As part of my dream to be financially independent, I have the goal of changing my attitudes to money. One important thing I've learnt over time is that it's easier to get rid of negative beliefs, actions etc (e.g. fearing becoming rich might change me in to an ogre) by replacing them with positive ones (e.g. realising money can & does achieve much good).

I'm intending money to come in to my life & I'm creating wealth; I'll use my money to make the world better. My project to use money for good is Ethical Beads.

Aims of Ethical Beads

• Raise awareness of the ethical issues involved in bead & jewellery manufacture.
• Make it easy for ethical consumers to purchase ethical beads & jewellery, thus:
• Revolutionise bead & jewellery crafting & manufacturing communities internationally.

Achieving goodness & betterment

It's a long-term project, the first steps are identifying ethical suppliers & researching ethical companies & others, spreading the ideas and building a community of like-minded people.

The baby steps are searching for suppliers & researching so-called ethical companies & their 'initiatives' (esp. Ethical Trading Initiative & Fair Trade Federation), finding supporters (via blogging, blog/viral marketing.

Pretty brilliant goals to start the new year, I think!

In related news, watch The Secret, an inspirational documentary film, online for free and achieve your goals: Believe it and you achieve it. No gimmicks! More info. I just watched this and I feel brilliant: Energised, happy, ready to tackle anything. Much recommended.

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I'm 90% determined that I should resist the pressure to 'just' make money. (No doubt the other 10% will follow by the time I've been in part-time employment for another year, especially with all these entrepreneurship resources I keep reading… :))

Over time, there will be periods where I'll be working for myself indirectly, i.e. officially employed. The key point is that no matter what I'm doing, it's crucial for me to maintain my entrepreneurship mindset. Cue this (growing!) collection of resources.

Resources to ensure you get the most from employment

In the meantime, skills to cultivate:

• Student frugality
• Self-motivation
• Inner strength

Watch this space: In my next entry, I'll explore these: Why they're important and how I'm going to master them.

Entry inspired by Escape From Cupicle Nation: Is entrepreneurship a state of mind or state of employment?

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I mentioned this to a friend who said, "Favourite blog posts are good, because they'll boost your Google Pagerank. All those famous blogs with pingbacks to your site." Heh, not quite was thinking (well, okay, who am I kidding?! Of course that's part of it). My main motivation is to share these brilliant resources because I'm always raving about them. I'm also interested to make a note of my favourites so I can see if/how that changes over time. I'm also including links to my top three favourite posts from each of them to give you a taster.

Faves

• Steve Pavlina: Personal Development for Smart People
  Not all of his posts are '10 such-and-such' and it was really difficult to pick just three amazing entries to showcase here, because pretty much everything he says is gold dust. Which is why I find myself recommending him to people offline too. Ooh, got to mention 10 reasons to develop your technical skills too. Oh, and visit the new forums.
  • 10 reasons you should never get a job
    "Have you noticed that employed people have an almost endless capacity to whine about problems at their companies? But they don't really want solutions – they just want to vent and make excuses why it's all someone else's fault."
  • 10 myths about self-employment
    "Self-employment is much riskier than getting a job… Employees take the biggest risk of all. You learn how risky it is when you unexpectedly hear the words, 'we're letting you go'."
  • 10 ways to become more conscious
    "What does it mean to become more conscious? It is the progressive realisation of conscious mastery over your mind." Here's how to attain it.
• Trizoko
  Much advice for management, general well-being and more. What distinguishes this blog for me, is the style in which it's written. Each post starts off with a popularly-held myth or similar, continues with evidence to show why the myth is false and ends with a one-sentence summary of action to take. Brilliant.
  • How to rock your customer service: "Most businesses think their customer service rocks; but, the reality: they suck, and don't-even-know-it." Another thing I like about this post: Published it on my birthday. I'm recognised as providing the best customer service at work (I even won an award!) How did Andrew know?! :)
  • Why most politicians suck as leaders: "The best politicians are nothing but the most 'charismatic' bastard sitting on his/her ivory tower hawking their ideas like they mean something."
  • 2 rules to stop procrastinating: "Fear drives us to procrastinate by viciously trapping us from taking action." How true this is! I'm still struggling with my fears, but I overcame them enough to write my essays.
• Copyblogger
  Brian is truly brilliant. One thing that distinguishes his posts is how much he draws upon different areas of life, for example, he looks at history to find guidelines for writing for the Web. Ingenious. He's also a very good writer himself, which helps when you're writing about writing… :)
  • Don't take this advice about online marketing!
    "Advice is a tricky thing, especially when dispensed en masse. The answer to most things, if we're being honest, is it depends…" Includes links to some of his other excellent posts. Go, read!
  • Don't sell… teach
    "Using educational copywriting to begin relationships that lead to sales… Tutorial Marketing"
  • Pez Dispensers and Living the Big Lie
    "Origin stories are hugely important… Lying is easy, it's living the lie that's hard… revealing that the story is not true… blows it."

See also:

• Escape From Cubicle Nation
  Pamela Slim is passionate about helping entrepreneurs start businesses. She's really supportive and also does a podcast, which I'm listening to as I write this.
• ProBlogger Blog Tips
  Darren, ProBlogger, has a finger on the pulse of pretty much everything happening in the blogging world, so he's great for news on things like AdSense, Amazon Affiliates etc. Saves tonnes of time for me research all these things directly, then I can just drill down on the stuff that's most relevant to me. Yay!
• SEO
  I prefer Darren's lite SEO posts, which includes the most important SEO information without the extra really advanced stuff you find in SEO blogs. For that, see SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog: 21 tactics to increase blog traffic & SEO BlackHat: One trackback mistake you can't afford to make, which I also enjoy.
• Creating Passionate Users
  Ostensibly, how the brain works and how to exploit it for better learning and memory; but that stuff is presented in a really accessible and interesting way. Plus, they talk about other stuff too, like how to get your users to love you.
• Art of Money
  Robert Kiyosaki [aka Rich Dad] appreciator, Jon, shares the ways in which he's stretching his financial mindset. I particularly love this post on Internet Marketing
• Paul Graham
  Brilliant essayist, amongst other things; he's also the author of one of my favourite books, Hackers & Painters
• Publishing 2.0
  What you get when you mix media & technology, which is enabling ordinary people to control, participate in, and become media.

I hope you enjoy these recommendations and find them really useful. In my new capacity on the committee of King's College London Entrepreneurs I'll be sourcing lots of helpful information about entrepreneurship, so do let me know what direction would be most beneficial for you.

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If you're running a startup, you shouldn’t have 'other projects' that are demanding more of your time. A startup is an all-consuming process. If you start straddling multiple things, you're almost predestined to fail. It's hard enough to get a startup off the ground when you’re totally focused on it. It's almost impossible if you're juggling multiple projects.

Web 2.0 Crashes: Another Startup Being Sold On eBay

I disagree with Dharmesh, because it seems to me that I need to avoid putting all my eggs in one basket. It's definitely difficult to get a balance between being single-mindedly focused on one project and running around like a headless chicken with many, but it's important.

There are subtle ways of doing this that may work well, for example, being a serial entrepreneur and therefore having multiple projects, but only one at a time. Or, as the HuckABuck developers seem to be doing, working (almost) solely on one project until it has solid foundations, then selling it to work on other projects.

On the other hand, it's all too easy to spread oneself too thinly, which is what I'm doing (still!) by starting my own business, studying full time and working part time. Hmm, time to employ those time management strategies, methinks…

PS: Incidentally, the auction for HuckABuck ended at US $10 100 – $10 000 short of the stated reserve – and was therefore unsold. Does this mean Dharmesh is right? What do you reckon?

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