuse people I ask because when I say it in Arabic, it could be a weather season or a book chapter.

What I mean by this question is what life chapter you’re in.

Is it the chapter of a new job, a new baby, a new home, or a new country? Is it the chapter of in-between jobs, in-between countries, in-between homes, or the chapter of ordinary-nothing-new life? Could it be the chapter of grief or a sick partner or parent?

These life chapters affect the kind of goals you can achieve.

Sometimes, we set our goals according to the chapter we just left as if nothing changed, so our plans no longer work.

Sometimes, we treat new chapters as if they did not happen and still expect the same from ourselves, or worse, we beat ourselves up if we do not achieve the desired results.

Seasons, on the other hand, are different; seasons are cyclical, which means each season will end soon, followed by the other.

At companies, there is the closing of the annual targets season, the objectives and performance reviews season, and the new launches season, among others.

Creatively, I go through seasons of introspection, deep reflection, and writing in my morning pages, then seasons of massive creative output.
For example, last year, I wrote about writing in seasons, which works perfectly for me because it felt like the permission slip I needed to give myself.

I adapted my creative output to mother nature’s cycle and my social and family life seasons. I don’t create workshops or launch courses in the summer; I spend time with my family. Believe me, I tried and learned the hard way that taking courses in summer doesn’t work for my life and probably the same for my target audience. Back-to-school season, however, means back to goals. As Jon Acuff says, September is the slingshot month of the year, just like January.

Physically, I try to adapt my work tasks according to my internal seasons based on my menstrual cycle because I have seen the impact of listening to my body on my life in the past few years. For example, tracking my cycle, helps me define the type of tasks that will feel easier for me each week; if I were in my internal fall season (premenstrual), then editing, analysis, finishing, following up, closing open loops, and decluttering would be ideal tasks.

All these reflections were sparked from listening to an excellent podcast episode by Peter and Jen about chapters where Peter mentioned he is in the chapter of (new dad) and feels it has impacted everything he thinks about. They highlighted that it’s good to remember that chapters end if you’re in the thick of a challenging one and to appreciate the people who are still with you as you close and open life chapters.

Always check whether your ambitious goals make sense for your life chapter and season, and plan accordingly.

It is an act of self-love.

Which chapter/season are you in?

Chapters, Seasons and Goals

Reflections on GTD

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Preparing for the Live session I hosted recently about GTD, it was fascinating for me to remember the first time I got in touch with Getting Things Done methodology, when I downloaded the audiobook online and listened to it on the mp3 USB player in my car.

It made so much sense to me that our brains are not meant for storage or to be offices. Our brains are meant for solving problems and for coming up with new ideas. In this interview, David Allen said that GTD does not help you create more time. It simply allows for more space in your brain to come up with creative solutions. We can’t do that when all the to-do lists are rattling in our head.

GTD also helps us be more present, because whenever we remember something we need to do, we simply write it down instantly, or feel assured that we already had captured it in the appropriate tool. It allows us to focus for longer periods of time, knowing that we are working on the right projects. It’s about building an external brain that we can trust to carry us forward towards our goals.

David Allen says, “You are not doing GTD if you are not doing your weekly reviews“. Which, I am happy to report, I have been religiously committed to since 2018.

There is still a room for a lot of improvement in the way I work and stay engaged with my notes and to-do lists. Doing this Live, however, got me more excited to work on my systems and making them work for me.

Reflections on GTD

The more you create the more ideas you get

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Although I expected it, taking a break from writing daily here last month did not leave me with so much to say that I couldn’t wait to get back to tell you about it.

Sure, I jotted some ideas here and there, but not the volume you’d think someone on a break would have. Once I ended my break by creating my first Instagram post last week, I started getting ideas on what’s next and how to build on what I shared. It was amazing to feel the creative juice flowing in my veins again. You know the one?

Continue reading “The more you create the more ideas you get” →
The more you create the more ideas you get

Professionals Show Up

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This morning, in my gratitude journal, I was thankful for many positive interactions I had this week that pushed me to keep going. Having people sending me thank you notes through Instagram and email for what I am doing and sharing is amazing. Knowing that my friend recommended my name for the training I was hired for is a blessing. Seeing the number of downloads of my podcast peaking to new records is encouraging.

We don’t get positive feedback on our life’s work every day. We shouldn’t wait for positive feedback to do what we already committed to do every day. We are professionals. We are also humans, and we will always want more, and that is a recipe for disappointment.

However, when this feedback does come in, we don’t take it for granted. We cherish it and hold it dear and keep it for the rainy days when we feel we can’t go forward. We write about it in our gratitude journals and smile about it.

More importantly, we keep working the next day.

Professionals Show Up

The very special post

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I wanted to write this post 2 hours ago, so I started a 30-minute session of focused music on Brain Fm as usual. Few minutes later I paused the music to receive a 15-min call from my friend. Afterwards, as I opened the word document I use to draft my daily posts in, I remembered that a few weeks ago, before my 30-day free trial ended, I used to write on Scrivener software and that they were about to release a brand-new version for windows, the first major update in years, so I went to their website to find that lo and behold it was indeed released, so I paid for the license, downloaded the new shiny software that will absolutely help me write better and fired it up. The software was beautiful.

As I normally did, I hit F11 to use the full screen mode for writing. Unfortunately, the background was dark now and I didn’t’ like it or that I couldn’t change it in options. Therefore, I spent some time looking up the manual to change the background of the composition screen to white, with no success. I had to DuckDuckGo it to find I had to have a JPG image of white to use as my wanted backdrop, so that’s what I did.

Now, I was so ready to write my post.

However, I decided to clean my keyboard first, because I forgot to tell you I spilled some coffee on it yesterday and, although I cleaned it well, the letters D and Z were still sticky.

So here you are, one clean keyboard later, reading how this brilliant post got safely to your browser. It was a long journey of excuses on the way, but I think my writing got better, don’t you think? 🙂

The very special post

How to Take Book Notes

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“When reading a paper book, I just underline or circle the bits I find surprising or useful. Then when I’m done reading the book, I type those bits into a text file.“
-Derek Sivers

“The Blank Sheet Method:
–Before you start reading a new book, take out a blank sheet of paper.Write down what you know about the book / subject you’re about to read — a mind map if you will.
–After you finish a reading session, spend a few minutes adding to the map with a different color.
–Before you start your next reading session, review the page.
–When you’re done reading, put these ‘blank sheets’ into a binder that you periodically review.“
-Shane Parrish

These days I’m thinking about a question I receive a lot which is how to retain information we read. I don’t retain information enough, yet, especially that 80% of books I consume are in audio format. I don’t take notes about audiobooks or paper books I finish, I just highlight a lot in paper books. When I read on kindle I highlight what I like and thanks to the magical Readwise app, which imports my highlights and shares a few of them with me every day, I am remembering more of what I read recently.

I have also been using Blinkist app (this link gives you a one-month free trial) to review summaries of books I already read or new books to see if they are worth buying. I use Blinkist every single day. It’ brilliant and I love that I have the option to read or listen to very well executed summaries.

To better be able to retain and use what I learn from books I started reading How To Take Smart Notes. When I write here I want to start from somewhere and not stare at a blank page and this book will teach me how. I am learning a lot and will share with you as I go. I definitely need to start taking notes of books I read and tag them properly so I find them when I need them, that’s a confirmed piece of information you can use right away.

I have always known how Ryan Holiday and Gretchen Rubin take notes, I just need to start a sustainable way that works for me.

Another sources that would help you take book notes are these posts by Derek Sivers about his process for taking book notes and how to read a book.  

How to Take Book Notes

Pro Feelings

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I’m starting to feel like a real writer taking some time away from my family while on mini-vacation to use my mini-laptop to write today’s post.

I already spent some time in the morning before leaving to our vacation destination getting my weekly newsletter ready, to have it ship tomorrow right on schedule.

Writing in a hotel room and scheduling newsletters are stuff I never did before. I feel so professional committing to my practice. I am becoming who I want to be. It feels different because I made these promises myself. There is no “have to” taste in this at all.

One last note-to-self: write more posts and have them on queue for longer vacations in the near future, hopefully.

Pro Feelings

Motion Vs. Action

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“Motion makes you feel like you’re getting things done. But really, you’re just preparing to get something done. When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing.”

-James Clear

I love this idea so much by James Clear in Atomic habits. Reading it for the first time was a lightbulb moment for me. I do love my motion so much. I spend so much time planning and tracking. Being aware of the difference, however, helped me realize I may be acquiring clarity but not actually making progress towards my goals.

This week, after a super first quarter of the year, I gave myself permission to enjoy motion only. I spent my mornings doing the first quarterly review of the year on 2 different planners, mind you, plus re-thinking and re-writing of my goals for the second quarter, and simply reading. I did not record a new podcast episode. I did not create a mid-week post for Instagram. I just enjoyed the motions.

This on-purpose break is the exact thing I needed. I’ll make it happen more often, maybe this is how each quarter should actually start. As a result, I am definitely feeling more ready to jump into action again.

Motion Vs. Action

Don’t Think it, Write it

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When I am at my home office early in the morning, I tend to stare outside the window a lot and replay a recent event in my head or daydream. Then I notice the timer on my desk which means I need to focus to make the best of my morning routine before heading to work or kids wake up, so I tell myself “don’t think it, write it” to remember to use my journal to capture my daydreams and replays on paper. Locking my thoughts in paper helps me think more clearly and get some insights.

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Don’t Think it, Write it