I’ve known Baker since early on after he started his blog in 2009. Since then, he’s quickly amassed a loyal following, joined forces with some of the biggest forces on the social web (Leo Babauta at Zen Habits, J.D. Roth at Get Rich Slowly, and the team at WiseBread). He and I partnered together with a great team to start Untemplater, and finally got the chance to meet in person when he visited Thailand in January on his year-long location-independent world tour! I’ve been looking forward to doing a video interview with him for quite a while now, and this week we were finally able to sit down for a great conversation.

Baker just launched his first ebook guide, Unautomate Your Finances: A Simple, Passionate Approach to Money, which lays out his holistic approach to personal finance. I know from interacting with him on a weekly basis that he’s spent the last several months toiling away on this guide, he’s gotten a tremendous amount of positive feedback, and this is something that is sure to transform people’s relationship with money. Watch our video conversation below to see why you should un-automate your finances, how you can build a more conscious, simple, sustainable financial life, and get the scoop about his world travels since freeing himself from debt prison!

Click here to view the embedded video.

• 0:55 – Baker’s college experience, business background & financial history
• 2:15 – White picket fences & opting out of the template life path
  
• 4:54 – Unconventional approaches to eliminating debt
• 6:45 – Deliberate, effective budgeting
• 8:13 – How to plan for income fluctuations & irregular expenses when you’re a freelancer
• 10:20 – Couchsurfing & backpacking through Australia, New Zealand & Thailand
• 13:38 – Traveling the world with young children
• 16:07 – More about Baker’s new ebook Unautomate Your Finances
• 20:36 – Cultivating a conscious mindset about personal finance & money
• 22:12 – South by Southwest Web Awards & where to find Baker
  

I’ll be honest: I’m someone who hates to sit down with spreadsheets and budget out my finances. I don’t even like to look at my bank statements every month! With student loans, a lot of random business stuff going on, and the fact that I’m a lazy excuse for a human, my finances are a damn mess, but Baker has developed a product that has fundamentally changed the way I think about money, and he and his wife Courtney are proof that you really can get conscious about how you spend, escape the debt “game” that the rest of the world is stuck in, and start to build the lifestyle you want now! Forget dreaming about retirement, if he and his family can eliminate their debt and go globetrotting, you can get control of your finances and do whatever you dream of doing too.

Here is what you get if you purchase a copy of Baker’s Unautomate Your Finances:

• A comprehensive 83-page eBook. In “The Unautomation Theory” section, Baker relates his experience climbing out of the debt hole and the way that has transformed his family’s lives. He goes on to explain how to avoid financial burnout and unlock conscious financial awareness by un-automating. In “The Science of Unautomation” he’ll help you take a hard look at your priorities and figure out how to budget for what you really want in life. Lastly, in the “Applying Unautomation” section, he focuses on application, showing you how to actively manage your finances with a simple 2-page minimalist budgeting system and apply his “Debt Tsunami” tactic to rid yourself of debt.
• A 27-minute video interview with Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net. Baker interviews Leo on how he applied the principles of simplicity and minimalism to dramatically turn around his financial life.  Powerful insights from a leader in simplicity, blogging, and productivity.
• A 29-minute audio interview with J.D. Roth of GetRichSlowly.org, one of the top personal finance blogs on the web. J.D. joins Baker on a call to discuss his own financial recovery story and what it’s like now that he’s in the “third phase of personal finance“.
• A 2-page, custom-designed PDF version (printable) of the minimalist budgeting system discussed in the main guide.
• A simple Excel template for those who want to take the minimalist budgeting system digital.
• Free Extended Updates! Get on the exclusive email list and over the next 6 months, Baker will be releasing sample case studies, FAQ’s, and exclusive interviews… for free!

At just $17, I honestly thought he was nuts for giving away so much hard work, but it just goes to show how dedicated he is to providing real value and helping those who need financial guidance. This is a truly impressive product that would typically go for at least $39 if you look around at other bloggers online, and it comes with Baker’s “as long as I have a pulse” money-back guarantee. So if you need to learn how to get the best of your personal finances, start an emergency fund, successfully get out of debt, and create a realistic budget that will let you achieve your financial and life goals, then Unautomate Your Finances is definitely something you need to check out.

Click here to get your copy of Unautomate Your Finances: A Simple, Passionate Approach to Money

And do make sure you follow Baker on Twitter, Facebook, and join the Man Vs. Debt Militia over on his site MVD to learn more about how he turned his financial life around, took his family vagabonding around the globe, and get good solid money tips.

Success is being able to live and work anywhere you want.

Success is making a difference in other peoples’ lives.

Success is unique for every individual, and you have to define it for yourself.

There is no dollar-amount on your paycheck, no job title, no luxury car or status symbol that objectively demonstrates that you’ve “made it”. Success, above all, requires that you set your own unique, meaningful goals and work hard to achieve them.

Jonny Gibaud from TheLifeThing.com has been working hard over the last month to bring together an awesome lineup of young bloggers from around the world and asked them two simple questions:

What is Success? and How Do You Achieve It?

Jonny asked me to contribute something to the book, along with these cool friends of Thrilling Heroics:

• Greg from Rock Star Lifestyle Design
• Colin from Exile Lifestyle
• Ashley from The Middle Finger Project
• Carlos from Owl Sparks
• Matt from Life Without Pants
• Bud from A Boundless World
• Gordie from Lifestyle Design for You
• Henri from Wakeup Cloud
• Sid from SidSavara.com
• Jun from JunLoayza.com
• Raam from RaamDev.com
• Brenton from BrentonGieser.com
• Diggy from Unleash Reality

And many more.

The SUCCESS ebook brings together 30 great perspectives on what Success really is and most importantly, how you achieve it.

“Written by successful people, for successful people, ‘SUCCESS’ was created to bring together and form a group of incredible global individuals united by a shared passion for Success.”

Dowload the new ebook here for free.

Network with others and win a copy of Source Control

Additionally, you can join the Facebook group or participate in the group’s Twitter contest from Monday, February 1st, through Sunday the 14th for a chance to win a copy of Source Control, which focuses on teaching you to outsource your life to make you more successful.

Interested? Here is how to enter a Twitter submission: Just tweet in fewer than 140 characters what your idea of success is.  Your tweet should look like this: “#SuccessIs:  _______  www.downloadsuccess.info”  (don’t forget the hashtag and the link so Jonny can track anyone who participates)

Enjoy the free ebook, leave your feedback on the Facebook page, and share what your definition of success is in the comments below.

In your own words: What Is Success and How Do You Achieve It?

Photo courtesy of nattu

I have been silenced and banned from a community that I helped to build and that I am extremely passionate about. I invested three months of my blood, sweat and tears into promoting someone else and I feel as though I was forced to walk away with nothing. This isn’t the first time getting involved in someone else’s community has turned out to be a complete waste of my time, and it won’t be the last.

Rather than an attempt to tear someone else down, I want this to serve as an example of exactly what not to do when you’re trying to build an online community, and how not to treat your True Fans.

This isn’t a character assassination piece, so I’m not going to name any names. I won’t go into the specifics here, but I would ask that anyone who is intimately involved not judge me based on one side of the story. Just know that there has been a lot of back-and-forth struggle behind closed doors, and deciding how to get on with it has generated weeks of stress for me. But I’ll just let the facts speak for themselves, and try to boil this experience down into some constructive lessons that we can all use.

These are (in my opinion) the non-negotiable new rules of business in the new media age:

1. Some people want to filter certain voices out of the conversation, shut out their competitors and make sure key players in their niche don’t get too involved. But if you open up your brand and turn it into a lifestyle or a philosophy that people identify with, you forfeit control. You can guide the discussion, but you aren’t allowed to control it. You don’t get to pick and choose who’s involved and who’s not. That’s not genuine and authentic.

2. Some people think others only operate for selfish reasons, so they mistrust everyone, constantly worried that people are only involved in your platform to steal your ideas and capitalize on your success. If you accuse your fans of riding your coattails, you risk making them defensive and regretful of the effort they’ve put in. You’ve got to let your users share in your success, let them shine. The more rockstars rise up out of your community, the better!

3. Some people treat their fans like a free workforce. Maybe if you’re a rock band you can get everyone to wear shirts with your name on them and promote you all over the place. Fans are very helpful when it comes to for spreading your ideas and adding to the conversation. But if you want to outsource sales and marketing to people who’ll do things exactly how you want them done, like an employee, you better be willing to pay them a salary.

4. Some people have a scarcity mindset and look at business like a zero-sum game. If you team up with your equals though—other entrepreneurs or content producers who think similarly as you, live similarly as you, or run their business similarly as you—then the point should be to create win-win situations where everyone benefits from the efforts of the team. There is plenty of business, blog readers, and wealth to spread around, and we are better off working collaboratively than alone.

5. Some people want to retain full control over every facet of the what their community creates. If your users take the initiative to express their creativity and their passion about your subject and build their own interpretations of it, that doesn’t mean you own that property. Nobody signed any intellectual property contracts here because we’re not talking about employees. Going out of your way to show that fan creations are “unofficial” and building your own official replica is a petty move which completely invalidates your users’ contributions to the group.

6. Some people think this is a one-way conversation, and that all eyes should be on themselves. If someone sings your praises constantly, comments on your work, link to posts on your site, shares, and engages with your community, reciprocate dammit!

7. Some people want to silence any conflicting opinions or dissent. But this isn’t the army either. I’m sure that when someone challenges your ideas, it’s very tempting to erase that person, all their thoughts, their contributions to your community, their existence, with the click of one button. It’s nice to be 100% in control and weed out anything that goes counter to your plan. But your organization must be inclusive, open, and free. Unless users are intentionally destructive and threatening, you cannot be exclusive and controlling.

If you are a new blogger—a rising star—be careful where you invest your time. If you spend your time helping advance someone else’s vision, think critically and make sure that you truly believe in it. I got involved in a community where I sincerely believed in the vision, but I completely disagreed with the practices behind making that vision a reality.

I jumped at the chance to be involved in this blogger’s word-of-mouth “street team” because I’d been a fan of theirs for nearly 2 years! I was excited to form a closer relationship with this blogger, as well as help spread the word about their niche. I was a True Fan!

• I connected this blogger with an important contact of mine to feature their interview on one of the most successful blogs on the web.
• I bought, used, and recommended this person’s biggest flagship products.
• I created an affiliate sales page, wrote reviews, featured posts, and even set up an AdWords campaign to send targeted clicks to them.
• I constantly talked about our shared philosophy everywhere, with everyone I possibly could.
• Most importantly, I enlisted at least a few dozen True Fans to someone else’s community, loyal fans who continue to review, re-post, recommend, Retweet and otherwise consume and share everything this blogger produces.

I did all of this without compensation. (I will note that I did receive one hour of coaching and free access to 2 info products, but any business person knows that the lifetime value of a few True Fans alone is priceless.)

Unfortunately my relationship with this blogger spiraled out of control. Everything started with a simple misunderstanding, and I have to take some of the responsibility for that too, but I think we just didn’t see eye-to-eye on most of the lessons above. Maybe I’m too much a rebel in the face of authority, but it seemed that no matter what I said they were dead set on alienating me from the group and taking back full control of many of the things I invested my time and energy into as part of the community.

If you treat them like shit, your True Fans can quickly become your worst enemies.

You absolutely must treat the people who work for you, and your biggest fans, like goddamned kings. I don’t want to be anyone’s enemy. I don’t think of myself as competing with the people who share similar ideas and business models as me, but rather I look at them as partners, colleagues and friends. But it would be unfair to let anyone treat me this way.

I don’t play by those rules. What sets me apart is that my approach to both business and community is based 100% on integrity, trust and reciprocity, not on controlling the conversation. I’m absolutely opposed to that crap, and I vow to continue to build a genuine, open community with authentic discussion here at Thrilling Heroics and elsewhere. If you choose to join me, frickin’ awesome.

Thanks for reading. Please please please leave your feedback on this hot issue. I want to know if I’m being a complete dick or if I’m onto something. What do you think?

Feature photo credit: Sybren A. Stüvel

Viralogy.com is a community that strives to highlight thought leaders and influencers in this global conversation. They are quickly branding themselves as the place to go when you want to find the authoritative bloggers on any particular topic, by ranking individuals’ online influence through the blogosphere, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Stumble, and Digg statistics.

Almost everyone has read the influential works of social media thought leaders like Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Leo Babauta, for example. But Viralogy co-founder Jun Loayza, as a member of Generation Y, wants to take a different approach to finding the authoritative voices on the web. “They have amazing content,” he says, “but at times it feels like I can’t relate with them. They’re in a position where they have reached success, and are now teaching us about how we can become successful, which may be the source of the disconnect. [But] I want to read about people who are in the trenches like me; I want to hear from people who haven’t made it yet, but are doing things the right way and can teach us how they’re doing it every step of the way.  I want to hear from the experts in my Generation.”

Jun and his team at Viralogy decided to create Viralogy Experts—a platform that will feature Gen-Y experts on a range of topics, including personal finance, business strategy, marketing & PR, and personal development. And Jun asked me to join their expert panel as a thought leader on location independence, so I’m excited and proud to announce my partnership with them for the launch of this new community! The five debut experts are:

• Adam Baker at Man Vs. Debt
• Steve Spalding at How To Split an Atom
• Stuart Foster at The Lost Jacket
• Derek Halpern at Prevential.com
• Cody McKibben (that’s me!) here at Thrilling Heroics

What we all share in common is that we are actually going through these challenges and transitions right now, so you can follow along with our journeys and know that our advice has been tested first hand. We hope to bring in a fifth expert on personal development and eventually expand to at least ten thought leaders, with the goal to help you separate the wheat from the chaff on the web and go straight to the blogs that give you actionable, step-by-step teaching from peers that you can trust.

Viralogy Experts launches today, so go check it out and please subscribe!

Jun Loayza is a really cool guy—a young serial entrepreneur in Los Angeles, and a good online buddy I met early on in his blogging adventure! I met up with him and Jonathan Mead, both big players in the next generation of online stars, when I was in LA for the fun Mindshare conference a few weeks ago.

Jun runs several sites, he has an interesting video series that shows the behind-the-scenes of starting up a new web company with some college friends, and he has a new venture, Viralogy, where he does great, interesting video interviews with many bloggers from our community. I finally had the chance to sit down for a talk with Jun, and we had a really fantastic  conversation about social media, travel, Thailand, and the location-independent lifestyle!

I look like crap with poor lighting and low video quality (!), but if you’ve ever wondered how I managed to become a “digital nomad” and live in Thailand, this video interview packs almost all of my philosophy on life and work into about 13-minutes!

• 1:15 – Breaking out of the traditional “template” lifestyle and job path
• 2:45 – How do you create a job that you can do from anywhere?
• 5:00 – How long does it take to make your business location-independent?
• 6:30 – How living in Thailand has helped me grow and develop personally
• 8:30 – Resources & links for learning more about the location independent (LIP) lifestyle
• 11:20 – Can you have relationships while you travel the world?

Jun did a tremendous job, really asking me some great questions and opening it up for queries from Twitter followers. He’s compiled a lot of valuable supplemental info on his blog post, so if you’re an avid blog reader or social media user, I’d appreciate if you click over and vote for Jun’s post on sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, or share the link on Twitter! The Awesome Revolution interview series is really interesting and useful, so let’s help him make it a success!

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a new social network/instant messaging mashup that’s being referred to as a micro-blogging tool. It allows users to send text updates (called “tweets”) to all their friends—from twitter.com, instant message (via AIM or MSN Messenger, for example), or even from a mobile phone. It’s like posting an instant blog post, but you’re forced to craft your message with a 140-character limit.

The site asks members “What are you doing?” Answers range from the mundane (“eating a burrito”) to the interesting, hilarious, and even useful (well, okay, once in a while). While some use the service merely to updates friends on their whereabouts and activities, many people are using it to promote their blogs, share valuable links, and otherwise brand themselves and their businesses online.

Below: The default Twitter profile page.

(Click image for larger view.)

Most web nerds like myself are saying Twitter will be big (like, Facebook big) over the next few years, but right now it’s still at the early adopter stage, which means it’s dominated by bloggers, web designers, and technologists. For many Twitterfolk, it has become a primary channel of communication over the last year (*read: easier to reach them via Twitter than via email). I’ve been able to get the attention of a few power users in the “Twitterverse” over the last few months, including great folks like Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki, and Chris Brogan, and I’ve even had some pretty decent exchanges with them! If you’re in the technology or internet industry and you’re not using Twitter yet, it is a MUST. What are you still reading this for? Run! Go! Right now!

What About Twitter for Business?

For the rest of us, the question is how does one effectively leverage Twitter for business or personal branding? If used properly, it can easily bring more readers into your camp. I’ve already built a pretty decent sized following myself (follow me here), using the service mostly to share helpful tips and links I find across the web and to promote my own writing. One cool function is that you can easily plug your “tweets” in to the sidebar on your own blog or into other social networks and share your updates with friends that aren’t already on Twitter. (See Twitter badges and WordPress plugins.)

Below: My Twitter replies from other users. Yes, you can
add your own crazy backgrounds too!

(Click image for larger view.)

The BBC and CNN are using it to broadcast breaking news. Companies like Whole Foods, Zappos, Dell, Cisco, Comcast, and more are using it to send updates to their customers. If you provide value, you’ll make fast friends. Aside from sharing my links and blog posts, I also use Twitter to search for people with questions about blogging and answer my clients’ questions about WordPress. If you use it wisely, Twitter can give you a platform to show off your expertise, cultivate a reputation as an authority in your field, and build a loyal following.

Here are 5 tips to go from Twitter Newbie to Twitter Ninja:

1. There are several third-party Twitter clients that will run on your desktop much like your instant messenger does, so you don’t have to be logged in at twitter.com, and they give you quick navigation and search tools at your fingertips. First of all, I would recommend that you lookup Twitter clients and find one that suits you. I use Twhirl (see image at right), which makes my experience much more like a chat client that I can easily turn on and off when I want to.
2. Learn how to us the @replies to send messages to other users, and learn how to use a URL-shortening service such as TinyURL or SnipUrl to condense long hyperlinks so you can fit them within your 140-character tweets. (Twhirl and most other Twitter clients have URL-shortening services built-in.)
3. If you’re a blogger or a social media freak like me, hook up your blog’s RSS feed and feeds from your bookmarking services (del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Google Reader…) to auto-publish to your Twitter account with Twitterfeed.com.
4. Subscribe to keywords if you want to monitor the larger discussion about certain topics across the whole Twitter network. This is how I find a lot of users asking about WordPress, and I just try to answer people’s questions when I can. I’ve made a lot of new friends this way and have even scored last-minute freelance gigs by answering strangers’ questions with helpful advice. (Watch Ed Dale’s awesome tutorial video “Become a Twitter Master with Twhirl” for more about @replies and subscribing to keywords within the Twhirl client!)
5. Once you’re used to how the rules work, check out Lee Odden’s list of Five New Twitter Tools You Should Know to help you find more new people to connect with on Twitter and expand your network.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter and send an @codymckibb to ask your WordPress and blogging-related questions!

Helpful Twitter Articles from Others:

• Why Twitter?
• 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners
• 9 Ways Twitter Made Guy Kawasaki’s Website Better
• Three Ways to Maximize Your Twitter Time for Networking, Marketing and Fun

photo credit: somefool (MatthewM)

Since it’s brand-spanking new to the blogosphere, I could really use your help promoting the Thrilling Heroics Consulting site to the community, so please vote it up on the social media sites and share the URL address if you’ve got friends or colleagues who are bloggers too. Thanks!

CodyMcKibben.com Will Now Serve As My Social Media Homebase

I’ll be compiling my portfolio and services listing at ThrillingDesign.com, but I’ve also recently transformed codymckibben.com into a static homepage. All of my articles that were originally posted there have been moved here to the Thrilling Heroics blog. codymckibben.com will serve as a social media HQ of sorts, so please feel free to reference it if you’re looking for my contact info or to see what projects I’m currently involved in, but looking ahead I encourage you to follow all my future updates on personal development, careeer, Gen-Y issues, social media, and more here at Thrilling Heroics (get the RSS feed here).

Visit the New Thrilling Heroics Bookstore!

In addition to the Thrilling Blog Search tool, I’ve also recently created an online bookstore for the Thrilling Heroics reader community. People that know me know that I love reading personal development and business books, and I really enjoy sharing the best of what I read. I’ve started an Amazon aStore where I’ve hand-picked the best personal and business development books. Several of these have been the most impactful books in my life, while others have been highly suggested by mentors and colleagues.

Whenever I find great new resources that I think the community will benefit from, I’ll add them in. For transparency, I receive a 4-6% commission on any books you purchase through the TH Bookstore and it will go to help offset the costs of running the site. Please consider buying a book to help support the site! (You can also purchase other books through my Amazon link for up to 34% discount!)

Browse the Thrilling Heroics Bookstore »

Thanks for being a member of my online community and please feel free to get in touch with your thoughts and feedback. Cheers!

Personally, I’m a big fan of productivity lists, how-to’s, and life hacks, so my custom search engine includes a lot of big name sites like Lifehacker, Zen Habits, Tim Ferriss’ 4HWW blog, and many more. Anytime I’m curious how to do something, like how to install a certain software application, how to improve my resume, or how to get the most out of a particular social networking site for instance, my custom-build search engine returns incredible results! And if you like to hyperlink to other resources and articles as additional support when you write new blog posts, this will serve as a fantastic tool for you just like it has for me.

I highly recommend Google’s Custom Search, and since I’ve already done the work and compiled a master list of over 50 of the web’s most credible and authoritative blogs, I’d also like to introduce my own Thrilling Blog Search engine as an open community tool for the Brazen Careerist network and the blogosphere at large. Try it out. Seriously! It provides some really cool results for all sorts of subjects from personal development to social media to finance. Link to the search engine page here and try a search for “resume,” “savings account,” or “LinkedIn” for example:

If you’d like to utilize this tool for your own blogging workflow, feel free to bookmark my directory/links page, or you can easily add it to your iGoogle homepage or your own website. Be aware that this search engine already crawls several of the most trusted blogs on the internet, but I will be adding to the sites in the future. If you’d like to contribute to the project or suggest a site for addition, you can get in touch with me but be aware there will be a strict review process. In other words, if you email me with a suggestion, you better be ready to pitch your site and why the community will benefit from it!

Here are the top-notch blogs/bloggers that are already a part of this fun customized blog community search tool:

Personal Growth/Productivity

• Lifehacker
• Zen Habits
• Steve Pavlina
• LifeDev
• Life Optimizer
• The Positivity Blog
• Scott H Young
• Duff McDuffee
• Today Is That Day

Career/Personal Branding

• Personal Branding Blog
• Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
• Life Beyond Code
• Water Cooler Wisdom
• Personal PR
• Newly Corporate
• The Urban Muse
• PR Interactive
• Erik Folgate

Lifestyle Design/Travel

• The 4-Hour Workweek
• Anywired
• The Art of Nonconformity
• Real Social Dynamics
• Ronnie Nurss
• Brave New Traveler

Generation-Y Issues

• Employee Evolution
• Twenty Set
• WorkLoveLife

Personal Finance

• I Will Teach You To Be Rich
• Get Rich Slowly

Freelancing/Entrepreneurship

• FreelanceSwitch
• Escape from Cubicle Nation
• Erica Douglass
• How to Change the World by Guy Kawasaki
• The Anti 9-to-5 Guide
• Instigator Blog
• College-Startup
• Jamie Harrop

Social Media/Technology

• Chris Brogan
• Dosh Dosh
• Copyblogger
• Tobias Baeck
• Paul Stamatiou
• Greg Rollett
• Moving From Me to We
• Paul Woods

Blogging/WordPress

• ProBlogger
• Pearsonified
• Theme Playground
• Blog Perfume
• Lorelle on WordPress
• Thrilling Design

Remember, this is a community project, so please feel free to get involved!

» Add a search widget to your Google homepage.

» Add the custom Thrilling Blog Search to your own site.

» Get in touch if you’ve got a suggested site that will benefit other bloggers and readers.

» Blog about this or tell your friends about the Thrilling Blog Search engine!

These are just the first round of additions to the Thrilling Blog Search community search tool. As I come across more great sites, I’ll be updating the list and the search engine tool. You can view several of my favorite blogs and suggested resources, as well as my custom Thrilling Blog Search tool on my Links Page here.

…Successful entrepreneurs decide to start a company and then think about it. They play with it in their mind. Maybe they talk about it, just a little. And then they make a commitment to the company, and you know what? Nothing changes. It still looks like a lot of nothing, because it’s mostly just thinking.

Penelope Trunk is a Boston Globe career columnist, and author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. With help from Ryan Paugh and Ryan Healy of Employee Evolution, she has just launched the brand-spanking-new Brazen Careerist blog network, and I am lucky enough to be one of the first handful of Gen-Y bloggers chosen to be a part of the community!

As she describes it, BrazenCareerist.com is “a network of fifty bloggers who have agreed to participate in a community of people helping each other with careers.” This is an exciting new thing I’ve never seen before–a huge group of Gen-Y professionals all working together to talk about career and personal development, so I am proud to be a hand-picked member of the first fifty writers. You can read more about the launch and about Penelope’s interesting entrepreneurial experience starting up the network in her recent announcement.

Here’s just a few of the awesome Gen-Y blogs I’m proud to be listed alongside as part of the new Brazen Careerist network (click the image above for the full directory):

• Ben Casnocha
• Newly Corporate
• Personal Branding Blog
  
• Devin Reams
• Young Go Getter
• The Big Transition
• My Gen Y Life
• Twenty Set
• Modite
• Employee Evolution
• Personal PR

###

Also, some of you may have noticed a recent overhaul of ThrillingHeroics.com. I’ve completely redesigned and optimized TH, so let me know what you think and what else you might like to see, design- and usability-wise. For those of you who miss the old look, don’t worry. I plan on making the old template, optimized for SEO and reader retention, available soon.

Okay I’ve been meaning to participate in Robert Hruzek’s latest meme since May 24th! That’s been over a month now (!), and I feel really horrible I still haven’t shared how I feel bloggin’ has impacted me since I started. What can I say? … I’ve been swamped with work, and interviewing authors and entrepreneurs, and calling San Diego business owners, and test-driving BMWs, and Toastmastering, and MasterMinding, and NetImpacting! It’s a hard life!

Oh well, I have the time now. Part of the reason it’s taken me so long to address is that I’ve been reflecting on the question for about three weeks! To quote Robert, “The irony is that while we bloggers are out changing the world, we’re also changing ourselves, you know? And by that I mean me, personally. To my surprise, I’ve changed in significant ways – directly as a result of blogging.”

I just had my first blogging anniversary in early June! (Although I started online journaling in 2003, I consider my blogging birth to be June 2006 when I started ThrillingHeroics.com and started writing for an audience, not just for my family members.) So how has it changed me in those 13 months? A LOT! That’s how.

How Blogging Has Changed Me

I’m addicted to the internet! I experience information overload firsthand. On a daily basis! But, the good side is that I’ve gotten really good at filtering what information I let in, what I care about and what I waste my time on. I read MUCH more (I’m almost done with my 5th book for the year — that’s 4 more than last year — in addition to the thousands of news articles and blog posts I read from week to week). I don’t let myself get as distracted by television (most of it is pointless drivel), video games, or other forms of laziness and distraction. I’m much more informed — I always know the latest trends in technology and business, and I often hear the headlines days before they get reported on your local TV news station. I’m addicted…but I’m always constantly learning and growing.

• Cody Recommends: Google Reader for organizing all those RSS feeds; and Suggestica for good book recommendations

I’m much more well connected. I’ve learned to appreciate the importance of and power of relationships. Considering myself a bit of a rogue journalist, I like to interview and talk to people in different businesses and I always enjoy reaching out to form new connections and learn from people who are doing it! I’ve somehow managed to build a global network of friends — a columnist in Wisconsin, a career coach in Arizona, a photographer in Pakistan, a student of design in Norway, an American student in Ireland, an executive in Palo Alto, a professor in India, entrepreneurs in the Bay Area, and so on. I’m a businessman, and what I’ve realized is that business is all about people. Relationships. You’ve gotta foster them before you need them, and you’ve gotta keep fostering them. You can never assume that you don’t need someone just because they’re not a customer! (They might be a future customer.) The best practice is simply to always look out for how you can help others and promote others, and it will come back to you, guaranteed. Think Karma.

• Cody Recommends: LinkedIn for business networking and asking questions to your professional peer group; and Facebook for connecting with old friends, coworkers, and classmates; also read Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone

I have loftier goals. 13 months ago, I didn’t want to go to Stanford GSB. I didn’t want to run my own company. I didn’t think writers or CEOs would give me the time of day. But, through lots of patient persistence and trying to learn about my interests — in green business, career development, and tech startups — and through trying to get in contact with important people, I’ve become much more motivated to do BIG things. I’m more of a goal-setter. I’ve started a career development group. I’m trying to start a professional organization in Sacramento! And I’m learning how to rubn shoulders with the big guys — the ones who are doing what you want to do! I’ve learned that pretty much anybody is accessible. Even CEOs. They may not have a lot of time — but everyone, in their own private lives, considers themselves just another regular guy (or gal). Everyone LOVES to talk about themselves! If you have a sincere interest in what someone does, let them know. We all like to feel important and like our experience and knowledge are valuable to others.

• Cody Recommends: Start a MasterMind group (or join mine!) to excel your career and for goal accountability; and join a Toastmasters club to practice your public speaking

I take more initiative. Perhaps through trying to keep a clean email inbox, I’ve picked up the habit of attacking tasks more aggressively. I break down projects into actionable steps and I just go after the next goal. I didn’t always have such a proactive approach to getting things done — in fact I was quite a procrastinator. But procrastinating doesn’t work if you want to be a writer. You’ve gotta put out regular, good content. And that means you have to go out and chase it down! Now, if I see something that needs to get done, I try to just DO IT. When I want to accomplish some big goal, I call up those important people who I think can help. Just ask them (make it worth their while — frame it how it will benefit them). What’s the worst they could say? No? So what…you can’t lose what you don’t already have. So do it now, or else you won’t ever do it. Same with cleaning the house, starting that 401k, taking that vacation, saving the $10 service fee the bank tries to screw you for, reaching out to your favorite author, going back to school, and so on. Do it now, or you’ll never do it.

• Cody Recommends: David Allen’s Getting Things Done (this is the productivity Bible!)

Thanks go out to Robert for starting this little exercise! I’m not going to tag anyone for this meme because I’ve attacked all of my blogger friends with plenty of memes lately, but you readers out there who happen to blog, please feel free to continue this discussion and let me know how you’ve changed since you started blogging…

The Free Flow of Information Act would beef up federal shield laws that protect journalists from revealing their sources except in the most immediate cases where a crime has been committed, when a threat is posed to national security, or when private personal information is revealed illegally.

The Politicians, As Usual, Are Focusing on the Wrong Thing

The U.S. Department of Justice doesn’t want this bill to get through Congress. Those who oppose the bill say that anyone could use such shield laws to protect themselves if they just slapped up a website as soon as they were accused of some high crimes against the state. However the bill already makes it very clear that if a journalist breaks the law or reports on someone who has broken the law, then the shield doesn’t necessarily protect them. The real issue (the one they are trying to distract you from by invoking scary terrorists and murderers) is that some politicians frankly just don’t want anyone sharing the government’s secrets. But, simply telling the truth alone is not a crime.

The Justice Department doesn’t want journalists to report the truth though. They want journalists to report what they want you to know.

Why the Public’s Right to Know is Important

In case you forgot, the government works for you! You pay for all of the government’s operations. And the fact is, sometimes the government gets into some shady stuff…like torturing people maybe…or spying on its own citizens, let’s just pretend. These things are illegal for our government to do, according to the laws we’ve set up for ourselves in this country. So when that stuff happens, the public needs to know, and we have to hold the government accountable.

If you take away journalists’ privilege not to incriminate themselves or others, then you make it much easier for a government to keep these “state secrets” securely hush-hush.

Why Some Bloggers Should Be Given Journalistic Cred

The proposed bill defines a journalist as anyone engaged in “gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.” Why is this important?

New York Times columnist William Safire “praised the bill’s current definition because he said it focuses on the actions characteristic of journalists, not their affiliations.” Here’s what he had to say:

Whether you’re a blogger or whether you’re The New York Times or CBS or The Wall Street Journal, if what you are doing is aimed at informing the public, then you’re a journalist, whether you get paid for it or not.

Certain bloggers work passionately towards reporting, aggregating, and spreading information freely with the public, even if they’re not paid by a big news organization or publisher to do it. Notice how I’m reporting on the news right now, for instance.

[more: CNET News.com]