Fear

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This is an excerpt from What Matters Now — Fear, by Anne Jackson.

Have you ever wondered who’s behind that little voice in your head that tells you, "you’re in this by yourself, one person doesn’t make a difference, so why even try?"

His name is Fear. Fear plays the role of antagonist in the story of your life. You must rid yourself of him using all necessary means.

We’re often impressed by those who appear to be fearless. The people who fly to the moon. Chase tornadoes. Enter dangerous war zones. Skydive. Speak in front of thousands of people. Stand up to cancer. Raise money and adopt a child that isn’t their flesh and blood.

So, why are we so inspired by them?

Because deep down, we are them.

We all share the same characteristics.

We’re all divinely human.

Until Fear is gone, (and realize he may never completely leave) make the decision to be courageous. The world needs your story in order to be complete.

Anne Jackson blogs, tweets, and writes books. Her most recent work, Permission To Speak Freely: Essays and Art on Fear, Confession and Grace will be available in August.

Generosity

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When the economy tanks, it’s natural to think of yourself first. You have a family to feed a mortgage to pay. Getting more appears to be the order of business.

It turns out that the connected economy doesn’t respect this natural instinct. Instead, we’re rewarded for being generous. Generous with our time and money but most important generous with our art.

If you make a difference, people will gravitate to you. They want to engage, to interact and to get you more involved.

In a digital world, the gift I give you almost always benefits me more than it costs.

If you make a difference, you also make a connection. You interact with people who want to be interacted with and you make changes that people respect and yearn for.

Art can’t happen without someone who seeks to make a difference. This is your art, it’s what you do. You touch people or projects and change them for the better.

This year, you’ll certainly find that the more you give the more you get.

Seth Godin is a blogger and speaker. His new book Linchpin comes [came] out in January.

Drip, drip, drip

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Drip drip content consumption

How do you consume content? Do you sit down for a couple hours and read a good book? Or do you find yourself reading blogs, articles, tweets, and more all day long, with the occasional escape to claw through a couple chapters?

If you're like many people today, you take in content in increasingly small chunks. And our scarce amount of attention is exacerbated by an unprecedented amount of information available in the world today (there is even an academic field of study for this phenomenon). So we take things one drip at a time...drip...drip...drip.

Why the What Matters Now blog

I find myself in the middle of this drip drip drip culture. I'd love to curl up with a good book, but that rarely happens.

So when What Matters Now came out in December 2009, I found myself intimidated by the fire hose of powerful ideas packed within.

It sat on my desk for several months. Until I realized - it's just in the wrong format for people like me! I don't want a book sitting on my desk, or a PDF on my desktop - I needed What Matters Now in a bite-sized format. A blog format.

So this is what the What Matters Now Blog is — one powerful idea at at time, spaced a couple days apart.

You can subscribe via email, RSS, even Twitter.

I hope this gives you some time to reflect on on the richness of the ideas within.

What Matters Now

What Matters Now is a popular eBook conceived by Seth Godin (who is the man, by the way). Edited by Ishita Gupta. More than seventy big thinkers contributed, from Tom Peters to Tim O'Reilly to Dave Ramsey. You can find out more about it here or here.
You can also download a PDF copy, purchase the print edition, or view the Scribd or wePapers versions.

Hope you enjoy,

- Dave Raley

About Dave

I live and work just outside Seattle, Washington. I'm passionate about nonprofits and marketing, and have the blessing to be able spend every day doing making a difference in the lives of people around the world.

If you'd like to get to know me better, I blog and tweet.