What I learned from my readers

I don’t know what I don’t know.

Because of that blind spot it is hard to fix serious problems. You just don’t see them. So what can you do? One of the ways to find out what is in those blind spots is asking people what they see. Even if you don’t know the right questions to ask (or what you don’t know that you really need to find out), it is amazing what you can discover when you keep your mind open. Most people have a poor understanding about how they appear to others. They miss their good points and put too much emphasis on their flaws or even worse imagine virtues that aren’t there. Without the perspective of an outside observer, it is easy to fool yourself about how you appear to others. I am the perfect example.

So what do you mean by outrageous?

In my blog, the goal is to help people achieve an outrageous retirement lifestyle. I think that this is a topic with broad interest as boomers start to retire. I don’t know why more people aren’t reading. I have some readers and get a few engaged comments but I want more. Right now I don’t know what to do about it. That at least is something that I know I don’t know. The question is how I can find the answer. I decided to ask questions. I may not know the right questions to ask but asking any questions, even the ‘wrong’ ones,  may produce surprising results. I may find out that what I think I know is wrong and I may provoke readers to answer a question I didn’t ask but should have.

The quest begins.

I started my quest for understanding this week with question about how readers found my blog and what they are looking for. (If you are new to RCB and have not taken those surveys, please take a minute and help me learn about you.) From the results so far I have learned a few things.

First Lesson

The first is that my readers find my blog because of my comments on other blogs. So far, SEO is not bringing me returning readers, just filtters. I get lots of hits from people googling Chevy Trucks (I have done some nostalgia posts on old cars) but they do not convert to returning readers. This suggests that the weekly nostalgia posts may not be effective marketing to build an audience of retirees. That is a decision for later. My first take away from the survey is that blog comments are my most effective marketing activity and that I should commit to a regular schedule of commenting as a way to build a reader community.

Second Lesson

The second is an insight about using the term outrageous to describe a successful retirement. I discovered that people with outrageous retirement lifestyles don’t recognize that they are outrageous. They regard their lifestyle as normal even though they may aspire to step up to a level that they recognize as outrageous. In other words, it is all relative. Outrageous can be a goal or a process but never a current state because when you reach it, it becomes ordinary. I think this is a great insight and I thank my readers for forcing me to see it. I’ve been uncomfortable advocating outrageous lifestyles when I don’t think I am achieving one. Now I see that it is all a quest (maybe an impossible one) to reach a target that keeps moving. It is a subtle difference but I think an important one. I am not an expert telling you how. I am a learner seeking fulfillment on the road less traveled. I am calling that mission outrageous even though my accomplishments may not look or feel outrageous.

What do I still not know?

What I learned is that outrageous is not a state, it is a process. Maybe that insight will help me communicate more effectively. The final test is always the readers. I am counting on learning from them as I go.  Help me stay on track.  Am I getting it or is there something else I still do not know?