There are a million “make money with your blog/art/creativity” programs out there.  Even plenty I have purchased and enjoyed.  But the articles and interviews that have made the most difference in my results, my confidence, my success, and my psyche have been the following handful of candid, true experiences from people who are rocking at living life on their own terms.

Here is my short-list of content that had the biggest impact on helping me realize my own goals:

Interviews:

1.  Josh Kaufman (PersonalMBA.com): What everybody ought to know about Business School

In this interview, Josh talks about his journey through creating The Personal MBA out of his interests and also shares some really awesome occurrences that happened along the way and allowed him to quit his corporate job and make his passion (PersonalMBA.com) his full time work.

2.  Ask Matt Cheuvront of Life Without Pant

Matt and his work at Life Without Pants and at Proof Branding have had a massive impact on my own life and work.  (Ditto for Sam Davidson.)  This interview was my first introduction to Matt.  It is back when I was doing much longer interviews so 1) it is full on content about how and why he developed his first blog Life Without Pants and 2)  he shares a lot of tips, tricks, and insights into branching out into entrepreneurship and making a living with your own work and creativity online.  This one really mattered to me and I think it is worth taking 45 minutes out of your day to listen to in it’s entirety.

Articles:

3.  How blogging evolves(ed) by Everette Bogue on his blog, Far Beyond the Stars

This article really relieved a lot of stress and frustration I had been experiencing in my own mind.  He talks about many thing that are good and relevant but the part that really resonated with me was the section on his blogging strategies over time.

These three items are all things I have naturally started gravitating towards in my own blogging/business journey.

• The “F2F” strategy is exactly why I host the podcast and develop relationships with business people and bloggers I respect outside of the blog.  Relationships and action are where the growth really occurs.  Not so much online.

• “Pushing audience interactions to a higher lever” resonates for me because Twitter has been the most influential vehicle in my online development.  Facebook has done all of nothing for my growth, readership, and success.  I hear the same for most business people.  I don’t think I will be disconnecting from Facebook just yet, but I don’t spend a lot of time bothering to market on there.  Further, I have always grown more from the interviews and relationships I have developed with other bloggers than with the comments I leave on their blogs.  I LOVE reading people articles, but I would rather tweet out a link to their article than leave a paragraph comment on everything.  Also, I almost never read anyone’s comment on their blog so I don’t really develop relationships with other commentors.

• Stopping caring about stats… I concur 100%.  This little section helps to eliminate something so many bloggers stress needlessly over: analytics and subscribers.  This little section can help you mentally liberate yourself from stressing about numbers and help you focus on what matters: creation and strategy.  It also leads me to my next favorite article.

4.  I am an insecure blogger by Bryan Allain on his blog Daily Dose of Humor & Inspiration

This post rocks because it reflects the fears and insecurities that every single blogger and business person experiences in their journey towards making their dreams real.

It resonates because everyone who is still reading this article has felt the following:

• You are afraid because you are putting yourself out there.
• You are afraid of failing.
• Worse – you are afraid of people knowing you are failing.
• You feel incompetent or like you have no idea what you are doing (yet).
• You feel like a fraud.
• You feel like you will never reach your goal – it is too hard and out of reach.
• Your dream is only for the unbelievably brilliant, talented, wealthy, and super smart people.
• You believe that the people you admire and look up to are more special and have some “magic sauce” that has helped them achieve their dream.
• Etcetera…

None of these things are true – although they feel real.  This article helps bring you (and me) down to earth and remember that we are all the same.  If you aren’t afraid and uncomfortable, then you are trying hard enough to realize your dreams.

5.  1000 True Fans by The Technium

The gist of this fantastic and hyper-focusing article can be summed up in one sentence, “A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.”

This is an unbelievably worth while read filled with all the metrics and proof you need to feel confident about working to (at least) aquire 1,000 true fans – and that it is realistically possible to make a living, living your dreams.

Take the time to consume just these 5 articles and interviews.  What do you think?  Do you agree?  Are there articles I should add to this short list?