The Next Chapter: My New Site, This One, and Writing.

It felt awesome to write yesterday’s post and read the comments, emails, and chat messages I got as a result. The support is real. And again, I’m thankful for it. Though I’ve already transitioned into covering more on my passions with careers, health, fitness, and general positivity, it felt like I officially wrote the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

Little Miss Sunshine mentioned yesterday that people expecting me to be one-dimensional is unfair. I agree. It also reminded me that I needed to share something with you that, if we’re connected on social media, you probably already know.

I’ve launched a career site under my real name, Rich J. I don’t mean it like Terrence J. I only used the abbreviated version here to keep my name out of the search engines so professional contacts can’t link my name to this site when searching me for career stuff. And it’s not that I’m ashamed of the alias I’ve built, this site, or my other projects. I just wanna manage first impressions. At the point that I no longer have a day job, I’ll evaluate how I assemble the different parts of me online. But for now, I don’t need people looking for my career advice and then reading an article about relationships or adventures in hood chinese food. So when I write career (and some personal development) articles moving forward, you’ll see my real name on them and they’ll be on the other site.

To visit my new site, you can click here. I’ve spent a lot of time getting it set up, and the next step is to start generating casual career posts so I can populate it with more content. If you’ve been following along for my thoughts on careers, you’ll find all my new thoughts  over at the new site going forward. And if you’ve been following along for a while, you know that this is something I’ve been talking about for a long time — particularly when it comes to my ability to help people. I want to make it easy for them to find me. It’s been difficult to do that on TRSJ because the content is so all over the place. I’ve also created a separate Twitter account, which you can find on my new site in the sidebar.

So what does this mean for TRSJ?

This will continue to serve as my personal blog to talk about whatever I want. I’ll continue to write personal development pieces here and there, talk about my Back on Track journey, share my thoughts on my challenges and my successes, and keep you in the loop about the positive things happening in my life that wouldn’t be appropriate to talk about on SBM or my new career site. And yes, I will have occasional sponsored posts as a result of affiliations I have. Those articles will be identified as such. Just know that all thoughts are my own.

So what about SBM? Haven’t seen you there as much lately Slim.

Running that site is a beast — especially given all the other stuff I’m involved in. I’m still sitting in the corner office. I spend a lot of time there actually. It’s been challenging to find time to write and manage the operations. Sh*t, managing a team is hard. Way harder than I expected. So more than likely, I’ll just be dropping a post or two per month unless it’s something really brief. I’m trying to get away from writing just to write and to “have something up.” I’m focusing more on writing when I’m moved. My post here yesterday was because I felt moved. I’m pretty sure you can tell the difference. That’s how I’d like every article to be. When I don’t feel moved, it feels like a job. I don’t want writing to feel like a job. And I think I’ve found a way to approach some common topics with a fresh perspective. So I think I’ll feel moved more often. (Time permitting!)

The challenge going forward will continue to be balance. I’m toggling between three Twitter accounts, three email addresses, two Facebook pages, time in the gym and on the track, a day job and a personal life (not in this order). I see the light at the end of the tunnel though. I may even be looking for some help on the different aspects of my plan moving forward. I realized I need to build a team around me for what I’d like to do on the Career Coaching front. A team that I won’t be managing. Rather, a team of folks that’ll be supporting me as I push to hit my goals. I’ll keep you posted on that.

Thanks again for rocking with me and have a great weekend!

Slim