There’s a whimsical scene in Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets where the boy wizard is waiting in Professor Dumbledore’s office to speak with the headmaster. He notices many curious and amazing devices, but he also notices a sickly looking bird in a cage. Just as Harry is most anxious about not messing up anything in the office, the bird bursts into flames. Soon afterwards Professor Dumbledore enters. Instead of being upset, he is delighted that his pet phoenix, recently cantankerous in old age, has finally died so he can be reborn from his ashes as a young and spry chick. It’s ashes time for the Travel Log.
The Twisting Road Travel Log is the second successor to my original, first ever blog, and it has served the original mission well. I started this blog in 2007 after Barbara Sher challenged her newsletter readers to start a blog as a way of tracking progress as we customized our work to align with our true calling.
Originally this blog was on Blogger titled “Chasing Wisdom.” When I reached a point on my new career path where I was convinced I needed a newsletter, I went big. I established an online e-zine with different sections and committed to writing an article for each section every month. That’s back when I was learning and relearning the lesson about knowing the purpose of something before pursuing it so fervently.
When I started the e-zine, I took the original name of this blog as the e-zine title. I chose a new name for this blog, “On The Twisting Road.” I chronicled the change in this post. The blog was still on Blogger then.
I fulfilled my schedule of deadlines for months before I finally realized I really didn’t have a job assigned to the e-zine. I breathed an enormous sigh of relief and stopped producing articles. Chasing Wisdom is still hosted and will be for a while as the archives of those articles. I wasn’t so enamored with that name any more so I kept the new name for this blog. For a while, at least.
A few months later I decided to pay for hosting for this blog at TwistingRoad.com. I found out I could create different WordPress blogs under different subheadings of TwistingRoad.com and I added too many. I created one to be an online archive of my e-mail newsletter. Following my pattern of stealing this blog’s name for other purposes, I renamed the “Chasing Wisdom Update” and it became “On The Twisting Road.” That meant I had to rename this blog again.
I chose “Twisting Road Travel Log” since the blog chronicles my experiences and lessons learned along the journey. I uploaded the blog software to a designated subheading and brought all the posts from my Blogger blog to the new hosted site. It was a long process because I had to do it one post at a time.
I also created a subheading for my marketing blog and canceled my TypePad account. I created another blog in a subheading to host a series of articles about the coaching process. The landing page for TwistingRoad.com was just an invitation to click on all the separate blogs installed in the subheadings. What a mess!
I realized I want one blog, just one, for everything I write related to my business. No more separate blogs in sub-headings. The coaching posts and marketing posts all connect with things I’m learning as I grow a business around helping people discover their natural selves and create authentic life work. All the ideas come to me “On The Twisting Road,” so I am consolidating my topics into that one title. Besides, I ended my e-mail newsletter a long time ago and then completely lost enthusiasm for posting it as a simple online newsletter, so the name’s available!
As I planned the consolidation of separate content threads into one blog, I realized it’s time for this blog to die. For two and a half years I have tried to post weekly about a particular challenge I faced or lesson I learned as a self-employed person. The structure was very helpful to get me in the habit of processing ideas and working with them to be able to render the relevant information and pass it along. But I do not need the weekly marker to keep me moving forward or reflecting on where I’ve been. Its mission is fulfilled. It has served me well.
This is the last post crafted specifically for the “Twisting Road Travel Log.” I imported all the historical posts to the newly installed blog at TwistingRoad.com. It will preserve these old posts but going forward it will grow from the combined ashes of the separate blogs that are ending so they can become one.
I wonder if I can figure out how to get that new theme I bought to work the way I want it to? Or will I need to choose a completely different theme? I think it’s time to jump back into the HTML Sandbox!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Authentic Life Work Coach