Bloggers:Lessons in realism and authentic voice

Darren Rowse is someone that I admire and follow. He has a great blog and he helps those who are bloggers. I’m going to link to a couple of his posts here in a minute, but I wanted to comment on what he says.

On one post, Darren talks about making money fast on blogs. Now I want to say right here and now that this is not the case for me. I wish it were. I do not deny that I post affiliate links, from time to time and will soon be offering my own products to boot. I love blogging and do this because I like it, but I do it to make some income too.

“Ah!” you might say. I knew he was in it just to grab some money! Well, no I’m not. I genuinely want to help people in their journey through life. Having said that; I want to make some money too. Is that so different than a Doctor or a writer, or whatever occupation you can think of?

The point to this though is that the people selling programs and products that are about making a million dollars overnight do not have your best interest in mind. As Darren says, nobody makes big money overnight!

The same is true for life change. No one changes their lives overnight. Well, I suppose that a few, who have major crisis events can change overnight, but that’s about it. For everyone else, it takes time and it takes work. Anyone selling you a change overnight product should be suspect!

The second post has to do with the new FTC guidelines. Now I know that for most of you, this means nothing. In a nut shell, the FTC came out with new guidelines for bloggers. They are good, for the most part, but have the blogging community in a snit because no one is really sure what is required.

Darren says that we might as well use the FTC guideline that we have to have, things like disclosure statements, as a means to use our voice, be who we are.

I have been struggling a bit with this finding my voice thing. In real life, I tend to be a little acerbic, somewhat irreverent, and have a dry sense of humor. My blog often sounds like words or wisdom from some pulpit of the “guru of self enlightenment” or something. I hate that! There are plenty of folks in the self help world who do that much better than I, Deepak Chopra for instance, and do it well. Deepak is the guru. I’m just some shmuck sharing the things that have helped me change my life.

The point here is that you have to find your own voice in the world. So many people try to be who their parents, teachers, whoever wanted them to be and it makes them incredibly unhappy! Here’s my change overnight suggestion. Find your own voice! Will you change overnight? No! You won’t. You will have a chance to become a more authentic happier you!

Here’s to You!

P.S. here are some other posts of mine on the same subjects.
Truth about Life Change: Can you trust me?
True To Yourself
Self Development: use your head