You’ve gotta watch this all the way through. It’s short – just a couple of minutes.

Then, I want to hear what you’re thoughts are…

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You wouldn’t believe how often I hear statements like this. And from intelligent, engaging and interesting people. People who are professional and well-spoken.

Without a doubt we fear writing. But why? I’ve thought about this questions a bunch over the years. But seldom have I considered writing about it until the lovely April Groves left a comment on my post 3 Easy Steps to Creating a Web-based Business yesterday.

In 3 Easy Steps, I (and Matt Cutts) suggested that the second step to creating a successful online business is to start a blog. Why? Because it helps you engage directly with your target audience. It’s also the easiest way to begin driving traffic to your site and, hence, have the opportunity to grow your business. Here’s what April said:

I completely agree…but, I’ll tell you… When I present the blogging idea to people I know, the writing aspect scares most of them to death. I hear “But I can’t write” more times than I can count. My best counsel is for them to try writing the way they talk. It goes right to the heart of authentic. But, if you have other coaching suggestions to this block, I’d be all ears.

So why do we fear writing so much?

What I find most interesting is how the belief that we ‘can’t write’ is completely and utterly made up. At best, it’s something we took away from our junior high or high school education. Really, the idea we can’t write is thrust upon us because it just happens to be the opinion of our teachers. It’s not ours – unless we believe it.
But are they right? And can it change?

No, they’re not right. And yes, it can change.

I was one of those students who couldn’t write – so said my teachers. While I excelled at science and math, I could never write. Or at least that’s what I was told. And when I look back, they may have been right – at the time. But it certainly didn’t help to be told I couldn’t write each time I got a paper back.

And yet I sit here today with hundreds of blog posts – the great majority of which are written well enough that hundreds of people like you have wanted to engage me in conversation. Each of those posts has brought some value to people’s lives, their blogging and their business. And I don’t care whether I follow traditional writing methods. I care about communicating with you. So as long as I can do that, I know, without a doubt, that I can write.

So what’s the difference between what I’m writing today and what I was doing in school – other than a few decades of life experience, focus and a bit more maturity?

I think it’s relaxing and letting go of how I was taught to write. Forget the 5 paragraph model. Forget sentence structure and grammar (for the most part) and just write. Just get the words out from your mind. Let them move through your arms and dance you fingers on the keyboard just like they move up from your throat to create symphony between the tongue, larynx and lips when you speak (okay, so I went a little overboard). The point is – let go, and just write.

And for God’s sake, forget that you were ever told you can’t write. Because you can! With the blog – if you can speak, if you can communicate thoughts and ideas, you can write. And you can certainly blog.

I agree with April – write like you speak. Think about writing as a conversation and write that way. All of us can speak at least well enough to be understood in a conversation. So treat blogging like it’s a conversation. And remember that you, the blogger, get to start each conversation, you get to choose the topic and the way of looking at the topic. Then, invite the world to respond.

People care much more about what you want to communicate, what you want to share and how valuable it is to them then they do having beautiful, flowing prose. If you can write like that (communicatrix, I’m thinking of you), great. But if not, just ‘talk’ with people through your keyboard. They’ll learn far more about who you are, how you see things and how you can help them with their problems.

And that’s what leads to sales.

So what do you think…can you write (you should know the answer by now)? What was the biggest thing that you feel hurt your confidence in your writing? And how did you overcome it? I’d love to hear…and so would the people April talks with.

I get this question a lot from people. I guess I’ve been fortunate enough to meet so many bloggers that it’s hard to say. Would I like to meet Darren Rowse or Brian Clark? Sure. I’d love to look them both in the eye and thank them for everything they’ve taught me about blogging.

It’d be great to meet Seth Godin – oh, wait, I did meet him last summer when he was on his book tour for The Dip. Great ideas, nice presenter, but didn’t find him too engaging personally. Maybe it was the setting.

I’ve also had this odd fascination with Robert Scoble, though truthfully, I’m not sure why. Maybe he just gets it in a way I’m still trying too. Or the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto. That book solidified how I look at business and it’d be great to bat it around with those guys a bit.

Gosh, really, there’s tons of bloggers I’d like to meet. After all, I’m blogging because I love the conversation. I love to learn. I love to share what I know. I just love meeting people. People from all walks-of-life. I want to hear their stories and learn from their experiences. So really, there’s tons of bloggers I’d like to meet…

Like you!

But since in our last one2one conversation Liz asked me who’s the person I’d like to meet, I’ll go ahead and choose someone.

But you know, the blogger I’d like to meet most at this moment is someone I should have met last May at SOBCon07. He was there. I saw him around. We just never got a chance to meet. Who is it? Muhammad Saleem. Why? Because this guy knows social media and I’d love to pick his brain.

I’d call him a social media expert. Just take a look at what he writes on his own blog, [muhammad.saleem] or at Pronet Advertising. Or check out his numerous guest posts on sites like The Blog Herald, Copyblogger, Search Engine Land. And don’t forget to search for the huge number of interviews he’s given around social media. He’s even a top Digger and one of Propeller’s “professional social bookmarkers.“

Really, just follow this guy’s trail and you’ll learn everything you’d ever want or need to know about social media, social networking, social sharing, social marketing, etc. Maybe I don’t need to sit down and pick his brain.

Nah, that wouldn’t be any fun now, would it? Not to mention, I’d miss learning who Muhammad, the person, is. And that just wouldn’t be any fun.

So is there a blogger would you most like to meet? Who? Why?

And for Liz, since this is a one2one conversation…

What’s one way you’d say social media has changed the way you do business?

Of course, when I’m asking Liz, I’m asking you too. So please, answer away. And Muhammad, if you happen to stop by, I pose the same question to you.

I was reading from Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching last night when I ran across an interesting quote:

He who knows others is wise;
He who knows himself is enlightened.

The passage made me stop and contemplate my own life. How well do I know myself? I went down that path for a bit of time; looking at my aspects and considering what I might be blind about.

Naturally, I soon turned to business. I thought about how much of marketing is focused on the consumer or the client. I wondered what I might learn about my business if I applied Lao-tzu’s words to marketing. So I rewrote the passage to say:

He who knows his customer is wise;
But he who knows his business is enlightened.

Then I started thinking about my clients, my colleagues, my friends, etc. How many of them really know what they do? I don’t mean can they explain their business in some marketing lingo that drives sales. I’m talking about do they understand what they REALLY do for their clients? What impact do they make?

For instance, I’m a web developer, a marketing coach, a business advisor and a strategist. I help my clients understand how to use the internet to reach their business goals. Pretty simple.

But if I think about the client’s I’ve worked with over the past year, it’s evident that I have a much broader and deeper impact on my client’s life than I first think about. While I certainly help them build their website, clarify their marketing message or build a campaign, I also help them create space in their lives for their business. As well, I help them overcome their fears and uncertainties about using the web, and I educate them in how to measure their success. What’s more, I teach them anything they really need or want to know about using the web to grow their business.

But it doesn’t stop there. Most of my clients and I also develop a strong bond; a working relationship that seems to increase their trust in themselves. They know, for instance, they’re not doing this alone in their process. I also freely share my idea, concepts, vision and excitement about their business – something that often motivates them to get the next bit of work done.

When I think about it, I do far more than just develop web-based businesses. I have an impact on my client’s lives. And I need to remember that in my business. Perhaps even explore that more and understand how I can express more of what I offer my clients. And maybe, just maybe, I can find more of the light in my business.

So what about you? How well do you know what you do? How much do you understand the impact you have on your clients or customers? How enlightened are you in your business?

As far back as I can remember I’ve wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. When I was 3 years old, I told my parents I was going to be a firefighter so I could “make people’s houses not burn down.” Around 10 I decided I wanted to be a doctor so I could help sick kids. By the time I was on my way to college, I was set on being a surgeon.

Boy does life have a funny way of turning out.

I made it to medical school. My freshman year at Purdue opened my eyes to the wonders of alternative medicine and I was off on a new direction. Two years at university were enough for me. So I set out to learn everything I could about alternative ways of healing.

What followed was an amazing ten year adventure that ultimately opened my eyes to the wonders of our own bodies. At the same time I got to study all sorts of healing modalities – some very profound, others a bit of quackery.

Yet through much of my studies I was supporting myself as a website developer. Until finally, one day, I felt I had enough knowledge to hang out my shingle as an alternative healing practitioner. It was great, in the beginning. I used all that I had learned to help people overcome all sorts of ailments – some physical, others emotional or mental, and even some that were more spiritual in nature.

Yet, for some reason, it just wasn’t a good fit. It wasn’t until I closed my practice that I realized that healing, at least in a formal setting, more medical setting, just wasn’t in my heart. So, having gotten married and expecting our first daughter, I returned to web design full time. The secret, though, is that I never really stopped building websites – even when I was working with clients in my healing practice.

The next year or so had its joys, its challenges, its hurdles – and its moments of profound growth.

So one day I was sitting back waiting for a client to phone when I began thinking of my journey. I thought, “How did a kid who wanted to be a doctor to help people end up being a web designer and business developer?”

But when I thought about it, the answer was simple…I followed the signs.

That’s right. There were signs all along the way. I just had to learn how to read them. And while it may seem odd that I’d compare being a doctor to what I do now, I easily see the path I’ve chosen as the right one.

Think about it. If I’d finished at the university and gone off to medical school to become a surgeon, I would have never had the life I had in my twenties – backpacking, mountaineering, kayaking – for months at a time. I also wouldn’t have had the freedom to learn so much about how the body heals naturally, with foods and herbs and how our emotional, mental and, to some degree, spiritual states play enormous roles in our health, vitality and the quality of life. The 18 year-old boy who went to Purdue had no idea of that. But the man, 20 years later, sees life, health, family, and business with a sense of oneness – how every piece of life works together like a orchestra, playing the symphony of our life.

And, if I’d gone to medical school, it’s unlikely I’d be here today, writing this blog post on a system I’d likely know little about. What’s more, I’d not have the opportunity I do now to affect countless people, in every part of the globe, with little conversations that can help them in some way. But now I do.

Just like with every turn in my life, I’d never have guessed where I was going. Yet I do trust, with great faith, the next step. And while I can’t see with any clarity where it will lead me, I do know it’ll be an adventure. And I know I’d not be true to myself without striding out to explore where the path leads.

Charles Darwin once wrote, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

For me change is inevitable. After struggling with it early in life, I now embrace it. I know it’s the only thing that’s true constant in my outer life. And I know it’s something I can’t control. What I can have some say over is how I respond to the changes life puts before me.

What about you? How well do you handle change? In your life? In your relationships? In your business? Let’s talk about it and maybe learn something from each other.

(note: image Melting Pot from Lorrie McClanahan on Flickr)

Check out this link (pay close attention to the domain name).

Then come back and let’s talk about it. What do you think? And let us know why you think the way you do.

Thanks to Dan Cederholm for helping me find this little ditty.

You all know by now that my wife and I messed up on our due date. Seems odd, even interesting – yet it’s more common than you might think.

Of course that wasn’t the most interesting part of the past month. The most interesting part are the events that led to me catching a birthing baby. So let’s get right into that…

On Sunday evening, November 11th, my wife began pre-labor right around sunset. So we finished dinner (I cleaned up), I dropped our two kids in a bath and got them off to bed. Meanwhile, my wife settled into her now familiar labor patterns – being left alone, in a dark room and moving between the bed and the tub.

Now my wife thought all along that our this child, our third, would birth quickly. Of course, we also thought my wife would have given birth a month ago at this point so who knows. Either way, she was going through her process.

We called our midwife, Beth, after I got the kids down for the night and things settled in our home. Beth came over and confirmed that the contractions my wife was having were pre-labor. We both adore Beth – she’s been attending births since she was 16 and has an absolutely incredible understanding of women in pregnancy and the birthing process. And now in her 40′s we’re great friends. Beth stayed with my wife, Sabira, for a few hours and then we all agreed it was best for Beth to go home, get some rest and wait for the labor contractions to begin. Also, she thought it important that Sabira get whatever rest she could.

The whole night, my wife pre-labored and by sunrise she was exhausted having spent a sleepless night between these strong, long-lasting contractions. By morning, she was pretty depleted. Basically, she suffered all night long, with no rest or relief from the contractions. And to top it off, she showed no signs of the labor progressing, which took a toll on her mentally and emotionally. To make matters worse for her, there was no ‘other worldly’ feeling like she had with our other two kids. She describes the ‘other worldly’ feeling as reaching a deep space of peace, strength and holiness within herself that makes laboring bearable. Without that experience, it was hard for her to track where she was – which just made her worry and tire more.

What was I doing, you may ask. I was staying out of her way as much as I could. At times I checked in on her, but mostly I cleaned, made soup and teas and caught brief cap naps on the kids’ floor.

Around 8am Beth phoned. We talked about how the night went. Sabira shared her experience and I my observations (as useless as they are at this point). And we all decided that it would be best for Beth go to her shop, grab some herbs, homeopathics, and other remedies and head over after she got her kids off to school.

So around 9:45 or so Beth calls me from her shop and we talk about Sabira’s needs. We both assumed that with the hustle of the day, my wife’s labor would slow (which often happens) and that we needed to get her some rest and nutrition so she wouldn’t be too exhausted when her labor picked up again that night. We talked about herbs for slowing labor and brainstormed what she might eat or drink.

But then…

From my office, on the first floor, at the back of the house, I heard my wife make an all too familiar sound. When she is actively pushing a baby out – something I heard a few times already – she makes a very distinct, prolonged sound. It’s not a cry, it’s not a scream…I can’t describe it, but it feels like it’s drawn from the depths of the earth. I just know it when I hear it and it means a baby’s coming. That’s the sound I heard while I was on the phone with Beth.

I immediate hung up with Beth saying simply, “Let me call you back.” In no way did I alarm her of what I heard nor did I suggest she hurry. As far as she knew, I would call her back in a few minutes to finish our conversation.

As I ran through the house and up the stairs my wife sounded again, and I could feel the gathering of energy in our house (yes, it was that palpable). I thought, “What’s going on? I left her 15 minutes ago and she wasn’t actively in labor. How could she be pushing?”

Yet everything changed as I opened the door to our bedroom. There she was, in the middle of contraction bearing down as though she was going push her way to the first floor. When the contraction finished our eyes met and I experienced her disbelief that she was pushing. When I looked down, I saw our baby crowning. And even now she laughs at the look of complete shock on my face. I wasn’t shocked at what I was seeing, but more that she went into active labor apparently out of nowhere.

Remember, my wife had non-progressing pre-labor all night, she was completely depleted. I had just been talking to our midwife about how to get Sabira through the day so she could labor later that night. Now, she’s squatting in a chair, hand pressing against the wall with the crown of the head showing. I was shocked, to say the least.

Immediately I rushed to her. We both knew what was going on, but neither of us were expecting it so quickly. Yet another contraction and she pushed the entire top of the head out to about the eye brows. Now, I’m playing midwife. I gently rub the top of our baby’s head, just feeling for chord and looking for color change that shows good oxygen and blood flow.

Then, in a moment only a birthing woman gets, she looks at me and says, “I need to get in the tub.”

Now we planned on a water birth so we had a huge tub in our bedroom that was full of warm water and ready for her. The tub is actually a Rubbermaid 100 ga. Stock Tank that our midwife has used for years. No kidding, while it sounds odd, it works great. Beth’s found it to be the best option for a birthing tub because it’s deep with very sturdy, plastic sides. Our son, Ahmed, was born in it.

Well, I didn’t know if it was a good idea to walk across the room with the head of baby part-way out but we did it anyhow. And just as she squatted into the tub, another contraction and she pushed the entire head out. We both started crying with such joy. Here we are, together and alone, birthing a baby together.

I gently caressed our baby’s head under the water until the next contraction came that pushed the body about halfway out. I gently held the body as a second, and final, contraction came that pushed our baby fully from my wife’s body. I held our newborn child in my hands and lifted her onto my wife’s chest. In essence, I was the midwife (which by the way means ‘with woman’ not with husband) as I caught our little miracle. In a state of euphoria, I grabbed some towels and blankets to wrap our baby in to stay warm.

At this point, with a little kissing and a few words we shared our joy as well as our shock. Then we thought it a good idea to phone Beth.

As the active part of the birth was probably less than ten (yes, 10) minutes, Beth was still at the store collecting things to support my wife through what we thought would be a long day of pre-labor. So when I phoned her back she had no idea that in the ten minutes or so, we birthed a baby. The phone call went something like this:

“Hey Beth, it’s Dawud,” I said.

“How’s everything going? I’m just about ready to head over. Is there anything else you can think of that would support her,” she asked?

“Hang on…how would you like to hear the sound of a newborn baby,” I asked her?

“What! You’re kidding, right” she said.

“Not kidding. Listen,” I replied, holding the phone out for her to hear my daughter crying.

“No flippin’ way,” she answered stunned, “I be there as fast as I can.”

And driving 95 mph all the way, she was.

Meanwhile, my wife and I sat together with our new little miracle, I moving between the tub and the door to our bedroom where my older two kids, A’esha almost 4 and Ahmed 20 months, were constantly asking whether they could meet their new, baby…wait, we’re almost there. They were so excited, having heard everything that was going on upstairs. They couldn’t contain themselves, yet my Sabira and I decided it was best for them to come up after the placenta was born. So I kept them waiting. But it didn’t stop them from asking every 2 minutes; their little heads poking around the corner of our staircase.

Of course, Beth did arrive, about 15 minutes after the birth. She rushed right upstairs and came in with a huge smile on her face. For a few minutes, we all sat together sharing in our excitement, amazement and shock. Beth and I attended to my wife’s needs, as did Beth’s assistant Laura, her sister who got there shortly after Beth, as well as a close friend of ours, Stacy. We helped her out of the tub and made space for her to birth the placenta – which has it’s own, natural journey. Then clean up, exams, etc… followed by rest and food, etc.

So somewhere around 10:15 am on Monday, November 12 my wife gave birth to our third child, a daughter who we named Laila Amara Miracle. She was born from my wife’s womb into my own hands. She was a robust and healthy 9lbs 8oz at 21 inches long.

My wife turned out to be right about the fast birth. It just didn’t happen like we thought it would. Two weeks later, Laila is quite healthy and is adjusting nicely to the world. A’esha and Ahmed are absolutely in love with her. A’esha asks incessantly to hold her little sister. And Ahmed runs to her whenever she cries, and in his 20 month old voice says, “Don’t cry Laila.” It’s precious.

As with our first two kids, my wife was amazing through all this. Even when she was struggling through pre-labor, she still had such a grounded strength. Women are amazing in birth and I feel so fortunate that my wife and I have chosen a natural, home birth with each of our kids. It’s worked great for everyone involved. And my wife gets to keep absolute control over the influences around giving birth – something neither of us want to ever trade nor give up to someone else. Birth for us is a natural process rather than a medical procedure. We feel doctors and hospitals are only needed if, well, they’re really needed. And we’re thankful they’re there in case they’re needed. And we both pray that it’s not.

So that’s our story. Now, would you like to meet Laila? Well, here she is…

Lovely, isn’t she? Mom says she looks like me. I don’t know. Really, I don’t care. I’m just happy she’s here, with us and is healthy. But gosh, isn’t she cute just laying there, all peaceful (on a full belly of breast milk), those sweet little hands up around her precious face.

Enough already, I know. I just love being a dad…just a bit more than I love getting enough sleep.