Sheryl Sandberg

source BlogHer 13

I had the opportunity to hear Author of Lean In and COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg speak at the BlogHer 13 conference.  You can read my recap of the conference here.  The two things I took away from Sheryl’s interview were:

1. Ask yourself what would you do if you weren’t afraid? Then do it anyway.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.

As a blogger I’m vulnerable to other people’s opinions and share a lot of personal things which can be scary.  A few years ago, I decided to face my fears and hit the publish button anyway. Truth be told, my husband hit my first publish button. I kept reading and editing my post.  I’m learning and growing and I’ve had to learn things about social media and computers that I wasn’t sure I was capable of.  I’m thankful for the help of my website designer Gina at Ginasis and other bloggers who share their expertise. I’m also extremely grateful for all of my email subscribers, facebook followers and visitors to my blog.  I enjoy promoting other people and things that I love, but not very good at promoting myself.  I don’t want to be “that person”  constantly marketing something. However, I realize if I want my blog’s readership to grow I need to do a certain amount of self promotion.

Here’s the part where I ask for what I want.  If you like something, what I want is for you to share my blog with others who may enjoy reading it. Share a post on facebook or like it, pin something to pinterest or tweet it. I’d also love for you to leave a comment if you’ve tried a product or recipe I’ve recommended or if a story resonates with you.  On the flip side, if you haven’t loved something feel free to comment as well.  I would like to work with brands I love in the future and offer giveaways.  Brands look to see if people are engaging with a bloggers writing.  By  sharing my information on social media it also helps me potentially reach more people.  Many of you are already doing this and I greatly appreciate it.  I know I have several friends though who enjoy my blog, but didn’t realize the impact that sharing has for a blog.  For those of you old enough, remember the old Faberge shampoo commercial.  “The tag line was they told two friends and so on, and so on.”

I haven’t read Lean In, but I felt the advice Sheryl shared  left the conference room of sleepy women feeling empowered.  What would you do if you weren’t afraid?  I’m not recommending you do anything harmful. I encourage you to take steps now toward whatever your intuition is telling you to do.  If your feeling brave leave a comment on what you’d like to do.