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Part 2, Book Review: 3 Memorable Themes from Hugh MacLeod’s Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear

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Note: Part 1 of this two-part series can be found in Part 1: 10 Reasons Why Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear.  That post describes what blogging means to me.

I finished reading Hugh MacLeod's latest book, Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear.  It's his love letter to blogging describing how this influential medium changed the trajectory of his personal and professional life.

Highlighting a few key quotes:

"My blog gave me everything."

"My blog gave me my freedom."

I subscribe to Hugh's blog, gapingvoid.com, which is how I learned the book was released this past week.  Here's his video describing why he wrote the book:

 

I Love This Book.  I'm also going to order Hugh's previous books, Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity and Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination.  That's how much I enjoy studying his work.

Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear is filled with Hugh's motivational, irreverent,and rebellious point-of-view.  It's his call-to-arms "to create stuff" by using the Internet to transform and reinvent our personal and professional lives.  Because of the Internet, laptops, and broadband access, he reminds us we live in a world where "cheap, easy global media is here to stay."

The Book's Governing Question.  So, why not use this global phenomenon to our advantage?  It's the book's governing question linking personal and professional reinvention to blogging:

"So in my typical way, I'll ask you, are you a beacon?  If not, don't you think you should be."

So without further delay, here are the Three (3) Themes I enjoyed most from Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear.

 

1.  "Crofting" Is the New World of Work 

A Croft Is a Smallholding.  It's our digital identity (direct quote):

"Thanks to the Internet, we all have a little electronic "croft" — an electronic smallholding — to call our own: what is commonly referred to as our own digital identity, which we can cultivate, like a small farm, however we see fit."

It's Why Blogging Matters (More Than Ever).  It's why YOUR personal blog matters.  It's why YOUR personal blog can drive and enable career reinvention.  It's why maintaining a separate digital identity beyond your current job description extends your personal brand (take note if you work for a corporation). 

It's individual opportunity.

2.  Bring New Light to What Life Might Be

Our Individual Points-of-View ARE the New Light.  And, that fundamental theme cuts through all the typical how-to advice on developing a credible blog (i.e., post length, number of internal links versus external links, starting with a question, ending with a question, etc.).  

There's nothing wrong with being influenced and informed by:

But, trying to be a carbon copy or an imitator highlights how you're a pretender.  Those folks acheived their blogosphere status by bringing (and continuing to bring) new light. 

Our blogs can bring new light to what life might be by:

  • Writing about what individually moves us (what makes us want to write at 5 AM)
  • Recognizing there's room for all of us to cultivate and lead our own tribes
  • Having the courage to initiate and participate in digital conversations (blogging, commenting, tweeting, sharing, etc.)

Blogging Is a Conscious Choice.  You can't be a player unless in you're in the game. Hugh says it best on page 54:

"Not everybody believes this.  Not everybody acts on this.  That's fine; it's their life, their choice.  However, if you DO have that capacity within yourself and you DON'T act upon it, then everything around turns to desert."

 
3. The Internet Eats the "Ignorance Premium" for Breakfast

If You Can Google It, You Can Find It.  There's so much published online that we can use to our competitive advantage (both personally and professionally).  Hugh describes this concept as the end of The Ignorance Premium (direct quotes from pages 66 and 67):

"The Internet makes it harder for us to know more than the other guy."

"The Internet erodes the "Ignorance Premium."

"Because knowledge is now so much easier to share with the Internet, you're in trouble if the only reason you can make a living is because somebeody is too lazy to easily find out what you know with just a quick click of a mouse."

Our Opportunity With Blogging Is Promoting Our Individual "Intelligence Premium."  The Internet and blogging makes it easier than ever to self-publish "what you know."  Google makes it easier than ever for someone to find you.  That sounds like opportunity to me.

Why not turn this unique opportunity into a career advantage? 

My Take on The Internet's Ignorance Premium: Make Your Blog Your Intelligence Premium.  A personal blog demonstrates your individual, "Intelligence Premium" (e.g., what you bring to the table) by showcasing:

  • Your knowledge about a particular subject or industry
  • Your creativity in storytelling through multiple media (i.e., text, audio, images, video, etc.)
  • Your personal narrative about what makes you different
  • Your understanding of digital media's role in marketing, branding, and public relations strategy

Then, Why Don't More People Self-Publish a Blog?   Here are four reasons:

  1. Because it's hard (creating is not easy — at least, not for me)
  2. Because it's a long-term commitment
  3. Because building an audience and a credible reputation is a slow process (it's what Mitch Joel refers to as "in praise of slow")
  4. Because it requires putting yourself out there

Concluding Thoughts

It's Time To Find Our Freedom.  Those (4) aforementioned reasons are why blogging is more important than ever.  They're why blogging represents individual opportunity. 

That's the freedom blogging brings.  Whether we do it in our underwear (or while wearing something else).

It's a freedom Hugh summarizes better than I can:

"The Freedom to be who were born to be — the artist within us all."

 

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.   

 

Link to Photo Credit via Hugh MacLeod

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Part 1: 10 Reasons on Why Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear

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Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear 1
Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear When You …

1. Can't Wait to Wake Up at 5 AM to Write.  It's your moment of zen.  It's your time to express what you love, hate, makes you laugh, admire, respect, wish you could be, and continue striving to become.  It's SACRED TIME. 

2. Know You're Steering the Ship.  Sitting behind a keyboard means complete control.  The published words on your personal blog are yours (not somebody else's spin).  No watered-down mess requiring  corporate approval or a committee's sign-off.  

3. Pick Yourself.  You didn't seek the approval of Random House or another member of the New York City publishing dynasty.  You write. You publish. You promote.  The daily, weekly, and monthly results are there to measure and interpret.  And, the immediate audience feedback (or lack thereof) is a constant lesson in humility.

4. Press "Publish" Even When You Fear Your Content Sucks.  Blogging teaches you how to address and deal with personal fear.  Notice, I didn't say overcome it.  The "F" in Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear stands for "Fear."  

Rejection looms close by when you're a blogger.  But, so does opportunity.

You learn over time that subscribers and readers who believe in your art stick with you. These audience members who vote with their precious time know you won't hit a home run with every-at-bat. 

But, they expect you to consistently publish. Your subscribers expect you to show up. That's part of the deal.  That's part of the mutual bond.

It's why I can't wait to repeat Reason #1 for as long as I humanly can.

5. Want To Hug Your Blog Subscribers (But, Not Necessarily in My Underwear, Or Theirs).  The Social Media ReInvention Blog Community and subscriber base continues growing.  I want to hug you and thank you for teaching and reinforcing how trust is earned one-person-at-a-time.  

You've sent me emails with praise (especially at times when I really needed it), tweeted my posts on Twitter, "liked" them on Facebook, shared them on LinkedIn, and linked my posts to your respective blogs.  It means so much to me — Thank You From the Bottom of My Heart!

6. Can Continuously Iterate and Experiment.  21st century self-publishing means everything is "a working draft."  You can keep shaping, condensing, adding, or deleting. It's taken me three years to realize perfection is not the goal.  

It's about continuously building, measuring, and learning with a minimal viable product (MVP).  It's about permanent beta.  Even though you don't live in Silicon Valley, you can practice the principles of the Reid Hoffman's, the Ben Casnocha's, the Mark Zuckerberg's, the Amazon's, and the Google's.  It's not life or death (although it feels like it at times — see Reason #4).  

That's an invaluable life lesson.

7. Trust Yourself to Write With Your Heart (Versus Type With Your Brain). Writing doesn't come naturally to me.  I work at it every day (which I was I love it).  I'm still learning when/how to write and structure my position in traditional, MBA-analysis mode (and when to just let'er rip and flow).  

This is what the blogging community refers to as "finding your voice."  I'm still searching. And, this self-discovery journey is empowering. 

8. Realize There Are No Rules — There Are Only Guidelines.  Great blog posts can be less than 140 characters or as long as 4,000+ words.  You can use text, audio, video, and images (or a combination of all four).  What makes a blog post great is in the eye of the beholder.  It's art.  Coloring outside-the-lines is encouraged.

9. Love Something So Much You Do It for Free (Sort of).  I receive zero financial compensation for blogging.  But, I consider blogging a valuable and significant time investment  

It's not about getting paid.  It's the joy and challenge of telling a story.  It's about sharing.  It's about saying thank you. It's about reminding yourself why you love it so much even on the days when you're struggling personally and/or professionally.  It's about Reasons #1 through Reasons #10.

10. See and Embrace The Like-Minded.  Google the phrase "blogging is dead" (without the quotation marks).  You'll receive close to 57 million search results.  

When I see that number and the different search headlines, here's what I see:

* I see opportunity.  

* I see people who give didn't give up on their blogging / writing in the first six or seven months of launch.  

* I see people who voraciously read books, periodicals, blog posts, newsletters, and all content in-between to learn ideas and insights they can deliver to and share with their subscribers.  

* I see people who acknowledge this is a difficult and long-term endeavor.

* I see people proudly displaying, reading, and investing in this book:

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Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.    

Link to Photo Credit by Hugh Macleod