I am an Epiphany Goal Setter.  What do I mean by that?

I do not set goals on January first.  No resolutions.

Instead, I believe that you need to take action when you realize something is not quit right.  You have an epiphany that something needs changed, you ask yourself if you are willing to work on changing it, and if the answer is yes, you go to war with it that instant.

No starting a diet tomorrow.  No planning to increase sales next month.  If it is important then you take action. And if it is not important enough to take action, then you make a resolution and then forget about it a week later.

I realize many of you do like setting goals on January 1st, and if it works for you, all the more power to you.  Here are two excellent and different perspectives on goal setting from people I respect.

• Goal Setting Versus Emininating Pain - Terry Dean
• Go get your goals in 2008 – Keith Ferrazzi

…. But if you are waiting for January 1st to attack your goals, consider this.  In August I decided to lose weight and get in shape.  Instead of postponing it to the new year, I started within 24 hours and have achived 75% of the very specific goal I set already.  I could have said, “In 2008 I am going to lose weight.” Instead, in 2008 I am reaping the rewards.

Maybe the only New Year’s resolution you need to make this year is to reassess and revise your goals every week throughout the year.  Now that is one worth setting.

Have a great new year!

Tim Ferriss has an excellent post entitled 12 Filtering Tips for Better Information in Half the Time.

While the slant of the post is saving time and getting the information that matters, it is also important from a buzz perspective.  The Stumble Upon and Delicious comment not only help you find information better but also help your website get more traffic.

This is a must read – and a must do if you value your time.

Do you?  How often? 

There are three possible reasons I continue to read a blog or eNewsletter.

1) I have built up a great rapport with the person, even if just virtually.

2) They shock, amaze and delight me. (Or piss me off in a good way)

3) Information I care about and cannot get anywhere else

If you want to have an effective eNewsletter or blog, I think you have to do one of these things really well, and strive to have a decent level of all three.

Let me explain with examples of three blogs I read.

#1  Phil Gerbyshak – Make It Great

I read Phil regularly because I know him.  1,000s of people feel like they know Phil.  He does a great job with relationships and I know exactly who he is.  I want him to succeed and he earns my fandom because of his hard work, his willingness to give and just being himself.

#2 Tim Ferriss – 4 Hour Work Week

Tim strives to post less frequently, but shockingly good stuff that makes me rethink my life.  I read his weight loss post (and no, it is not a health blog, it is a lifestyle blog) and implemented the ideas.  I have adjusted it to my life as I have gone along, but I have lost 27 lb. and have 7 more to go to get back to my weight when I was young.  No crazy diet and I only exercise 30 minutes per day.

His posts shock and amaze me.  He has other posts on outsourcing his dating, never getting paper mail again and more.  I sit by the computer hoping for something new from him.

#3  Mashable

This category is harder to do by yourself.  If you can pull a team together and provide a great information resource, you can hit a home run like this site.  I don’t know why anyone would want to read a print magazine when a great resource like this is out there and updated daily.  This is where I go to keep up to date on new web technologies and sites.

Before you say, “Yes, those are me…”, consider carefully.  Very few of us do a great job at any of these.  We are all in love with our blog, our writing, our topic, but is anyone else in love with them?

I am committing to improving all three of these in 2008.  It is not enough to be informative.  You want to be the center ring of the Internet circus big top. 

About a week ago I witnessed something that was very upsetting to me.

A woman pulled up into the grocery store parking lot and got out of her nice, new, shiny hybrid car.  So far, so good.  I wish I had a Hybrid, but I drive an SUV.

As she opens the door, a bag of McDonalds trash falls out, into the parking lot.  She kicks it a little, does not pick it up, and goes shopping.  She leaves it.

Now, maybe that is not as bad as driving a less efficient car, but it did get me thinking.

Does she feel she has the right to litter because she makes it up by driving a Hybrid?

Does she only drive a Hybrid because it is cool and trendy?

Is she so special that she will not pick up trash, even though she put it there?

I am glad being good to the environment is cool and trendy.  But it is sad when people buy into the trend but not the cause.

For the past week I have been getting a lot of requests for me to join Spock.

 I finally signed up to check it out.  See me here.

The things I like about it are:

• Love how they build pages that relate to you.  If you sign up and most of the pages they list related to you are really about you, you are probably doing a good job of personal branding.
• Love the ease of adding tags and other elements.

Things I do not like

• I tried many times to upload an image and it always failed.  I finally added an image url link and it worked.
• Tried to upload my linked in list several times, and it always failed to finish the process and sent me to an error page.  I finally did a few connections one at a time.

I think this tool has some potential and is interesting.  If you like to get into these things early and do not mind the confusion and bugs, you may want to sign up.  This can easily become the best central place to manage your personal brand.

Inc. Magazine has an article about how Entrepreneurs are getting their own radio and TV shows and leveraging them to grow their business.  Interesting Article.

Notice the one person basically fell into it – then spent 9 years growing it.  This is not a 3 month strategy.

Have you ever had someone recommend something to you via email?  Sometimes it is interesting, but not something you need right that minute.

 With all the good news about the power of Word of Mouth, one thing that I think has not previously gotten attention is the ability to archive Word of Mouth for future use.  I do this all the time.  I often remember who sent me an email that I knew would be useful one day, and I simply go back and search for it.

But there are many ways to store Word of Mouth referrals for future use.  Here are the ones I can unintentionally use.

• Email Archives
• Bookmarks
• Blog Posts – If I think I want to share it.
• iGoogle Link
• Tumblr
• To Do list in Microsoft Outlook
• Forward email to my wife and expect her to remember for me.
• Future to do item in my Treo
• White Board behind my desk
• Slips of paper I scatter about and review when I clean
• Pass on the word of mouth and then later go back and ask that person if they remember what I told them.

And there are some that I do not do, but others do.

• Extreme Note Taking - I want to buy some notebooks and give this a try.  I used to write in journals daily but the computer killed that habit.

It is worth considering these things.  We can measure inbound links, sales, inquiries, etc.  But how many times has your product been archived for future use?

Melody Campbell, the Small Business Guru, just published a podcast interviewing me on Get More Business Podcast.

She works with a lot of small business owners and we covered a wealth of knowledge on how small businesses can generate buzz with activities, both online and off.

Even though we initially had some technical difficulties, she was a very positive and fun person to talk to.   She is just one of those people you know you would like to know – right away.  I am glad we had a chance to meet.

What are other people doing to build their Personal Brand?

Review each of the following people’s personal brands and see if you can answer these questions:

• What does each person strongly believe in?
• How does each person make a living?
•  What things do they have that invite me to get to know them better?
• What catches your eye on their websites in the first 5 seconds?
• What non-business topics do they care about?
• On a scale of 1 – 10, which people do you want to get to know better? 8 or higher, why?

My goal with this list is to give you some big and obvious ones, as well as up and coming personal brands that you may not know.  Consider this a tour of personal brands – and if you want to post this article on your blog and add some other examples, you have my permission.  The only thing I ask is not to add someone JUST because they have their picture on a blog.  They have to really be working on branding themselves.  Also, please reference this orgional post if you copy and modify this.

• Tim Ferriss
• Phil Gerbyshak
• Jill Konrath
• Bob Parsons
• Seth Godin
• Rachael Ray
• Scott Ginsberg
• Donald Trump
• Wil Schroter
• Yaro Starak
• Guy Kawasaki
• Ron McDaniel
• Jack Canfield
• Stephen Hopson
• Colleen Francis

You may look through this list and decide that they are mostly very successful people, and that is why they have the money to build a great brand. But they started someplace and continue building their brand even today.  It is a life long effort and pays off in the future.  What things did you notice on these sites that you can start developing for yourself?