One year ago, I started listening to podcasts. I found Seth Godin‘s weekly offering, Akimbo, and it was a life-changer.
Seth’s podcast opened my perspective and I had a moment of truth about my life. I was measuring my success with the wrong metrics. As an early adopter of social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, I had embraced the notion that the quality of my effort was evaluated by the quantity of content and the number of engagements they received.
Rather than setting my own pace, tempo and direction, I felt as if I was in a perpetual state of losing. I was always chasing. To put it in sports terms: I was playing someone else’s game rather than playing my own.
At the time, the podcasts I was listening to were all about how I could up my social media game. The solution seemed to always be about spending more time on social media platforms. However, as an elected official, spending more time on social media is never a good idea. Frankly, my job is not to placate the outrage machines of Twitter or Facebook.
When I came to realize that the metrics were a less valuable measure of my actual reach into the community and a more accurate reflection of the amount of time and energy I invested in the platforms, I was immediately relieved from caring any longer. Instead, I spent my time doing more valuable work.
No doubt I still use social media. It is likely that you found this blog post by clicking on a link on my Facebook page. Rather than slogging through the endless comments, getting whipped into a frenzy, I have developed an arms-length relationship with them. They are distribution tools rather than centres of engagement.
Instead, I have focussed on creating more long form content. This post is just a couple removed from one full year of daily blogging. My weekly Public Circle LIVE! Facebook show has evolved into a podcast featuring conversations with constituents and, more recently, a series with my brother-in-law Nick Gilchrist. Recently, I have been preparing and scheduling posts featuring the content I have produced over the past year. It’s a bit of a celebration and also a way to provide a little breather.
One year later it’s incredible to see the steadily growing numbers of people that are finding my blog. All without much push at all. Just by the discipline of doing something that matters everyday.
Seth invited me to flip my perspective. He challenged me to produce work for the smallest possible audience, produce content that matters and commit to improving over time. I’m thankful I found his podcast and accepted his invitation.
If you have been following along from the start of my daily blogging, December 9, 2018, thank you!
P.S. While I do not spend much time responding to social media posts and tags, I encourage you to leave a comment below or send me an email if you would like to contact me to bring an issue or opportunity to my attention.
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