Tag: Mark Aaron Murnahan

Five Years Later – What Happened, and What’s Next?

It has been a long five year break from this blog.

In the five years since my most recent post here (in 2012), I have learned a lot, and I have a lot to share. I also see that I have a lot of sprucing up to do. This old blog is a mess. The code is ancient, the design is a throwback, and it is about as mobile friendly as a dunk in the toilet. I will get to it soon.

While I was away, I have owned and operated the most charming bakery I ever imagined. I was fortunate to find many of you, dear readers from all over the world, walking through the door for a fantastic cup of coffee, an amazing pastry, and a fun chat. I thank you kindly for that patronage.

While I enjoyed the endeavors of these past five years very much, I have freed my body from those 90 hours per week on my feet in the bakery in exchange for a leisurely 90 hours per week on my rump at a computer.

For everybody I have missed, I have some awesome tales to tell about how social media meets brick and mortar. I look forward to catching up.

If you’ll still have me, this could be like one of those sweet movie scenes where they reconnect and have a great moment.

How about it? I say we resume some fun, together.

Many Cheers from your old pal, Mark Murnahan.

“I Want My Life Back!” Roars the Crowd

In the mad dash to seek a sense of security in 2009, It seems that “I want my life back” is a pretty common sentiment. This has been a very challenging year for many people. This is not to say that challenges did not exist before, but the troubles people have faced in the past year changed the world. It is a very different landscape today, from a year ago.

When you find yourself frustrated and wanting your life back in place the way it was, you may be looking in the wrong direction. I want to encourage you with some of what I have learned. I think this may help you to feel better, and I know it can help somebody close to you.

Just so that you do not take this as some guy on a pedestal speaking about things he does not know, I will tell you that I lost more since 2008 than most people. My corporation took some big hits, and I cut my own salary to zero in order to keep other people working, I gave up my hobbies, and I sat down to write three books that would each have a benefit to my readers.

Something I found in my work was that a completely different outlook was necessary. Things would not be the same as before just because I worked harder. Believe me, I have tried, and more work is not all that it is cracked up to be unless it is the right work. Simply working harder is not the answer. It takes a different approach and a new look at the world.

It seems that I find a lot of people trying hard to keep their chin up and hold a happy face, but then when you dig a bit deeper, there is despair in their life. For some it is right there on their sleeve, and for others it is closely guarded, but a sense of fear and despair is there for many people. Some are afraid that their life will never be as good as it once was, and some are afraid because of the challenges they have seen in others’ lives.

If you find yourself looking back at a life you once had, or at the positivity you once held, you are looking at a life that was forged on a completely different set of facts. The world holds a different landscape, and in order to see the best future, it is important to take a fresh inventory of life today.

If you can relate to this, or know somebody who can, please find the time to review my newly released book, “Living in the Storm“. I believe it can provide much help for looking forward and creating more joy and inspiration than ever before.

Living in the Storm is Complete!

We can surely each recall moments of relief that we feel when an important chapter in our life is completed. The sense of accomplishment is refreshing. I am excited to share one of those moments with you, and I hope you can sense my enthusiasm.

Only moments ago, I submitted my latest book for print. This is not just any book to me. I believe with every bit of me that this book can help others to feel more joy and inspiration in their lives. I have shared some very important lessons that often came to me with great difficulty and sacrifice.

This book is a huge departure from my technical writing of the past two decades. “Living in the Storm” uncovers many lessons of life, people, and creating joy from each step in the journey of our lives.

I sincerely hope that you will take a moment to read the cover below to find a distilled version of what this book offers. We have each heard that we should not judge a book by its cover, but I am asking you to do so. I will sincerely appreciate it if you will express your opinion as a comment to this blog post.

I really want to hear you, so please take a moment to read this cover and tell me your opinion here on my blog.

Living in The Storm – My latest book!

I am very excited to announce the upcoming release of my new book titled “Living in the Storm”. It is off to the proofreaders now, and I expect to have it in production within the next couple weeks. In the meantime, I would like to share the book’s introduction. I will provide much more information soon, including the launch of livinginthestorm.com within the next week. I hope that you will enjoy it. To those wondering why I have not published as many blog posts during the past couple weeks, here is my answer.

Introduction:

Many moments of joy and inspiration go unnoticed and are overshadowed by the storm that makes up our lives. Recognizing those joys and creating moments of joy and inspiration for others can create a perfect break in the clouds. It may even create the extended break that you have been seeking all along.

Each day of our lives, we receive influences from those around us. We often make our decisions based on their caution, their defeats, and their status quo. Breaking away and creating your own new beam of sunshine between the clouds is not as hard or as frightening once you can feel confident making your own decisions, and creating your own view of what is realistic. Then it is possible to turn the influence around in a positive way.

It may seem easy to trudge through a whole lifetime saying “I could have”, “I should have”, or “Maybe when the time is right”. Unless you already live your wildest dreams, you give yourself reasons that it just did not work out for you. Maybe family got in the way, you did not have enough money, or other short-term issues just stretched out longer than you hoped.

It is time to stop that right now! Let’s make a pact. If you will agree to be honest, I will agree to be honest. I am not asking for your honesty to me, but rather to yourself. Level with yourself, and if you can agree that you have let yourself and others down, make this pact with me, and take the care to try a different approach. Deal?

Alright then, today, while the storm is still in full force, you have made a step toward living in the storm, and not just surviving the storm to enjoy life between moments of doubt and confusion.

In the course of this book, I ask that you will draw parallels to your life and use things you know but may be afraid to admit, or may have long forgotten. I will also ask you to perform some tasks that I believe will help you with clearing some of the clouds. In the end, I intend for you to be more influential than influenced, and to share your success with others rather than accept others’ defeats as your own.

Loic Le Meur on Seesmic Desktop Updates

I visited with Loic Le Meur today about Seesmic Desktop while preparing for the release of my new book, “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends”. Loic answers questions about the future of Seesmic Desktop including the list as follows:

  • How soon do you expect to release the next Seesmic Desktop update, and what additional features do you plan to implement?
  • Is Twhirl a relic, or will you continue to improve it and release updates?
  • Have you considered adding column filters in Seesmic Desktop?
  • How is API resource management handled in seesmic Desktop?
  • Have you considered an option for opening profiles directly to a browser?
  • It seems that account management of multiple Twitter accounts is a hit. Would you like to expand on this?
  • How do you feel about recent negative reports concerning Twitter’s user retention, and do you believe Seesmic can help to change this?
  • I have noticed that Seesmic Desktop does not ask the popular question of “What are you doing?”. Should this imply something?
  • It is pretty obvious that Seesmic does not have any specific branding to Twitter, such as Tweet, Twit, or Tweeps, in the name. Do you plan to add additional micro-blogging or other social media platforms, aside from Twitter and Facebook, in the future?
  • How will Seesmic benefit from creating and maintaining Seesmic Desktop? How will you monetize Seesmic Desktop?
  • What is your vision for Seesmic?

Since Loic and myself are both very busy, we did not have a lot of lead time for this talk. We initially Webcasted this live with both of us on-screen, but uStream does not record co-hosts, so this video only includes the audio for Loic. Also, try to ignore the typo in his name on the banner … Sorry Loic! In my defense, I have no aspirations in television broadcast. I am fortunate to have spelled my own name correctly. 🙂