Please note: Today’s post includes a little about my 18-month battle with blindness.
Have you ever noticed someone making an obvious mistake, then realised YOU were making the same mistake?
Well, it just happened to me. Ouch!
Here’s what happened, along with a second mistake I’ve been making, which is why you don’t know I’ve been battling blindness for 18-months.
How I spotted my first mistake
I was watching a Youtube video. Well, I tried to. That’s to say, I needed to fast-forward almost 6 minutes, before the speaker started to talk. The video was a conference keynote. And it followed an all-too common path.
- It started with a guy walking on stage.
- The guy then introduced a woman, whose job was to introduce the speaker.
- The woman walked on stage.
- She thanked the guy who introduced her.
- She then introduced the speaker.
- Finally, the speaker was rolled out and started their talk.
Those first 2 people weren’t pitching anything. They didn’t have anything to say. They were there simply because they wanted to be on stage. This was especially the case with the second presenter, whose introduction was actually longer than the introduction she gave the keynote speaker. Her job title suggested she was senior enough in their organisation, to make it happen.
Here’s the thing: People who attend a keynote are there to watch or listen to the keynote speaker. Literally no one is interested in the person who presents the speaker or the person who presents the person who presents the speaker. A brief introduction to the speaker is all that was required. The 6 minutes of nonsense before the keynote was indulgent, selfish and unnecessary.
So, how did I make the same mistake?
Just as I was considering how self-indulgent the nonsense was before that keynote, I realised I do the same. Right here on Jim’s Marketing Blog. Here’s how my self-indulgence manifests:
- There are posts I publish, because I’m motivated to share something I think you’ll find useful. That’s as it should be.
- However, there are also posts I publish, because it’s been a few days since I published anything. Often, the value of these posts is less than you deserve.
I only realised the drop in quality of those ‘better publish something’ posts, after spending a whole day, reflecting on the blog. (I spent all of yesterday, trying to find ways to make it more useful to you in 2019).
I then identified something else, that’s been missing from my work for a very long time.
My second (and bigger) mistake
Over the past 3 or 4 years, my posts have become less personal. I use almost none of my own images or photos any more (unlike today). I use very few of my own stories. I share very few of the resources I find useful; books, videos, articles, podcasts, etc. So, the blog has become too sterile / synthetic.
This realisation came when I suddenly remembered that I haven’t mentioned, even once, a huge part of my life since June 2017.
Unless you follow me on Twitter or know me, you’ll have no idea that I’ve spent almost 18-months battling diabetes-related blindness. Actually, you won’t even know I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in May 2016. I didn’t mention that, either.
I’ve had multiple surgeries. Initially, the diagnosis was bad. Very bad. But after reversing my diabetes (my blood is perfectly normal now and I take no medication), the vision has responded well. On Christmas Eve, I had my latest eye scans done and was told my eyes are now self-healing, no additional damage is likely to occur and I should be fine.
It was a great Christmas present. Blindness is no longer on the horizon.
My point is that I regularly mention this on Twitter. But it never occurred to me that readers may want to know. And all because I allowed the blog to become too impersonal.
Moving forward, I’m going to work hard on improving those 2 areas. You’ll no longer hear from me just because ‘it’s been a while’ and when you do, I promise to make it a lot more human.
If you’ve read this far, thank you. I’ll do better in 2019!