2017 Marks the 20th year of my business, Foma Publishing. It’s been a long and winding journey, with extreme ups and downs, joys and woes. And I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world. It’s my journey. The good, the bad and the ugly.
😉
image by www.AmorinPhoto.com
Recently I find myself, through study and effort of self-improvement, reflecting deeply on these past 20 years as a business owner. In search of the next foothold in my advancement, I have joined an elite group of entrepreneurs being led by a mastermind marketer in his “inner circle”.
As a result I’ve been flooding my mind with information both on the subject of business and personal development. (After 20 years I can confidently say they clearly go hand in hand.)
It’s my intention to start sharing my business journey more here on my blog. My hope is that it might inspire and encourage others to start a business or make the effort to advance an existing one.
You might be wondering about that sub-title “Life’s Battlefield Is In The Mind” and I’ll get to that in a minute. But first I want to quickly talk about what got me here. It has to do with thought and focus…
If you haven’t seen my post about the “101 Reasons To Blog” that I recently shared, I highly suggest you give it a quick read and consider securing your personal name as a website domain, (i.e. KeithNickel.com), and start blogging. Even if you do it privately. (Yes, you can publish a private blog that only you and anyone you give permission can see.)
There’s a reason everyone is blogging or talking about it these days. But it’s not exactly what you might think. The “101 reasons” list is a compilation of what people from around the world are saying. And honesty, it’s all true! Of course it’s going to be different things for different people but the overall takeaway here is that it will help you organize your thoughts and ideas, which in result will help you in whatever it is you are doing. Welcome to the 21st century, It’s the journal 2.1!
The purpose of keeping a journal is for yourself. It’s not about being a great writer, or even sharing publicly necessarily. It’s more for the self-reflection and discipline of thoughts and ideas. However, I’ve found that there is something about the organization of a blog through category, tags and timeline, that helps accelerate the cathartic experience keeping a journal creates. It seems somehow making it public also speeds this benefit along.
I don’t think it should take place of pen and paper by any means. I highly recommend keeping a good old-fashioned diary as well. I’ve read and seen more than one great thinker suggest that we should do all our creative thinking with pen and paper to avoid distraction and laziness. I think one of them was the professor of computer science at MIT. (I don’t remember exactly.) In fact this post and the idea to share more of my entrepreneurial journey here on my blog, actually started in my journal book.
OK, so what’s with the weird subtitle? “Life’s Battlefield Is In The Mind”
Think about this:
1. Your mind creates your thoughts
2. Your thoughts govern your beliefs
3. Your beliefs guide your actions
4. Your actions create your life
What are you doing to guard the gateway of your mind? I’d love to hear your comments below!
Keith Nickel
P.S. if you are interested in getting started with your own blog and would like a 2 year jumpstart avoiding all the technical overwhelm involved in doing it the right way, let me know and I’ll hook you up with a huge discount on our “Online Publishing Suite”.