5 Blogs I Like Which Are Written by Women

After browsing through a number of blogs over the last few weeks, I realized that there were 5 which I always visited which carried one basic theme: they were all written by Women.

Check them out if you have time, I can promise that they are all worth reading.

1.) Penelope Trunk’s The Brazen Careerist. – an unorthodox advice blog on careers. As a bonus, you sometimes get advice on your personal life too. Penelope’s candidness is very refreshing. She even blogs about her coming divorce, which I don’t think many can do.

2.) The Modite – Another career blog but this time from the perspective of a younger lady. It talks about leadership, networking, making a difference and sometimes about life in general. As an aside, the blogger, Rebecca Thorman, is also exceptionally friendly. She was one of the first to welcome me into the blogging world.

3.) Jessica Rules The Universe – the blog of the original twisted columnist, Jessica Zafra. I love how her often crazy thoughts can make the world seem so different and irreverent. I was such a fanboy when I was younger, but back in college there were days she got a little bit too dark and depressing. She has lightened up (a bit) nowadays on her blog.

4.) The Urban Muse – the perspective of a young lady on working as a freelance writer. It has some valuable writing tips which can be useful for any writer, whether young or old, male or female. She even allowed me to submit a guest post here.

5.) The Unlonely Planet – Yes I check out this blog a lot. But mostly because its written by my dreamgirl. I know, I’m playing favorites. I did say blogs I like right? Check it out anyway, it compiles her travel columns from the Sunstar Davao. You can get lost with her as she travels.

Book Contest Held by the Manila Freelancer: How to try and get a copy of Why We Want You to Be Rich.

I recently heard about this contest being held the Manila Freelancer. You can win a Copy of Why We Want You To Be Rich by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki. The two authors are entrepreneurs I absolutely love and respect.

Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad in particular showed me how to think differently about the things we buy with our money, and that what we thought of as assets (like houses) may not be assets unless they add to your bottomline and generate income.

From Trump’s books and lifestory, I learned that gratuitous self-promotion may not be a bad thing, and that your brandname, your reputation can often mean all the difference between success and bankruptcy.

I am sure their combined insights will be very useful to those willing to learn.

I do hope I can win this book. I am definitely keeping my fingers crossed!

Oh and if you do want to check out the contest yourself, the url for it is as follows:

http://www.melovillareal.com/2008/02/15/win-a-copy-of-why-we-want-you-to-be-rich-two-men-one-message/

Career v. Friendship: Which Would You Pick?

What comes first for you, your career or your friend? If you had to choose between your friend and your career, who would you pick?

According to a Wall Street Journal article  by Mylene Mangalindan (entitled “Making a bid for eBay’s CEO Job” and dated Jan. 24, 2008), eBay Inc. Chief Executive Meg Whitman invited John Donahoe for an interview in eBay’s California office in 2005.

Donahoe was then a Bain & Co. consultant. He had originally thought it would be a discussion about a business project with the company. It turns out that it was an invitation to join eBay, with the possibility of becoming Whitman’s successor.

Most people would jump at such an offer, but for Mr. Donahoe it was a difficult decision to make. A friend of his, Jeff Jordan, was then President of Paypal, which is eBay’s online payment center. Jordan was widely considered to be in the running to become Whitman’s successor as CEO of eBay.

Now here’s the interesting thing: John Donahoe, instead of immediately saying yes to the great opportunity presented to him, chose to talk to his friend first before making any decisions.

To quote Mr. Jordan in the Wall Street Journal article: “The fact that he put a discussion with one of the most powerful people in business on hold for a while, so he could chase down a friend, is what I considered  to be one of the most significant acts of friendship.”

In the end, John Donahoe joined eBay, but only after talking to his friend Jeff Jordan and making sure he was ok with it.

John Donahoe is now considered the leading candidate (and heir apparent) to replace Ms. Whitman at the helm of eBay. Yet he had been willing to throw it away for the sake of his friend.

I can only hope that my friends would pick friendship before their career, and do the same thing for me.

Would your friends do the same?

Choose friendship.

How Paranoia Can Actually Make You Successful

My dreamgirl often complains about how paranoid I am as a person. For example, I refuse to leave my laptop in my car. I always insist on leaving at least an hour ahead of schedule before any meeting or date, so that I won’t ever be late.

I triple-check to see if the doors are locked in my house before leaving or going to sleep, and often spend sleepless nights wondering if I did or didn’t pull out the plug on my TV whenever I am away on a trip.

So far, I haven’t lost any of my laptops, nor any of my wallets, or been robbed or anything like that. And God willing, nothing like that will ever happen to this paranoid writer.

So it seems like being paranoid isn’t always a bad thing. Liew Mun Leong, The CEO of CapitaLand, Singapore’s biggest property firm, would agree. He considers paranoia as part of his philosophy of success.

His message to young professionals is: “be paranoid! The most untoward event can spring at us, so be prepared.”

Mr. Liew believes strongly in the importance of paranoia. In his book Building People: Sunday Emails From a CEO, he say that “in business you’ve got to plan and be prepared for every eventuality.”

He isn’t the only top business executive to believe in the value of paranoia. Former Intel Chairman Andrew S. Grove even wrote a book entitled Only the Paranoid Survive, and credits the success of Intel (which dominates the computer chip market) to his seeming paranoia.

It is when you are paranoid that you plan. And you plan for the worst situations. It is paranoia that makes one prepare for the worst that life has to offer.

In management, the “worst” that is being referred to is probably best described by Murphy’s Law. Murphy’s Law says that “if something can go wrong, it WILL go wrong.”

The thing is though, if one is paranoid, one is prepared for that wrong that will happen. So paranoia, properly applied, can be the cure for Murphy’s Law.

Just look at the brisk sales of external hard drives on the market. Their main purpose is to backup your files and make sure you don’t lose them in case your computer crashes at the worst moment (in loving obedience to Murphy’s law, of course). They have been quite successful in meeting that need. Many computer users now have one.

So what’s the lesson for the day?

Be paranoid. It may actually be the key to your success.

Be Paranoid.

The End of Midterms: A Time for (Blog) Changes

Finally, midterms madness is over. After almost three weeks of non-stop studying and cramming against nearly impossible odds, I can only say that I am exhausted. I want to say I NEVER want to do that again.

Unfortunately, the life of a law student, especially one finishing up, is not so privileged.

We have to do this again in around 5 weeks, when we take our finals. And then, presuming we pass all our subjects, have to start preparing for the dreaded BAR exams.

I am at that point where I am wondering if I can do it. 4 years of studying law while juggling column-writing and various other activities has worn me down. I’m tired. Or perhaps this is just lack of sleep speaking.

In any case, I have to gird my loins (so to speak) for the next few weeks, and find a way to prepare myself psychologically for the finals and the Bar exams later this year.

But now that midterms are done, at least I can start blogging again on business and law. And yes, I have shifted the focus of this blog.

Aside from taking a leave of absence from column-writing, I have also chosen to focus on business or “bizness” issues (which includes entrepreneurship, career and tech stuff) and law (since I am a law student after all).

Why did I stop writing on politics and current events?

Let me be frank. I’m fed up with politics. In the nearly 5-6 years I have been writing and covering politics in the Philippines I have seen upheaval and instability, crisis and opportunities. It has been VERY interesting.

One thing however, remained clear in all that time. A lack of change.

Politics in the Philippines is one of those areas where “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

The same old style of politics is there. Different faces, sure, but traditional politics remain. Shifting alliances, lack of loyalties, charges of corruption, political fights and non-stop instability for the Philippines.

In the same way I’m getting tired of studying almost non-stop, I am also very tired of politics. Or at the very least, I am tired of writing and covering it.

This is not easy for me to say, considering I once considered, briefly, a foray into local Dabawenyo politics before I was talked out of it by both my dreamgirl and my mother.

I once loved politics and the ability of politicians to make change. It may have been brought about by an addiction to the TV series The West Wing, but that’s what I thought a few years ago.

Sadly,  seeing how things HAVEN’T changed for the Philippines, has made me rethink politics and even writing about it, entirely.

I write in order to try and make a change. To try and facilitate change. To make our country, and perhaps the world a better place. To make a difference. That’s what I said when I was starting out as a writer and columnist. I still believe strongly in that “motto.”

But politics sucks you up, and can leave you dazed and unhappy. And it never seems to change for the better. One only has to look at the recent political controversy surrounding the Philippines to see what I mean. It seems to embody everything that makes one question politics in the country.

So I choose to stay away. And since I had to stop column-writing for a little while for personal reasons, it made sense to shift the focus of my writing as well.

So now you see before you The Bizness Blawg.

Originally called Babble On, after my column, this blog started out as a simple archive of my articles written for the Sunstar Davao (mostly on politics). But with the change in focus, I have also changed names for the blog.

Oh as an aside, if you have linked to me as Babble On, I hope you can find the time to change the name accordingly. Or you could do what Employee Evolution did, and link to me as simply Kelvin Lee.

And in case you are wondering, Blawg is a term used by law bloggers for legal blogs. Blog and LAW equals BLAWG.

So it’s all business and law for me.

But who knows? I may change and shift focus again in the future. But for now, it’s good-bye politics, hello business, a nice howdy to law, and a see you later for my column.

I hope you stick around for the ride.

It’s just business. And Law.

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• My Last Babble On Column: Lessons from Column-Writing
• Blogging Your Thoughts
• Why I Now Blog