My favourite blogs, entrepreneurship, personal development & more

Wednesday, 29 November 2006 @ 11:57pm by Kathleen Bright

I love reading. I love the Internet. Cue the entrance of blogs and bam! Every spare second I didn't have, gone. But that's okay because I derive massive value from my favourite blogs and now I want to share that with you. Hence this entry.

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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18 responses to “My favourite blogs, entrepreneurship, personal development & more”

  1. on 02 Aug 2007 at 11:53am   William

    Thank you for passing these along. I especially liked "how to rock your customer service." I am constantly amazed how often people assume that they are providing excellent customer service while in reality they are failing to meet even the minimal standards of consumer demand. I look forward to perusing some of the other "faves" thanks again for sharing.

  2. on 11 Apr 2008 at 6:51am   ClassicMan

    Humph. Someone has to force me to read this post. It's too big and boring. Brevity is the sister of talent, remember that.

  3. on 21 Dec 2008 at 5:15pm   Lea

    A few were already on my bookmarks (Steve Pavlina, problogger, etc.), but I'm checking out some on your list that I wasn't aware of. Thank you for sharing your favorites.

    Have a great day!

  4. on 10 Feb 2009 at 10:08pm   KaitabasuraMardhanaya

    Please, can you PM me and tell me few more thinks about this, I am really fan of your blog…

  5. on 28 Feb 2009 at 2:15am   Lincoln J. Michalak

    Hi nice post, i read your blog from time to time but i was wondering something. I also run a blog on a similar topic, but i get 1,000's of spam comments and emails every day does that happen to you.. Any ideas to stop it? I currently have commenting disabled but i want to turn it back on.. Thanks!

  6. on 28 Feb 2009 at 9:34am   Kathleen

    ClassicMan, it's true that there's lots of information here - you're very welcome to scan it for whatever jumps out at you as interesting.

    I experiment with different lengths for my articles & tend to tailor the length to the content; this one's a resource collection - since I get inspiration and help from lots of great sources, there's a lot here.

    My readers are free to read as much or as little as they like.

    I'm sorry to hear you found it boring though; what did you find dull about it?

    Kx

  7. on 28 Feb 2009 at 9:36am   Kathleen

    KaitabasuraMardhanaya, thanks for your kind words.

    What more would you like to know?

    Kx

  8. on 28 Feb 2009 at 9:40am   Kathleen

    William, sorry for taking such a ridiculous amount of time to respond to your comment! I do really appreciate it; sometimes I behave badly, I'm sorry.

    You're very welcome for this article and I'm glad you got a lot out of it.

    I think often people either don't care about customer service or they're too lazy to provide it. Sometimes I take on too much & don't make enough time to be nice & polite to people I interact with; I'm working on this…

    Kx

  9. on 28 Feb 2009 at 9:42am   Kathleen

    Hi Lincoln, thank you.

    With regards to the spam question: Do you use Wordpress or something else? I use Akamai, which is installed by default & works great for me; the occasional spam comment gets through, but in the main it's brilliant.

    Kx

  10. on 28 Feb 2009 at 4:57pm   Preston

    One quality of leaders and high achievers in every area seems to be a commitment to ongoing personal and professional development.

  11. on 28 Feb 2009 at 5:30pm   Kathleen

    Hi Preston, you're right; ongoing growth, learning and self-awareness are really important factors for success.

    I've removed the links in your comment as they contained links to a spyware scam.

    In case you weren't aware of this scam, you can read more about it: [Warning] Truth about PPCWebSpy

    Kx

  12. on 17 Apr 2009 at 12:27am   Antique Ring

    I usually do not comment on blog posts but I found this quite interesting, so here goes. Thanks! Regards, P.

  13. on 05 Jun 2009 at 8:21am   AnnaNoble

    I found the best thing to my friend's birthday… It's really hard to find cool and still unique.
    So today I saw this thing from ZTARLET on facebook where you can name a real star in the sky and have the certificate and a teddy bear sent to you and pay it by a single SMS. So awesome :)

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  15. on 16 Jun 2009 at 5:45am   Keshavaya

    gr8 resrch bro?

  16. on 21 Jun 2009 at 3:18pm   CaseyFronczek

    I saw that Casey Fronczek is offering fishing trips now down in south Florida. Does anybody have any input on these trips or has anyone been on one of these trips before?

  17. on 26 Jun 2009 at 12:24am   MichaelKingstins

    I just wanted to say that I love your website. Mine is at forex It is still a work in progress, but please let me know what you think

  18. on 29 Jun 2009 at 6:24am   Yagnaroopaya

    Super-Duper site! I am loving it!! Will come back again - taking you feeds also, Thanks.


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