I’m a big fan of motivational quotes because these are always words filled with something worth hearing. Hey, that’s why they get quoted in the first place, right? Someone, somewhere, at some time, has said something with an important message – and in a way that really resonates with lots of people. Those snippets of words get repeated for a reason. They matter. They have the ability to have an impact.

One other thing I like to do on this blog is to put out creative challenges once in a while. That’s what today’s post is – a creative challenge to each of you. I challenge you to read the two motivational quotes at the bottom of this page, think about them, meditate on them if necessary, and then act upon them.

What you do; what actions you take based upon those quotes is entirely up to you. If you decide to share the action you take with us here, that’s wonderful. If you decide to keep it private, that’s fine too. But I challenge you to take the time to stop the hectic pace of your day today, and do something different. Take the time to think about the words that appeared in the motivational section for you. Remember that they are random, so the two quotes you see will be different than the two someone else sees. If you were to refresh this page, you’d randomly be shown two other quotes. So, yes, you can refresh the page if you’d like, but I think it would be preferable to just use the two that chance has thrown at you right now.

If you’ve been putting something off; if you’ve been hesitating on starting something or creating something or even ending something; consider letting the motivational quotes resonate within you. Consider taking action. Let the motivation inspire you to take a step. Maybe it will be a different step than the one you’ve been considering. Maybe the step is one that seems to even go backwards rather than forwards. I don’t know. You’ll know. Read. Think. Act. That’s my challenge to you today.

UPDATE: By the way, you’ll only see the quotes if you’re reading this post here on my site, and not through your RSS feed reader. I forgot to mention that earlier, sorry for any confusion I caused.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Motivation

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So my first question to you today is this: Is your site easy on the eyes?

My second question: Are you sure?

My creative exercise for you today is to come up with your own top 10 list of the most beautiful site designs.* These lists are popular, and you may even choose some favorite designs from these lists if you like. In any case, once you choose your top 10, make small (400-500 pixels in width) screenshots of each. Now, make a screenshot of your own site. Look at all the screenshots side-by-side and answer the above questions again.

Pay attention to the symmetry, balance and harmony of your chosen designs’ layouts, graphics, and color schemes. Then judge your own site based on those same criteria. Remember that a site can be simple and minimalistic and still be easy on the eyes.

This is your own judgement call, but if you can tweak your design even slightly to appeal to more users, you may find that you retain more users or increase conversions. There are other considerations of course, such as usability and focus, but this is just one small step that can be taken. I encourage you to take it today.

* A few “most beautiful” lists others have created in the past to get you started:

40 most beautiful and inspirational website designs of 2008

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: beautiful site, beautiful Web site designs, but I know what looks good, designer, HTML

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So what is your personality? Rather than describing it in words, try finding a picture, either photo or graphic, abstract or realistic, that represents your personality. Once you find that picture, display it on your computer desktop as wallpaper or print it out and place it on your desk or workspace.

Now think about it for a while. Imagine your business as represented by that picture.

• What do you imagine when you view your business that way?
• Is there a different picture that you wish would represent your business?
• Is it possible that your wish picture could also represent your own personality?
• Why or why not?

These are just some ideas to get you thinking about your own personality and how that affects the “personality” of your business. Play with the idea for a while and see what emerges.

Want to see the picture that I think represents my own personality? Here it is.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: business owner

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How many times a day do you think negative thoughts? How many times a day do you gripe or moan about how bad things are? How often do you make remarks that make people wish they were somewhere else rather than there listening to you? How many of you think you are an extremely upbeat, positive person, so those questions surely don’t apply to you?

Contestants on reality TV shows have cameras and microphones surrounding them 24 hours a day. It’s highly unlikely the rest of us would ever be in that situation, but we could choose to use a digital voice recorder to record what we say all day long. I think it would be a fascinating experiment for each of us to try.

These days, digital voice recorders have the ability to know when to record and when to stop recording, so they skip silent moments. How interesting would it be to place one on your desk at the office, or on the coffee table at home, where it could record your conversations during the day? It would be nice if technology was advanced enough to also record our thoughts, because no doubt they can be even more revealing, but obviously that’s not going to happen any time soon. Still, the words we speak aloud can be extremely revealing…if only we could hear them played back to us. Trust me, other people have already categorized you based upon the things they’ve heard you say, and it’s very likely you’d be surprised at the categories they’ve placed you into. If you were to sit back one day, and objectively play back the various bits of conversation you’ve had, you might be surprised at what you hear.

I doubt many of you will actually go through the trouble of trying this experiment, but if any of you are brave enough to do it, I’d love to hear how it turned out for you. When you played back the recording:

Did you recognize yourself?

If you didn’t know it was you speaking, how would you categorize the person, based on the words spoken during the day?

I believe many people fail because they think they will fail. I believe many people set themselves up for failure by doubting themselves, and by constantly being negative. And I believe that most of those people have no idea just how negative they really are. If they knew…really “saw” themselves…would they change? Could they? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do think that knowledge is powerful, and that with knowledge, we can at least try to change.

So how many of you would be willing to undertake this little experiment? Anyone? If you do, please share your thoughts and discoveries in the comments below.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conversations, failure, positive thinking, Reality television, recording life, success

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Everyone experiences writers’ block, so I wanted to play with ideas for ways to circumvent the problem. This was the first experiment I tried, and it worked really well for me. (I hope you enjoyed the posts as well).

Just seeing a photo caused all sorts of ideas to pop into my head, and not once did I have to worry about writers’ block taking hold. So now you know how this week’s posts were conceived. I’d love to see all of you try this method, or any other creative means of inspiration, and let me know the results. No doubt I’ll use this or a similar method the next time writers’ block invades my space.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Every day this week, I’ll be posting based upon a random Flickr image that inspires me. Here’s one now.

Today is the final day of my random Flickr inspirational posts, and I will sum up the experience this weekend. Until then, I’d like to explain what this photo of a wind farm brings to mind for me.

I’ve always been amazed at the idea of “capturing” something as ethereal as the wind, and then creating something as powerful as electrical energy from it. Not only do I find the concept astonishing, but I can’t help but wonder who first had the idea of harnessing the wind’s power and turning that into electricity. I mean, who would come up with such a thought? Did it just pop into someone’s mind one day…randomly? Did it come to someone in a dream?

How do ideas form? Where do they come from? What processes are at work that create the thoughts we have?

Those are questions I’ll never be able to answer, but I’m not really looking for the answers. What I’m looking to do is to point out the amazing, incredible, wondrous things that can happen when we allow ourselves to get creative with our thoughts. Perhaps you and I will never create the next energy source, or find a cure for cancer, but you and I both have the ability to create.

What we create is up to us. How we take our thoughts and ideas, and apply those to our ebusinesses is also up to us. Each of us has the gift of thought that is unique. The creativity that comes from our thoughts and ideas can transform someone else’s life. Whatever you create, whatever you share, could be instrumental in affecting someone’s life in a positive way. Our thoughts and ideas are ethereal. I don’t know where they come from. But we capture them every day, and like the wind turbines in this photo, we can turn those ethereal thoughts and ideas into something amazing.

Let those creative thoughts flow.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cancer, electrical energy, electricity, energy source

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Every day this week, I’ll be posting based upon a random Flickr image that inspires me. Here’s one now.

I love this photo because it’s reflective in nature. It requires one to look at it and reflect upon it, rather than merely appreciating it for its beauty. The message you receive from it is very likely different than the one I receive from it, but that’s what makes great art. The message that speaks to me is that life is a series of snapshot frames. Normally, we don’t notice all of the intricate twists and turns and nuances that speed by as we live our lives. But sometimes, if we stop for a moment to reflect upon our lives, we can catch a quick glimpse of the details we missed, and each detail is like a framed moment, captured at that instant.

Reflecting upon our personal lives holds real value, but that same type of reflection in your work life can as well. My work days are filled with multi-tasking and speed. I know I only have so many hours in a day to get tasks done, so I try to get as much accomplished as possible. Some days, I have to force myself to stop for a while, and just think. At those moments, I take a walk, pace a little, gaze out the window, or just stare at nothing for a while. That’s when I can focus on the details within the frames and see the things I missed. Sometimes, those things are just little details that I forgot to do. Other times, the things I missed were “big picture” things that make me want to slap myself on the forehead, and say “Duh!”

I encourage you to stop occasionally, take a walk, gaze at nothing, and reflect upon the detailed snapshot frames that you missed amongst your hurried life. You might be surprised at the insights you find there.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: details, focus, inspiration, Life, photos, reflections

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Online success will almost always be more easily achieved if you master the art of the explanation. Whether you are selling information or selling toothpicks online, explanations are very often a necessary part of the informational flow. If you can help someone understand something, in simple, clear terms, without making that person feel demeaned, you will have gained a happy reader, user, or client. You will have established your authority of the subject and proven that you care enough about others to share your knowledge with them. In return, you will gain a loyal following, and very likely, increased income.

So, what is the art of the explanation? Explanations need to be easy to understand, clear and precise. Although I highly recommend using pictures when appropriate, I suggest you practice the art of explaining by only using words at first. This will force to you learn how to vividly describe a process so that the reader can “see” it, even without pictures.

My challenge to you is to practice the art of explaining by describing the process of something you’ve done recently in as clear and simple a manner as you can. If you are explaining the process of changing the oil in your car, list the tools needed and the steps required to go from start to finish. Try to imagine someone who knows nothing about the workings of a car is reading your explanation. Will they get it? Could they take your instructions and successfully change the oil?

Test it and see. Give your explanation to a few different people. Ask them if they understand it. Find out what is confusing to them. Use that information to make the explanation even simpler and more understandable. This process of taking just one activity, breaking it down into clear, simple steps, and then refining it from user input will go a long way in teaching you the art of the explanation.

Take the knowledge you gain from this exercise, and apply it to some process related to your site’s topic. Sell kitchen faucets? Explain how to replace an old faucet with one of your new hi-tech ones. Blog about horses? Explain how to muck a stall or groom a horse. (Hopefully, I used appropriate terminology there. I know nothing about horses. Care to explain it to me? )

Once you have content that clearly explains a concept or activity on your site, there is a very good chance that you can easily gain traffic to that content. Let interested people know about the explanations you provide via social networks, forums, etc., and you could quickly find your site gaining traffic, links, and search engine rankings. But it all starts with great content, and in the case of the “how-to”, the art of the explanation. Get that right, and everything else follows.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: explanation, how-to, oil, Online success, search engine, search engine rankings, social networks, tutorial

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Part of the procrastination process is fear. We are afraid to try something new. We are fearful that what we attempt to create will be inadequate. I say, SO WHAT? Do it anyway. Start writing an eBook today just for the experience. It doesn’t have to be top-quality. You don’t ever have to show it to anyone else. Think of this as simply a trial run.

This exercise will simply help you learn the mechanics of the process, the intricacies of the tools, and the nuances of the medium. Pick a topic you are familiar with – even something as simple as How To Bathe A Dog. Now, download the tools you need if you haven’t already, and begin the creation process!

Ready, set, go!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ebooks, practice

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