This week on TwitterStars.com, I’m featuring a series of guest posts featuring stories from several of my Twitter followers on how they quit smoking. I quit smoking 3 weeks ago and thought featuring stories from other people about how they quit cigarettes would be a fun project for the blog.

Guest Blog Post by AlexisNeely

It’s hard to believe, but I used to be a smoker. Not just a casual, every now and then, smoke when out at a bar, in the closet, kind of smoker. I was a full on, pack and a half a day, smoke in the house, overflowing ashtrays, and yellow walls kind of smoker.

During law school, my addiction was so hardcore that I couldn’t make it through a law school exam without having to take a smoke break. For real.

It’s probably not a surprise that I picked up the habit given that I grew up in Florida where smoking was a status symbol and both my parents smoked for most of my childhood. What’s more surprising is that I managed to quit when I did.

I smoked my first cigarette at 14.

The way I remember it, I woke up one day and just wanted a cigarette. I can’t explain why that day or what preceded it, but I grabbed 5 quarters out of my change pile, walked down to the corner gas station where there was a cigarette machine, dropped the quarters in, yanked on the handle and out slid my first pack.

It was heaven in a box. Suddenly I was cool, hip, mature…a smoker. And just like that, I was an addict.

It lasted through high school, college, and mid-way through law school. Finally, after ten years, I woke up. I can’t say what preceded that either. Maybe it was my dad’s bout with lung cancer. Maybe it was real maturity. Maybe it was just time to be done and move on to the next phase of my life.

All I knew is that smoking wasn’t fun or cool anymore. It was gross. And I wanted to stop. I just had to convince my live-in boyfriend—who later became my ex-husband—to stop with me. Or so I thought.

I persuaded him that it would be a great 30^th birthday present for him if we both quit and in the middle of my 2^nd year of law school, on January 24, 1998, I smoked my last cigarette ever.

Quitting smoking was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It was also the most inspiring, motivating, empowering choice I’ve ever made.

Once I quit smoking, I knew I could do anything. I knew I could make it through anything. Quitting gave me a faith in myself that has carried me through the past ten years and allowed me to build two million dollar businesses while going through a divorce and raising my kids as a single mom.

If I was still a smoker, none of what I’ve done with my life would have happened. No way.

Here’s how I did it:

1. I enlisted a quitting partner. The boyfriend—turned ex-husband—I mentioned earlier. That turned out not to be that important given that he is still to this day smoking. But, he did stop smoking in our shared house, which was critical.
2. I made the decision that I was a non-smoker. This is important and I think one of the biggest reasons that people fail at quitting. You see, everything starts with a decision in your own mind. You decide you are a non-smoker and you will be a non-smoker. Period. So, I decided.
3. I used the nicotine patch to get me through the physical addiction part. I’m not going to lie, it was intense. I can still remember the pain to this day. I was sitting at my desk trying to brief cases during law school and I could not concentrate on anything other than how badly I wanted a cigarette. Even with the patch.
4. Every time I wanted a cigarette I drank a glass of ice cold—really, really ice cold—water. That tip came from my dad. Thanks dad!
5. And whenever I got the urge, I said to myself, “I am a non-smoker” or “I don’t smoke.” Sure, it’d be easy to give in and have just one, but that’d be it. I’d be a smoker again. Don’t fool yourself—smoking is all or nothing.

Eventually, the cravings started to stretch farther and farther apart. A few weeks after I quit smoking, I had to have my wisdom teeth pulled in an emergency type situation and I used that as an opportunity to wean off the patch figuring there was no way I could smoke with my mouth like that anyway.

Ten years later, every once in a while I get this weird urge to smoke a cigarette. It shocks me every time it happens because I’m such a non-smoker now (you know the annoying kind who can’t stand even being around smoke). And yet, every now and then I still feel the craving.

When it happens, I take a big old breath of fresh air, remind myself that I’m a non-smoker and smile in gratitude at the gift I’ve given myself, my children, and the world.

Alexis Martin Neely is CEO and founder of the Family Wealth Planning Institute, a company dedicated to guiding parents to financial freedom by helping them make the smartest and best legal and financial decisions for themselves and their children. Alexis is best known for sharing her legal expertise on CNBC, NBC, ABC, and Better TV.

Subscribe to Alexis’ Family Wealth Secrets online magazine for people who want more financial freedom in their life that comes not from hoarding money and clipping coupons, but from taking risks, making smart financial and legal decisions and thinking big.

If what you need is inspiration to think bigger in your own life, check out Alexis’ personal blog, The Intrepid Mompreneur, where she lets you watch as she works toward her dream of becoming an inspirational force on TV, while raising two kids as a single mom and being afraid and doing it anyway.

A copy of this guest post has also been posted to The Nicotine Asylum.

Below are a collection of Twitter blurbs I made in the month of August. I’ve decided to archive them here more or less in their original form. Some are @ Replies and some are broadcast statements. I’ve re-worded some of my Twitter blurbs and expanded on others.

markdavidson Reminder to myself: I’m going to start writing a personal blog expanding upon my ideas on how to build community, direct traffic, and develop online followings. 02:15 AM September 05, 2008

In the first section, I’m addressing the Pareto principle or 80–20 rule as it applies to what I’ve been finding on blogs for over a year now. I believe that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your knowledge. If the sum of all marketing knowledge is represented as a pie, the 80% that you are getting, will only yield 20% of your results. You aren’t getting the 20% of that pie that will yield you the 80% of your results. If you were getting that last 20% from the newsfeeds you subscribe to, you’d have a rockstar blog of your own. I also bring up the subject of hard work. Without action, there is no magic. Anything truly worth doing is going to be hard work and will most likely require overcoming some kind of fear or apprehension.

The best course of action is the right thing. The next best is the wrong thing. The worse course of action is to do nothing. The secret to success in all things is to do those things you don’t feel like doing because it’s hard work.

In the second section, I was blurbing about developing an awareness of what works and what doesn’t work. This is tied directly into the first section. If nobody is writing about the magical 20%, then how do you gain that knowledge? Through observation. That’s how. I don’t believe that success is random. I don’t believe that success comes easily. I believe that results can be measured and duplicated. Start developing your awareness of what works, what doesn’t work, and most importantly, why. Unless you understand the mechanics behind effective online marketing and internet communication, your results will be random and unpredictable. Ultimately you want to deploy strategies with laser-like precision.

In the third section, I throw out some random thoughts.

The fourth section I blurbed live from Gnomedex. At the time, I was watching the Ma.gnolia presentation. They were solely focused on the technology. I felt like they had missed the whole point. It’s not about the technology, it’s all about the people using the technology. This is a key difference between Ma.gnolia and Kwippy.com. One of my favorite things I’ve heard @lizstrauss say over and over is, “It’s not about us, it’s about them.” Liz treats her audience like family, your social networking platform should too.

It’s important that we are constantly mindful of our audience. The two key take-aways from Gnomedex for me were that we need to make the available tools easier to use and we need to find new ways to lower the barrier to entry. The less intimidating new media and social networks become, the broader our audience will be. This is essential moving forward. It’s not about the tools, it’s 100% about the people using the tools. It’s all about “them”.

Rockstar Blogs

August 09, 2008

All the rockstar blogs give you 80% of what you need to know. It’s that last 20% that will give you 80% of your results.

Here’s my advice. Don’t read what they write. Watch what they do instead. That’s how you’ll get the last 20% that you’re missing.

You can have all the tools. You can use all the tools. The “magic” is in what you do daily and how you tie everything together.

Oh and as long as I’m pontificating, the secret to success in all things is to do those things you don’t feel like doing because it’s hard.

That last 20% produces 80% of the results (percentages not to scale, objects seem closer than they appear).

I think that most of us are getting the 80% of the efforts that will lead to 20% of our results on most of the rock star blogs.

But the 20% that will lead to 80% of our results is not… and I completely understand why and wouldn’t do any differently.

BUT the 20% that leads to 80% of their results can be observed because it’s demonstrated. Also, there’s no other way to learn.

Place more emphasis on watching what people do and how they do it, rather than listening to what people say, right?

Thanks. It’s been a while since I’ve last done this. It’s like handing someone only 80% of a recipe and hoping it turns out.

I don’t know if it’s about teaching success so much as the 20% probably isn’t very compelling, easily explained, or marketable.

For example, Chris Pirillo is really smart, has been at this for over a decade, is 100% committed, and works 14+ hours a day.

Now what kind of an ebook would that make? lol. Nobody wants to read that! What sells the best is the promise of instant success!

I have yet to read an ebook or see a website with a warning label: “Hard work and lots of reading ahead. Marketing experience a plus.”

Awareness

August 09, 2008

Good PR is an amazingly powerful force. The skill to change people’s perceptions with words and images.

Everyone who has ever spoken to me offline knows that I have a methodology behind everything, keep metrics, and eliminate randomness.

They also know that I diagram successful sites and blogs. I analyze why things work and how. I analyze copy, the use of colors and images.

I don’t believe that success is random. I don’t believe that success comes easily. I believe that results can be measured and duplicated.

Exercise: Analyze every element on your 5 favorite sites or blogs. Particularly analyze what they are doing off-site and how. Diagram it.

How do those site/blogs use color and images? How are they branded? What is the frequency of their updates on site and off?

What tools do they use? View their page source. Analyze their keywords. Do they use anchors in their copy or deploy cognitive biases?

Analyze where your eyes are drawn. What grabs your attention? Does the copy create mental pictures in your mind’s eye or create an emotion?

What provokes an internal response? What motivates you to take some kind of action & why? Monitor your internal responses and write them down.

Good copy and marketing hits you on multiple levels. Some of it on a conscious level and some on a subconscious level. Develop an awareness.

What are your triggers? Identify them. Write them down. Observe. Experiment. Read. Take notes. Monitor. Test. Measure. Keep a journal.

Random Thoughts

August 12, 2008

Random Thought For the Moment: There are no shortcuts in life. Luck is short lived and squandered without preparation and hard work.

Internet communication media is dynamic, fluid, and viral. The tools have changed since BBS days but people remain the same.

I think social behavior, internet culture, and how people organize are pretty important concepts to understand for any “new media expert”.

Gnomedex

August 22, 2008

I don’t think the specific technology matters. What matters is how do we get non-tech people like my mom online and using these tools.

How do we reduce the number of steps needed to bookmark a site? The easier a tool is to use, the more popular it will be. Keep it simple.

This is a very basic concept that needs more emphasis. The best tools—for any task—help us to get a job done quickly and with ease.

One of the reasons why the telephone is so popular is because it doesn’t require instructions and is as easy to use as dialing 10 numbers.

What any web-technology company should strive for is making their tools as easy to use as dialing 10 numbers. Reduce the number of steps.

Twitter works so well because it doesn’t require anyone to learn something new. Technology is all about people. It’s not about the tools.