Category: End Of The First Year

Five A Day – Part Three

“Why did you create five blogs in the first place, knowing that you’d never be writing in all five everyday anyway?”

Two logical reasons:

  1. My model for balance had four parts, not two
  2. I’d link each of them to all the others, for SEO

Mid Life Celebration is about balancing life’s big choices, and there are four:

  1. Mind
  2. Body
  3. Spirit
  4. Money

This fifth blog, jeffnoel.com, was created because I thought there should be an “office” or “headquarters”, so to speak – one that didn’t have a theme and wasn’t part of the model.

And when the previous jeffnoel.com didn’t renew after having that domain, www.jeffnoel.com for seven years, it was a natural choice to pick my given name as a dot com.

That’s it.  That’s how it happened.  And now, I can’t stop myself.

In a sea of blogs that drone on about whatever, I’m carving out a space among the few who have five-a-day, droning on about whatever.

Five A Day – Part Two

… continued from yesterday.

So that’s what happened, mostly, I wrote five blogs daily, for 100 days. Started late February or so and by June 1, the goal was accomplished.

Whew.  It was hard some mornings. Easy other mornings. At the end, I was counting every day.

On the 101st day, I scaled back to three-a-day for the next week. The two I didn’t write in were the two that had the fewest visits. Made sense, right?

Guess what?  They made a difference in the big picture, meaning that overall web site stats went down more than you might have thought they would.

The solution? Start back up writing five-a-day.

Could I do it?

Should I do it?

Was it worth it?

Would anyone even care?

Well, I did it.

And have never stopped.  It’s been ten months and 1,500 blog posts later.

Okay, so this begs a question no one has asked yet. “Why did you create five blogs in the first place, knowing that you’d never be writing in all five everyday anyway?”

Five Times A Day – Part One

Most posts I write are relatively brief; however, this one may take a while. And bailing at this point is up to you.

But may I just say one thing before you go, and it’s something I’ve always known.  In fact, I honestly believe every one knows this.

The difference between those who are excellent, versus those who are good or very good, is three things:

  1. Focus
  2. Discipline
  3. Hard Work

In February, I recall a conversation with our son (then eight) that went like this, “If you want to be a good reader, you should read a lot.  If you want to be a good runner, you should run a lot.”

He was doing his nightly reading homework, and I was doing my nightly stretching in preparation for the August Masters Track & Field World Championships in Finland.

Then the epiphany, “If you want to be a good writer, you should write a lot.”

So I set out on a 100-day challenge.  Write every day. Perhaps a stretch with one daily blog, but I had set up five blogs.

How in the hell heck does a person write five blogs a day, every day?

Impossible.

Well, maybe not impossible for 100 days, right?  I mean, apply the keys to success – focus, discipline and hard work.

One-hundred days.  “You can do it, dude”, I said to myself.

To be continued….

LinkedIn Out Of Nowhere

A recent email immediately gave me an idea for a blog post.  And the email was triggered by a LinkedIn contact.

LinkedIn is designed primarily as a professional, business-like social network.

Think of it this way:

  • My Space = your bedroom
  • Facebook = your living room
  • LinkedIn = your office

LinkedIn mostly is a social network where business professionals can share how smart they are.  You know, posting their resume for the entire world to see.

And this is powerful because LinkedIn has something like 40+ million users and is reported to grow to 200-300 million “soon”.

Those who know me well, know that I’m as focused and disciplined as they come.  And I can dress up in a suit and look like I run the joint. But I prefer cut-off jean shorts and barefeet.

Don’t believe me, check out my LinkedIn profile.  It ain’t your typical “I’m so smart, I’m so smart. I’m so smart” resume. Mostly, because, well, honestly, I’m not the brightest bulb in the box.

Anyway, I use LinkedIn as a micro-blog. Every day posting a new status update.  Today’s was simply, Jeff Noel doesn’t think you’ve been to this blog yet: https://jeffnoel.org It’s a dot org

Today’s Shocking News

Today’s shocking news.

“You ain’t gonna live forever!”

Shocking?  Not in the usual sense of the word.

Shocking because of how rampant and perverse is the notion that we don’t plan for our death.

I mean, if you randomly asked 100 people, “When’s your funeral?”, how many would have an answer?

Of course, most people have no idea when, which is exactly my point.

Exactly.

But we’re all going to die.  It’s one of life’s great truths. And yet most people I know have no notion of how long they may theoretically have left.

So, my question then is this, “If your death happened sooner than you thought it would, what would you regret not having done?”