Personal Development for Smart People^TM

In a recent forum thread about starting a new business, someone asked about the best way to handle competition. How do you ensure that your efforts will pay off instead of merely jumping into a giant pool with everyone else and being unable to stand out?
My strategy for dealing with competition is the same no matter what […]

I recently decided to learn to play chess. While it may not be the sexiest undertaking and probably wouldn’t make for a very exciting 30-day trial (don’t worry — I’ll spare you!), taking up chess as a hobby appeals to me for several reasons.
In November I posted an article called Discover Your Strengths, which is about an online test […]

The Site Build It! discount for StevePavlina.com visitors has been extended another 48 hours, so instead of expiring tonight, it will continue until midnight on Sunday, February 24th. I know some people wanted a little more time to make this decision, so I asked if we could extend this discount a couple more days, and they agreed. So now you have […]

It’s time to share the results of the personal branding experiment from the previous post. I asked visitors to this website to submit 3 adjectives to describe me. I let it run for 2 days and received a total of 1,101 responses, which included more than 3,000 adjectives.
First of all, a big thanks to everyone who […]

Personal branding is basically the way you market yourself to the world. Your personal brand is what other people think of you. In some ways it’s outside your control, but you obviously have some influence over it.
Personal branding is unavoidable. As others interact with you, they’ll automatically form mental associations that connect you with certain labels, often within the […]

Since I announced my recommendation for the Site Build It! service a few days ago, dozens of people have signed up for it, and some are already well on their way to starting their own online businesses. If you’re one of them, I’m excited for you, and please do keep in touch to let me know how it goes […]

Starting a blog is very easy these days. You can start your own blog in a matter of minutes if you want. Many web hosts will even install a blog for you or provide an easy installation process. And of course you can always use a hosted service like WordPress.com or Blogger to get started.
Some […]

I love the lifestyle that comes from running an online business. I get to work from home each day, set my own hours, choose my own projects, and enjoy abundant income. It’s hard for me to imagine how I’d feed myself without the Internet. When I think about income generation, I immediately think of the web.
I was talking […]

At various times over the past several years, I’ve tested the use of voice recognition software for dictating text, such as Dragon Naturally Speaking. Since I can speak much faster than I can type, the potential productivity benefits are too great to ignore. However, up until now I’ve always been disappointed by the results. The […]

This is the final postmortem of my 30 day trial of the low-fat raw food diet, which I conducted from January 1 to January 30, 2008.
The two posts I made before starting this trial explained the background on this diet and my reasons for doing this, so I won’t rehash all of that here. If […]