A guest post by Katie Tallo of Momentum Gathering.
There I was, completely naked! Exposed in front of my peers. I was being analyzed and made over, scrutinized and questioned.
And … I was loving it!
That’s right, this was no high school auditorium public-speaking nightmare – this was a dream come true. Let me explain by taking you back to the beginning.
My adventure started a little over a month ago – my blogging adventure that is. Up until then, I’d never blogged, never tweeted, never created a widget or activated a plug-in. In fact, I was missing the tech gene, so I shied away from the idea of blogging altogether. But, as those things calling us often do, blogging kept popping back into my mind!
I was a writer, I was learning about life, gathering information, ideas and inspiration. I had momentum. In fact, the word “momentum” was resonating very deeply in me. I was reading all sorts of blogs, following links wherever they took me, and subscribing to the one’s I loved. The problem was, I wasn’t really a part of the dialogue. My teenage daughter told me I was just a stalker.
Then, a fateful day arrived. I followed a link from one of my favourite blogs, Zen Habits, to another blog called Write to Done (yes, this very one!) and stumbled upon yet another link to A-List Blogging Bootcamps. I didn’t know it at the time, but this moment and this link were about to change my life, almost overnight. I was about to go from stalking to streaking.
But I’ll get to the streaking part in a minute.
First, I took a leap. I joined the A-List Blogger Club and dove into Bootcamp 1 “How to Create A Blog that Rocks”, and then dug into Bootcamp 2 “How to Skyrocket Your Subscriber Count”. Since that time, I’ve set up my own blog, met some amazing people in the A-List Blogger Club, been mentored and guided by A-List Blogging stars Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch, and I’ve been writing, writing, writing. MomentumGathering.com was born! Then, my big break came, or so I thought!
Okay, this is the “getting naked” part of my adventure!
Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen asked me to write a guest post for her wonderfully inspiring blog. I was thrilled. This would be my debut, my first guest post! I accepted gleefully! That’s when she revealed the catch. I was to pitch my idea and I was to submit my post, not just to her, but to the entire forum of bloggers in the A-List Blogger Club. She called it the “Anatomy of a Guest Post” and saw it as a great training exercise for everyone. Great? I was going to run around naked in front of my peers. I was going to expose my weaknesses, my inexperience, my ignorance, my writing!
Great?
Yes, it was great! My forum friends were supportive and enthusiastic. They cheered me on and when the post, Ready, Zen, Go! was accepted and published on Mary’s site, I knew that I had just streaked my way into my calling. I felt passionate about what I was writing and, more importantly, why I was writing. None of the nudity required to get there mattered. A tribe had my back.
Leo and Mary have created this tribe out of who they are. And it truly reflects how they choose to live and blog. They are our teachers, leading this tribe, naked into the woods, so we’ll all come out with the necessary survival skills to make a success of our lives and our blogs.
So, I say, when you have a dream, find a tribe, get naked and expose your heart and soul. Take it from this naked blogger. You’ve got nothing to lose or fear, when someone’s got your back.
Katie Tallo is a writer, director, motivator, runner, vegetarian and mother who writes a blog that encourages steady, positive actions for sustaining joyful and vibrant life change, Momentum Gathering.
