writing

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

No Cinderella Writing

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After I arrived early to work today, I had my daily friendly chit-chat with the one other early co-worker, filled my water bottle, lit up my cinnamon candle (still going strong since Christmas), got out my new eyeglasses, and opened up my daily and weekly planners. Then, I set my beautiful timer for 30 minutes to write and publish this post.

It’s February 1st, and just like last year, I’m starting the habit of writing frequently here. Notice that I didn’t say daily, although I really really want to write daily, like Seth and Rohan; however, reviewing last year showed me that writing on weekends did not work. I got frustrated every time I forgot about it then acted all Cinderella when I sat at my desk at 11:30 PM trying to ship a post before midnight. I forgot simply because the trigger of the habit of writing was not there. The trigger is arriving early to an empty office to finish my post before everybody comes.

This year I’m publishing four posts a week from Monday to Thursday (the workdays in my part of the world), and I’m taking a break on Fridays and Saturdays. Sunday’s writing session is reserved for my Sunday Spark newsletter.

I attempted to write some posts privately in January to keep the practice of writing and also prepare a queue to publish daily in February. Alas, I took a look at them now and noticed they were fewer than I remember and not that great.

The queue idea did not work so far. Ideally, my perfect self would write on weekends anyway to honor the writing habit and build up a queue for rainy writing days. I said ideally, so no commitment to this part for now.

Happy to be back in your inbox from Monday-Thursday! Subscribe to my newsletter to See me on Sundays too.

No Cinderella Writing

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

What do I get out of Journaling?

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  • Detangling my thoughts.
  • Inspecting my emotional state.
  • Gaining clarity about my intentions for the day and where I’m going in my life.
  • Meditating on my actions of the previous day, especially the ones that were unfriendly or uncaring.
  • Heightening self- awareness
  • Releasing negativity and calming the noise in my head.
  • Practicing Gratitude.
  • Gaining insight and better understanding of and compassion towards others.
  • Fine-tuning my life by tracking it.
  • Resetting my values.
  • Zooming out to big picture view.
  • Focusing on my goals.
  • Evidence I walked the earth.

These are just a few of what you would get when you journal every day.

Totally worth your time.

What do I get out of Journaling?

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

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.

Continue reading “Don’t Think it, Write it” →
Don’t Think it, Write it