Since my bartending college days, throwing a great party has been my specialty so you can bet SchipulCon09 is going to be one. It’s this October 15 & 16 and yes…. we’re taking over the Houston Zoo!! In case you missed it yesterday, we announced that our keynote is going to be the lovely Deirdre Breakenridge but rest-assured that is not all the awesome-ness we have coming your way!! Over the next month, we’ll be making speaker announcements and rolling out some fun agenda items so watch the Schipul Blog or follow us on twitter for deets!

Who should you come to SchipulCon09?

1. Interested in Social Media? We’ll be breaking it down.
2. Consider yourself a super online Marketer? Let’s swap knowledge.
3. Want to converse with your audience or members? We’ll show you how.
4. Got a blog and don’t know what to do with it? Let’s talk.
5. Still don’t know what this twitter thing is? Come on!
6. Looking for a chance to Network and tell your story? Then we want you.

Right now we offering a super special registration rate that you don’t want to miss! For 49 bucks you get a two day pass to SchipulCon + all the fun we’ve got planned. Why wait?

And come on. You can’t tell this little guy no…. Can you?

I often get asked why I decided to join the Army and I think my answer is fairly simple. I wanted to be a part of something greater than I am. I wanted to be pushed to my limits and I wanted to do something good for my country.

Let’s fast forward seven years….

I am now the Public Relations and Operations gal at a great company. I have some really amazing friends and random activities that further complete me. But all of this has not stopped be from getting worried and often second guessing myself. Do I want to be blogging? Do I tweet to much? Crowds make me nervous…. do I have to do this speaking gig? Am I really doing everything right?

I am not really sure where this fear comes from or why it even started. Maybe the societal pressure to please everyone? I have been freelance writing for Barstool Magazine for YEARS and writing there has never made me nervous at all but for some reason starting this blog was very hard for me. Maybe it is the comments section at the end that would allow people to say to my face what they really thought about my article rather than just mentioning how much it sucked while they flipped pages.

Overcoming

Recently I was reunited with of my old friends from Basic Training and while talking to him about some of these fears, he reminded me that the most important thing in life is for me to be me.

“Maggie you are passionate and strong. People love you for who you are. You don’t need to be anything else and you don’t need to be afraid. You just need to be you. “

This is the man who picked me up when I fell, who pushed me to run harder and faster and who was not surprised when our Drill Sergeants put me in charge of a platoon. He has been on tour in Iraq not once, but twice. He is one of the strongest men I know. I greatly admire him and his respect means a lot to me, so I’ve been thinking a lot about what he had to say.

Am I really being me?

The answer is irrevocably yes. There are certain things I’ve wanted with my life, goals I have set, and I have accomplished those goals and more. So where does my fear come from? Why am I second guessing myself with every blog post? It comes from an obvious lack of confidence in myself.

Starting today, I am going to do everything in my power to channel my “Inner Army Chick” again because I know she is there. I miss the Maggie that could run for hours and who had a quiet confidence that was unwavering. I miss the girl that was terrified of change but who threw all of those fears out of the window to join the Army. I want the Maggie who would charge head first through a bayonet course screaming at the top of her lungs because a Drill Sergeant told her to and who didn’t flinch when this same Drill Sergeant took away her Herbal Essence because it was too “girly.” This girl could climb any obstacle (and did) and “fear” was not a part of her vocabulary.

So which inner “you” should you channel?

My advice is this: find that inner “Confident You” to channel when you start to feel afraid and get channeling WHOMEVER that “Inner You” happens to be. Whether she is your Inner Army chick, your Inner Ninja or your Inner Goddess, I guarantee she is there. She is strong and confident and smart and just waiting for you to tap into her beauty.

I promise that from now on, I will always Channel my Inner Army Chick and I will do so unabashedly.

But what does this look like?

1. I’m going to blog, without fail, once a week. Like anything in life, to be good at something you have to practice. I love writing and I need to do more of it. I only get to flex my creative muscles so much writing about the new Houston “it” bar for barstool!
2. It’s back to a 100 books a week for me! I am a voracious reader. I have been in a bit of a slump and it’s time to get back to reading every night!
3. Army body here I come. I truly believe (and so does this guy) that your brain can only be as fit as your body. I’ve been back to running 25 miles a week for a month now and I feel great. I’m thinking really hard about doing the Peak Condition Project but we will see. I know Gwen loves it!
4. I’m going skydiving. This is where the fearless part comes in!

And luckily I’ve got another opportunity to teach and to connect with some amazing people coming again soon!

The Indie Biz Chicks Conference is on May 6 and 7. Won’t you join me?

I’m speaking on Wednesday, May 6 at 1 pm EST. You’ll get more info on how to connect when you register!

Speakers include Gwen Bell, the Ladies of Handmade Detroit,  Jenny Hart. Topics will cover everything from Maximizing Social Media for Your Event to how to coordinate and AMAZING Craft Show. If you’re an Indie Chick (in your spare time or ALL the time) looking for a little advice and direction, this conference is the place for you.

Best part about it? Dressing to impress means attending in your yoga suit

Welcome readers of the Houston Chron.com!! Thanks for visiting

Secret’s out. I have an Internet crush Malcolm Gladwell. I know I already blogged about him here and here… and also tweet about him all the time, but I just saw him speak at a Greater Houston Partnership luncheon and I’ve got just a hundred a little bit more to say.

First of all. Malcolm Gladwell is a GREAT speaker. To read the man is not to hear him. I have read his books and as much as I love them, at times he can come across as pretty clinical. In person he comes across as anything but.

And second? Outliers is much more than just a book… it’s more than a case study on human nature or an expose of secrets kept for years by Sociologist. Gladwell was able to captivate me on a higher level with his prose and my thoughts on Outliers were reoriented. Today, the concepts that make up Outliers leapt off of the pages and really became a cause; they became something to believe in.

In my blog post about Outliers on the Schipul blog, I talked about how Gladwell insists that “to build a better world, we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success – the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents in history – that provides opportunities to all.” Gladwell’s talk today was focused on the constraints that are holding us back from obtaining this better world. He does discuss these same constraints in Outliers, but hearing them out loud, punctuated by a fist in the air, turned them into a call to action and not “just” words on a page.

Okay. I’m gonna put a brake on things before I get to the constraints because I would like to explain what exactly we are being constrained from: an abundance of Social Capitalization. That missing abundance is what is keeping us from this mythical “better world” but…. What the hell does that even mean?!! Social Capitalization is the rate at which a given community takes advantage of its collective human potential. We are not taking advantage of ours.

To really understand the idea of capitalization, check out this article on Wikipedia. Yeah, it has to do with the accounting aspect of capitalization it but really helped me grasp the concept.

So. What is keeping us from an abundance of Social Capitalization? Gladwell says there are three things.

1. The Poverty Constraint: In ways we cannot even begin to appreciate, poverty affects us more profoundly than you would ever think. No matter how intelligent you are, where you com from really matters. “Poverty trumps IQ” says Gladwell.
2. The Stupidity Constraint: We think the way we have of doing things is perfect when in reality we are creating rules that get in the way of letting people realize their talents. Gladwell uses Hockey teams as an example to illustrate this constraint. “Isn’t Hockey a meritocracy? NO! We think we are choosing the best but we’re not! We’re choosing the biggest!” Hockey leagues are based on certain age cut offs. Those cut offs can mean a lot when you pit two little boys against each other…. one who was born on January 1 and the other born after Christmas.
3. The Attitude Constraint: It is a proven fact that people from Asian countries score better on their math tests. Is this because they are smarter than Americans? No. James Flynn actually proved that Caucasians have a slightly higher IQ than Asians. What’s the deal then? Turns out we Americans are just lazier. Give us a math problem and we’ll give up after an average of two minutes while Asians will toil away forever.

We as a society need to throw the magic dust out the window. The issue in this country is NOT that we are by nature untalented. The issue is that we are squandering our talent. Outliers calls us to fix that.

**Two other things that have NOTHING to do with changing the world but are sort-of Malcolm related:

1. David mashed this picture of Malcolm and Bob together and it is HILARIOUS.
2. Malcolm Gladwell looks really great in skinny jeans.

The last six month’s have been an absolute whirlwind. I’ve crammed so much Social Media and Personal Branding knowledge into this brain of mine that I’ve been on the verge of bursting for the last month or so.

Tonight I will get my chance! I am speaking to the DigiCom Student Association at Houston Community College on Personal Branding and The Art behind the Personal Branding RockStars.

I. Am. So. Excited!

Check out my slides, let me know what you think! I always enjoy and learn from your comments