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How to become an Influencer

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Are you an influencer? You may be one without realizing it among your circle of friends or you may be trying to become one in your professional life.

What does it take to become an influencer?

  • A different way of thinking and expressing yourself
  • Adapting to things early on
  • Embracing all forms of culture
  • Creating new ideas
  • Inventing new things
  • Recognizing what the next thing is
  • Taking an idea, a brand, a concept into mainstream consciousness


INFLUENCERS TRAILER from R+I creative on Vimeo.
A video on influencers in the entertainment and fashion world, but this information relates to all aspects of becoming an influencer.

Here is your opportunity to become an influencer.

As you may know I’m a huge fan of Chris Guillebeau, an influencer I admire. Here is a chance for you to become an influencer with a huge following, through sharing your story. Chris is looking for case studies of people who started a business after being fired, laid off, deciding to quit a conventional job, or some other major life change. The more unconventional or interesting the story, the better. Your success story might be selected in Chris Guillebeau’s next book which is to be published by Random House.

So if you, or someone you know, wishes to have a chance at getting their success story published in the AONC book sequel, please take a look at this.


Do you consider yourself an influencer? If so, in what way? At home, at work, at the gym, as a mom, a dad, a mentor, a blogger?


How to make a "someday" dream into reality. Chris Guillebeau talks in LA.

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Last Friday evening, one of my recent dreams became a reality: I met Chris Guillebeau. I arrived early and parked myself in a plastic chair, second to front row seat, inside a fun and funky bookstore called, Book Soup, in West Hollyood.
Bursting at the seams, a crowd of enthusiastic fans of all ages, including a young boy, (you can view photos taken by Dyana Valentine,) came to listen to him speak. There is a photo of Chris talking to me in the middle of all the pictures. You can’t miss my bright red sweater.
Chris talked about: how to live a remarkable life in a conventional world. He believes the two most important questions we need to ask ourselves are:
1). What do you really want to get out of life?
2). What can you offer the world that no one else can?
He mentioned a common theme that crops up when people e-mail him about taking action for something they want to do, or to change in their lives.“I worry I’m too late.”
Chris replies, “The best time to start was probably last year, but failing that, today will do.”
Unfortunately, I did not hook up with Jodi Sagorin, whom I wrote about last week.
I have many “someday” dreams that I plan to make into reality.  
What about you?
What dreams do you wish to make into reality?

Do you believe in setting goals for yourself?

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Marathon Runners
“Whenever you take a step forward, you are bound to disturb something.” INDIRA GANDHI

December is a busy month with added pressures. It is also a time to reflect on what you’ve accomplished during the past year and your goals for the upcoming year. I have come across two interesting theories why it’s important to set goals, and why it really doesn’t matter. You decide.
1. Why you should set goals in your life.
Are you already disciplined and organized? Do you follow a set of goals like the ones below?
  • One-Year Goals: You review your list a few times a year, and have specific categories like fitness, writing, income, travel, family, etc.
  • Five-Year Goals: The “big things” you hope to accomplish, and review once a year.
  • Lifetime Goals: Your bucket list, everything you want to accomplish in your life. You also review this once a year. What memories do you want to have when it’s your time to say “goodbye?” What would you regret not accomplishing?
Chris Guillebeau admits that people who seem to get a lot accomplished, like he does, are not super disciplined but have been able to “create a structure around work” that allows for improvisation. Chris, my new hero, says he takes goals seriously and does work hard, but this is usually a result of him building a good structure to begin with.
2. Why you should not set goals in your life.
On the other hand, Leo Babauta, the author of the popular blog ZenHabits, takes a different approach. He completely changed his life a couple of years ago. At first he focused on goals. He was overweight, a smoker, sedentary, completely stressed and deeply in debt. Goals helped him change his life around and he was then able to run several marathons, get out of debt and start a very successful blog ZenHabits. Now Leo says, “I’ve pretty much given up on goals, though I’m still learning how that works.”
Listening to Leo Babauta talk on FitMarriage I was struck by his statement regarding letting go of goals, and getting away from goal setting. For example, instead of saying, “I shall lose twenty pounds,” Leo recommends focusing on the enjoyment right now, rather than on your future goal. “When you do it that way,” Leo says, “You’re not fixated on where it will get you.” He believes in starting as small as possible, even with exercise. Just five minutes, don’t think one hour.
Leo says, “We give (goals) a lot of credit for our accomplishments, but they didn’t do the work. They might have given us a direction, but in the end, the work is done on a daily basis.”
As Leo points out, “Even with goals, some people aren’t going to achieve anything, because they haven’t figured out how to motivate themselves. Goals don’t do that for you — they just make you feel guilty that you haven’t gotten them done.”
So my advice is to follow what Indira Ghandi said, take a step forward, preferably a Gutsy one. After all, who wants to stand in one place?
Are you a goal setter? If so what’s your style? Any tips are welcome to help us get moving.

Do you belong?

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Do you feel more secure when you belong to a group or a community?

Well, you’re not alone. Right from birth, children of every race, color, creed and background go through the same developmental stages, one of them being: establishing a personal sense of identity.

As we grow up we try to identify and discover the following:

  • Who am I?
  • What makes me me?
  • Where do I fit in my family and group?

Indeed, some of us spend a lifetime working on those discoveries.

Whether it’s your community, your neighborhood, your church, or perhaps your culture, most of us like the security we get from belonging to a group.

So what happens to those of us who feel like we don’t belong? Those who are minorities, or a mixture of different cultures, or who have been raised in many different countries, and call themselves TCK (Third Culture Kids.) Where do we fit in?


Well fortunately, there are groups for us too.

The one that caught my eye recently is called, “The Art of Non-Conformity,” and was created by a remarkable man named Chris Guillebeau. He blogs about unconventional strategies for life, work and travel.

Chris Guillebeau is a writer, entrepreneur and world traveler. He started the movement, The Art of Non-Conformity based on the principle that, “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” One of his goals is to visit each country in the world, (192) by the time he’s 35. So far he’s visited 151 and he’s 32.5 years old. He is an honest, kind and down-to-earth, type of guy, who is passionate about the movement he has started.

If you’re a writer, a world traveler, or simply a person who feels different in their outlook on life, and needs a place to belong, you might want to watch the interview with Chris Guillebeau on David Garlands’s Risetothetop. 

Talk about a creative person, Chris Guillebeau has launched his own book tour around the fifty states in the U.S. called the: “Unconventional Book Tour.”

Unlike traditional book tours, Chris talks about his book for only seven minutes at each stop, then lets the audience talk about whatever they want. Since he’s a world traveler, most of the time conversations range from Frequent Flyer Miles to business startups to blogging… and a range of other things. If you’re a writer you may want to get ideas from his own success. Chris believes, “Publishers (and some authors) think that book tours are no longer practical. I think it’s because they’re doing it wrong, and I’m setting out to prove my case.”

Thanks for reading and for your all your comments. Please comment on whatever sparks your interest.

I’d love to get more readers, so if you like my posts, please return the favor by using the icons below. I don’t want to be tacky, only Gutsy so I’m following in the footsteps of another one of my female role models, Annabel Candy in Australia. I subscribe to her awesome blog: GetintheHotSpot, Annabel Candy.

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