Your advice to the people who write to you is always so right to the point. You never mince one word.

We need more people who nail it on the head like you do. And tell the truth. Many times so kindly - and then sometimes - you say things like, “Get out right now!”

I too consider you a friend although we have never met.

But, you never know. Life is funny.

I consider us friends and we have never talked - voice-to-voice. Thanks.

I never set out to blog. In fact I’d never read one until it was my own. Here’s the brief story:

I was writing a weekly editorial column for the Indianapolis Star but REALLY wanted to be in the paper I loved as a boy: The Natal Mercury. (This is a South Afican newspaper with a wonderful and long history).

On a visit home to South Africa (in 1999) I stopped in at the paper’s head-office and announced an American editorial writer would like to see the editor.

Believe it or not I was ushered into his office and I told him my boyhood included the reading of his paper, and my early desires to be in his paper had not left me, and here I was asking for some space on a weekly basis in his esteemed paper.

He asked: “Well, can you write?”

From my bag I pulled 80 laminated 700 word editorials and plonked them on his desk.

He told me to contact him in a few days.

About three days later he called me into his study at the paper and said he was very disturbed about some of my writing. I asked him what in particular had disturbed him and he said, “In this column here, you say, ‘if all you have is money, then you are truly poor’, Mr. Smith this is a very disturbing thing to say to a man who has tired so hard to be rich.”

I had him. I knew it.

Then he told me that in South Africa newspapers don’t make their columnists into celebrities as is done in the USA. So he informed me he had no place for me as a weekly columninst.

“But how about daily?” he said. “We’ll call it YOU AND ME and since you are a family therapist we’ll make it into a help column where you can tell people to seek more than wealth!” The man was animated. He’d been thinking.

I put out my hand and asked, “When do we start?”

In no time at all he was on the phone and called a quick meeting of the editorial page staff and while a few men and women entered a photographer appeared and took about 10 headshots of me - and the 200 word column began to run the next week.

Reader requests for back issues sparked the need for the blog and so ……. I have told you much more than I intially intended but there’s the story…. how I got into blogging.

For me, blogging has never been about money even though the book sales and the personal sessions that have resulted have been helpful.

Have a wonderful day and I am inspired by your tenacity and desire to speak to a hurting world.

Your friend,

Rod Smith

Happy that you are finding your way in your new life. And, most important, that you have a new life!

I think it is quite a compliment to you that Michelle Vandepas wrote a whole article about your comment.

She is an important personal growth blogger!

If you click on her name above you will be able to read it.

That’s what I love about blogging. You have wonderful conversations with people you may never know!

Looking forward to more of your wisdom in the future. Come back and visit!

Thanks for checking in. So glad to hear from you. I’ve been reading your wonderful book, Gorgeous for God, and as soon as the holidays are over, I will do a review.

Anyone who reads your blog knows that it is a labor of pure love. I see you writing for many years to come.

Wishing you a peaceful Christmas, Lisa.

Come back soon!

i notice the ones who tell me to be more “technical” and “make money with it” only blog for 6 months, sporadically, before losing interest and then shutting down. haha.

Meanwhile, those of us who do it for the LOVE OF IT keep at it. Tags or no tags. Ads or no ads.

Thank for you your amazing blog. It’s always interesting.

I am not against making money on a blog. But I do look at get rich quick schemes with a jaded eye. Or irresponsible advice.

“If it looks too good to be true ——etc!”

When we are discontented, we tend to look around to see what or who to blame. It’s the job, our landlord, the government, our spouse, the economy, our kids - hey - it’s you over there. Not me!

A Course in Miracles has an perfect and applicable quote on this.

“You are never upset for the reason you think.”

I know I try not to write about anything I don’t actually consider myself successful at. Do I blog about money and being wealthy? NO.

Anyway, a blog can be an excellent clarification tool as a marketplace of your own ideas. I don’t understand why everyone is rushing to try and make money at it.