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What can lawyers learn from a 72 year old beginning blogger?

December 21, 2013

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Blogging will broaden your world.

That’s the message from professional artist, Sandra Sallin (@sandrasallin), in a Huffington Post piece entitled “I’m a 72 year old blogger.”

Sallin acknowledges she may not be the typical blogger.

Yes, I’ve got gray hair. The guy at the gas station calls me “madame,” and the man who sat next to me on my last flight asked, “who configured your iPhone for you?” Get the picture?

But feeling her life contracting, not expanding, Sallin was attracted to blogging.

The world seemed so open to bloggers. They had readers from everywhere and they made friends from all over the globe. I just ate it all up.

Like lawyers, Sallin was intimidated by this whole blogging thing.

I’m 72-years old. I’m not a writer. Why would anyone care what I had to say? I’m scared to death of putting myself out there. The whole concept of how to blog was tough to understand and geeky.

After six months of reading about blogging and watching videos of how to blog Sallin pushed through her doubts and fears. What did she discover?

Blogging was supposed to be about finding my voice, and here people were opening my eyes to my own life in ways I didn’t expect. People were telling me, “Write more! Your life is so amazing!” It was? Slowly, my doubts have been replaced with a passion to write about my life, my stories, and my obsessions.

As a lawyer you may not be blogging about your personal life, but blogging can indeed broaden your world.

Getting started is scary. What do I have to offer in an area of law that someone else isn’t saying, and better? I don’t know how to write in a non-legal way? What will people say? What if I make a fool of myself? I don’t know where to start.

Like with anything in life once you break out of your comfort zone your experiences become so much richer. You begin to learn so much more as well as learn more about yourself.

Broadening your world as lawyer through blogging can be a wonderful thing. You meet a growing number of people with similar interests, people who will become your learning network.

You’ll begin to network and engage people in social ways that you may have found intimidating before blogging. You’ll begin to get the type of work you want from the type of clients you like from this networking – online and offline.

You’ll be expressing your passion in a new way of writing and getting positive feedback in return. This, when previously wondering why you became a lawyer, can be very uplifting to your psyche.

Sallin and I exchanged holiday wishes on Twitter this afternoon. Seeing what I do, she said, “I see where you’re coming from. Broaden the world of lawyers. Way to go!”

I never thought of it that way. Blogging will broaden your world.

Thanks Sandy.

Image courtesy of Flickr by John WIlliams.

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