I spent a weekend a few years ago at a blogger’s conference in Boise, Idaho. A 28-year-old mom of two made $1M last year blogging…about blogging! Another mom of three is on target to make $200,000 blogging about succulent plants (she is going to spin off cactus since she wants to further specialize…two years ago she didn’t know what succulent meant!); and yet another nets over $85,000 teaching other moms how to take pictures of their children!

The accomplished author Seth Godin was there but the really impressive people were the new bloggers, stars in their eyes not for money but for what Godin called their mission “to amplify and connect” with their audience. Each of them, the successful and the brand new (one that I met said she started 8 weeks ago and already made $500…and she said it as if it were $500,000!) Each of them had an area to teach and every single person I spoke to emphasized trust as the foundation of their success, their blog, and their reason for being. Their job was to engender trust with and for and to their own personal ‘community” of bloggers, succulent-ers, and moms.

Working Today?

How do you “amplify and connect” with others online or in person? How much are you aware that you are doing so, or do you wait for it to come naturally? These bloggers don’t wait.

Family Time Today?

Try picture time as if you were at a studio with a professional and let the kids even the little ones take some too.

On Your Own Today?

Speaking of blogging…one blogger specializes in restoring old trailers…like the kind you travel and live in. She’s been a devoted rehabber since her late teens, is admittedly a bit obsessive (!), and makes money doing this since there are apparently other people who do this too or at least like reading about someone who does. What is one of your quirks? There are more like you out there!?