Basically, she was a college student, on a trip to Ireland. This Irish guy saw her, and offered his help. She asked how to get to “Wicklow National Park”. The man replied by asking her how long she had been walking for. She said a couple of hours, and the man answered “Well, you’ve probably been in Wicklow National Park for a few hours then”.

Strange, isn’t it? When you’re looking for a place, and you feel lost, only to realize that you’ve been there all along? But yet how many of us do that? I think there are a lot of us who are so caught up in searching, that we miss what it was we were looking for. I myself am guilty of it.

I think it’s important that we don’t get so caught up with doing something that we miss what’s around us. I think sometimes, we just need to step back, take a look around, and re-evaluate where we are at. Maybe what we were looking for was there all along.

Mitch Joel wrote about how “Results speak louder than words“. Valeria Maltoni says that “Actions speak louder than words“, and encourages us to “Teach. Lead. Learn. Love.”. Chris Brogan shared his goals for 2009, “to equip and build armies”, and “moving needles”.

Seeing a trend? I certainly am. I think this is the year where these things -social media, etc – are really going to start maturing. We (myself included, for sure) need to really start executing, and not just talking about all of these ideas. And not just executing, but executing with concrete, measurable results.

We need to start leading, and making things happen.

What can you make happen in 2009?

A short, simple and yet really powerful video, that I just had to share.

To all the other Gen-Ys and youths out there: Don’t listen to the likes of Mark Bauerlein. Our generation can make as much of a difference as we want to. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

We are definitely not a lost generation. Far from it. You can change the world, if you want to.

As I said then, it’s a book that really resonates with me, and fits in with my blog topic. As such, I’m looking to connect with people who are “butterfly hunters”. Not in the literal sense of catching insects. But people who have taken the risk to go off the beaten path and pursue their callings. People who love what they do, whose jobs are part of who they are.

Does that sound like you? Or someone you know? If so, please, drop me an email or post a comment. I’d love to get to talk to you, and maybe even share your story here on the blog. I’m especially looking to connect with such people who are here in Singapore, but even if you’re not, feel free to contact me, I’d love to get to know you.

I’m still really grateful for all of you who read and subscribe. And I’m still really honored that you’d take the time to read what I have to say. Same to those of you who follow me on Twitter, or on any other network. Thank you for giving me your time and attention. I really appreciate it, and I’m glad to have you here.

That said, I probably don’t know some of you, and I would really like to change that. So if you’ve been reading my blog, please drop me an email, or leave me a comment or something. Or join the Blog’s Network on Facebook. Introduce yourself, say hi, tell me your story, anything. I’d love to connect with you. Or even if we’ve connected before, feel free to drop me a line at any time.

I’m always open to connecting with you guys, and I’m always willing to (try to) help you in any way I can. So yeah, connect with me. I’d love to hear from you.

Here’s what I want to ask. How many of you noticed it when watching the live debate? I, for one, didn’t. I didn’t even notice it at all until reading about it online.

And that’s the thing about the web today. Practically everything is – or can be – documented online. And once it’s online, it’s there forever, and it can be re-read and analyzed over and over.

Any mistake, any small slip, now has the potential to be magnified to a much greater extent. We can no longer hide and hope that nobody sees our mistakes. Chances are, any mistakes we make will be discovered.

What can we do? 2 things. Firstly, be careful about what we say and do – as individuals, as brands, as companies. And secondly, when we slip up (we are all human after all), work on the response. That’s more important than ever now – how you respond when called on your mistake.

Because you can be sure that someone, somewhere, will definitely call you on it.

How do you respond to mistakes?

All are really good reasons, but here’s one that I want to point out specially.

clipped from www.wordsellinc.com

Fifth, negative comments in and of themselves are unlikely in and of themselves to drive business away. Other readers are more interested in your response to a negative comment than the comment itself. For example, the comment “How come your sales rep never calls on me?!$*” by itself doesn’t look good. However, if you respond with, “We are extremely sorry about that. It is never our intention to ignore any customer. You will be hearing from your rep this afternoon, and we hope it’s not too late to rebuild our relationship,” you may find yourself actually attracting new business and turning indifferent customers into evangelists. Of, you could choose not to blog, and risk having customer tell twenty of his friends how unresponsive you are.

Bad comments are not just bad comments – they are opportunities for you to respond and build new relationships.

In today’s world, you can monitor and track whatever is said anywhere. And as such, I think that Brad’s point can be applied to anything that’s said about you, not just comments on your blog.

As long as people are talking about you, it can work in your favor. Even if it’s bad, it’s a chance for you to jump in and contribute to the conversation. It’s a chance for you to correct any mistakes – be it on the report’s end or on your end. It’s a chance for you to build new connections.

There’s no such thing as bad press, just opportunities to respond.

How do you respond to the negative things that are said about you?

I finally watched Wall-E today. It was a good movie, but I’m not going to write about the plot or review it or anything like that.

What I do want to say about it is something that struck me while I was watching it. Wall-E is more or less a non-talking robot. Throughout the whole movie, it only says two words (it repeats the same words quite a lot, though).

But despite that, the movie still portrays the emotions of Wall-E well. Purely through its actions, the robot Wall-E carries the plot well enough, and it displays its emotions and thoughts.

Communication isn’t just about words. In fact, at times, it’s not about words at all – your message can get across just as (if not more) effectively by what you do and who you are.

Yet, I’m pretty sure you’ll agree that it wouldn’t make the best post (right?).

I’m no cook (not by any stretch of the imagination), but a recipe with too many spices mixed together tends to be less prefered to recipes with one or two dedicated spices, I think. A novel with too many subplots tends to get too convoluted and confusing, and loses readers. And we’ve all heard complaints about softwares with feature bloat.

Having the most “good” things isn’t always the best way to go. More often than not, it’s better to focus on one thing. Do one thing, and do it well.

How do you maintain focus on what you’re doing?

Post inspired by the 52-in-One Challenge by Jarkko

Two things from that:

1) You’re often your strongest when you have nothing to lose.

2) It’s about the people, the community. Community trumps policy and tools any time. Take the example of Obama and his grassroots campaign, for example. Community, people. That’s the most important.