Anyone who’s been around me knows I’m pretty laid back. I’m generally positive and hopeful. I’m usually the first to reassure others and champion my friends. What most people don’t know is that I’m pretty hard on myself. I beat myself up over little things and over analyze every decision and idea. At times, it’s crippling.

I don’t know why, when or how it started. At some point in my life I’ve developed quite a negative view of my own value. I have almost 15 years of experience in the computer business, most of that programming and doing web sites. I’ve helped companies make millions of dollars per year. But when it comes to doing it for myself no idea is good enough.

No more

No on deserves anything, you have to work for it an earn it. I’ve put in countless hours for other people and, perhaps naively, thought that effort would be rewarded. But I’ve never spoken up. I’ve never asked for more. It’s just not who I am. I’ve always wanted to be recognized for the work, not for being the one who promoted myself endlessly. I’ve always thought of things in black and white and that if I did things just for the money I was selling out. The only person I ever hurt thinking that way was me. Those days are over.

I’m a passionate person. However, my interests are many yet I don’t have a passion for any single thing. At least not anymore. When I discovered computers and the Internet in 1992 (yes, 92, before the web) I was hooked and I’ve been at it since. I’d say the thing I’m most passionate about is this whole Internet publishing biz. Creating sites, working with other talented people and sharing it all. It’s my job and my hobby and perhaps I’m a little burned out. I love doing it, but I don’t want to start a site talking about web development. I do wish I was passionate about something though, and not everything.

So the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to figure out where to go. Which direction to take and where to focus my creative energy. I need to create something that I can have fun doing while at the same time, make some money. I just have no idea what that topic would be. With so many interests it’s hard to settle on just one. I always feel like it’ll be the wrong one or that it’s too broad or too narrow or a horrible idea.

I think I figured it all out

I’ve got a few ideas for niches to get into. While I might not be passionate about the subjects, I’m also not passionate about the niches we cover at my day job either. But I absolutely love what I do. So I’m going to launch 2-3 sites in the next couple of days and while I’m not ready to talk about them specifically, I’ve realized a few things that have let me worry less about the details and just get busy:

• Stop over planning. I tend over think everything. While a solid plan is necessary, the idea is to fail as fast as possible. Get my ideas out there, see what’s working and if something gains traction, then really go for it.
• Stop worrying what other bloggers will think. They aren’t my target audience. The people in my niches are and they could care less about 90% of the stuff we tend to fret over. Let it go and get on with it.
• Everyone else is scrambling to grab an ever shrinking slice of the pie. If I don’t do it now it may be too late later.
• It’s okay to fail. It’s also perfectly okay to succeed. I’ve always been more afraid of the latter.
• Just do something. Anything. It’s simple physics. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Momentum is a powerful force.
• Stop trying to do everything at once. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the saying goes.

I know none of this is ground breaking, but it’s been an internal struggle for me for the last few years. When I got out of publishing sites I lost touch with that part of myself and as time passed these things that plague have only become worse. By my aspirations and dreams are much stronger than those nagging feelings of self doubt. Everyone has them and they serve a purpose. I just learning when to listen to them and when to tell them to shut the hell up. Like right now.

Updated: Added the last bullet point, probably the most important.

I met Paul (@stammy) at Blogworld Expo this year. Besides being a super nice guy and turning me on to the cannon camera hack, he’s also the founder of Skribit. It’s a cool little service that lets you get feedback on your blog to help guide what you write about on the site. Love, love love this idea. Love it so much I got the sticker on my laptop.

So here’s your chance to tell me what to do, er, write about. Hit the suggestions box over on the right hand side and tell me what to write about. I’ll take all suggestions under consideration, and the more people who like an idea the more likely I’ll write about it.

Play around with it a little and if you like it, add it to your blog. It totally rocks!

It seems Twitter is divided over the new lists feature. Some feel the new lists are a way to exclude people, like Chris Brogan. Others think the lists are a game changer, including Robert Scoble and I happen to agree.

If you don’t know what lists are, Twitter recently added the ability to create a list and group people into those lists. It doesn’t change your timeline. You still see everyone’s updates. But the lists give you the ability to further segment you’re followers into, for a lack of a better term, folders. Works much like the lists on Facebook, actually. I don’t remember an uproar over those.

For me, Twitter lists are more inclusive, not less. It’s more about organization, readability and discoverability. I’m already following more people because of them, not less. Lists are game changing and now that the API is available we should start seeing lists appear in popular clients like Tweetie and Tweetdeck. That’s when things will get really interesting.

I totally understand where Chris is coming from on lists. His point is valid, that lists might exclude some people. But I think it all comes down to how you use them. So far my experience with lists has been great. Other than a few technical bugs, the lists are greatly improving my twitter experience.

I predict lists will be a driving force in Twitters next explosion in traffic. They are going to allow people to find more like minded folks to follow and interact with who will in turn create lists and introduce their followers to even more people. The feature itself is a pretty minor update but it’s added a whole new layer of “viral” to the site. Expect to see more about lists over the next several weeks. This is just getting started.