Inspiring Blogger Award

I have been nominated for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award. For this novice writer, this is a huge deal. I want to thank Living Life Positively for nominating me. His blog has been a great source of inspiration to me as well.

Part of being a recipient of the award is stating five things about myself. I’ll try to list things about myself that effect what I write about on my blog.

1. I have a background in marketing. I have owned and operated my own modestly successful promotional advertising company. This is when I first started getting really interested in what makes people tic. I looked deeper into psychology and decision making models. My interest was primarily in learning how to manipulate consumers, but I ended learning more about myself.

2. Kind of contrary to what someone might expect if they’ve seen me in a professional role,  I am very much an introvert. Much of my free time is spent in my head. I always feel like I always have two thought processes going on- one dealing with whatever is going on around me, and one analyzing and deconstructing some abstract idea not always relevant to the moment.

3. I have an INTJ personality type. I have been mistaken for a sociopath. I am not very reactive to situations on the the surface, but I really am an emotional creature. I tend to remain aloof from emotionally charged exchanges. I am friendly with everyone, but I don’t have many friends. Those friendships I do keep are deep and meaningful relationships that can survive anything.

4. I have read and re-read some Taoist books since I was sixteen. I have been aware of this whole other way of living and thinking- this whole other level of existence- for half my life now, but it has only really taken hold of me in the last couple years. I understood the principles, and saw their potential, but my Self and all the other learning got in the way for all those years. I needed to unlearn a lot. I’m still unlearning.

5. I am a knowledge hoarder. If I find a good or inspiring idea, or think I have come up with one myself, it gets recorded. I save interesting pages on the internet even though I can always visit them again later. Sometimes I’ll print them. I paid a therapist to be my communication/relationship coach some time back, and I recorded and codified everything he told me.

The second, and most difficult part of receiving this award is nominating others to receive it. The gentleman who nominated me would have been on this list if he hadn’t been the one to nominate me. Another great blog NIKOtheOrb would have also been on here, but she had been nominated yesterday by someone else- hours after I decided she was to be on my list! You know a blog is great when…

All of the blogs I follow have been inspiring to me in some way, and I continue to watch their posts. Some of the blogs that I follow have recently received this award, or they’d have also been in the runnings for this list. Without further delay, and in no particular order, here we go:

Clotildajamcracker

Daina’s Book

Moment Matters

Dharmamitra Jeff Stefani

Endless Light and Love

(I have linked to articles of my nominees that got me interested in their blogs)