What I learned over the past year - bloggers are awesome!

Ben Yoskovitz over at the Instigator Blog has instigated a group writing project.  The project is for bloggers to write a post about what they have learned over the past year. 

I have learned a lot over the past year.  I am always learning, but I thought I would write about the coolest things I have learned about bloggers over the past year.  I have discovered that bloggers are incredibly generous and exhibit an abundance mindset. 

I was a bit nervous when I first decided to start a blog.  Andy Wibbels' book BlogWild gave me the knowledge and courage to give it a try.  After reading his book I went out and signed up at Typepad for a 30-day trial.  I thought that was a good deal - I could try it and if I didn't like it I could quit after my free trial. 

I can tell you it didn't take me 30 days to fall in love with blogging.  I was hooked immediately.  I think it was the community feeling that hooked me.  I immediately could see that blogging was about creating a community and building relationships.  What's not to love about that?  Then again as a psychologist, I am all about building relationships and community. 

The other part of blogging that captured my interest and still leaves me in awe is the abundance mentality that prevails in the blogosphere.  Let me explain what I mean by first looking at the opposite concept. In traditional networking groups they often limit the number of people from the same industry that can join each group in order to limit the competition.  This approach is inherently based on a limited mindset... in other words, there is only a finite number of customers out there, so we must compete with each other to win that business.  

Now, let's look at the culture of blogging.  Bloggers tend to connect with other bloggers who are in similar businesses.  The communities that form tend to be of people and businesses that are going after the same market.  You often see marketing experts connecting and linking to marketing experts, coaches connecting with and linking to other coaches.  Rather than seeing a finite pool of customers that they are competing for, bloggers see an abundance or infinite supply of customers and business.  Therefore, bloggers operate from a mindset that helping each other benefits everyone!  How cool is that?!

So what I have learned about bloggers can be summed up like this: the best bloggers believe that it is definitely better to give than to receive and the more you help others achieve success the more success finds its way back to you.  It's no wonder I fell in love with blogging this past year!