The Return of the Blog

In mid September I attended the XY Planning Network 2015 Conference in Charlotte. This was my first conference experience since Logan was born and I was looking forward to being able to attend, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the impact it would have on me.

The conference had a positive impact in several areas of my personal and professional growth. One area of immediate impact is the return of the blog and the launch of my newsletter. I had been wanting to revisit the blog and launch a newsletter, but I was in a perpetual cycle of creating roadblocks. What format should I use? What template would I need to create? What software do I need to use for the newsletter? What topics will I need to make sure I cover? The answer to all of this presented itself in the closing session of the conference.

Carl Richards of Behavior Gap was the closing speaker of the conference and his advice was clear and simple. Stop thinking about the logo, where it should go, and just make it happen. For me this was the newsletter. He continued on to say that a newsletter could simply start out as a collection of brief thoughts or interesting articles. It would organically grow over time and you can add in all the features down the road, but stop worrying about it and just make it happen.

This resonated with me since the newsletter and blog were items I wanted to do, but I was creating deterrents in making it happen. My goal was to launch the newsletter a week after the conference, and I met that goal.

The personal growth was not only in being able to reconnect with some influential people in my life, but being able to reconnect with an industry and profession. At times I’ve felt out of touch with the financial planning profession. The group of planners at this conference are all bucking the normal trends and business models of the financial planning profession and it was great to not feel like an outsider.

For you, my incredible blog readers, I encourage you to make sure that you don’t lose your sense of passion. It’s easy to get caught up in the bustle of life, family, and work and find that you lose touch with some of the essential parts of who you are. Take the time to pursue your interests, even if it’s only a few minutes every week. Keep your passion fierce not only for you, but in order to share it with the people around you.