How To Be Successful

Lately I have been looking at people who have really grown their blogs to incredibly high numbers of readers. Blogs like zen-habits and reallygoodthinking.

And why are they so successful? They offer the reader help. They offer assistance to make you a better person.

Be more productive.

Be more creative.

Be more … something.

Head stuffing's reader levels are nowhere near these two successful sites.

On head stuffing, I only offer you a laugh, and if I'm successful, I might make you think.

But I don't really offer to help you.

Here is what I have for you. Here is my list of things that I know of what it takes to be a successful person in life:

1. Work hard
   
2. Be sincere and honest
   
3. Have a skill that people need
   
4. Make decisions based on rational thought – not with your heart
   
5. Enjoy what you do
   
6. Enjoy the people that you do what you do with
   
7. Keep your mind sharp
   
8. Keep your body healthy
   
9. Love somebody
   
10. Love yourself
    

Now how many websites can you find this information on?

Could I talk more about being sincere and honest? Well, I think I talk about that a lot on head stuffing. I think I talk about all of these points a lot in my stories on head stuffing.

These principles are pretty simple to grasp, but pretty difficult to apply to your personal life. Especially if you don't have a skill that people need (I believe everybody does – they just may not realize it) – or if you don't have somebody to love (I believe everybody does, they just may not realize it).

That's the part I don't talk a lot about on head stuffing – how you can apply these aspects to your own life – or recognize that they already exist.

I guess I have given little care or consideration as to what niche I and my favorite passion – my head stuffing site – play in the bigger picture on the internet. What role does it play. What is this site's niche?

I'm not exactly a self-help guru. I can only tell you stories about events that have happened to me – and how they shaped my life.

I have been writing my stories on head stuffing for nearly three years now. And I have gotten some really great feedback from those of you who continue to return. And to those of you who do return – I would sincerely like to thank you.

I have been writing what I believe are great little stories on head stuffing. I try to put some sense of reason and meaning – perhaps a moral – or the obvious lack of a moral – in each one.

And sometimes I leave the stories behind and pretend I'm a sportswriter and write about the Detroit Tigers. Why? Because I am a big fan, and sometimes I have to get some of those thoughts out of my head as well.

I'm sure if you return to head stuffing you might be confused as to what you're expecting to find here. You might wonder why I think you, a reader from Atlanta or San Francisco or New York would even be interested in how I thought the Detroit Tigers season would play out?

I guess to this point, I have treated head stuffing like a note pad. Like a place to jot down whatever was stuffing up my brain at the moment. Because that has been my intention to date – and that is why this site is called "head stuffing".

So what can I offer you?

Do you know what your niche in this global network is? Do you use facebook to keep up with friends around the globe?

Do you use instant messaging to chat with loved ones far away? Certainly you must use email, and send pictures and videos and jokes to share them with your friends. You might even be using professional social networking sites like LinkedIn.com to track and communicate with your business contacts.

Maybe you use Twitter – although if you're like me – you're still trying to figure out what real purpose can 140 character text messages – tweets – can play in your life. Maybe you like to follow famous people like Ashton Kutcher or Ellen DeGeneres or golfer John Daly or any of the hundreds of other celebrities that think we need to know they're stopping off at shopping mall or a fast food joint.

But you're not sure what you could 'tweet' that would be of any interest to anyone else?

Maybe we can figure this out together.

I have tried using some of these sharing services to attract more readers to head stuffing, thinking that if they just came and read one good story that moved you and you enjoyed, you would come back for more. And it worked – kind of – but the numbers that do return are much lower than I expected. My statistics show that only 39% of my readers are return readers – the other 61% are brand new. But the number of visitors remains constant.

Honest – I'm not complaining. And sincerely – thank you for coming here to read head stuffing.

I post new head stuffing sites to del.icio.us, digg.com, and technorati.com. I share them on facebook.com and LinkedIn.com. I used to share them with StumbleUpon.com, until they informed me that promoting my own site on StumbleUpon.com was an offense that could get me banned from their service. In fact, most sites look down upon what they call self promotion. So how can I get the word out about head stuffing?

Now I announce new posts on Twitter.

So I am going to continue my struggle to come up with ways that I can offer you help.

And maybe together we can figure out just how do we all fit together in this new global community?