I just checked my email and found this gem sent by Shann at True Balance Life Coaching:

“There is nothing more genuine than breaking away from the chorus to learn the sound of your own voice.” – Po Bronson

I don’t usually do short posts like this, but that quote is just too good not to share. Finding your own voice is such a big part of finding yourself and living life on your own terms, and this just sums it up beautifully!

Thanks Shann!

It’s been a week of beginnings and endings here this week. I suppose that’s not surprising since the two do go hand-in-hand in the bigger scheme of things.

I always get a little maudlin and a lot reflective as I see the kids heading back to school. It brings back a lot of memories for me of home and the excitement I used to feel at starting a new year and knowing deep down that it was going to be my year. It never really was … I was a social misfit back then, and I still am. The only difference between then and now is that now I know I’m not the only one. :)

On Monday I celebrated the unofficial end of summer by going for a long walk along the canal and the lakeshore. It really reminded me of home (I grew up spending my summers on Lake Erie), especially when I got a sniff of the poplar trees. In that moment, I think if someone had offered me the chance to go home again, I would’ve jumped all over it.

Tuesday it was back to work with two days to go in the 30 day PLR Giveaway. I’m so proud of myself for keeping up and making it through writing a fresh blog post every day for 30 days. I learned a lot too, and will be talking more about that in an upcoming issue of The Ritchie Report. For now you can read the posts from last week here:

• How To Use Wordpress Themes with PLR
• PLR Content and Membership Sites
• Creating Videos with PLR Content
• PLR Content: Just Add Action

Wednesday was “Good Energy Day” and I had a real “Aha” moment as I was playing on twitter and scrambling for something to write that morning. That’s where the beginnings come in but I’m not ready to say a whole lot more on it yet. For now I’ll just say that I’m a little more clear on the direction I should be going, and that I don’t think it was a coincidence that my moment of clarity came on Good Energy Day.

By Thursday I was exhausted and ready for a break. I don’t know about you, but whenever I finish a really big project I need to take a day or two to recuperate. So I did a lot of thinking and very little writing for the rest of the week.

And that’s my week in a nutshell. I’m behind in my writing again (what else is new?) so I’ve got a truckload (I’m thinkin’ about a brand new F250’s worth) of articles, updates and research to get caught up on this week. I also made a public committment to get 10 new videos made and posted on YouTube by the end of the month, so I need to get crackin’ on that too. :)

How was your week? What are you looking forward to? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Other items you might be interested in:

1. My friend Ronnie Nijmeh over at PLR.me is giving away some really cool audio and video gifts in anticipation of his upcoming launch. You can pick up these gifts and get on his early bird list at the same time here:

• PLR Profits Free Mp3
• 101 Ways to Use PLR Video
• Successcast Interview with Nicole Dean and Ronnie Nijmeh

2. I joined a new social network last night. I know… just what we need right? I spent some time looking around the site last night and it looks pretty cool. It’s called HelloHello.net and they give you points for doing various tasks like visiting your profile, sharing photos, writing blog posts, etc. It just opened, so if you want to make sure you get your user name, now’s the time to check it out: HelloHello.net

It seems this is the weekend for wakeup calls. I’m two weeks into my “End the Year as a Success” plan, and while I’m pretty pleased that I’ve got this far, I’m still not getting the results I want. I’m taking full responsibility for it too, and working at tweaking the schedule in order to ensure my success as best I possibly can.

So yesterday as I was procrastinating at writing my daily PLR Giveaway post and playing on twitter I came across a new blog post by Tiffany Dow. Tiffany really inspires me and I’ve been following her ever since I played in her very first squidoo lens building challenge oh so many years ago. She’s inspired me more than once to move beyond my comfort zone and while I haven’t reached her level of success yet, I have confidence in my ability to get there eventually. (If only I could learn to stop procrastinating!)

Anyways, in this blog post on Online Writing Obstacles, Tiffany mentioned two things that really hit me where I live…

First, she mentioned that she “cranks out 5 pages an hour for 8 hours” a day. For me keeping the butt in the chair long enough to crank out 1 page an hour is a stretch lately. But I’ve been working with a timer doing 45 minutes on, 15 minutes off this week and it seems to be helping. So I’m thinking that if I start slow and work up to a goal of 5 pages an hour for even 2 hours or 4 hours a day, I’m going to be a heckuva lot more productive than I am right now. And considering the pile of writing projects on my list, I really need to find a way to up that productivity.

The second thing in that blog post that really thunked me in the chest was “Don’t be an online hermit.” That is so me I’m thinkin’ that I need to change my brand from “The Introverted Marketer” to the “Hermit Marketer.” Except that, as Tiffany pointed out, being a hermit online doesn’t get you where you want to be. I am making more of an effort to be more visible and more engaging, both in email and on twitter, but I know I still have a lot more work to do in this area as well. It’s still way too easy for me to shut down and go into hermit mode when the going gets a little tough.

You’d think that two wake up calls from one blog post would be enough to do the trick wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong. The Universe wasn’t done with me yet.

My third wakeup call came, again on twitter, from a Mashable post warning that wordpress users needed to upgrade to the latest version in order to protect against a security threat. I’ve been procrastinating on that task for awhile too (are ya seeing the theme here?) so yesterday afternoon I pushed aside my wonderful to-do list and made a list of all my wordpress blogs and set out to get them all upgraded. Seventeen blogs (yes, I really said 17) later and I was pretty much in shock and disgusted with myself for the run-down condition my websites are in. Coming hard on the heels of Friday’s realization that I’ve also let my Squidoo lenses get totally out of date (which is what I had intended to spend yesterday afternoon fixing), it was a real wakeup call for me to get my act together again and make time to take care of what’s already out there even as I’m working on putting all my wonderful new ideas into action.

As a result of all that today’s major task is to get a schedule figured out that will take into account the need to update all my existing properties, add to the newest ones, get enough writing and promotion time in every day, and feed my need to be outside as much as possible before the snow starts to fall.

I’ve learned over the years that when the Universe sends a wakeup call, that it’s really in my best interests to pay attention. When I get three in one day it’s hard not to get frustrated and just yell “I’m awake already!”

Have a great day!