Are you struggling to make progress on a project, a business, or something in your personal life? Find these two points of clarity for a map out of “the land of Stuck.” The difference between people who are ultra-productive and the rest of us isn’t willpower. It isn’t intelligence, or time, or money, and it... Listen to episode

Ready to launch a digital product? Here’s are the first steps to get you moving … One of the greatest things you can do to boost your income, or just expand your options, is to launch a digital product. The tools, platforms, and options for these are better now than they ever have been. So,... Listen to episode

How do we know we’re successful? How do we set up the rules of our own game so that they serve us, and give us a more meaningful life? Jonathan Nation left a nice comment on an earlier episode about the definition of success: … What is success? What is that vision you are striving... Listen to episode

The keys to good sponsored content or native advertising, content for B2B organizations, and how to make connections with the big-audience content publishers … It’s Independence Day in the U.S., and time for a Q&A! And no, those things aren’t really related at all. In this 25-minute episode, I answer questions on: Techniques for... Listen to episode

Is an “abundance mindset” the same thing as wishing really hard and making something magically appear? I don’t think it is. Here’s why … As you may have seen in my podcast a couple of weeks ago, my friend Julie Cairns’ documentary The Abundance Code has been premiering for free in the past week. (And... Listen to episode

When is it smart to keep your business’s “trade secrets” — and when should you blow them up? How much sharing is too much? As I was writing a quick introduction to Rand Fishkin over on Copyblogger, I got to thinking about this “transparency” buzzword. When is it good business to play your cards close... Listen to episode

Language is complicated, and in the context of shifting cultural norms, it gets even more complicated. So the question comes up: Is it OK to swear in our content marketing? We had a bit of a dust-up on Copyblogger a few years back, and every once in awhile the topic comes back up again. The... Listen to episode

No, it’s not a simplistic “Secret,” but there are some very pragmatic benefits to adopting a mindset of abundance. I’m going to be in a documentary! It’s called The Abundance Code, and it’s about folks who have worked through varying kinds of constraints and found a more fulfilling path. (Both financially and personally.) All told... Listen to episode

Content marketing has been a hot buzzword for awhile now, but it’s tricky to pull off unti you understand this context. Once upon a time, combining relationship-building content with solid sales strategy was a weird idea. Now it’s pretty mainstream — but a lot of folks are still missing the underlying context that makes it... Listen to episode

What’s one of the biggest constraints that keeps us from doing the things we want to do? We don’t have the time. Here are some thoughts on how to manage that. Remember when the internet was going to give us all the free time we could imagine? Yeah, well. Not so much. In this 27-minute... Listen to episode

This week I want to talk about the values, practices, and principles that help us build “escape pods” from whatever is not serving us. And I’d love to hear your take! I’ve been thinking about the themes or principles that I’ve seen to be most useful for people who are building businesses, including “side hustle”... Listen to episode

Great content creators are made, not born. It takes a mix of a well-chosen topic, smart content strategy, attention to craft, and lots of personality. Then, as Rosanna Pansino would say, just Put it all together! Ro Pansino’s YouTube cooking show Nerdy Nummies has millions of fans of all ages. Where else are you going... Listen to episode

Real leadership starts when you step up with the courage to be a category of one. I have a short episode for you this week, honoring the life of Prince and opening up some ideas about leadership, about community, and about building something that matters. Corporate culture (and what to do if you’re stuck in... Listen to episode

Creative productivity is all about habits. Here’s a super quick weekly ritual (you could even do it daily) to have a brilliant week … every week It’s a funny paradox — if you want to be more productive, especially as a creative professional, the best thing you can do for your output is to establish... Listen to episode

“Help! I have no idea what to write about!” We’ve all been there — and when you produce as much content as the Copyblogger team, keeping the idea stream flowing is a top priority. Today, I’ll talk about five practices we use at Copyblogger and Rainmaker to come up with plenty of high-quality ideas. These... Listen to episode

Blogging isn’t the only game in town any more for content marketers. Podcasts are super popular as the new “do-it-yourself” content format. So which works better, and why? Today’s content marketing question: Should I blog or should I podcast? Or maybe I should be doing video? Or all three? Or do I even need a... Listen to episode

Today, two techniques that can boost your “EQ” (emotional intelligence) and help you be a happier, more productive person. Today I have two techniques for you — a new, research-based “hack” that looks interesting for improving our ability to make positive changes, and an approach I’ve used for a long time to constructively handle emotionally... Listen to episode

Health and fitness have some of the strongest examples around of good content marketing — and unfortunately, they also have some of the sleaziest. It’s that time again! Today I’m talking about more things I love! (And … a couple of things I hate.) In this 30-minute episode, I look at three different health and... Listen to episode

Creativity isn’t just about getting inspired — it’s about strong systems to capture inspiration when it arises. Today I outline a simple system I’m using to capture ideas and put them into action. In this 30-minute episode, I talk about: A boring office supply that can boost your creative productivity Why going analog (sometimes) can... Listen to episode

It’s the podcast’s birthday! To celebrate, today I want to talk about one of my favorite traits: stubbornness. There are all kinds of traits our culture insists we “have” to have to run a successful business, but looking around, there’s just one I’ve seen. In this 22-minute episode, I talk about: How to make the... Listen to episode

Cornerstone content, how to create compelling content for an “overexposed” topic, and predicting the future for our businesses. It’s Q&A day! Our wonderful community of listeners shared three questions with me today. In this 29-minute episode, I talk about: How to, in Wayne Gretzky’s phrase, “skate to where the puck is going” What to look... Listen to episode

Content strategist Sonia Thompson talks with me today about business clarity and the power (and pitfalls) of limitless opportunities. Whether I’m podcasting, tweeting, or writing a post for Copyblogger, I talk a lot about the combination of values and tactics. Financial success won’t make you feel amazing until you can create it while living on... Listen to episode

All-caps, all-me Twitter accounts! A fabulous police department Facebook page! It’s time for Things I Love / Things I Hate. This week I’m launching a new regular mini-series on things I think are awesome and … the other stuff. Let me know if you find it useful! I’ve found it’s often easier to see a... Listen to episode

Any time you can take a measurement in your business — any time you can look at something and get a number — the question arises: What number should I be aiming for? Business benchmarks and metrics are a complicated topic, and the answer to those questions is usually “It depends.” But what does it... Listen to episode

“Untethering” is a major 21st-century trend, from Uber to minimalism to remote workplaces. How can we get the most freedom from this social trend, without getting lost in the shallows? More and more people are decoupling from traditional models of work, housing, relationships, possessions. This can be a recipe for liberation, or for hollowness and... Listen to episode

What does it mean to live an amazing life? Why put the time in to get great at something? And how can we keep having fun for the long haul? Last week David Bowie died, leaving a lot of us shocked and saddened — and leaving all kinds of “What David Bowie can Teach Us”... Listen to episode

Creative people (in other words, all of us) are supposed to be motivated by the pure joy of creating. But what happens when we aren’t? Poet, coach, and creative entrepreneur Mark McGuinness has a new book for us called Motivation for Creative People. He joined me to talk about some of the lessons he’s learned... Listen to episode

Vision and goal-setting are useful practices for business owners and professionals — but they can also be a recipe for beating yourself up and feeling like crap. Here are my suggestions for productive goals. This time of year, it seems like there are almost as many “goals and resolutions are for dopes” posts as there... Listen to episode

Don’t you love those Internet facts? You know, the ones that aren’t facts at all, they’re fodder for our own confirmation bias, and weapons in the Outrage Wars. For Christmas week, we have an encore episode from earlier this year. Given the current state of political discourse in the U.S. at the moment, I thought... Listen to episode

Ever wonder why some people think content marketing is the greatest thing since sliced bananas, and others find they never get any real return on time and energy they’re putting in? The difference tends to be a question of strategy. Just because it’s “content” (what does that even mean, anyway?) doesn’t make it “content marketing.”... Listen to episode

Getting your stuff done every day is tough enough. Getting it done while working from home? Definitely “Hard Mode.” But the rewards can be pretty great. Whether you work from home all the time, or just occasionally, you need a new set of habits and practices to make the most of it. Your time at... Listen to episode

Today I’m going to dive into the work rituals of 12 widely influential creatives — writers, musicians, artists, and others. I’m swiping these snippets of creative rituals from a fun book by Mason Currey called How Artists Work: Daily Rituals. (Link in the show notes below.) I was struck by both the similarities and the... Listen to episode

Today we’re revisiting a popular early podcast about how those of us who aren’t “naturally organized” can still get lots of high-quality work done. Note: For Thanksgiving week in the U.S., we thought we’d offer up an encore presentation of a popular early podcast. This one talks about productivity for those of us who struggle... Listen to episode

Thought about guest posting? It’s an excellent way to grow your audience and build your authority in your topic. But you want to approach it in the right way. In this 23-minute episode, I talk about some of the questions I see most often around guest posting. Including … What you absolutely must understand about... Listen to episode

If you’re actively creating content, you’ve probably noticed that “waiting for inspiration” doesn’t tend to work all that well. In this podcast, I go through my workflow for content creation. This works for blog posts, podcast or video scripts, infographics, slide shares, or really any piece of strategic content you’ll want to create. In this... Listen to episode

Self-help books, seminars, and retreats: People tend to either love them or loathe them. I have some thoughts on what’s useful for business owners — and what isn’t. I’ve noticed that a lot of online business owners tend to gravitate to self-help — maybe because we find “Dumbo’s feather” belief-boosters are useful when we’re out... Listen to episode

A few tweaks and checks can often boost a piece of written content about one “grade level.” In other words, if it starts out “good,” this will take it to “very good.” Here’s the process I use. No, this isn’t a “write a blog post in seven minutes” podcast. It’s the process I go through... Listen to episode

Content Marketing can be a powerful way to increase your influence and authority. And, as always, along with power comes responsibility. As writers and content creators, I would argue that we can and should make the world — and the web — a better place. Assuming you have the major stuff covered (you’re not killing... Listen to episode

Success certainly doesn’t have to make you crazy, unhappy, or selfish. But sometimes it does play out that way. I don’t know much about being a millionaire, but I’ll bet I’d be darling at it. ~Dorothy Parker There are plenty of advantages to material success. But it’s smart to keep your focus on the practices... Listen to episode

Today’s podcast might seem like a “soft” topic, but it also ties tightly to serious pragmatism about how to reach your goals — and more to the point, what reaching your goals is going to do for you. Everyone wants a little more success, and everyone has goals they’re aiming for, but the quality of... Listen to episode

If you feel like you need to choose between idealism and getting your bills paid, look again. If you’re getting along financially but compromising your own beliefs, you’re going to make yourself sick and miserable. Or if you’re leading some kind of “pure” life but suffering a lot of financial stress, that’s not the key... Listen to episode

Marketing today, especially online marketing, is all about intersections. So don’t think about doing content or email or multimedia or social — they’re all woven together into one cohesive experience for your customer. This one is a riff on a talk I gave last week at the Inbound conference in Boston. It’s not an exact... Listen to episode

There’s a new article every day claiming that this or that tool “doesn’t work” to market your product. Sometimes it’s a fair statement … and sometimes it isn’t. In this ranty little episode, I talk about how to use Facebook (or any other tool or platform) in a smarter way, and how different communication tools... Listen to episode

Creativity is a wonderful thing. You get to make something out of nothing, have a fascinating life, bring brand-new ideas and expressions into the world. But a creative soul can sometimes make one thing tough: marketing yourself and your work. In this session, I talk about some ways that creative folks (especially writers) can get... Listen to episode

Anyone can share shiny, happy news in their content — but when it’s time to deliver something less positive, you want to think carefully about how you present the message. In this session, I break down a well-crafted “negative” message, and pull out the elements that make it work. I also talk about the psychology... Listen to episode

Don’t you love those Internet facts? You know, the ones that aren’t facts at all, they’re fodder for our own confirmation bias, and weapons in the Outrage Wars. In the early days of the social web, we thought that bringing people together would create a knowledge utopia. What we got instead was a battleground of... Listen to episode

Great content and copywriting builds emotional resonance. But how does that happen? And do you need to be a “genius” writer to create it? Handling emotion in your writing is a favorite topic of many writers — from novelists to copywriters and including those of us who write content for the web. But sometimes we... Listen to episode

Jerod Morris, our VP of Rainmaker.FM, shares some lessons from what may be our most ambitious content initiative ever. It should always make you nervous when Copyblogger’s founder and CEO, Brian Clark, tosses an idea around. His ideas have a way of turning into “unyielding freight trains” of business energy. In this case, it’s the... Listen to episode

Tanya, from our Authority community, asks about tools for writing and organizing content. I originally intended this as a wider Q&A session — but it turns out I had a lot to say about tools for writing, content planning, and creative collaboration! In this 26-minute episode, I get into: My favorite tools for writing blog... Listen to episode

I get this question all the time (natural, I guess, since I teach people how to start or grow businesses): How long will it take before my business starts to take off and make money? And there are two parts to the answer. One part is nuts and bolts — the processes of building an... Listen to episode

I went to Minecon — the official Minecraft conference — for the first time this year. Picture 10,000 delighted gamers (some kids but even more adults) convening for two days of geeky fun. I think everyone who learns about Minecraft has a moment of wondering how they pulled it off — how they’ve become so... Listen to episode

In business and in life, there’s a magical way to get more of what you want, more of what you need, and more of what you desire. And that “magical” technique is simply to ask for it — but that might not be as simple as it seems. Because first, you’ve got to get clear... Listen to episode

I got a fascinating question on Twitter: How do I handle a mismatch between my writing voice and my company’s writing voice? Is there any way to reconcile? Voice is one of those things writers obsess over — how to make it stronger, clearer, more distinctive. Voice is what makes your writing different from anyone... Listen to episode

Therapist, writer, coach, businessman, iconoclast: Bill O’Hanlon has a complicated resume. Bill O’Hanlon is someone who approaches life and business with a lot of curiosity and humor. Bill and I got together to talk about his passionate approach to business, therapy, and life. In this 22-minute episode, Bill and I talk about: Bill’s “Four Energies”... Listen to episode

It’s always been part of the web — but we’re seeing more of it than ever. What does it mean to live in this environment of constant social inflammation, and how does it affect what we bring to our web content? This session offers more questions than answers, but I’ll talk about some of the... Listen to episode

What’s the best thing do about Google’s “duplicate content” penalty on our sites, especially for sales pages? How do you stand out with a general advice site? And where should we start with a brand-new content site, when we’re not sure what kind of authoritative content to create? These were three great questions from our... Listen to episode

John T. Unger is one of the few — an artist who makes a living from his work, without the traditional gallery system. He also didn’t win a fat grant, or find a rich benefactor. Instead, over years of disciplined work, he found a way to create art that satisfied him creatively while also finding... Listen to episode

John T. Unger is one of the few — an artist who makes a living from his work, without the traditional gallery system. He also didn’t win a fat grant, or find a rich benefactor. Instead, over years of disciplined work, he found a way to create art that satisfied him creatively while also finding... Listen to episode

Internet trolls: the cockroaches of the web. They’re gross, they’re unsettling, but sometimes, there they are, scurrying across the floor in front of you. Here’s what to do about it … If you spend any time online, and especially if you establish authority in your topic, you’ll eventually have to deal with a troll. Most... Listen to episode

Nearly all of us make decisions based on our beliefs — including decisions about what to buy and which businesses to connect with. The 7 Circles of Belief are a spiral path that can bring customers or clients ever closer to your business. Belief binds us together, often creating micro-tribes within our larger communities. And... Listen to episode

What tools does the content marketer need to stay organized? What to do about subscribers who aren’t confirming opt-in? And what’s the difference in approach between B2B and B2C marketing? I answer these questions (and a few more) this week … Time again for your questions! Thanks to everyone who submitted a question for this... Listen to episode

Turnaround and team expert Annie Hyman-Pratt joins Sonia to talk about her work on the front lines of team-building and managing extraordinary people in the face of tough company challenges. One of the reasons I founded my own company (with my wonderful business partners, of course) is that the way most companies approach their teams... Listen to episode

Email is an incredibly effective way to nurture prospects and leads, and pave the path for those folks to make a purchase. But so much marketing email goes horribly, horribly wrong. Here’s how to get a whole lot better at it … If there’s one thing nearly everybody hates, it’s spam. It wastes our time,... Listen to episode

How to move forward when you’ve made a big change with your business? How to get the confidence to launch your product? And just what is Sonia’s evil ulterior motive for recording her podcast? Once again, I’m jazzed to have four great questions from the audience about marketing and business. If you have a question... Listen to episode

An interview with Ryan Levesque, author of Ask, about what makes people buy — and how to benefit our businesses by giving people more of what they want. Author Ryan Levesque talks about ideas from his new book, Ask. He looks at how to understand our audiences more deeply, how to scale that understanding, and... Listen to episode

The truth is, I’m a natural disaster. Left to my own devices, I’d eat pie and play Minecraft all day. And yet, somehow I’ve figured out how to be a grown-up about the things that matter. Here’s how … Some people are naturally productive. Naturally organized. Naturally get the important things done, every day. They... Listen to episode

Saying that the internet isn’t working for us is like saying the solar system isn’t working for us. It’s our job to learn how it works, and then learn to be smart about working with its nature In this episode, I talk some lessons I’ve learned from being on the social web for 26 years... Listen to episode

Three really smart questions from the audience … and some in-depth answers This week I’m crazy lucky to have three big questions from Authority, our community of content marketers. Major thanks and kudos to David, Julie, and Mike for the food for thought … In this 22-minute episode, I talk about: How long it takes... Listen to episode

Getting Past the Myths and Traps of Talent At 5 years old, nearly everyone is an artist. At 10, nearly none of us is. What happened? And how can we become more talented at the things that interest us, so we can have richer, more successful lives? Entrepreneur and business teacher Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics... Listen to episode

Four More Bad Ideas that Will Keep You from Moving Forward I built up such a head of steam last week that I needed to get a few more more rants off my chest. Today I talk about some more of the wrongheaded notions we have about business and success, and my suggestions for new... Listen to episode

Three Wrongheaded Ideas that Will Keep You from Moving Forward For a capitalist culture, we sure do have a lot of dopey ideas about business. In this session, I talk about three lies our culture tells about what it takes to run a successful business — and some smarter, more productive truths you can swap... Listen to episode