There are people who automatically blame others for their failure. These people find someone else to blame and in fact, blame everyone else – except for themselves. My parents raised me wrongly, my classmates bullied me, my professors duped me into believing something false, my colleagues ganged up on me and so on. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who always take the blame upon themselves. I did it. This happened because of me. I didn’t do enough that’s why I failed. As you can see, both points of view are quite extreme and probably not healthy.

Yet what Chris Sandberg shares in his blog kind of struck a chord within me. He shares:

A few weeks ago at Russell Brunson’s 12 Month Internet Millionaire Workshop, one of the speakers said something to the effect of: if you are not successful it’s all your fault. This implies that you have control over your future, meaning that if you really are not successful you have the control to change it. Success doesn’t happen immediately but by taking control of your life and taking the actions necessary to become successful, you will become successful.

I get his point – we may not have control over all the circumstances that we encounter but we do have control regarding how we behave and how we react. Seen from this point of view, then it should follow that we can all be successful – it just depends on how we handle the situation. What are your thoughts on this?

What is one big reason that customers ignore some print ads, flyers, brochures, and similar media from businesses? I would say that the idea that these materials are merely pushing the company’s agenda on me – that they want to sell me their product or service. Sometimes, customers just get tired of it all.

That is why you should take on a different approach in your business blog. Do not think of your blog as merely another way to sell your company to your readers. More than that, I believe that a business blog should be a venue for people to interact and share their enthusiasm about a certain thing – in this case, the field of expertise of the company.

For example, your business offers spa services. Aside from promoting your massages, scrubs, and other treatments, why not treat your blog as a place where you can have interactive exchanges with other people who are passionate about health and wellbeing in general?

What would happen then is that not all of your posts will be news about your latest promotions. Nor will they be about your latest products. Instead, you can sprinkle your business blog with discussion topics like “What is your health and beauty regimen?” Or perhaps “What do you like best about spas?”

I am sure you can come up with more creative topics than these. Try taking this approach in your blogs and you will see how your readers will interact with you more.

John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing has an interesting post on the real competition that small businesses face - perception:

One of the most critical marketing chores your small business has is to find something that makes you unique, something that a market values, something that no one else offers and make it your defining marketing element.

He has a great point. Making your business stand out from all of the rest is the most important thing you can do. That’s why a business with a wonderful product can fail, while a business with an inferior product and a great marketing angle can do well.

To manage their time, many business professionals try making a to do list. However, if you are like me, the list just keeps on growing and growing until you feel overwhelmed. Recently, I attended a seminar on balancing work and family by Chris Sopa. (By the way, if you get a chance to hear her talk, take advantage of it. She does a terrific job.) Chris suggests a modified version of the to do list that is working out much better for me:

* Make your mile long to do list on the bottom half of a sheet of paper.
* Write the numbers 1-6 on the top half of the paper.
* Transfer the 6 items you must get done today, in order of their importance, to the top of the page.
* If you get those top 6 done, you can always do some of the other chores on your master list.

After the celebrated resignation of former World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz who will be stepping down by June 30 due to his involvement in creating a compensation package for girlfriend Shaha Riza, US President Bush will be naming Robert Zoellick as his successor. His selection of Zoellick is expected to be approved by the World Bank’s 24 member board soon.

Zoellick is a logical choice, owing to the fact that has garnered the moniker of establishing contacts in most parts of the world as President Bush’ trade chief. Considering the situation that the World Bank is in right now, Zoellick has his work cut out for him.

But basing it on Zoellick’s credentials, he seems to be fit for the job. With his experience in building stronger ties and relations from all parts of the world, his designation is expected to be formalized soon so that the World Bank can get back on the right track.

Anywhere we go, the rampant growth of terrorist issues has obviously been a cause for alarm and much has been connected to most of the recent events. The United States, the acclaimed world leader, has been the hardest hit by the standing issue. A lot has to do with the so called belief that the US is invincible, making it in its inhabitants sitting targets by countries craving for power. Of course we all know that among these countries include that of Iran and Iraq.

The war on terror has not been restricted towards armies and democratic fronts. It has gone beyond bounds which have gone as far as victimizing local folks who are plainly living their lives and working for survival. Sadly, they have become the unlikely targets, making the country very much vulnerable towards security overall. But hopefully, the US governing bodies can continue their security measures if only to protect the safety of innocent lives who are being caught in the crossfire.

Iraq has been long in the headlines and to date, the Iraq war policy shall be put under close scrutiny soon and President Bush knows it all too well. Among the expected highlights would be that of placing the blame on Osama Bin Laden for defense of the said policy, something that is perhaps seen to come in automatically to justify the claims.

The Iraq-US war seems to be endless and despite such policies which mostly states offensive strategies and security measures among such, will definitely be storming the headlines in the politics section of most newspapers and publications in the next couple of weeks.

President Bush has solicited the tag of putting the entire issue on a personal level. While many can understand why, the issue of using the US troops as his pawns with nothing relevant to gain has been questioned time and again. At this stage, it will not be surprising if such an address would solicit the same reactions as well.

7 soldiers including a translator were killed in Baghdad during separate attacks, further adding the death toll count of casualties that have been claimed by the ongoing Iraq war crisis. It seems that whenever anything is associated with Iraq, the returned phrase would either be bombs or killed soldiers. Ironically, most of the soldiers are Americans and this will obviously be another headliner in the news for the American society.

Many steps have been taken to try and remedy the situation but unless the United States group starts to fix its act, the death toll will continue to rise. Internal conflicts of the US government have been the obvious cause for delay of resolving the problem, with President Bush among the key figures that are among the stumbling figures regarding the matter.

Unless they get their act together, more lives will be taken. Hopefully it will all be put to a stop. Considering the squabbling and unstable method of resolving the issue, it is still unlikely to happen at the moment.

As many would expect, the additional funding for the Iraq war has been officially voted against by the senate. While this was only expected, it is evident that the people are geared at finding alternative solutions to be able to stop the conflicts of interest governing over Iraq at present.

War spending has been on the tops of the funding itineraries and such is not sitting well with the governing bodies and the United States population as well. Further spending on war related issues is not helping resolve the crisis but is rather making it larger.

To note, is it no purely a security concern. Some say it is becoming personal and based on how Bush has been pushing for it, everything seems to be vindicating itself for a personal vendetta rather than a solution. Many innocent lives have been claimed. It is about time that the government would take on much serious matters such as putting attention on current crisis in the United States regions.

The US and Iran are planning to hold talks on current issues but are planning to limit it towards the Iraq issue. To this day, this dilemma has not yet been resolved and hopefully Vice President Dick Cheney will have something solid to discuss with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Many would undermine that the resort would be to open new talks. However, they are all centralized on the current security issues surrounding the Iraq issue. While there are various feelers that there may be some sort of resistance on the side of the Bush administration’s stand on the matter, the US is determined to make ends meet and address far more pressing issues rather than the seemingly hopeless case on national security and taking of innocent lives.

With the talks with Iran, the US is aiming to cover some headway in its new approach towards conflicts of interest between the nations involved. Should talks fall through, the approach may be deemed a good way of following a new and peaceful direction towards resolution of standing issues.