GROW SMART BUSINESS WEBINAR

I will attend Grow Smart Business Webinar tomorrow, April 30 at 2 PM ET (20:00 Central European Time). I will write tweets during the event by using the hashtag #GrowBiz. Read Anita Campbell's post, Free Webinar - The 2 Areas Small Businesses Struggle Most With, for more information.



UPDATE 05/01/09:

Shashi Bellamkonda sent out a tweet message that you now could watch a recap of the webinar on April 30: "Rock Star Entrepreneurs and Your Business."

KEEP GROWING

Keep growing...


Chile pepper and paprika plants.

Please go to my other blog if you want to see more pictures of chile pepper, paprika and tomato plants. It is soon time to repot...

What are you favorite recipes with chile pepper, paprika and tomato?

Don't try this at home...



Woman gobbles 51 of world's hottest chillies - and rubs 25 in her eyes while Gordon Ramsay watches in horror - The Daily Mail.

I will add spice to my life and go to New York City and take a bite of The Big Apple... [Editor's comment: Or should I say: take a bite of the big chile pepper fruit?!]

LIFE ON THIS EARTH

How did you survive the Earth Day propaganda? It is better to celebrate Administrative Professionals' Day.

Reading material:

• Celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day by Craig Biddle.
• Happy (Life on This) Earth Day! by Gus Van Horn.
• Environmentalism vs Creativity by Wayne Dunn.
• The Earth is Mankind's Garden by Nicholas Provenzo.

Related: My post, EXPLOIT THE EARTH.

BOOK IN THE MAIL

I have received a copy of Dan Schawbel's book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success.



This book will be useful when I plan for my course on social media in the autumn.

[Editor's note: What are you reading at the moment?]

TEA AND CRUMPETS

Did you attend a tea party in your neighborhood? I wouldn't mind to have a cup of tea and crumpets! ;) At the moment, I am listed as #33 (tag #tea) on the WeFollow Twitter directory.


Hold The Crumpets

I have added the speech by Dr. John Lewis at the NC Tea Party in Charlotte to the featured video section on the blog. Here is Andy Clarkson's interview with Dr. John Lewis.

RACH 3

Today I watched TV for a bit and listened to Leif Ove Andsnes playing Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 ("Rach 3") with Lionel Bringuier and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Have you seen Shine?

Related: My post, EGO AND RACHMANINOFF ON RADIO.

PURCHASING INDEX AND BUSINESS CYCLE

I have written a new piece for Open Forum. The post is describing how you could keep up with the business cycle by following the Purchasing Managers' Index.

Related: My post, FIVE TRENDS ACCORDING TO INC. MAGAZINE.

YOU SAY TOMATO

Yesterday I saw a documentary called Beyond Wiseguys.


Italienare på film.

It was funny to see that the documentary was sponsored by a pasta sauce company! Talking about tomato sauce, check out my other blog if you want to see what is popping up... Here is a picture of the tomato plants:



Related: My post, MELTING POT.

QUIPTOON FOR TAX DAY

I am glad to see that they will arrange a tea party in my old home state, Ohio. In the news: Tax Day Tea Party planned to protest government spending - Dayton Daily News.


John Cox Art.

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." -- Winston Churchill. (QuoteDB.com)

Great resource: Ayn Rand Center On The Tea Parties.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Morris the cat is illustrating the theme of this post. It is time for some food for thought. I haven't had time to write a blog post for some days due to the fact that I have had plenty of things on my mind.

Here is an excerpt from my comment on Anita Campbell's post, The 4-Hour Workweek? Try the 40-Hour Workweek, on Open Forum.

My goal is not per se to decrease the working hours, but I want to be free to designate my time more in the future. Here is an example of a day: 8 hours if I become an employee again, 2 hours for my other business projects and home based business, 2 hours for searching new opportunities, prospects, business partners, etc., 4 hours of personal development, e.g. studying, exercising, and then a combination of 8 hours of meals, power naps, relaxation and sleep.

I think that you could use the time in a more efficient way and become more effective if you apply a proper work method, e.g. Getting Things Done (D. Allen). I guess that many of the top leaders and performers in the network marketing industry don’t have to work more than a couple of hours per day, due to the fact that the residual income is coming into play. I wouldn’t mind to have the kind of lifestyle described by Timothy Ferriss, including a mini-retirement (travel and vacation) now and then. Does the author promises that you should be able to achieve this limited workweek in a period of 90 days? (Open Forum, July 14, 2008.)

Talking about Open Forum, I will have a new post published on April 10.

I have soon been blogging for seven years. I will continue to build my EGO brand in the years to come, and in order to do that, I have registered a new domain name, Ego Sole Trader. It will be a powerhouse for thoughts on the trader principle and wealth of information for the self-employed (sole traders / proprietors).

Here is my comment on Anita Campbell's post, Startups and Sole Proprietors - How Does Your Area Rank?

John Tozzi,

Thanks for your input. I think it is important to see an integration of your work-life(style) situation. Right now, I am reading Jonathan Fields’s book, Career Renegade, and it has given me fuel for my life long journey and career path in the future. (Reviewed by Anita Campbell on January 15, 2009.)

It was interesting to read your post, The Entrepreneurship Job on Small Biz Blog. I think that “more people see entrepreneurship as the next step,” with the precondition if it will become easier to start your own business, i.e., less regulation, red-tape, etc. Have you covered this issue in BusinessWeek? (SmallBizTrends.com, April 5, 2009.)

I have now finished reading Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love by Jonathan Fields.



I will soon read Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success by Dan Schawbel.

Ivana,

This is funny, I am writing on a new blog post right now, and I was thinking of mentioning Me 2.0 and personal branding. I have been building my EGO (I in Latin) brand for 6+ years (7th birthday on May 7) and I am now in the process to discuss this topic in more detail on my upcoming sole proprietorship business site called EgoSoleTrader.com. I am planning to publish an e-pamphlet on how you have to have a philosophical foundation in order to build your personal brand.

“Be the real you because everyone else is taken and replicas don’t sell for as much.”

You have to be an genuine individual in order to stand out in the crowd and you have to see other individuals as potential business traders by applying the benevolent universe premise.

I have had my Martin.Lindeskog.name bulletin board site for some time. The .name domain could fit well with the branding aspect.

I have registered Name-Day.Me for a business idea that I have been “chewing” since 1997. It is all about celebration of the private person and individual on a daily basis, i.e., you celebrate a specific “name-day” every day. This tradition is common in some European and Scandinavian countries, e.g., Sweden, Finland, Greece and Hungary, but I haven’t seen it in North America.

Thanks for the review, it will be on my list for next book purchase. (SmallBizTrends.com, April 7, 2009.)

My blogging will continue according to the "key words" and description: reason - egoism - laissez-faire capitalism, but I will try to focus on more hands-on stuff that could be useful and have a real value to rational individuals around the blogosphere.

From Anita Campbell's post, PowerBlog Review: Ego Blog.

The Ego blog covers high-level intellectual ideas, but manages to make them seem relevant. The blog is always tied to current news and events, and is never academic.

Another terrific feature of this blog is the great set of links. Naturally you’ll find links to the usual suspects: blog directories, other blogs, news sites, etc. But you will also find extensive links to sites on capitalism, Objectivism and the good life. ... The Power: The Power of the Ego blog is in the way it reflects capitalism and Objectivism in action, and transforms them into concrete, real-life concepts, not vague theories. (SmallBizTrends.com, August 29, 2004.)

Image source: Kris Colvin.

From The Ayn Rand Institute's site, Ayn Rand's Novels:

To Ayn Rand, by contrast, philosophy is a matter of life and death. On her view, philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man and of man’s relationship to existence. “A philosophy,” such as Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, is a systematic, integrated view of existence—what used to be called “a philosophy of life.” Far from being a useless game, philosophy, to Ayn Rand, is the determining factor in an individual’s character and happiness and in every aspect of a culture, including history, politics, education. Philosophic ideas are important because one’s life is important, and philosophy is a practical necessity for living. (Ayn Rand's Ideas.)

I will continue to conduct interviews with rational individuals on Solid Vox. I will ask Prodos when my latest interview with Scott Holleran will be online. The podcast interviews will enable me to become a thought leader and later on dive into the publishing industry. I am attending Larry Genkin's Thought Leadership Marketing Mastery eCourse and Maritza Parra's "Quick Ebook Creation" 6 Module Video Workshop Course. I want to sign up for Jean Moroney's The Thinking Tactics Mastery Program sometime in the future.

Stay tuned for Charlie Bloom's launch of NetZpider Network ("Inventing, developing, spreading and selling two-way messages") in May. Here is my comment on John Cox's post, Product Gig.

John,

I will tell you soon about a new online business venture that has to do with t-shirts and communication. It is not an April Fool's Day joke! ;) (JohnCoxArt.com, April 1, 2009.)

It is time to sow, harvest and pluck the day! Go to my other blog and read my post, NEW SEEDS AND OLD PLANT, if you have an interest in chile peppers.

UNSCHEDULED MAINTENANCE AT TWITTER

Have you missed my blog posts for some time?! I have done as Twitter and have had an unscheduled maintenance of my blog. ;) I will be back soon...

Twitter is currently down for unscheduled maintenance.
We expect to be back in about an hour. Thanks for your patience.