Sometimes as I pound away on the keys here in my home, I forget that blogging is a community event. I love to write, sharing stories of my life and some useful (hopefully) bits of wisdom along the way. Equally as much as the writing, however, I love to read other people's blogs - so many of the other people out there in the blogging community have truly inspired me. And the way that blogging works best, I think, is with people sharing the knowledge that they gain as we build, as a community, our collective wisdom. With that in mind, I thought that I'd give you a little list of blog articles written by other people that you might check out, so as to potentially get inspired yourself! Whomever you choose to visit, make sure you tell them that Neil Sattin sent you. 🙂
First Link: Steve Pavlina's How to Make Money from Your Blog. I remember well the first night that I stumbled upon (not literally, fellow stumblers!) Steve Pavlina's website. It's difficult to choose which article is the "most" inspiring - so I picked this article because it was the first one that I read, and it is basically what kicked me in the ass and got me to start writing. I've always loved to write, I just never knew that I could make a living at it, online, until I read that article. Just wait, after reading you'll be ready to start your own blog. Feel free to ask for tips on how to do that - it's not hard to get set up. Another aspect of this article that is totally in alignment with my mission here on NeilSattin.com is Steve Pavlina's emphasis on providing value to the world through your blog content - which you mainly do by being true to yourself and offering your truth to the world through what you write. If you want to get inspired to write a blog, if you want to see how you can achieve financial independence through blogging, and if you are looking for some concrete steps to take - check this article out.
Also, if you're looking for something that's "follow-your-passion" inspiring and are into podcasts, check out this audioblog from Steve Pavlina about focusing on your own happiness and creativity, and how it leads to personal success.
Second Link: OK, well since I've mentioned Pavlina #1, I might as well mention Pavlina #2. Erin Pavlina writes a lot about dreams, psychic experiences, following your intuition - a very spiritual approach to life. Again, many of her articles are interesting, entertaining, and inspiring - but I've selected for you an article called "The Dead Path" which is about an astral journey that seemed to reach right into the afterlife. If you click on her "articles" link you'll be able to see a whole host of topics, ranging from Lucid Dreaming to how to contact your Higher Self/Spirit Guides, to some great slice-of-life stories.
Third Link: Although she's taken a temporary break from posting to work on some other writing projects, Karen Shanley has written some great articles about life, motherhood, dog training, gardening, etc. I came across her site when I was looking for other dog training blogs on technorati, and I think that she has a very positive, commonsense approach when it comes to dog training - and, hell, life in general. In her post called "The Happy Box", Karen writes about one challenging night of helping her daughter get to sleep when scary thoughts are keeping her awake. It's a great story, plus some practical advice that I may use one day should Dash and I have a similar conversation.
Fourth Link: My wife Tonya, who writes over at HappyDash, has really gotten into the community of other parents out there who have jumped with both feet into the blogosphere. Sweet-Juniper.com is written primarily by the dad half of the parental unit, and in this blog entry he talks about all the cool things that you get to experience when you spend lots of time with your child. Reading sweet-juniper will contribute to your ability to savor everything about being a parent, and if you're not a parent yet it'll make parenting seem cool, hip, and workable in your own life (in case you were worried that it wasn't).
Fifth Link: You may or may not know that I write songs. At some point in the not-so-distant future I plan to start making some decent recordings of songs I've written and posting them here on this website for your listening pleasure. Another fellow dog blogger, Lee Charles Kelley, is a dog trainer in NYC whose "Kelley Method" for dog training is informed primarily by Kevin Behan's Natural Dog Training - so I automatically like his thoughts on dog training. HOWEVER, he's also a songwriter. In this blog article, he talks about his songwriting philosophy, while also telling some entertaining anecdotes from the history of songwriting.
I hope that you get some inspiration of your own from reading these articles. Follow the links, and show these other bloggers some love! After all, there's plenty to go around.
I'm going to head downstairs now to hang with my friend Louis, who's visiting from Los Angeles. You might remember him as the dude who officiated at our wedding (visible in the 3rd picture of that article) - he got ordained especially for the occasion (though I think he's hung up his white collar, lest you think you might be considering hiring him). We're going to catch up about life as a screenwriter/director in the big city.
Meanwhile, all my best to all of you, and happy reading!
