Who The Fuck Am I? This Is About You

Because sometimes it’s easy to miss the point …

I closed off The Guest Post Not-Contest a few days ago and it was interesting reading the e-mails and comments over the previous three weeks.

One person commented to me that it was “a great opportunity, but your rules are like that of a 4th grade school teacher.” He said some other stuff, but I deleted it before getting bogged down with the loser mentality. That person completely missed the point of the not-contest. (I’m actually pretty sure they don’t regularly read this site. Mostly because it’s not written for them and there is purposefully nothing of value here for that person.)

The point of the not-contest was NOT to get a guest post here.

Seriously, who the fuck am I?

  • Some dude with a site that gets a mid-level amount of traffic.
  • 1 of almost 7 billion people on Earth.
  • A guy who knows what it takes to be successful and what it takes to be a failure. Yay! I’ve been both!

And that last part is where the not-contest was coming from.

You want a chance to make it to the NBA? Train with people who have trained other NBA players.

You want to have almost no chance of making it to the NBA? Train with your neighbor. The fat one who watches TV and eats McDonald’s all day.

You want to run a successful restaurant? Apprentice with a successful restaurateur.

You want to run an unsuccessful restaurant? Learn from someone who has never owned a successful restaurant. (Probably one of your business school teachers.)

You want a successful blog / online business that you can run from anywhere? Learn from the people who do exactly that. Maybe their lessons are created for a reason.

Here was my thinking:

Make it seem difficult by having lots of rules and details. I wanted to scare you into not submitting, because if all it takes is a few pesky details (which, honestly, were not tough) to stop you from creating your best work then you’re in for a massive surprise in the future. And it’s this: you will never be successful. It might not hit you today, or tomorrow, or even any time soon. But some day in the future you’re going to think “I know what Karol was talking about now! How can I possibly expect to be successful if I scare myself out of taking action?”

Bonus: read this story and then this one about how Derek Sivers was “born with singing talent” after only 15 years of practice and doing the crazy exercises his teacher demanded.

The rules were in place because that way I would only read articles by people who ship no matter what. People who if not already incredibly successful today, will be. Without all the rules I would’ve received an overwhelming amount of articles, many of which would not have been your best work.

There’s that phrase again, your best work! We’re onto something …

Anybody who followed the directions and dug deep created a piece of their best work. Whether I post that work here or not you know what happens when you know you can create great work? Your synapses start firing like never before and you achieve a bit of clarity. You know you can create more great work.

You know what happens when you continuously create great work? People. Fucking. Notice.

I think everybody who submitted got it because along with most submissions were comments like “Even if you don’t choose this, it was worth it. I really pushed myself and it feels amazing.”

Although I can’t accept all of the submissions I will choose 3 that I did receive. Everybody I don’t accept will get a link to their site with a paragraph about themselves in a special post on April 18. Boom! Everybody wins.

I alluded to this in tweets and on facebook. “Less than [X amount of time] before the guest post not-contest ends. You ship or you fail.” Thanks to everybody who submitted.

If you thought about submitting and talked yourself out of it, it’s OK. You failed this time. Reframe it, learn from it, and use it to light a fire under your ass. Get pissed at me, get pissed at yourself, do whatever it takes to create.

###

Very special announcement on Thursday. I’ve been sending out cryptic tweets with maps and other malarky over the past couple weeks, but the big reveal is coming. It’s going to be a fun ole time. :)

18 thoughts on “Who The Fuck Am I? This Is About You”

  3. Thanks for the big ol’ push Karol. It was a wonderful experience all around!

    Now I’ve got to get on twitter and see what you’ve been tweeting about. I haven’t logged in to twitter for a few days. :)

    Cheers,
    Tanja

    1. I’m glad it was a good experience Tanja. :)

      As for twitter: the cryptic tweets are surely lost in the fray by now. But the wait is almost over!

  4. Kill the Lizard Brain… and having a good time while doing it. It has been a great push to ship and I look forward to greater challenges, more problems to solve and more people to serve along the way.

    Because that is what it means to be ridiculously extraordinary.

  5. I chose not to submit a post, because the internal stuff I am working on is more important to me than a guest post, even on this blog which is one of the few I really like reading. So it’s not that I failed, rather I accepted that my time to write guest posts and the time of your offer happened not to coincide :)

    Now If I could find a way to write coherently about my experiences I could finally write those kickass posts that are percolating in my mind.

    1. Nice! And that’s a good point Miss P. I’d definitely recommend working on your own stuff before submitting guest posts. And, in that regard, this wasn’t written with you in mind since you didn’t think about submitting something and then stop yourself from submitting. :)

  6. Karol – This challenge was awesome, even if you don’t pick one of my submissions. In addition to the two posts I submitted for you, I started three others. One made it onto my blog and the other two, well…we’ll see. They are a bit off-topic for the mission of my site, but not quite right for yours either. I’m looking for a new home for them, so I can wrap them up with the right audience in mind. :)

    I’m learning that when good opportunities come up, you have to rise to the occasion. Doors don’t open every day, but there’s a momentum in walking through them when they do. The more I push past my fears and doubts, the better my life is becoming!

    1. Kick ass Brigitte!

      “I’m learning that when good opportunities come up, you have to rise to the occasion.” <– Such a solid lesson. One I forget myself.

  7. It’s interesting reading this post, because I have never submitted a guest post before this one (excluding those for a friend’s blog). It was on my “to do” list, and I used your non-contest as a reason to submit what I feel is the very best I could write for your particular blog. Writing the post helped me focus on my topic. I loved doing it. I loved seeing what I am capable of right now.

    Thank you for the non-contest.

    It’s true that you’re working to ship, thinking about shipping, or oblivious to shipping. I don’t know which is worse – thinking about shipping, or being oblivious. Those who are oblivious don’t waste their time fantasizing about doing things, yet those who fantasize are so close to taking a step forward. So let’s keep working to ship. It’s far more fun.

  8. I have to be honest here Karol, when I saw this “non-contest” I was pretty excited. I saw the rules and knew exactly what your intentions were. Quite honestly they worked. I knew I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to ship my best… so I did nothing.

    What’s the feedback for me? Yes it’s true, to a certain extent that my mind hasn’t been in the right place lately. But, rather then using that as an excuse, I could channel that into my best work.

    I failed this time and I’ll fail again and again and I’m cool with that. It’s only a failure if you do nothing about it.

    Thanks for the smack in the head… I need that some times ;)

  9. April 18th?? Wow you’re a good planner :D Most of my blog posts are still thrown together at the last minute. I don’t even know what country I’ll be in on April 18th, let alone what I’ll be blogging about :P

    1. Ha! I usually don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow, but upcoming events have resulted in my planning the next 5 months of my life. :) It’s an odd feeling.

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