What Compelled Me to Write My First Blog?

Do you remember your first time?

My fellow bloggers out there (Am I allowed to call myself a fellow blogger if this is my first post?), do you remember the first time you decided to put pen to paper (or fingers to a keyboard) and write that first blog? Did you think about it for days leading up to your first post or did you rip off the band-aid and just start typing? How did you know what to write? What compelled you to write your first blog?

All signs pointed to blogging

1. Leadership Retreat

For me, it wasn't one specific thing but a series of fortunate events that led me on this path. It started with an inspiring internal company Leadership Retreat where we were blessed with the presence and insight of some of the great influencers in Leadership Training like award-winning international Keynote Speaker, Ed Tate, internationally-recognized author and Executive Development Expert, John Parker Stewart, and DLH Corporation 's own G. Maliek Ferebee who is an innovative and transformational leader who translates business vision into action. One of the common themes amongst all three speakers was that we need to be in a state of continuous learning and growth, and as leaders, we need to take part in helping other achieve that growth by sharing our stories and knowledge.

2. How Does Thought Leadership Help Businesses To Grow?

My colleague Bob Armstrong is the Executive Director of the Center for Simulation and Immersive Learning at Eastern Virginia Medical School and he also served as the past president for the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) Bob and I currently serve together on the National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA) Patient Safety Working Group. Bob is excellent at sharing pertinent news and articles to help others grow as leaders. He recently shared an article by Jon Clark, managing partner at Moving Traffic Media, that highlights the value of thought leadership:

A thought leader is an informed opinion leader and the go-to person in their area of expertise.

More importantly, what was the number one recommendation to how you become a thought leader? You Blog.

3. You need a better online personal brand

How many people have heard this before? How many of us believe we already have a strong brand? How many of you are working hard at building your brand but you haven't yet reached your full potential? I personally thought I was doing everything I needed to do in order to build my personal brand on LinkedIn.

I recently went through the process of applying for a new job and part of that process really involved investing in my online presence. I posted, liked, shared, updated my profile, rewrote my intro, added sections to my profile, requested recommendations, and grew my network. With that said, you could imagine my surprise when a good friend of mine and CEO of Leader Healthcare, Sukhdeep Sachdev , casually mentions to me yesterday that I should really work on my personal brand.

To quote John Parker Stewart in his book 52 Leadership Gems: Practical and Quick Insights For Leading Others:

Gem #3: We judge ourselves by our intentions. Others judge us by our actions.

You see, I was measuring the success of my personal branding based on my intentions but others were measuring me based on my actions and outcomes. I knew I needed to work harder at my goal until my actions reflected my intentions.

4. My wife and I are binge watching Riverdale

"What does Riverdale have to do with blogging," you may ask? Anyone who watches the Riverdale series on the CW (or Netflix, as is the case for my wife and I) knows that Jughead Jones, played by Cole Sprouse, is the struggling author and narrator of the series. In Season 6, he takes on a similar persona to Rod Sterling, the narrator and host of The Twilight Zone. Jughead Jones becomes a real storyteller, but in doing so, he sets the narrative; he is the authoritative source of information; and he establishes a trusted relationship with the audience.

What could I ever write about?

What can any of us write about? We write about our experiences, our stories, our lessons learned, our aha moments, our encounters, our hobbies, our passions, and our disappointments. A blog is really an extension of ourselves and a way for us to share with others who have similar interests.

Who is Brian Levine, MBA, PMP, CSM ? You could always look at my LinkedIn profile, but what would be the fun of that? It certainly won't include fun facts like I have been married to my wife for 17 years, have two sons in high school, have two small dogs, and enjoy music, cooking, and traveling. It probably won't mention that I have traveled the world and have been to some places that most wouldn't be able to identify on a map. It probably won't highlight my guilty pleasure of watching or reading gothic fiction shows and books.

I still encourage you to check out my page to get some insight on who I am and what makes me tick from a professional level. At the Leadership Retreat I referenced earlier, we did an exercise with John Parker Steward in which we each mapped out the milestones of our lives to help others understand why we are the way we are. Our experiences, heartaches, joys, and encounters have all helped to shape us into who we are as a person, as a leader, as a thought leader.

Although I have never written a book or published in a journal, I have always had a passion for writing. I have written thousands of proposals over my career in Business Development. I have written White Papers as well, but this blog thing will be a first for me and I hope I can count on everyone reading this to have patience as we learn together, share my posts with others in your network, follow me, and share your own experiences.

Let's finally get to the BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front, that is)

It took several signs to point me to the first step of creating my first blog, but I am glad I did. It's so easy to publish on LinkedIn and it costs nothing to do so. It's a great way of expressing your opinion and really connecting with others on a different level than just sharing a post or leaving a comment. If you ever considered writing a blog but haven't yet taken the action, I am here to help, as long as you remember that I am only a novice at this point. I hope my first blog post won't be my last. I hope I am as inspired to write the next one as I was to write the first one. Stay tuned for more to come!