Dear ,

I’m wrote this week’s newsletter in the Cleveland Airport where my Friday evening flight back to New York’s La Guardia Airport has been delayed for a second time.

I could have flown out earlier but I’ve got a last day of Content Marketing World ritual. I have lunch at the Westin’s Urban Farmer restaurant with my #CMWorld friends.

As we chow down on Midwestern US burgers and fries to fuel us for our homeward bound flights, we compare conferences notes.

Pulizzzi is one of the few people I know that walks the talk when it comes to setting your personal compass across the various aspects of your life. (If you missed Joe’s talk, check out an earlier version of his thinking.)

While I admire the ability to set your life compass, many times I find that people create their personal story looking backwards. As a result, happenstance looks like a plan.  For many people, this is how we understand our lives.

In my opinion, the key to being satisfied is the ability to live by and up to your own personal standards.

The real key to Content Marketing World is the people that you get to see every year. More than the learning and content smarts that waft from the various sessions and keynotes, the best part is the attendees’ love and openness. CMWorld is like an annual reunion of friends from around the world.

As a solopreneur, I miss this camaraderie in my every day working life.

While I’m fortunate to live in New York City where it’s easy to meet people for lunch or drinks, this takes proactive effort to make arrangements and to get to some mutually agreed on place.

So I strongly recommend that you make it a habit to jump on a real time form of communications to talk with your colleagues regardless of the time zone differences. This is one resolution I made with a number of my CMWorld friends to keep up our relationships and to help each other during the year.

While I’m covering my curated take-aways from CMWorld 2018 in a longer article here are 3 thoughts that resonated with me:

1. Show up and wait to see what the world reveals to you.
   National Geographic Photographer De Witt Jones moved me more than I ever expected. He showed the initial image and the later image he waited for. Do this with your content regardless of format.
   
   
2. Speak in a human voice that represents your brand.
   Ann Handley, 2018 winner of the Content Marketing Hero Award, instilled in us the need to take control of your content rather than leaving it for the intern. Remember that your voice is associated with your brand.
   
   
   
3. Use a combination of 10X Content and 10% Content.
   As part of a video conversation, Andy Crestodina and Doug Kessler made the case for both approaches to not only break through but also to keep your content relevant.

BTW, if you missed Content Marketing World 2018, you can still get the content goodness as presented by these marketing smarties.

I plan to write up a fuller version of my post-CMWorld thoughts as well as document my presentation. As a reader of this newsletter, please hit respond with the subject line “CMWorld Slides, if you’d like to get a copy of my slides.

Since this week is the 17^th anniversary of 9/11, I’d like to close with my deepest hopes that those that died continue to inspire us to be our best selves. As a result we continue to have respect for our fellow humans and the power of life.​​​​​​​

Click here to get this and previous AMG newsletters on the Web.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​Looking to up your marketing game, check out these content marketing smarties.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​Even if you’re not a speaker use these events to spotlight your best content. Take a page from Top Rank’s Epic Curated Content: The Ultimate Guide To Conquering Content Marketing.

​​​​​​​Content Marketing World presenters know a thing or two about long form content. Check out what these smarties have written.

​​​​​​​Social Media Marketing World 2019

Lane Ellis of Top Rank gave Heidi Cohen a shout out in his article 10 Inspiring Expert Quotes That Honor Timeless Content Marketing Best Practices.