Inspiration

Guidance

By Spiritdancer | 2010/07/26 22:51 Posted in Angels, Ego, Fear, God, Heart, Inspiration, Peace, Spirituality, heart speake | Comments (0)

Guest post from the Angels via Ann Albers

Today wish to speak to you about guidance. Each one of you is made of the very same light that moves the stars in the heavens, causes the seeds to burst forth and grow into full bloom, and guides you in all of your interactions. This light is known by so many names – God, Love, Universal Intelligence, and so forth. This light is nothing less than the love that created and sustains the universe. So too, it creates, sustains, and guides you, for it IS you.

It is the human mind that makes you feel separate from this light. It is human fears and anxieties that make you forget that you are eternally connected to the source of all creation and that this love WANTS you to feel at peace, WANTS you to feel in harmony with the universe, and longs for you to know the love that created you and guides you. What the mind wants however is entirely different. It wants the illusion of control. It wants certainty, predictable outcomes, and assurance that it will be the boss. As you learn to surrender your mind and to listen to your heart however, you find a divine balance between the two. The mind was intended to serve the heart, not vice versa.

So when when you find yourself in fear or in challenging times, know it is a human tendency to start strategizing, reacting, figuring out ways to manipulate the universe. Far better however, to stop, breathe, sit in silence and ask yourself, “What do I really want out of this situation? What is my heart trying to tell me?” Ask, “Heart, what do you want? What are you trying to tell me?” Invite the presence of God within you to speak clearly through your heart. And then, listen, not so much with your ears, but with your inner knowing. Be willing to ‘hear’ things your mind might disagree with.

Suppose you want desperately to get a new job . In every minute of your spare time, your mind says, work, work, work! Send out resumes every moment. Make those calls! But your heart says, I want to go outside today and relax and read my spiritual books. I want to reconnect with myself and God. And during this quiet time you realize there is something else entirely that you want to do with your life. You want to go back to school or change careers. Now dear ones, now that you have gotten in touch with your hearts, now the universe can and will support you. Now doors will open. Now you will receive inspiration and guidance.

When the mind is trying to control the heart, you can only be guided into situations that force you deeper into your heart. When the mind is honoring the heart, you can be guided easily towards the heart’s goals.

Only when you are at “one” with your true self will God guide you in your outer world towards your goals. Suppose your earth said, “I do not wish to revolve around the sun now! I want to go in a different direction.” Well my dear friends, she would not receive any help and assistance in that endeavor because she was created to go around the sun. And so guidance would be withheld until she said at long last, “Ah it is in my heart to revolve around the sun as gracefully and beautifully as I can.” So be it! Guidance would be immediately forthcoming.

Suppose you want a relationship to make your life more interesting, or to help you feel happier. If you insist, we can guide you toward one to do just that, however realize you will attract someone who wants YOU to make their life more interesting and to make them feel happier as well. And this will drive you deeper into your heart and you will say, “But I want a relationship with someone who is happy with themselves, and feels good about their own life.” And then the realization will follow, “I want to feel happy with myself and good about my own life.” Then dear ones, you will receive guidance as to how to go about realizing this truth, and in this deeper truth you will attract healthier and happier relationships.

Suppose you say, “God I want more money! I want to be able to pay my bills more easily.” Well dear ones we could guide you there in a heartbeat, but many times we do not because what you really want, underneath these desires is, “God, please show me that you really love me, support me, and care about me.” Far better to ask for this, because it is a deeper truth and in this deeper truth you will be guided in many ways that show you how much God loves you. You will develop faith, trust, and an awareness of greater truth, perhaps even in different directions than you might have chosen had the money come easily, and then… the money will come as well.

There are always very deep desires beneath the more human ones. Dig deep into your hearts, find them and ask for them, because these are the prayers that are answered in beautiful ways that you might not even imagine. In asking to feel your light, the light of God’s love, and the universal support for you, you are admitting to yourself you are worthy of it (and this is truth). You are admitting that you are a valuable part of the universe. You are allowing the Divine to guide you as was originally intended, and you are surrendering to a grander vision of your life than one you could ever dream for yourselves.

So by all means, pray the very human prayers for we care about your human life, but don’t forget to dig deep and see what prayers the heart is trying to pray underneath these human desires. You all want to know God’s love. You all want to feel safe and secure in that love. You all want to feel that your life has purpose. And we can easily guide you in these endeavors, for a life centered on love is one in which your material needs will truly be satisfied, your desires for connection will be upheld, and a joy that is natural to the soul will be allowed to shine through you to others on this school called Planet Earth.

God bless you! We love you so very much.
– The Angels

There is a party going on and you’re invited!

By Spiritdancer | 2010/07/19 15:35 Posted in Creativity, Heart, Inspiration, Joy, Living in the NOW, Purpose, heart speake | Comments (0)

Guest post by Tama Kieves

There’s a party going on and you’re invited. It’s called your inspired life. It’s called stepping out of grim “reality,” the old way of seeing things and the prison bars of habit and self-inflicted limitation. It’s called reconnecting with your secret strength, invincible love, optimal thinking, and sudden clarity. You’re invited.

Here’s how the invitation shows up. It comes as a whisper, a hope, and a longing. I wish I could just have some time to walk on the beach. I wish I could write and sell my novel. I wish I could do my own business in coaching. News flash: these aren’t just whispers. They are shuttle buses to your new life, leaving now. This is medicine. This is divine instruction. These are stock tips for the investment of your lifetime.

Why would you ignore your own genius? Oh, I know, because doing something you want to do can’t be right. But think again. If it feels good and exciting, it’s got power and energy, natural strength, and the ability to help you get past your fears and feel that “right feeling” that makes everything fall into place.

Tama is offering a retreat where you can learn to do this here.

By Tama Kieves of Awakening Artistry

We make very poor use of our talents

By Spiritdancer | 2010/05/29 00:56 Posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Inspired Education | Comments (2)

In this poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 TedTalk, Sir Ken Robinson makes a plea for a true revolution in education. He talks about how we have to change the way we educate children from a mechanical process to an organic one. I love how he acknowledges that inspiration, doing what you love and following the heart and Spirit are the keys. I could say more but he does a better job so here you go…

Here is his first talk:

What is Inspiration? Part III

By Spiritdancer | 2010/05/24 19:08 Posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Living in the NOW | Comments (9)

PLAY is the key to inspiration.

The key to inspiration is joy and the purest form of joy is pure play! We get so serious as adults that we forget how to really play anymore and then our creative spark dies.

To best illustrate the relationship between joy and play I want to relate a story to you that happen to me one Saturday afternoon when my family and I went to see a fireworks display in downtown Houston.

While we waited for the show to start on this grassy hill, the kids becoming impatient tore up the cardboard trash cans and started sliding down the grass hills on pieces of cardboard. I thought wow that looks like fun and started doing it with them! It was just too much fun! I felt just like a kid again falling down and rolling down and laughing as I fell.

After sliding down that hill with those kids life seemed so fresh and new and ever so clear!

There is a certain magic energy that was there in that place. I was so happy with the kids rolling and laughing and sliding down that hill as music played and stars shot overhead. It was a perfect moment. In that moment all was well and perfect in the world, all was happy and joyous. Heaven had come to Earth just for a few moments. This is the joy and happiness that we are all searching for and that is what life can be like every day if only we would allow it.

If you don’t understand what I am talking about, then take your kid (and if you don’t have a kid then take yourself or just grab some kids.) Go to a park with a hill and run down that hill and fall and roll and laugh. I guarantee that within 5 minutes you will feel alive and happy again. You may think it is just a fleeting thing, this feeling, but cherish this feeling for this feeling is life! This is the key to happiness. If you can feel this feeling, understand it, and internalize it, then you will know what I mean by true joy and happiness. Then understand that this feeling is normal and the feelings you have that aren’t like this are the abnormal ones. This feeling means you have awakened to your true being, if only but for just one moment. But having awakened to it, a door has now been opened that you can choose to walk through to a brighter and better world, a door that leads to none other than heaven on earth!

No matter how bad life is, no matter how bad the situation is, remember joy is just a play away. Again, if you think this is silly, if you don’t know what I mean, then just go to a hill…

And roll!

So the key to inspiration is play. With play you will find joy. And with joy inspiration will be just around the corner!

ART is the expression of Inspiration

Unfortunately, in our fear based culture there is only one profession that is allowed to work on pure inspiration and that is the artist. Everyone understands that an artist must be inspired to do good work, but we assume that in other professions this is not necessary.

Imagine a culture where everyone worked from inspiration. For one, it would be a totally different type of culture, unlike anything we have ever seen. But the one area that is similar is art. Imagine a culture of art where every profession is an art and is performed by an artist. I don’t just mean graphic art, but inspired-from-the-heart art. From medicine to engineering to… everything! Surely many professions as we now know them would disappear. Basically all the dull boring ones that nobody would want to do would disappear. Many of these functions that society performs would reappear in different forms, inspired forms versus fear-based forms. What a world it would be! It would be a world of art. Bread would be baked because the baker was inspired to bake it, food would be cooked like the best gourmet food, and even a simple sandwich would be a work of art. It would be a very colorful and vibrant society. But this can only happen in an environment free of fear and full of inspiration, in other words, a world full of color, light and love… In other words, a world full of God.

What would an inspired world look like?

Well for one there is no force, no one would be forced to do anything. In an environment of pure inspiration you could not use fear to intimidate anyone into doing anything. No one would ‘have to’ do anything. And everyone would ‘want to’ do everything. Unfortunately our culture has been a ‘have to’ culture but right below the surface is a beautiful ‘want to’ culture just waiting to burst out. We only need to set it free!

What is Inspiration? Part II

By Spiritdancer | 2010/05/22 15:44 Posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Joy, Living in the NOW | Comments (4)

What Does Inspiration Feel Like?

What does God feel like? What does the flow of pure creative energy feel like? How can you identify and know inspiration when it strikes?

Why Dorothy, you feel it all the time you just haven’t been paying attention!

First you get a feeling, a feeling of potential. Usually you have a feeling that you just have to do something. You just have to write this song, cook this recipe, quit your job, start a business, call this person, try this color, go down that road, listen to that CD. You get the idea.

Inspiration is an inner intuition, a feeling that must be expressed. The trick is not to deny that feeling. Too many times I walked past the door of inspiration, I mean, right on past it! The door of inspiration sometimes is very small, very easy to write off, especially in a dead serious society, such as ours. Too many times we mistake our inspiration as goofing off or frivolous exploration, not realizing that it is this very playful exploration that will lead us to where we need to be. We are too busy listening to our heads instead of our hearts.

When inspiration really starts to flow. Usually it flows so fast that you can’t keep up. You will feel pulled or compelled to do several things at once. You will feel excited and energized, an ‘I can’t wait to..” feeling will come over you.

When this happens it is best to write down your initial inspirations. You may find yourself scribbling wildly as I am writing this very paragraph. Soon you will feel compelled to act and act you will.

Joy is the door to inspiration

Joy is truly the door to inspiration. Unfortunately, in our society Joy is frowned upon as frivolous and not serious enough to warrant our attention. But inspiration cannot happen outside of a state of Joy. Therefore joy and inspirations are inseparable.

Joy really is the key. By joy I mean that fun, alive, totally free feeling where we feel protected and like a child again. That feeling of falling down in the snow and laughing your heart out as you roll down a hill.

Whenever we can experience true joy, our hearts open up and the love and light of God can begin to move though us unimpeded. When we are experiencing joy we are in the best condition to be inspired.

You are at one with God when you feel and express true Joy. Joy is love energy being expressed. When you are expressing love in a truly selfless, unconditional way you will feel joy. Joy is the feeling of giving or receiving love. Think about all the times you felt truly joyous. Not just excited, but truly joyous. Imagine spinning a child around and around as they giggle and laugh expressing a truly joyous moment with you. This is the kind of joy I am talking about.

What is Inspiration? Part I

By Spiritdancer | 2010/05/22 02:38 Posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Joy, Living in the NOW | Comments (6)

Inspiration, the door to a more meaningful and abundant life

Inspiration is a door to a much more meaningful, fulfilling and abundant life. No matter what your status or education or situation, inspiration is a door that all of us can go through to a larger world full of hope and possibility. The thing is most people have no clue about this. They see glimpses of it when they have an impulsive inspired feeling or idea but they usually quickly dismiss the feeling as nothing more than just a passing fancy. They let what I call the ‘inner critic’ talk them out of it. The sad part is, that by not following this inspirational energy they have cut themselves off from the very thing that could get them out of their problems and to the life they really want. I see this happening all the time, I do it too but now when I recognize inspiration I have a reverence for it and I have learned to ignore the ‘inner critic.’ It is such a simple thing actually. What many people don’t understand is that this energy is everything. If they really knew what being touched by this energy meant they would jump up and down and thank God because to be touched by this energy is a true gift from Heaven. Step one is to understand that when you feel inspired it is so much more that just a good feeling, it is basically God coming over and saying ‘Hey want to play? But even if you understand this intellectually the real key is to know what it feels like because it is the feeling recognition of this energy that is most important. See, when you are inspired it’s an energy flow. This is again, not just a good feeling your body happens to be having that day. This energy is God’s creative energy, which is basically love energy. This conscious energy is creative and has intelligence. This is why when you feel inspired you feel pregnant, like you ‘just have to get it out.’ You also have a feeling that you can’t get it out fast enough and the reason this is, is because you are a channel for this energy, it is not coming from you but through you. All you really have to do is get out of the way. Since this is love energy you will feel joyous when you let this energy flow through you. This is why you feel so good expressing it. It’s similar to the way that a light bulb lights up as electricity passes through it. Inspirational energy is all ‘want to’ there is nothing you ‘should do’ or ‘have to do’ with this energy. All we ‘have to’ do is let it flow.

When inspirational energy is flowing you do not want to stop, everything in you wants to let it flow. Time stops as you enter the moment. You feel pulled by some invisible force. And you are being pulled, guided towards a higher destiny. The thing is that the smallest and simplest situation can be the catalyst for inspiring you. It is important that when you are inspired you go with it. Many times we judge the form of the inspiration not realizing that it will evolve into higher and higher forms. We let the inner critic talk us into closing off the flow.

For example, you might, while driving have a feeling to stop in a particular store, or to cook a certain dish or to pick up a pencil and start to draw something. One day you might get the urge to build something or make something, you don’t know why, you just feel like it. Well, that’s inspiration. But what usually happens? The inner critic steps in and says, all kinds of negative things like:

‘What are you thinking, you don’t have time for that.’ or

“You can’t cook’ or

‘You can’t afford to spend money making such and such.’ or

‘What makes you think you can do such and such.’

You get the idea. The trick is to ignore that voice and do whatever you feel inspired to do anyway. Follow the energy and let it flow and go along for the ride. Of course that will require faith and trust and for you to let-go of expectations but don’t worry it will be a wonderful adventure that will take you to exactly where you need to be.

But what is inspiration exactly?

To be inspired means to trust your instincts and to move into that space that is interesting, fun and alive! In other words inspiration is a state of pure joy! Inspiration is God’s creative energy moving though you, God using you, God playing you as the most beautiful and unique musical instrument that you are. The goal is to let go and let God make beautiful music with you and the best way for that to happen is for you not to block his energy as it flows through you. When you feel stifled, that is fear, which is an energy block. When you feel joy, then God’s creative energy can flow fully and freely towards its purpose and destiny!

Too many people in our world walk around thinking of life as this miserable joyless thing that must be tolerated and put up with. They are so far from the truth! The truth is no matter what our situation, God wants us to live truly happy and joyous lives. And this is the best thing we can leave our children in life because life is what joy is.

Inspirational energy is like electricity flowing though wires. It is not the electrons in the wires but the flow of the electrons that causes things to move and light up. So it is too with the inspirational energy of God moving though us, causing us to be powerful creative instruments in the world. When you get that energy flowing, everything else will fall into place. The more you allow this energy to flow the more joy you feel in life! And the more joy you feel in life, the more this energy can flow! Well that sounds easy, yes, but there is one problem – FEAR! Beware of fear, for fear is the true enemy! Fear blocks your connection to God and his creative energy! Love and fear are the two dynamic primal forces in the universe. God is love and love is God and inspiration is actually a higher form of love being expressed, from God to you and through you to the world! When you live your purpose by expressing inspiration to the world, you are creating in the fullest sense of the word and when you create in this way, you are an artist in the fullest sense of the word! None of this would be possible without God. For some this may come as a shock. But believe me, it is true. God, or whatever you want to call him – a Higher Power, the Universe, the Super Conscious – is the magic ingredient in our lives, and without him, true inspiration would not be possible.

What is God?

By Spiritdancer | 2010/05/20 02:26 Posted in Awakening, God, Inspiration, Spirituality | Comments (6)

Forget the old version of God as some old mean guy sitting on a throne just waiting for the chance to throw your butt straight to hell! Delete that idea of God out of your mind forever! Instead no matter what your religion, I invite you to open your mind to a new idea of God. An idea of God as your best friend, this God is not some mean guy, he is a colorful vibrant force. God is creativity, he is the ultimate creative force, the most inspired artist, creating the most perfect art. Imagine your favorite movie… now imagine your most inspired moment, imagine you favorite song and how you felt, imagine the first time you fell in love, imagine your best summer day ever… The times you felt on top of the world…

That was God!

Imagine the stunning beauty of the most beautiful natural scene you have ever seen…

That was God!

He was there in all of those moments…. And the part of you that recognized it, the part of you that said wow! The part of you that said that was so cool! The part that said that taste so good… looked so good… felt so good… That part in everyone of those moments, that was good, beautiful, cool, that indescribable quality that can only be recognized but not defined… That was God… but just a taste! No matter how incredible the experience, it was only a tiny glimpse, just a drop of God’s essence… God is so much more than that, a billion trillion times more than all of those moments… Want to tap into that power on an ongoing bases? One of the most fulfilling ways is to tap into inspiration, in other words to tap into God in the most direct sense, by becoming a direct creative channel for God’s love here on Earth.

Now do you understand the power I’m talking about!

“So how do I do this?” You say? I hear ya. Dream on dreamer, life is in the moments Release yourself and fly away. Want to know how to live? You must let your spirit fly and soar!

Remember, one hour of inspiration is worth infinitely more than 8 hours of desperation because true inspiration is life!

Get Back Up!

By Spiritdancer | 2010/04/12 16:16 Posted in Dream Warriors, Inspiration, Inspiring Films | Comments (1)

“We could learn that if the knowledge is given to everyone, then we can have lots of leaders, and soon everyone will be strong, not just the ones that are chosen. Because sometimes, even if you’re the leader and you need to be strong… you can get tired…” ~ From the Movie Whale Rider

I can relate to this because that is how I feel sometimes.

Sometimes it’s hard in this world to honor your true self and live a life that is true to your values and beliefs. Especially when you are trying to live your purpose. If you are having a hard time, listen to this song and let it inspire you to keep going.

You turned away when I looked you in the eye,
And hesitated when I asked if you were alright,
Seems like you’re fighting for you life,
But why? oh why?
Wide awake in the middle of your nightmare,
You saw it comin’ but it hit you outta no where,
And theres always scars
When you fall back far

We lose our way,
We get back up again
It’s never too late to get back up again,
One day you will shine again,
You may be knocked down,
But not out forever,
Lose our way,
We get back up again,
So get up, get up,
You gonna shine again,
Never too late to get back up again,
You may be knocked down,
But not out forever
[May be knocked down but not out forever]

You’re rolled out at the dawning of the day
Heart racin’ as you made you little get away,
It feels like you’ve been runnin’ all your life
But, why? Oh why?

So you’ve pulled away from the love that wou’d've been there,
You start believin’ that your situation’s unfair

But there’s always scars,
When you fall back far

We lose our way,
We get back up again
Never too late to get back up again,
One day, you gonna shine again,
You may be knocked down but not out forever,
Lose our way, we get back up again,
So get up, get up
You gonna shine again
It’s never too late, to get back up again
You may be knocked down, but not out forever,
May be knocked down, but not out forever!

This is love callin’, love callin’, out to the broken,
This is love callin’.
This is love callin’, love callin’, out to the broken
This is love callin’.
This is love callin’, love callin’,
I am so broken
This is love callin’ love callin

Lose our way, [way way way ay ay ay]
We get back up, [get back up again]
It’s never too late [late late late ate ate ate]
You may be knocked down but not out forever!

Lose our way,
We get back up again,
So get up get up
You gonna shine again
Never too late to get back up again
You may be knocked down,
But not out forever,

This is love [lose our way] callin’ love callin’ [get back up again]
To the broken
This is love [never too late] callin’
[may be knocked down but not out forever]
This is love [lose our way] callin’ love callin’ [we get back up again]
To the broken
This is love [never too late] callin’
[may be knocked down but not out forever]

This is love callin’ love callin’
Out to the broken,
This is love callin’….

Lyrics to the song ‘Get back up” by TobyMac

Homeless artist paints his way around Seattle

By Spiritdancer | 2010/03/11 01:29 Posted in Creativity, Dream Warriors, Inspiration, Inspiring Films, Living in the NOW, Money, Painters, The Economics of Love, Videos | Comments (2)

I want to introduce you to an artist in Seattle called Henry Ward. What makes him unique and an inspiration to us all and a true Dream Warrior is his commitment to his work, his art and the expression of it to help others. He was so committed in fact or moved or called, that he was willing to live in his car and work for free. He has painted over 60 murals around Seattle and is just now starting to become recognized in the city as a major influence. But I love the fact that he just gives, he does not seem consumed by what he is getting out of the deal. He seems so moved to paint no matter what. The thing about him is he listens, he listens to that voice within that says paint that wall! If we could all, including myself, listen, hear and act on that voice, what would our lives become? How many people would we touch? Who knows. Henry, is a master teacher in listening. I know he thinks he is an artist but his example shows us what it means to listen. Usually our over-thinking ego/heads talk us out of whatever inspiration just hit. Anyway, he has inspired me to listen more and I hope by doing so I can enter a world as magical as his. See the videos below for more about his paintings and murals in Seattle.

His website is: http://ryanhenryward.com

Henry Murals from Adam Bale on Vimeo.

How to start a blog

By Spiritdancer | 2010/02/07 07:23 Posted in Blogging, Creativity, Inspiration, Money, The Economics of Love, Writing | Comments (2)

All about Blogs
If you have something to share that is information based, now you have no excuse. The Internet is the sharing highway because it really facilitates sharing in ways that mankind has never had before. And if you are wondering why sharing is so important please check out “The Economics of Love.” Whatever your gift is: be it writing, or film-making, music, cooking, teaching, painting, photography, if it is information based, than the Internet is for you. Gone are the days when the gatekeepers; the publishers, TV networks, movie studios, agents etc., controlled what you were allowed to share. Now the Internet is the information aggregator and we can bypass the gatekeepers. Don’t let desire for fame or fortune stop you from sharing your stuff, also don’t worry about copycat’s as your work is still protected under the creative common license, a legal way for you to protect your work and share it freely at the same time. The bottom line is that the more you share the better off you will be. Plus your gifts were given to you to share with others. If you have a book, don’t let it languish on your computer or God forbid your notebook, waiting for a gatekeeper, i.e. publisher, to tell you that it’s worth sharing. Share it now! You can and there are several new and not so new tools on the Internet to facilitate that. The first and greatest of these tools is the blog.

Now, many of you have probably heard about blogs and that is great. Well the thing is, blogging is now going to a whole new level. No matter who you are or what you are working on I beseech you to start a blog today. Just get started. No matter what you just said as an excuse not to start please just do it anyway, just start. There is a lot of power in starting. You can always delete it or never share it, but at least you will have started. Now you can start sharing your stuff. Even if your gift is not information based. Say you are working on the something very solid, like the latest electric green car that will revolutionize the world and eliminate global warming. Well you can at least share your journey and experiences! So start a blog.

What is a blog? A blog is nothing more than an online journal. You write entries in it that are dated just like you would in a paper journal. But that is where the similarities end, because now with the power of the Internet you can share these journals with the world. People can subscribe to your blog as if it was your own private magazine. You can even have ads on your blog and make money. You can then spread the word or promote your blog though bookmarking sites. OK that’s a lot of stuff so I will cover each one in detail.

Create Your Blog
First the blog itself. There are several blogging services out there, check out the top ten blog sites to find the one that’s best for you. But I recommend wordpress.org because from what I’ve read it’s the best and it’s the one that I use for this blog. For a video tutorial on how to get started I recommend a site called BecomeABlogger.com If you want an easy way to start with out a lot of technical hassle just go to wordpress.com and you can have a blog setup in a matter of minutes, it’s easy. If all of this is still too overwhelming for you you can sign up with a service called Site Build It and for $30 a month they will take you step by step to a successful blog. Most of their blogs are at the top one percent of Google searches. They are an excellent choice if you are a non-technical but still want a successful blog, click here for some examples. Ok, now to the next step. Let’s say you have created your blog. I would say as a rule, from now on, you should put all of your writing on a blog. As soon as you create a blog, it instantly gets indexed into the search engines and in a few days anyone in the world could do a search and your blog entry might come up. Now that’s cool! Instant sharing.

Share Your Blog
Ok, the next step is that you want to make it easy for people to subscribe to your blog. Now this is a slightly hard subject to understand but hang with me, it’s really not so bad. Basically there are these things called feeds and what they do is allow people to subscribe to your blog. when they do this, if you make a new entry, they (your subscribers or readers) will be automatically alerted and shown your new entry. This is what I did with my Plan G book. For someone to subscribe they need what is called a feed reader. A “feed reader” is a piece of software that lets people subscribe to different web pages etc. and see the updates. Sound confusing? Well no worries, you already use readers and probably don’t even know it. Yahoo, Google, msn and everyone else and their mother have included feed readers in their personal versions. I use iGoogle but yahoo has my yahoo and msn has my msn. For instance, on my iGoogle page, any blog I subscribe to is summarized there. For instance, I am subscribed to a Vancouver blog about Vancouver BC. Whenever the author of that blog makes a new entry the title of that entry shows up on my iGoogle page. This way I don’t have to go and check the Vancouver blog everyday to see if they have made a new entry. Feeds can also email you the latest post from your favorite blogs.

Setting up a feed
Ok, this all sound every cool, but how to do it? Is it complicated to make it so people can subscribe to your blog? No it’s not. Why, because there is a new service that Google also just bought called Feed Burner. Via feed burner you can easily make it so people can subscribe to your blog via email and or their feed reader. Just go to feedburner.com and enter the address of your blog and just follow the instructions. They take you though the process step by step and teach you all about the whole feed system in the process. Since feed burner and blogger.com are both part of Google. You can add subscription services to your blog at the touch of a button. It’s all integrated together and it makes doing this very powerful thing as easy as pie. To watch a video tutorial on feeds go here.

Making money with your blog!
Once you’ve added subscription services to your blog, you can learn how to make money with it by checking out Yaro Starak’s site entrepreneurs-journey.com. Yaro makes a lot of money blogging and he’s a really nice guy. I could go into detail but he’s already done it so just check out his site for info on making money with your blog. But to sum it up, you can make money with advertising, an online store, affiliate marketing, referral links or just take donations. Also check out propblogger.com which has all kinds of cool tips on how to make money with your blog too.

Promoting your blog
Ok, we are almost done. Now you have a blog, you have added subscription services so people can subscribe to your blog and you have added a way to make money from your blog. Now there is just one more thing and that is how to promote your blog so people can find out about it. One way to help people find your blog is to sign up for what are called book marking sites.

Bookmarking sites
Ok, book marking sites are easy to understand. Someone got the idea that it would be cool if everyone could share their favorite sites or book marks and so bookmarking sites were born. So your blog needs to be one of those sites that people bookmark. The way you start this process is to sign up for the top ten bookmarking sites. (there are tons of them but we want to focus on the most popular) One of the most popular is digg.com there is also stumbleupon.com. Sign up and then make your blog your first entry, write a rave review, give it five stars etc. and what this does is get you in their site database. I have heard that all it takes is 2 votes to get a site to start to rise up the popularity ladder. If you do this on all the bookmarking sites your blog will start having hits immediately. With hits you will get subscribers. There is a service called OnlyWire.com that will automatically post all of your blog entries to the top 30 bookmaking sites for you.

Successful examples
Some great examples of blogs: one of the most popular blogs out there, as in top 100, is Zenhabits.net, study it to see what a good blog can be. Also check out Stacy Parks of Film Specific, she is a film sales agent. Every day I get an entry from her about film distribution. She might be at a festival or conference and she will drop in telling us all about what she has learned that day and how it can help us. Her entries are not formal at all but after a while you start to feel that you are a part of her journey. If I ever did have a film to distribute, who do you think I would call? Also check out independent foreign news correspondent Michael J Trotten of michaeltotten.com. Michael is a freelance journalist who lives entirely from the donations and ad revenue from his blog.

So that’s it. Please let me know how your doing. Blogging is a great way to start sharing your gifts. The more we share our gifts with each other, the better the world will be.

Dream Warrior

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