A lot of people in the online world talk about time. Some people talk about how much time they invest in, well, social media. Others talk about how much time it may take to build a community online or how much time it takes to get to 1,000 blog subscribers. A fair amount of time is spent talking about how to balance work time with family time, too.
With all of this talk about time floating about, it’s easy to make people feel like they’re forgotten, overlooked, or maybe not as important to you as they really are. You mean to spend time with them or on their questions, but time just seems to slip away at the worst times.
I have been struggling a lot lately with the thought that I don’t express my appreciation to some people as often as I should be. It’s not that I don’t think about them every day and thank my lucky stars that I know them. It’s just they give me so much time and support that I always feel like I’m falling short in showing them my gratitude.
Maybe you have people like that in your online reality too.
Well, I thought maybe I could convince you to do a little exercise with me (because let’s face it, the online world needs some positive vibes!). I’m doing this on Friday as a kind of elaborate take-off on “Follow Friday,” but you can do it whenever. The goal? List five people that you feel you don’t show your appreciation to enough – and do it!
Here are my five folks. They are wonderful people and I want to make sure they know I see everything they do for me and for others.
1. Danny Garcia (@dannybuntu): Danny was one of my very first followers on Twitter. He was one of the very first people to leave a comment on my blog, at a time when getting a comment was, geeze, like winning the lottery. And somehow, after a year, he is still around and still supports me on every platform where we intersect. He is a darned good writer and you’d be hard-pressed to meet a more kind-hearted person.
2. Corinne Edwards (@miraclady): Corinne extended me the great privilege of guest-posting on her site. She tweets out my posts on a regular basis and leaves extraordinary comments here (you’ve probably seen them if you come by here a lot). Corinne perpetually uses her talents and gifts to help others, and I have been one of those beneficiaries.
3. Jason Sokol (@jwsokol): New papa Jason Sokol has been a wonderful friend. He often includes a post of mine in his awesome Sunday shout-outs, and he says so many kind things about me that I’m almost sure I’ll never be able to pay him back. The really neat thing about Jason is that he is not one of those people who feels like they have nothing left to learn. Jason is always asking questions, always looking for new perspectives, and wowzer…he’s open to opinions or ideas that might differ from his own. What a rarity!
4. Ingrid Abboud (@nittygriddyblog): Ingrid is another person who honors me by often including a post of mine in her weekly blog round-ups. I still don’t know the best way to handle such high compliments. Ingrid lights up my Twitter stream whenever she shows up there, and she is a fantabulous writer with a great blog community.
5. Raúl Colón (@rj_c): How can you not like this fellow? He is a delightful man, a profoundly intelligent gentleman, and so very kind. What I also like about Raúl is that he has this vivacity about him that he carries everywhere. He gets in a bad mood sometimes, but it’s like a cloud passing over the sun. You see it for about five seconds and then he’s back to making everyone smile. Raúl always seems to have a great new project up his sleeve, too. I’m not sure he actually sleeps.
I’m not saying these are the only people I appreciate, and they aren’t even the only people I need to appreciate more – but they are five of ’em.
Now, who are yours?
This is post #93 in the Engagement Series. Thank you for reading!
Image by Sergey K.. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/O_m