The SECRET of Becoming a Top Blogger?

By Mary Jaksch

As you may have noticed, Leo Babauta and I are very much anti hype. So this is an unlikely subject line from us, right?  Well, we’re actually so anti hype that we’ve never told you about the secret work that Leo and I are hugely proud of. So, today we’re going to break our silence.

This is what happened…

A couple of days ago I was on the phone to my son, Sebastian, and read aloud some of the  mind-blowing testimonials from members of the A-List Blogger Club that Leo Babauta and I run.

“Tell me,” Sebastian broke in, “who knows about the A-List Blogger Club?”

“Well, just our Club members – and previous  participants of A-List Blog Bootcamps – of whom most are now Club members…”

“WHAT?” Sebastian screamed down the phone. “Nobody else KNOWS about it?!”

“Well, no…we’re…em…ah… we don’t usually — well, er, we don’t tend to talk much about it…”

“Ok, Mum,  so let me get this straight. This is something that Leo Babauta and you are hugely proud of, and members rave about – and you keep it a SECRET??”

Ooops!

I somehow hadn’t considered that an anti-marketing stance can somehow harm others. I mean, if you don’t tell people about something like this, you effectively close off opportunities. It’s worth thinking about, because you too may be withholding something wonderful. just because you hate marketing.

Check out what Leo Babauta thinks about the A-List Blogger Club:

The Club has evolved into something more than I’d dared to hope for: a place not only where I can share what I’ve learned with people, where they can continue to grow as bloggers, but where amazing bloggers help build each other up, teach and learn from the group, and evolve faster than I would have thought possible. The Club is the place where some truly brilliant bloggers have come into their own, and are now helping others to do the same.

I mean, to keep something like this secret is really crazy, right?

So I talked with Leo and he’s agreed to let you into the secret place where we train bloggers …We’re going to open the door for you that we usually keep so very, very private. But we’re opening it just for FOUR days…

Until midnight on Thursday, 15 April, you can join our private A-List Blogger Club. (Entry is normally reserved for those who have completed an A-List Blogging Bootcamp.)

We’re opening up entry to the A-List Blogger Club for a few days as a way to say THANK YOU to our loyal  Write to Done readers.

Watch video I made:

What?

Oh, you want to know the details? Ok, here goes:

For the price of a cup of coffee a week, you get a crazy lot of benefits.

Here are the special benefits:

  • Hang out with Leo and Mary, and make friends with a group of encouraging and enthusiastic bloggers.
  • Get a info-packed bulletin each month with hot tips, tricks, and insider info that will give you the edge.
  • Accelerate your learning through TWO special training seminars each month.
  • Upskill through access to all past training seminars.
  • Enjoy a monthly online Masterclass where you can ask live questions, as well as chat with fellow students.
  • Watch recorded Masterclasses at your convenience.
  • Get your blog reviewed by Leo or Mary.
  • Get FREE personal mentoring.
  • Watch an inspiring video each month that helps you to grow as a blogger.
  • Share in all the action on the private A-List Blogger Club forum.

All that for only $20 a month! (And you can cancel at any time)

As one of our students said,“Can I just say that this is the best $20 a month I am spending. Like, bar NOTHING!” ~ Lisa of ‘Life of Privilege‘

But, wait – there’s more – (Now this is where it gets REALLY crazy…)

  • BONUS 1: FREE entry to all future A-List Blogging Bootcamps (the next one is “How to Make Blogging Your Career”, May 16-20 at a cost of $285)
  • BONUS 2: FREE access to all the material of  Bootcamp: “How to Create a Blog that Rocks”
  • BONUS 3: FREE access to all the material of the Bootcamp: “How to Skyrocket Your Subscriber Numbers”

Crazy, eh?

But what about the members, what do they think?
Here’s Barrie Davenport from Live Bold and Bloom says: (Barrie wrote a lovely guest post for Write to Done last week).

What a brilliant idea to create a club for all of us newbie bloggers who are hungry for more! Your A List Blogger Club has been a tremendous support, not only because of the amazing and useful info Mary and Leo send, but also because of the connections and exposure it provides to other great bloggers.It is such a supportive community of like-minded people, and it is so fun to have new friends all over the world. I love the monthly webinars with Leo and the regular updates Mary sends to us. Every bit of it is wildly relevant and saves enormous amounts of research time. I can’t thank you enough for creating this club. Can I be a lifetime member??

And here’s Arvind Devalia from Make it Happen

I really enjoy being a member of the A-List Blogger Club, not only for all its useful information and world class coaching, but also for the unbelievable camaraderie amongst the club members and the international connections I have made. I have made new friends around the world and it feels like we are sharing an amazing journey together – not just with our blogs, but in our own personal development as well.

You can find out more here

If you’re keen to join us, but haven’t got a blog up and running yet, don’t worry – we’ll help get started. And if you’re already an experienced blogger, well, the A-List Blogger Club is where we breed the best bloggers of tomorrow.

This special subscription offer ends at midnight on Thursday, 15 April. If you’d like jump on board with us or want to know more, click here.

Mary Jaksch is Chief Editor of Write to Done, and runs  the A-List Blogger Club together with Leo Babauta.

Hey, friends – if you would tweet this post, put in on Facebook, or email it to friends, Leo and I would be delighted. Just click on the bar you can see above .

Categories: Blogwriting

Write to Serve: Giving Deeper Purpose to Your Craft

A guest post by Barrie Davenport of Live Bold and Bloom.

Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Why do you write?

If you are a writer, it’s an important question to ask yourself.

Had I asked myself this question a year ago, my answer would have been that I write because it’s my clearest form of communication. I can get my point across, tell a story, or relay information more concisely and intelligently in writing than through the spoken word.

For some reason, my thoughts from brain to paper (or computer) emerge more easily and eloquently than they do from brain to mouth. And happily I can edit myself on paper. Oh my, if I had a dollar for every uttered word that I should have stuffed back into my mouth!

Now that I have started a blog, my feelings about why I write have changed forever. Read more »

Categories: Blogwriting, Craft

5 Battle Strategies for Winning the War on Perfectionism

A Guest Post by Zoey Martin of Good Goog

I am a reformed perfectionist. Not completely. I’m not perfect at it. See? I’m reformed.

Perfectionism is a nice idea, alluring even. ‘Do your best’, ‘aim for the stars’, ‘give it your all’. The problem is that these goals are completely unquantifiable. How will I know if it was my absolute best? Is this the stars or the moon? Maybe I could have done a little bit better. And that’s the insidious nature of perfectionism, you could always have done better.

Perfectionism is a black hole of neediness.

Your best is never good enough. Because ‘good enough’ isn’t in perfectionism’s vocabulary. Unlike ‘die trying’ which I’m pretty sure is. And perfectionists are always disappointed, always. And speaking from experience, they also tend to be paralyzed by fear most of the time.

Example: In my former life, I re-wrote a prologue more than 100 times. That’s not an exaggeration, I’m being conservative. Imagine that, over 100 times, on a manual typewriter. All for two pages of text, at best. Perfectionism sells itself as the ideal, the apex, what you could be if all the stars aligned. But it’s a silver-tongued enemy, holding you back, and down, and out.

Your inner perfectionist will tell you that anything less than full, unbridled perfectionism is lazy, unacceptable and just plain wrong. Don’t listen! Let your passion be unbridled, allow yourself to actually jump into a project rather than agonizing over it and make mistakes fearlessly. People boast about being perfectionists, but deep down, they all know that perfectionism isn’t a friend, or even a frenemy, it’s an albatross around their neck. Because guess what? You could write a prologue 100 times or you could write a whole novel in half the time.

But even reformed perfectionists need a plan. Here’s how I battled perfectionism and won:

1) Realize that perfectionism is the antithesis to happiness This takes time. But whenever you feel perfectionism rise within you, take a moment. Remind yourself of why you have chosen not to see your life and your efforts in this way. Know that if you throw everything at a project, invest your heart and your passion and your mind, you will be entirely secure in the outcome no matter what.

2) Indulge in guilty pleasures Sometimes, us reformed perfectionists need to indulge in certain behavior. I used to alphabetize. It’s therapeutic. All our books, DVDs in a happy perfect order. Because thankfully books and DVDs are not human and they really are that simple. Unleash all that perfectionism in bursts of activity if need be. You’ll be pleased to know that I no longer alphabetize. My bursts of perfectionism are limited to the occasional spring clean.

3) Keep Your Eye on the Prize Perfectionists of have a nasty habit of not getting anything done. If everything is so perfect, why are they so ineffectual? Because a perfectionist starts with the goal of folding the laundry and ends up re-organizing the entire wardrobe, re-folding everything and possibly even moving the aforementioned wardrobe into a better position. Don’t fall in to the trap. Develop a finite goal and stick to it. Trust me, it’s a lot quicker too.

4) Make Mistakes and Like It Mistakes aren’t the problem, being paralyzed into inaction is. Re-frame in your own mind how you relate to mistakes. Don’t think of them as something to be avoided. Mistakes are opportunities. And not in the unrealistic, fake I-am-in-prison-but-it’s-a-good-thing-because-I-get-all-this-free-time kind of way. In the way that anything worth doing risks a mistake (or several). You cannot truly be passionate about something unless you’re wiling to get something wrong. You don’t learn anything by standing back on the sidelines. You learn by knowing that when you fall down, you’ll find a way to get back up again.

5) Perfectionism Isn’t a Personality Trait Seriously. It’s not. Perfectionism is a coping mechanism for unpredictability. It introduces all kind of comforting control. You are not changing yourself by renouncing perfectionism, you’re taking the first step to discovering who you are without armor.

Taking the Plunge

Perfectionism is a habit. A bad one. And change doesn’t always come easy, or overnight. It’s a choice that will be made a million times over. But it is liberating, and it is worthwhile. Start small, set goals and stick to them. Don’t allow relapses into perfectionism dissuade you from your chosen course. Alphabetize at will. Allow yourself to make mistakes – you might finish a book, you might uncover a hidden talent or you might stumble upon something even better – the ability to surprise yourself and others. Reform yourself. Go ahead. I dare you.

The ideal of writing is to be thoughtful, memorable, meaningful and evocative. Perfectionism is an epic deception – promising the pinnacle of achievement and offering only self doubt, procrastination and inaction. The secret to changing it is simple. Don’t stop being a perfectionist. Start being passionate. Start taking risks. Start discovering who you are. Do you want to be great? Then stop being perfect.

Zoey Martin writes about parenting, general neurosis and toddler mayhem at Good Goog. She also blogs about books for little people and their admirers at Little People Books. She takes too many photos and tweets far more than is healthy @zoeyspeak.

Categories: Craft, Habits, Productivity

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