2013’s gone, we’ll never see her again, she was a great ship to sail in and now we must say goodbye (Apollo 13 springs to mind). And welcome 2014.

PRESSLY FRESHED

Firstly I’d like to make it clear I’m not “anti-establishment”, I truly like WordPress.com, the people who work there (here ?), who have been almost always extremely charming, gracious, supportive and helpful. I’m led to believe their guiding ethos is “democratic publishing”, and I firmly and whole heartedly support this idea.

The “Freshly Pressed” concept is a good idea, as I realise that WordPress want to put their best image forward. This helps us and the whole community. So whilst my “I’m NOT Featured on Freshly Pressed Award” is a real award, it’s mean’t in the spirit of good-heartedness, for humour, in being able to laugh at myself, ourselves. NOT as a malicious, rebellious act with ill-intent. This is simply not who I am.

So guys and gals, give those editors at Pressly Freshed a break, they are doing the best they can to promote our platform and blogs, albeit often by proxy. It really is a sterling, first class job by Matt and his team. The outside internet coming here is a good thing, and benefits all of us. The being envious and petty about not being on Pressly Freshed, just simply isn’t very charismatic, you, guys and gals I know are bigger than that. (Well there are a few morons I’ve met on WordPress, but water under the bridge, hopefully they’ve unfollowed me by now).

So if you’ve chosen to accept my award, wear your badge with pride as someone who has a sense of humour, and is doing the best they can in-spite of their disadvantages. If you have advantages and talents, all well and good, I commend you for sharing your gifts. That’s where I’m coming from.

2013

2013 glad that shit’s over, what a disaster LOL Anything with a “13” in it has me wary to start with.

Joking, for those who don’t understand humour. 2013’s been an eventful year for me. First half I spent as a financial markets trader and came out worse than I started, who knew the market I was trading was going to continue to fall endlessly !

In July 2013 I started the DonCharisma.org blog. At the time I didn’t have a clue what for, although I had an inkling it was to do with finding strength in myself. Here’s my first post – https://doncharisma.org/2013/07/01/doncharisma-strength/

I like the Uma Thurman/Kill Bill quote, it signifies a changing belief, from powerlessness to powerfulness, just by changing the way we think. And if that wasn’t enough persistence is built into the second sentence.

“It’s the wood that should fear your hand, not the other way around. No wonder you can’t do it, you acquiesce to defeat before you even begin.”

Kill Bill Vol2, Pai Mei

I love film for providing such nuggets of wisdom and the awesome way that film makers can bring a story visually into life, it’s truly a lazy-man’s library.

BTW for Ameri-Queen readers, a “film” is the same as a “movie”, it’s what we British, who invented the English language, the only true English, call it. Sorry, I’m a bit patriotic like that sometimes, no harm mean’t.

FILM has been a great source of inspiration and meditation for me. I love the way I can be immersed in the personalities, motives, plots, stories, emotions and over a period of time have learnt to use this to better myself. Through first better understanding myself and then being better able to relate and empathise with the characters. And lastly extending it into my interactions in “the real world”.

Most dudes are sorely behind and sorely unable to compete in the emotional intelligence arena. This was one of my solutions.

Anyway I digress a little – I started my blog with a couple of good guiding principles, strength via taking responsibility, and persistence. Having passed the 10000 follower mark just recently, which I know is a fairly superficial measure of success, I think I’ve done pretty OK.

Other bloggers have provided a continual source of inspiration, and have been in part the emotional fuel to keep going. Special thanks to Shaun Gibson of http://prayingforoneday.wordpress.com/about who whilst I thought I was schooling him, did a good job of schooling me, a humble master teacher he is. Thanks partly to him my game upped many notches, in arenas like boldness and not caring what other people think. I do love this kilt-wearing, ex-gansta, troll-squashing guy.

Dotta Raphels http://dottaraphels.wordpress.com/about was one of the first women to be a positive force in developing my blog, just a persistence nuisance positive force for good, who encourages and encourages, couldn’t ask for better friend.

Women often seem to approach blogging slightly differently from men. Although a generalisation, I know, but my experience has been that the women make the community, where men often seem to be more the builders. Aside from the gender politics, which I have no interest in (my views are already fixed), I’m very very grateful to the ladies of WordPress who make this a F***ING AWESOME place to be. I’ve expressed my thanks many times, and you gals know I’m grateful, I do love you all 🙂

Irene http://irenedesign2011.wordpress.com/about and Suz http://suzjones.wordpress.com/about/ have been like persistent nuisances inspirations, never ceasing to encourage and help me with my visual creations, my Photoshop skills and Photography have benefited tremendously, having publish several hundred photos all taken on my shitty mobile phone iPhone 4s.

Mi Kee http://sassymikee.wordpress.com/about will always have a special place in my heart, she’s just so nice, nicer than me, even. She’s very laid back, very eloquent in her English. Always pings me on Facebook, see if I’m ok. Mi Kee you are awesome.

OM http://aopinionatedman.com/about was one of the guys who gave me a push and a helping hand. I love that he’s open about stuff, and he’s a little difficult to “get”, but I after few months blogging do now definitely “get” him. He writes the most useful and thought provoking stuff. He’s a pioneer, and I do look up to him, if I’m honest. Also always been polite friendly and helpful to me.

PLUS MANY MANY others, can’t mention everybody or this post would be 200000 words long 🙂

So looking back on 2013, I could (and will in a bit) list my achievements, but it’s the positive, creative, F***ING AWESOME people that I’ve found here that make blogging great. I’m am so prviledged to know these people. And I will continue to promote them for free, WHY ? Because I know they’d do and have done the same for me. They are always cheerful, never petty, always civil and do their best to be positive. It’s the perfect storm, the perfect crowd of people that I set out to find, and have found.

Achievements

So what have I done in 2013 ?

There’s my two post on SEO for bloggers and webbers :

https://doncharisma.org/2013/08/30/virgins-guide-to-promoting-a-blog-or-website-on-google/

https://doncharisma.org/2013/10/31/virgins-guide-to-promoting-a-blog-or-website-ethos-part-2/

My two posts about cartooning myself and my girlfriend :

https://doncharisma.org/2013/07/10/two-days-of-cartoonification-how-to-cartoon-yourself-or-myself-or-whatever/

https://doncharisma.org/2013/08/16/miss-charisma-cartoonize-my-girlfriend-another-two-days-of-cartoonification/

Over a hundred photos edited and published of my trip to the “Big Buddha Hill”

https://doncharisma.org/2013/12/12/big-buddha-hill-the-final-gallery/

A recent sunset panorama over the ocean, got over 200 likes :

https://doncharisma.org/2013/12/26/ocean-sunset-panorama-huge-sky/

My post about badly behaved bloggers :

https://doncharisma.org/2013/10/10/trollsrus-a-guide-to-blog-trolls-moose-mr-whisk-and-the-axe-murderer/

Have a look around, there’s plenty of other cool stuff I did in 2013.

Success ?

Total money received in 2013 from blogging was £0.77 or around $1. My time investment must be in the region of 4000 hours. So I’ve been working for $0.00025 / hour. Oh whoops I forgot the expenses, electricity, domain costs, and so on, so I’ve been losing money every hour. Financial success, no, not yet.

10000 followers, 8000 comments just on my own blog, 400 posts, thousands of likes, hundreds of friends, priceless 🙂

So yes, in my mind a success, I’m happy. I’ve learnt a huge amount, I’ve enjoyed myself a huge amount and the biggest prize of all is the friends I’ve made. The financials will take care of themselves eventually, having faith is the most important thing.

Is there a formula or secret to success ? yes and no. I already intimated to it on my very first post back in July-2013 – Strength, using my brain, taking responsibility and persistence. Only EIGHT people ever liked it and that was including me liking it myself ! Does that mean that not many people are ACTUALLY interested in success or that not many people ever read my first post ?

Happy Blogging in 2014

Warm regards

Don Charisma

PS. I realised when I was walking on the beach my maths above is probably wrong, but you get the general idea anyway !

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