Before I started writing this blog I wondered, “Who the hell would even want to read this?”  Most blogs are essentially just opinion forums – and some, maybe many, are even seemingly shameless efforts of self-promotion.  Does the world really need another blog and another opinion screaming out, “Listen to me…for God’s sake!”  Well, clearly my verdict is in, for better or for worse.  But with this concern in mind, I promised myself that I’d try to keep my blog entries real, relevant and fitting for potential readers.  So I’m continually trying to evaluate what might add the greatest value.  What would I want to read if I were you reading this blog?  The answer isn’t simple, but there are some guidelines I’m reminded that I should follow, which brings me back to the header for this post:

Someone famous (for the life of me, I can’t remember who, although I’m leaning toward Abe Lincoln) once said that it takes much more effort to say something with less words than it does to say the same thing with more words.  I think that’s true.  Sometimes we seem to struggle with so many words just to say even the simplest of things.  Yet we live in an increasingly busier, broader and shorter-attention span world.  Especially in business, we tend to want everything in bullets.  Marketers and customers often tend to want things summed up in a single tag-line or catch-phrase.  Now, while I think we often miss incredibly profound and beautiful elements in the details we sometimes overlook, I believe there’s a lot of value in heeding the notion of saying what you mean and doing so succinctly.  The more you work to clearly and briefly articulate what you hope to convey to others – friends, strangers, customers, or anyone – the less they’ll have to work to hear and understand you.  The more readily they understand you, the greater your chances that they’ll empathize and that your communications will be effective, influential, and lasting.

I’ll try to follow my own advice moving forward.