Since starting this blog in November of 2009, it’s gone through a few major themes and subtle shifts in direction. I’ve had two editors, a two-year hiatus, and the expansion into two separate websites.
Two years ago, I decided to split my main focus into two websites.
- SpeakingGump.com
- GumptionExperience.com
My thinking at the time was SpeakingGump would focus primarily on Gumption and the Life Lessons from the movie Forrest Gump, while the GumptionExperience site would focus more on how I served my clients. GumptionExperience initially focused on meetings, events, and hosting, but became more about ‘change’ and change leadership in the last 6 months.
I envisioned the two sites being separate – but equal – with visitors going back-n-forth between them. They would be a right-hand – left-hand complement… or a right-brain/left-brain combining emotion and logic.
While this separate – but equal – idea made perfect sense to me, I’ve come to realize it made little sense to visitors of the sites. I found myself explaining this to people over and over. It wasn’t obvious and it wasn’t instinctive.
So to end 2016, I decided to merge the two sites together. SpeakingGump will be my single home. The GumptionExperience site will simply be an additional domain that points back to SpeakingGump. The 46 blog posts that I wrote on GumptionExperience have already been merged into the SpeakingGump site. All of the content pages have also been moved. A new menu structure appears on SpeakingGump. The GumptionExperience site has essentially been shut down.
Going forward, SpeakingGump will be the sole site that describes how I work with clients and my philosophies of change leadership and Gumption.
Here is what you can expect going forward on the SpeakingGump blog in 2017:
- Two posts per week
- One post focused on Gumption, Life Lessons
- One post focused on change leadership, meetings/events
Future idea that will happen in 2017
- Video blogging (1 or 2 times per week)
Future ideas under consideration
- Podcast on Change leadership
- Regular video casts as an interview show
Since my first blog post on November 5, 2009, I’ve updated the focus and direction of this blog 5 or 6 times. Each of the updates has been a reset. During each reset, I felt a strategic shift was needed. I believe in publicly declaring my changing thought process to be open and accountable to you the readers… and myself.
So what have I learned from writing regularly for the past seven years?
- It’s a journey – you don’t ever arrive, you just keep on going.
- There are chapters – or phases – that your writing goes through.
- The phases seem really important at the time – but in retrospect, they are simply parts of the whole.
- Writing gets easier the more you do.
- To quote William Faulkner, “I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.“
Thanks for being part of my journey. Thanks for subscribing to the SpeakingGump blog as I’ve meandered down a path towards my truth. 2017 is going to be a great year!