How To Ignite The Leadership Traits In You

Five Ways To Grow Your Thought Leadership Flame In 2016

We are slowly waking up to the realization that everyone has great ideas. Some people keep their thoughts to themselves, and other people want to share their views.

When you say what you mean, some people will gather around and say “I feel the same way!” Some people will be curious. They’ll want to hear more. Some people will be 

horrified. God bless all three groups.

Your job is not to please anyone or to repeat the conventional wisdom. Your job is to listen to your own heart and brain and speak your own truth.

There are seven billion people in the world. Not all of them will agree with your views, and that’s fine. You don’t need seven billion fans.

When you put your thoughts out there for readers and listeners, you’ll attract people who see things the same way you do. They might live all over the world. Who knows what exciting conversation you could start!

It is easy now to get your message out — and people want to hear your ideas.

Why not share your ideas with a wider audience than your friends and your cat?

You can start growing your thought leadership muscles today.

You can write about the topics you are passionate about. 

You can speak in public about your favorite topics  or start a podcast or a video channel. 

You will become a thought leader the minute you begin sharing your ideas with other people.

The more ideas you share, the more ideas will pop into your head. 

Start bringing your ideas to light and you won’t run out of topics to write or speak or podcast about!

Here are five ways to begin letting your inner thought leader out. You can take baby steps at first. 

You are opening up a channel to your higher intellect or consciousness. 

Don’t beat up on yourself to write or speak more or to write or speak perfectly. 

Go easy on yourself, and don’t rush it!

Five Ways To Grow Your Thought Leadership Flame In 2016:

1. Get a journal and start writing in it every day or as often as you can. 

Write about your ideas. Make a list of topics you’re especially interested in. 

Write about your dreams and your own life and career. Don’t censor yourself! Just write, and don’t criticize what you write. 

Gradually as you write, the critical voice in your head will stop yammering at you and be quiet.

2. Talk to yourself in your head when you’re relaxing. 

Speak your thoughts out loud inside your head, as though you were giving a speech. 

Talk about the topics that interest you most. Don’t  use cue cards or an agenda as you speak to yourself silently in your head; just spin out your ideas about the things you feel most strongly about. 

You’ll see that speaking about a topic you feel passion for is completely different from speaking about a topic you couldn’t care less about.

3. Think about the authors and speakers you admire most. 

Write about them in your journal. What is it about those writers and speakers that you appreciate? 

Maybe it’s their topics, or the way they convey their ideas. 

Tune into the world of communication and choose a few thought leaders to follow. 

As you read or listen to their work, ask yourself “Why is this person compelling as he or she communicates? I want to be compelling, too — so what can I learn from the thought leaders I’ve learned the most from?”

4. Volunteer to make a presentation at work. 

If you’re not working right now, volunteer to make a presentation at your local job search networking club. 

You could present on any number of topics, from how to create a LinkedIn profile to a motivational talk for job-seekers. Grab any opportunity you can get to practice speaking this year!

5. Start a blog and write a new blog post at least once a week. 

You can blog for free at LinkedIn and over time build up an audience of followers. 

The more you write, the more confidence you’ll have. You are amazing right now and getting stronger every day. Hats off to you. 

Your thought leadership flame is growing!

Source:     Your Leadership Flame Is Glowing

Punctuation Marks - The Soul Of Writing

 16 Punctuation Mistakes That Can Make You Look Really Bad

By:     Bill Murphy Jnr.

Words and grammar are important.

But punctuation--that's where the nitpickers are gathered and ready to ambush you.

Your words are your most powerful weapons, and yet it's easy to undermine yourself in written communication by violating some very simple rules of punctuation.

Before I dive deeper into this, a disclosure: I majored in English in college. I've made my living with words for almost two decades.

And I've made a few of these mistakes myself.

There's no easier metaphorical way to shoot yourself in the foot.

We've all scoffed at errors in emails and letters, wondering whether the writer even bothered to proofread. Smart, insightful, clever people can wind up looking a little less than astute.

Here are 16 of the top offenses. (Know some that I missed? Let me know.)

1. Putting a period or comma "outside of a quote".

Almost never do this: "Almost never do this". A period or comma goes inside the quote, "like this." (Although, I've been told, "It's different in England".)

2. Commas and semicolons are not the same thing.

Use a semicolon when you want to link two independent clauses; otherwise, you probably want to use a comma.

3. Putting two spaces after a period is wrong. Like this.

If you're over 40, or maybe even 35, you probably learned to put two spaces after a period.

This is because you probably learned to type on an IBM Selectric or an Apple IIe, or maybe an Atari 2600 with an external keyboard. (Maybe even a Timex Sinclair 1000; I can go all day with these references.)

Bottom line: We don't have to do this anymore. Using two spaces after a period makes you look old.

(Disclosure: Inc.com's system keeps autocorrecting my attempt to put two spaces after a period in the subheading here, so as to demonstrate the incorrect way of doing things. That's how wrong it is.)

4. Never use more than one exclamation point!!!

You'll only exhaust yourself!!!

5. 

Emoticons are cute, and they're a good hedge against the tonal imprecision of emails. I probably use them more than I should, but they aren't punctuation.

6. Apostrophe's

There are so many rules here, but in short: Plurals usually don't have apostrophes; possessives often do.

7. It's important to learn the difference between it's and its.

Related to Rule No. 6, but a common enough transgression to deserve its own entry:It's is a contraction of it is. Its, on the other hand, signifies that "it" possesses something.

So preserve its dignity by using its correct possessive form, or else it's not going to look right.

8. Learn where quotes "go."

Very often, they're not needed. There are many websites devoted to documenting this "phenomenon" (sic).

9. Like my teacher once said, Learn to use quotes.

Notwithstanding Rule No. 8, if you're including the exact words someone said, put them in quotes.

If you are paraphrasing, don't use quotes.

10. Also, fragments

A complete sentence needs, at a minimum, a subject and a verb. In the first sentence of this paragraph, the subject is "sentence" and the verb is "needs."

In the second sentence of this paragraph, the subject is "subject" and the verb is "is"; there's also a second clause, in which the subject is "verb" and the verb is "is." (I'm beginning to feel like this example is more confusing than it needs to be.)

11. Don't use run-on sentences because they go on forever and make people think that you don't know the most basic rules of punctuation and also they just aren't much fun to read or to write for that matter.

'Nuff said.

12. Words, phrases, conjunctions

And, but, and or will get you pretty far.

13. That thing when the verb don't agree with the noun

When the noun is singular, the verb should be singular. Same thing with plurals.

14. If you've started using commas and you like them, and you've continued them you need to commit to them.

When I was a reporter at the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, one of my editors said I was addicted to commas, and he was right. Either use them or don't. (Related: missing decimals. $1,000 is not the same thing as $10.00.)

15. Also--and this is important, commas and dashes don't go together.

The short answer here is, pick just one and stick with it.

16. Slavishness.

If the items in this list present you with a "no duh" moment, congratulations.

They no longer apply.

The No. 1 rule of punctuation is that you have to learn the rules in order to have the right to break them.

http://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/17-punctuation-mistakes-that-can-make-you-look-kinda-stupid.html