The Blog of Glenn McLaurin

What happens when you scrimp, save, and dedicate your life to carefully controlling of your finances in order to generate the capital needed to start buying real estate in New York City, just a few months before the nation-wide real estate bubble?

You might just make ‘A Million Bucks By Thirty.’

Real-estate mogul and occasional reality TV-star Alan Corey’s first book details his rapid rise to wealth, accomplished through the twin virtues of frugality and intelligent investments.  He writes what he knows, and though the big-name personal finance gurus might have more experience and name recognition, Corey does a great job at breaking down the basics of income management and investing for a demographic greatly in need of advice.

Corey’s ‘American Dream’ story is reminiscent of Scratch Beginnings, in which 25-year-old Adam Shephard abandons his life in North Carolina and moves to Charleston, South Carolina with twenty five dollars in his pocket. Though he starts his journey at a homeless shelter, Shephard works his way to a stable job, savings account, and apartment within six months – he never loses sight of his goals, and ultimately prospers for doing so.

The same criticism Shephard has received for his experiment in self-reliance could feasibly be applied to Corey as well: most people have other responsibilities that prevent them from fully committing time and energy to their goals, the authors had a middle-class ’safety net’ unavailable to many, the authors should have been more conscious of the advantages they enjoyed along the way, and should not hold others to ‘unrealistic expectations.’  The fact of the matter, however, is that anyone who carefully manges his or her life until they beat the odds and become a success fully deserves respect and recognition.  Did Corey (and Shepherd) have some advantages that simply are not available to many young people?  Yes.  Did Corey (and Shepherd) have friends, family, and something of a stable life back home to fall back on, if their plans went awry?  Yes.  But, do Corey (and Shepherd) ever claim to be the end-all be-all experts on how to manage one’s life, or insinuate that others are inadequate for not following the same path they chose?  No.

Regardless of age, gender, race, or social status, we all have our own personal circumstances that we must overcome in order to succeed.  Sometimes we dig deep, work hard, and put in the blood, sweat, and tears necessary… and sometimes, the challenges are too much.  Sometimes we get lucky breaks, other times, just as we reach the top, we get pushed back down.

We play the hand we’re dealt, we make the best out of what life offers us.  And every once in a while we beat the odds, and  in doing so, become an inspiration to others.

Joanna, over at Confident Writing, issued her March Group Writing Project, and I finally finished my response tonight. The challenge? Produce “4 lots of 4 things on the theme of writing and inspiration.” It’s a bit tougher than it sounds, but, as always, the project was well worth the effort.

————————————————–

4×4 Sources of Writing Inspiration

Four reasons why I aspire to be a prosumer of content:

1. I expose myself to new material, and analyze it in new ways: Reading the same news sources day in and day out results in an extremely provincial view of the world. Actively seeking content to comment on, however, has resulted in me subscribing to far more blogs and checking out far more books from the library… and now I read in order to share my opinions, rather than keeping my thoughts to myself.

2. I learn so much more: I have already put my foot in my mouth a few times, and I am sure it will happen again. More and more, however, as one’s personal brand becomes so much more important, I am increasingly conscious of what I post and my choice of wording. The result? I force myself to do more fact-checking and delve deeper in my research. And learning is never a bad thing.

3. I network more: Blogging is all about the connections, and the best way to generate feedback on one’s writing is to find an active audience. The relationships I have begun to establish have led me to new authors, new books, and new topics I knew nothing about beforehand, and I would have nothing to share in return if I always kept to myself.

4. I have a lot more fun: This was the focus of the last group writing project, but I absolutely love everything about the writing process. I write and blog because I enjoy it, and oftentimes that passion is inspiration enough.

Four books (of many) which made me want to be a writer:

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling: As a member of the generation that literally grew up alongside of Harry, I love the entire series. It was while reading this book, however, that I first made the connection that I was enjoying the book because the underlying story was really, really good. I have since read better and greater, but that lesson – if the basic plot structure is weak, the work as a whole suffers – has stuck with me since childhood.

2. No Country For Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy: Proof that great writing does not have to be obfuscated by grandiose language, complex syntax, or even commas. I loved the movie, I loved the book, but it was the style which had the greatest impact on me.

3. JPod, by Douglas Coupland: Every time I flip back through this book, I find some random quote which makes me laugh out loud. Coupland’s blend of visual art with a wacky story and sheer randomness makes for an incredible read; the unpredictability of his writing is a major reason as to why I love this book so much.

4. Rats Saw God, by Rob Thomas: Several years ago, while doing a project in my school’s library, a good friend of mine abruptly stood up, walked over to the shelves, and then handed me a book, telling me, “You absolutely must read this.” And this was my introduction to Rats Saw God, a short, odd novel centered around a story of growing up and maturing to face the real world. I have never understood why I could relate so strongly to the central characters, or even why I loved the book so much, but to this day, a well-worn, dog-eared copy sits on my bookshelf.

Four authors who made me want to live a life I could write about:

1. Tucker Max: As I have said before, Tucker’s lifestyle and my own are worlds apart; I have no plans to ever emulate his adventures. I do, however, respect his success: he has risen to the top by writing about what he knows best, and his emphasis on doing just that has influenced my own writing a great deal.

2. Timothy Ferriss: I don’t know anyone who has read The 4-Hour Workweek and still does not want to live live the way Ferriss does. His accomplishments are a testament to the very philosophy he preaches; my own posts about taking action have been largely inspired by his writings.

3. Keith Ferrazzi: A professional networker and author of the brilliant Never Eat Alone, reading Ferrazzi’s advice reinforced my belief that it is too early (or too late!) to develop the “people skills” which make or break so many social interactions.

4. Thomas Friedman: Anyone who has read the opening pages of From Beirut to Jerusalem will understand exactly why Friedman is such a world-renowned journalist. His books are not mere research reports generated by interns with his name slapped on the cover; he lives the very moments he shares with the rest of the world, and is a success for it.

Four goals for my future writing career:

1. See the emergence of a definite theme: Though the topics of my blog are beginning to collect under a few umbrella categories, my posts are still relatively scattered. I have yet to dedicate all of my energy to one given theme, but as I generate enough content and am able to find what my audience reacts best to, I plan to carve out some sort of a niche.

2. Develop a schedule for my writing: Every bit of writing advice I read amounts to “write, write, write, write, and write some more.” I am as guilty as most people, however, in that I hardly ever go through a week and manage to write a little bit every day.

3. Create content that people truly enjoy reading: I refuse to fall into the trap where I care more about the number of one-time visitors than the loyal readers who keep coming back because I am producing stuff of substance.

4. Continue this trend of self-reflection: There is an infinite number of articles and resources and random musings which I could reflect on until the end of my days, but sometimes the greatest source of inspiration lies within. Setting attainable goals for the future, talking about books I love, and even remembering the authors who influenced my earliest interests in writing have all been terrific methods of finding inspiration.

I am back from Spain, completely and totally in love with the country. I spoke more Spanish than ever before, saw countryside more beautiful than I could ever imagine, ate strange and incredible meals (paella, oxtail stew, lamb and chicken couscous, Galician octopus), made it into Morocco…. I essentially had the time of my life. Studying abroad over there is no longer a question of ‘if’ — now it is merely a matter of ‘when.’

I took a fair number of pictures, and in accordance to the general rule of thumb wound up with one or two decent shots for every thirty or so attempts. I managed to leave two 2-gigabyte cards at home, so I was limited by a 512-megabyte card, but like everything else in life, it all worked out in the end.

Some of my personal favorites:

During bus rides from city to city, I found plenty of time to read, and managed to work through several books recommended to me by fellow bloggers — I feel I should continue the trend and urge people to definitely consider Never Eat Alone and The Starfish and the Spider, two incredible works that are as timely and significant as they are simply interesting reads.

I encourage everybody to find some way, some how to get out of the country and travel at some point in their life. Books, movies, the National Geographic channel… they do a decent job at presenting other cultures and foreign lands while you sit in the security of your home, but NOTHING compares to boarding a flight bound for a country half a world away. The rest of the world is all too easy to miss if you live a static life, and there is too much to see and experience for anyone to refuse to pursue some means of traveling to a different part of Earth.

I depart in just a few hours for Spain. No Internet, no email, no cell phones — for the next 10 days, I will be entirely cut off from North America — if a problem emerges, I will handle it when I come back at the end of next week.

I promise pictures, anecdotes, and more pictures galore when I return.

“For every brand and for every person, yesterday is irretrievably gone and tomorrow is worth a great deal.” – Seth Godin

I have written before about taking action; I have written often about goals accomplished through willpower and determination. It doesn’t change the fact, however, that I still find myself occasionally what-iffing past actions, not quite dwelling on but certainly not letting go of questioning the decisions I made.

I love history, and I completely realize that since the advent of written language a lot of people have produced a lot of great advice; I have a lot to learn from the past thoughts, musings, and mistakes of others (not to mention my own mistakes). But sometimes the best thing to do is simply move on with life and look to the future.

Yesterday’s YAC meeting was great, and the follow-up discussion about the environmental grant myself and two peers won for our school was even better. The rate of progress we have made has been almost unbelievable; a few months ago I randomly called them out of class to tell them that they were about to enter a funding proposal to an organization they had never heard of, now we are holding conversations pertaining to PR strategy and the involvement of civic leaders and officials. No longer are we having discussions of ‘if’ — it is now a matter of ‘when.’

The YAC also began planning the theme of a statewide youth conference being held later this year. Last year it was all talking heads and patronizing speeches… now, we have developed ‘The Physics of Civics: Proactive, not Reactive,’ with some great ideas for potential speakers.  We’re moving beyond telling kids that they should get involved – the focus of yesterday was finding ways to make them involved.

Anyone who doubts the abilities of motivated young people who strive to make a difference in the world desperately needs to reevaluate their perceptions of today’s youth — hidden amongst the apathy are quite a few individuals who will engender a great deal of the change in the future… and many are already beginning to succeed.

Some days I simply do not understand the world we live in.

People die. A lot of people die every day, actually. But a substantial number of these people are old, sick, suffering; the blows that their deaths deal to their loved ones are not any easier because of these factors, but at least their friends and family understand why.

But what would drive anyone to kill someone so young, someone with so much potential and such a bright future… I simply cannot comprehend why. I never knew Eve Carson, I only barely recognized the name when I saw the first pieces of news trickle in after her body was identified.  The limited information that has been released, however, is evidence enough that this girl was the type of person who would have found a way to change the world — and in many ways she had already succeeded.

I don’t believe that a resume should dictate the amount of a mourning a person receives when they die, but it simply cannot be ignored that the murder of Eve is especially heinous; the whole affair is a horribly sad event. Not only is the local community now suffering the loss of a great person, but someone who would have undoubtedly gone on to do even greater things is no longer with us. And that, in and of itself, is a terrible crime.

I read The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less some months ago, and finally found the time to email author Barry Schwartz last week, asking him if he had any suggestions for a young student with general interests in social sciences and related fields. There were no astonishing revelations included in his reply, but the words were reassuring, reinforcing my basic belief that keeping my options open is the smartest move I can make at the moment.

“…thanks to a large number of requirements to make sure all students got a “liberal arts” education, I continued through college to study many different things. I did close the door on math and biological sciences prematurely, not realizing how important they would be to a complete education in psychology (math is an invaluable tool for research design and analysis). And all through grad school, I stayed interested and open to work in other disciplines. When I came to Swarthmore, I spent as much time with colleagues outside psychology as I did with folks in my discipline. I talked with them, taught with them, and wrote with them. This exposure to other disciplines and the smart people in them kept me from getting too narrow. There’s a lot of pressure on students these days to specialize. That may be right for some people, but it wasn’t right for me.

An unprecedented amount of information lies before us just waiting to be discovered, absorbed, and interpreted. Now, more than ever before, knowledge is at its most democratic — management of information, truly, is a greater challenge than merely accessing the data. I’m making contacts, looking for opportunities as they arise, and quickly finding that there is far more to read and discuss than I could possibly ever have time for. If nothing else, however, taking away the big ideas — that is, keeping your eyes, ears, and mind open — is a great start.

*************************

On another note, Confident Writing recently published links to the entrants of the February Group Writing Project. All the pieces are great, and I highly recommend that you check out a few entries…they all really capture the theme of “love affairs with writing,” and there are some truly unique answers to the question “why do you write?”

Given the content of recent posts, it should surprise no one when I say that I think about writing a great deal. Some mornings, stuck in traffic, I try to tap my creative reserves and capture the details of my surroundings as they might appear in a story. I daydream during class, forming elaborate back stories to explain the motives of the anonymous, faceless characters which inhabit some far corner of my mind. I analyze anything and everything while I read: diction, syntax, bias, logical fallacies; I often toy around with the passages and try and reason out how adding or dropping particular words or sentence structures could improve the work as a whole — though my own writing could usually improve more than published materials, I do not always have access to a computer or notebook, and thus I make do with what is available.

Unfortunately, only a small portion of what I think about ever makes it on to paper. Such a habit is one I need to break, and though this blog has already helped to increase my output, I want to find a method which will motivate me to write more often. I am not looking to make the transition to a high-volume, low-quality blog, I simply need to type up more of what runs through my head on a daily basis.

As such, the piece below is the first part of what I hope will be a running series on determining goals, finding opportunities, and making the most out of life. ‘My Little Piece of the Internet’ will not be deviating too radically from the normal musings; this specific focus is largely for my benefit.

———————–

Time and time again, my personal experiences have reinforced a basic tenet of success espoused by so many experts: approaching a project with a clear goal for the end is instrumental in resolving problems and overcoming challenges. Though I have yet to accept time lines and objective-laden spreadsheets into my life, I never begin anything without some sense of purpose as to what it is I am doing and an understanding of the anticipated end result. To reach this state, however, one must first know one’s self, and realize his or her strengths and weaknesses, past and future.

With regards to all of this, I began to think of about ways in which I could summarize my life – and life goals – without settling in to write my autobiography. And as strange as it may sound, I settled on the format of classified ads. They are not necessarily the greatest means of advertising a product or service, but a successful ad follows a specific design: concise (but not too brief), yet still capable of delivering key details.

If I were to ‘advertise’ myself, my life, and my future, I believe it would look something like this:

University student with a varied background, including data systems management and child-wrangling, seeks new possibilities and experiences. Particularly interested in opportunities with a writing, research, and analysis focus. Pragmatic and solution-oriented, willing to learn whatever is necessary, and not afraid of a challenge.

It’s kind of frivolous, more than a little random, but still quite fun. In two, three, four sentences, how would you ‘classify’ your life?

—————————

Two different sources inspired the creation of this whimsical post. I owe a great deal of credit to Joanna of Confident Writing’ for her focus on ‘taking leaps with writing‘ this past month; the idea for short ‘classified ads’ stemmed from an article in The New Yorker on ultra-short stories told in only six words.