Unlock Your Potential with a Little Secret!

Posted on July 1, 2008

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What is one thing that no one can ever take away?

What is one thing that will ALWAYS make you more successful?

What is one thing that will make you a better person?

What is one thing that will help you create long lasting healthy relationships?

What is one thing that EVERYONE admires?

I hope I am all but too obvious on the answer to these questions!

Integrity - by no means a simple definition:

Integrity is

1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.

2. the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: to preserve the integrity of the empire.

3. a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition: the integrity of a ship’s hull

Definition complements of Dictionary.com

Integrity is something that is who you are. Integrity defines your principles, your self, your whole being. So many people think that integrity is some old fashion and historical descriptive term because of the utter lack of it in our World today. I challenge each of you to think about everyone in your life and decide who really has integrity. As I write this article I struggle to find a majority of those that I would truly say have integrity. What is even worse, I can think of only a handful of our country’s leaders (politicians) that even come close. What about those that influence millions on television and in the movies? How many of them have integrity? What about professional athletes, singers, dancers, etc?

Integrity can never be taken away.

Your integrity can never be taken away. Each one of us decide whether or not to hold on to or give away our integrity every second of our lives. Your integrity can never be taken, but it is not hard to give it away. Integrity is slippery and if not persistently worked on will be gone. Here are a few things that you can do each day to keep integrity in your grasp:

1. Always tell the TRUTH. Sounds simple, but in our society today so many people lie and do not even bat an eye.

Friend: "How are you?"

You: "I’m fine."

Ring any bells?

2. Be yourself. Do not let the outside influences of the World change who you are. When you are true to your self, you are whole.

3. Admit and forget imperfections. Admit when you are wrong or imperfect, but then forget about it. Dwelling on your short comings, perceived ones, will only lead to cover ups and lying.

Integrity leads to SUCCESS.

By being honest, moral, and whole success will find you. You will always be more successful when people trust and admire you. In today’s World it is such a rare commodity and should not be ruined for short term goals or dreams. Of course some people may get a head by lying and not having integrity, but it will always catch up with them. Think of all the people that have fallen from the highest mountain tops because of lies and lack of integrity.

Integrity builds relationships and you.

What does everyone in this World have in common?

Interaction with other people!

By having impeccable integrity you will not only create a better life for yourself, you will create a better life for those around you. By having true integrity you will build relationships that you never thought possible. Imagine relationships that are honest and filled with positive feelings. Your life will be admired because you are trusted and everyone around you will get a sense of easy because your attitude and mannerisms will be filled with integrity.

Think for one moment about who you are most comfortable around (a mentor or close friend). Now think for a moment about who you hate to go around (car salesman). Which one would you consider to have integrity? Now think about which person you want to be and the people that you want to be around.

I hope this article has made you think about who you are and who you want to be. I know that writing this article has made me realize how precious integrity is and how easy it is to let it slip away. Each of us needs to practice each day to build and nurture our integrity. We need to spread it and let it grow, we need to teach it and pass it on, we need to not let our World become a World with out INTEGRITY!

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Linking Around and Sneak Preview!

Posted on June 24, 2008

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This article is going to be short and to the point. I have recently joined Linked In and I absolutely love it. I have known about it for about 4 months now and have not taken the time to do anything, but now I am all aboard and extremely happy. I am always pretty wary of networking and social site, but have been pleasantly surprised by Linked In and their professional feel.

Linked In is basically a networking site for professionals. Even though I have just joined I have found it to be very easy to use and think that the application is great to keep in touch with old co-workers and professional friends. I have always talked about the necessity of networking and how essential it is to an individual’s success on this blog and Linked In can be a great source to further enhance your networking.

Linked In is an online community of professional people linked together. Everything is totally private and anyone in your network has consented to be. Your network with in Linked In consist of your closest and most trusted associates that you invite, their associates, and their associates’s associates. Linked In is a free service, but they do offer paid account that give you more tools to network and contact people. The free service gives you access to find potential partners, a different career, experts, potential clients, and service providers.

I can not say enough positive things about Linked In so far and I am sure I will have more information and praise as I begin to use it more and more. If you are a professional, independent or work for an S&P 500 company, you need to be on Linked In!

Sneak Preview of Social Networking Page

As I have mentioned in previous articles, I have been working on a social networking page of my own to add to Juice of Champions. I have been collecting information and deciding exactly how I wanted the page to look and I’m finally happy with my first draft. You can see my own social information below. This will be the template that I use to add other social networking friends and hopefully it will help everyone get the word out about the best this World has to offer. My basic goal for the page is to promote and publicize fellow personal development bloggers and to promote article that myself and these other bloggers enjoy and read.

I hope you enjoy the preview below and I would love any feed back and comments that you have on how to improve the page.

Juice of Champions

I am Brad Baggett, the founder of Juice of Champions. My site is all about the "Juice" of life from what you eat and your nutrition to what you think and your personal development. I am also a growing entrepreneur and have really enjoyed all the challenges and excitement it brings. My motto is "If you do not believe in yourself, who will?".

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Sharp Focus Brings Success and Regret

Posted on June 19, 2008

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In the past two months my writing and participation on this blog has slowed down to a turtles pace. I have been so focused on several other entrepreneurial ventures that I have been regrettably neglecting the Juice of Champions. I hope to start back writing at least three times a week when things slow down, but as of now that is several months out.

The site has really taken a turn down with visitors and page rankings, but I really love blogging and plan on continuing to do so even if it is at a slower pace than before. I have no one else to blame but myself for the sites poor performance and I know the only way to improve it is to give more focus and dedicate more time. I have had my focus on my various business ventures and have not made the time to write. I have also struggled with writer’s block at times, but think that it all stems back to my lack of focus on the blog.

Focus is the key to having success at almost anything, but it also is a limited resource almost as scarce as time. We can all focus on a number of items, but as the number increases the quality of the focus and the results from our focus diminishes. I have been suffering from the latter and can definitely see the aftermath of divided focus on this site. Even as I started this article I was interrupted by a phone call from a new business partner. We are in the process of starting a consulting business on the side and are extremely focused right now to get our duck in a row because we already have a number of strong leads that need our help. We both have wanted to start out slow and small, but the more we have put our minds into the business the more we see that our services are needed and it is just like jobs are dropping in our lap.

I have also been focusing more on my family and with my little one, now almost 2, becoming more active we play more than ever. I know everyone talks about the terrible twos, but so far he is a blast. He is repeating everything and can communicate with his mom and dad in his own little language. It is amazing how much you can understand when you are around them everyday. Even when no one else can understand some of his words, me and my wife almost always know what he wants. He is so independent too, as we came in the house tonight he took my keys from me and struggled with the lock on the door for several minutes. Every time I would try to help, he would have none of it. I’m sure I am just getting a dose of my own medicine, but I love that his is independent and likes to do things for himself. It may be frustrating at times to his mother and I, but we definitely do not discourage it.

There are many other things that have occupied my mind and focus away form this blog too, but as I said earlier I hope to get back to a normal writing schedule soon. I want to thank all my reader for their patience and continued support and I promise you the Juice will be back to normal one day. I have also been working on my sites look and theme and have liked the results so far. I hope all of you like it too. I would love some feed back on the subtle changes that have taken place so please feel free to comment. I am also still working on a social networking page and hope to have a preview on my next post.

Photo by: Adam | paperpariah.co.uk

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It Must be Hard to Grow Up!

Posted on June 8, 2008

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As I have been away from this blog, I have been busy with several projects and ideas and have come to a realization that I never thought I would know:

Growing up is hard and many adults are not necessarily "Grown Up"!

Employers

Since the beginning of the year, especially in the past month or so, I have been working on many projects. One of these have been referring possible distributors for the geographical area that I live in. The friend ask me for help because of where I live and the connections that I have with many people in the area. I was happy to help and immediately started thinking of people that would be a good fit for their business model and someone that would enjoy the business and be successful.

After several days I approached a motivated and reliable friend that would be a great fit. The job would fit into her schedule and she was also looking for a flexible job that would fit into her family life with her four children. I thought it would be a perfect fit and my referral was excited when I approached her. She immediately contacted the business owner and tried to set up a meeting for further information. After several days, I approached the referral and ask how it went with their phone conversation. She told me that she spoke to the owner, but was transferred to the person that was in charge of hiring new distributors. She left a message, but had not yet heard anything.

This was some what of a surprise to me because I new the business owner was in a hurry to find a distributor for his product in this area from our conversation. I figured they were busy, so I did not think any more about it until I ask my friend several days after if she had heard any thing again. She told me that she had left another message, but still no contact from them. After this, I contacted the owner to find out if they had already found someone or if they wanted me to refer someone else. They told me that they were still trying to find someone, so I mentioned the prospect again and told them that she was very interested. Several more days passed with out any contact to my referral. As the weeks went by there was still no contact, so I assumed the owner found a new distributor.

The whole point of this story is not that my friend did not get the job (that to my knowledge still may be open), but that the business owner never contacted her to let her know anything. I love helping people and I use my contacts all the time to help friends out. I’m not the most popular guy, but I have always known many business contacts and I like using them to help other people. It makes me feel great when I can help someone with some information or a referral. It just really irritates me when someone ask for help and then just ignores or does not use it. For me it is all about customer service. Not customer service in the normal sense, but customer service as in respect and appreciation. If my friend was not a good fit, that would be fine with me and her, but with out any contact we were both left hanging in the air.

If you are a prospective employer please take this to heart. Communication is essential to maintain the respect of employees and customers. Imagine if you did not communicate with your customers the way this business owner did with this prospective employee. You would not be very successful leaving people with out communication and information. Two things that all business owners must always do is:

1. Treat your employees like they should be treated. With out the respect of your employees YOU will never be as successful as possible.

2. Treat your customers with utmost respect and gratitude. You never know when or to who a customer may talk too. If you don’t treat your customers right they will not be customers for long!

The biggest thing that employers need to do is just communicate honestly with prospective employees. If you do not want to hire a particular person, just tell them. Be honest with them and just tell them why you do not need their services. There is nothing to be afraid of and you will actually be respected more. Who knows when you might actually need them one day. What if they become a potentially huge customer or vendor one day and you turned them off because you did not communicate to them. The best employers are ALWAYS honest and great communicators.

Be a Grown up, not just an Adult!

Potential Employees

On the other side of the coin, there are things that potential employees need to do too. As many of you know my wife and I have expanded her Hair Salon business at the end of last year and we have been looking for some new experienced tenants. In our business we basically sub-lease the station to individual stylist that work independently. We have filled most of the open slots, but have still been looking for a few more. We have had several prospects that have contacted us and even visited our shop, but some have really turned us off.

We have had all different reasons that people have not wanted to work in our business from not wanting to answer the phone to some of them not wanting to work independently and make more money. In the hair styling business there are basically three types of shops. The first is your typical national chain that pays their stylist by the hour usually with minimal pay and benefits. The second is a percentage based paying system that is usually 60% to the stylist and 40% to the owner. The third is the kind of business that we run which is sub-leasing. The sub-leaser pays a fixed amount every week or month and is independent with their hours and how much they want to grow their business and cliental.

One of the many potential tenants that my wife meet with is a prime example of what not to do as a prospective employee. For this story I will refer to this potential tenant as Jill. Jill contacted my wife because she knew that we had expanded and were looking for new stylist to join the shop. She was very friendly and stopped by one day to see the shop and meet my wife. After talking for a while and seeing the shop, my wife told her to think about it and that she would be back in touch about a position. My wife liked her, she was not quite as experienced or established as we would have liked, but she was very nice and seemed to be a good fit with the other personalities in the shop.

Jill came by one more time and ask a few more questions and then told my wife to contact her. My wife thought about it for a day and then decided that Jill would be good even with her limited experience. Jill was already at another shop and told my wife that she would have to give a notice if she were to come and that it would be a few weeks if we wanted her. My wife could tell that Jill was hesitant from the earlier conversations and that she was nervous about stepping out on her own and leaving a steady, minimal pay check. My wife spoke to her about her current income and knew that she could make significantly more at our shop. After a day of thinking about it my wife decided she would contact her and invite her to join the shop. My wife left her a message and then waited a few days to hear from Jill. After a week with out hearing from her, my wife called again and left another message. Still no communication with Jill. After another week it was decided that Jill would actually not be a good fit and my wife quite calling her.

Again this story is not about us not getting another tenant it is about the actions of this potential employee. Jill did not act horrible or disrespectful, but now with her actions she just burned a potential job and future opportunity. It is the same with both employers and employees, COMMUNICATION is KEY! What if Jill decides she want to leave her current job now? What if she decides that she wants to work at our shop? Well now that she did not take the time to say no, she passed up any current or future opportunities. One of my favorite anagrams is P.O.O.R.

Passed Over Opportunities Repeatedly

Over and over people pass over opportunities or burn future opportunities because they are adults and not "Grown ups". Grown ups are not afraid to communicate, many adults are. There is almost never any situation that an adult should be afraid to communicate honestly. If Jill would have told my wife no, there would have still been a future opportunity for her when she was ready to leave. Now there is little if any opportunity.

Be a Grown up, not just an Adult!

I hope you have enjoyed this article and I encourage you to comment with your thoughts or other examples about adults not being grown ups! Thank you for reading and if you would like to stay current with the Juice of Champions, please subscribe to my RSS feed.

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Giving Back is Essential for Winners!

Posted on May 29, 2008

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As some of you may know, I am a huge NY Yankee fan. Yes, I live in Alabama and I’m a Yankee fan. Many think I’m crazy, but for as long as I have loved professional baseball, I have been a Yankee’s fan. I can not say that all the years have been great, but the great ones certainly out weigh the tough ones. I’m telling you all this because this whole article will be about some of my favorite team’s players giving back. No matter if you love or hate the Yankees, you have to admit that they are winners. Winners almost always have a track record of sharing in their success and you can not read a personal development or self help book with out hearing about the importance of giving back. I have recently been listening to the audio book "The Millionaire Mind" and it repeats several times the testimonies of true millionaires telling about one of the keys to their success is giving back and being thankful for what they have. With out further ado, I present my two favorite Yankee charities.

Jorge Posada - Jorge Posada Foundation

Jorge Posada, the all-star catcher for the Yankees, started the Jorge Posada Foundation with his wife, Laura, after their son was diagnosed with Craniosynostosis. Craniosynostosis is a birth defect that causes premature closure of at least one sutures in the skull. The disease causes an abnormally shaped head and is devastating mentally and physically to the child. Jorge Jr. went through five major surgeries to correct the problem. After going through the rough time, Jorge and Laura started the foundation to help other families deal with the effects of Craniosynostosis. The foundation’s major goals are:

To provide emotional support through a network of family partners.
To provide financial assistance for initial surgeries.
To encourage further research for Craniosynostosis.

The foundation has partnered with several local and national groups to help with the disease and have been successful in spreading awareness and knowledge of Craniosynostosis in several different ways. Jorge even called up the television hit star, popular bike builder, and fellow New Yorker Paul Teutul Sr. of Orange County Choppers to build a bike to auction off for his charity. The guys at OCC built a New York Yankees chopper with all the pin stripes and and baseball memorabilia you can think of. The crew even visited the team at Yankee stadium with their mom, a huge Yankees fan, and had many of the players sign it before the auction. Jorge does extraordinary things to get he word out about Craniosynostosis and tries to educate everyone about the disease.

Jorge has also went into the wine business as a way to promote and raise money for the Jorge Posada Foundation. Charity Wines, founded in 2007, is designed as a way for players to give back to their community. The group helped raise over $400,000 in its first year for player charities and is expected to top over $1 million this year. Manny Ramirez, Curt Schilling and Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox participated last year to kick things off. Jorge Posada and Bobby Abreu of the NY Yankees and Brian Schneider of the NY Mets are participating this year and just released their signature wines this month. You can purchase any player’s wine from the Charity Wines website here.

Be sure to check out the touching Real Sports interview with Jorge Posada here.

Derek Jeter - Turn 2 Foundation

Almost from the day Derek Jeter took the field he knew he wanted to give back. In fact, he started the Turn 2 Foundation during his rookie year of the MLB. He launched the foundation in December of 2006 with the help of his father, a counselor with a PhD. in sociology and has never looked back. He knew he was going to make it big one day and he knew he wanted to give back like his childhood hero and fellow Yankee slugger Dave Winfield. Jeter and the foundation have donated over $8 million dollars to a variety of causes since 1996. Jeter is influencing the lives of young children just as Winfield did with his.

Most of the $8 million dollars is used in Turn 2’s signature programs like "Turn 2 Us Healthy Lifestyle", "Turn 2 Proud to Be Me", and "Turn 2 After School" just to name a few. Almost all of the programs are promoting healthy lifestyles physically and mentally. You can really tell that Derek loves kids and wants to be a role model for them because of the way he reaches out and gives back to the community. Turn 2 also donates scholarships to high school and college students, supports a huge school running program through the "Jeter Meter" program, and gives to numerous charities and events. Turn 2 has donated thousands to the YMCA, Boys & Girls Club, the Outreach Project and Phoenix House just to name a few.

My favorite program of the Jeter’s is "Jeter’s Leaders", a fairly new program that focuses on promoting healthy lifestyles, academic achievement, and social change activism. The program is offered to high school students and is a four year commitment from each one. They accept about 10 students per year and require a signed commitment to:

remain drug and alcohol free
maintain at least a "B" average
actively participate in all program activities and events

This program is not for the faint at heart, but is truly a wonderful program that is teaching students leadership. Just take a look at their mission below (a truly wonderful and admirable one)!

MISSION

Jeter’s Leaders is a leadership development program created to empower, recognize and enhance the skills of high school students who:

Promote healthy lifestyles, free of alcohol and substance abuse;

Achieve academically;

Are committed to improving their community through social change activities;

Serve as role models to younger students and to deliver positive messages to their peers.

Another great part of the program is the teaching of what Jeter calls the "10 Pillars of Leadership". How wonderful would it be if every high school promoted and taught these ten pillars. Our society would undergo a tremendous change and revelation if our education system was changed to teach what really matters like these Pillars of Leadership.

	10 Pillars of Leadership
Morality		Communication
Taking Initiative		Being Trustworthy
Being Respectful		Being Responsible
Being Organized		Leading by Example
Having a Positive Attitude		Living a Healthy Lifestyle

My hat goes off to these two guys that are not only making a huge impact on the field, but more importantly making a huge impact in LIFE! Thank you Jorge and Derek for being great leaders and role models for the current and next generation!

Photos courtesy of JorgePosada.com and danic.

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Changes, Changes Everywhere!

Posted on May 22, 2008

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I just wanted to write a short article to let everyone know that I’m still around and to let everyone know about some up and coming changes to the Juice of Champions. I have been extremely busy lately and have not dedicated myself to this blog as I have been in the past, but things are settling down and I hope to be back on a more regular schedule soon.

I have been working on several projects that I will let everyone know about in detail later. I am exploring some of my entrepreneurial interest and even working on my first invention. I don’t know how everything is going to pan out, but I think the timing is right for my idea. I have always been fascinated by inventors and the idea of coming up with an invention, but never really put my heart and mind fully into the idea. There are so many opportunities out there for great inventions, but most of us are afraid to take the leap and go for it or as a recent article that I have read says, "Bring It".

I have also been really busy here at home with the normal, never ending task that all home owners know and a major reorganization and remodel of my home office. My wife and I have been wanting to clean up and reorganize for some time and now it is under way. It is always exciting to me to work on something that I enjoy and the remodel has gone great so far. The important information and documents have always been organized, but all the books that I have collected recently had no where to go but in stacks around the office and house. I can’t wait until it is complete, but it is really nice getting everything just how we want it!

Changes coming to the "JUICE"

I have also been working in the background on the blog and have some exciting new changes coming shortly in the future. I have just recently switched my hosting over to Host Gator from Ipower Web. I can not really blame anyone but my self for the mistakes I made starting this blog up, but I was new to the web design / blog world and did not do my homework when it came to finding a host. I can honestly say that I will not miss Ipower and the main reason being their very poor service. I experienced at least 6 crashes to my site because of traffic spikes set off by Stumble Upon and Digg, and it was nearly impossible to talk to anyone from Ipower. After the first time waiting over 1 1/2 on the phone, I knew then that it was time for a change. I even stopped calling for help and just researched how to fix my problem from other former and disgruntled customers on the web. When changing over to Host Gator, I did a lot of searching, reading, and research and keep coming up with two hosting companies, Host Gator and Blue Host. I choose Host Gator because of the customer service that I received before even being a customer and I’m very please so far. They were great help changing my files and databases over and their customer service and response is literally 1000 times better than my previous host. Every time I contact Host Gator I had a response in less than 2 hours. I could barely get on the phone with the other company in 2 hours.

Enough about that, on to more exciting changes coming up to the "JUICE". I have been slowly working on a new theme that I think you will all enjoy. It will still be a three column theme, but it will have many more features and a cleaner look. I will still be using a free theme, but have customized it some to meet my need. Stay tuned for the new theme in the next several weeks. I really have enjoyed my present theme (YGo G), but have never been able to work a few little bugs out.

The last big change coming to the "JUICE" will be a new social networking page for the site. I have been working on creating a new page that will include all my social networking contact information like my Stumble Page and Digg Profile, but will also include much more. I have recently written about the great capabilities that Goggle Reader offers for social networking and I plan on including some of that information on that page too. The most exciting thing that I think this new page will bring though, is information about the many friends that I have developed from the blogging community. I will include links to my friends social networking sites, blogs, and other web related content in the page too. And I hope to get all of them to let me share their Google Reader information too. I have not started the process of contacting them all yet, but for any of them reading that want to be included please start sending me any information and links from your social profiles (Digg, Stumble, Mixx, Linked In, etc.). I hope this page will be a huge success and help everyone in spreading the word about the great things this World has to offer. I also hope that others will follow suite and create similar pages to get the information out to even more people.

For now please enjoy my recently read articles from Google Reader and please spread the word about the Changes, Changes coming to the Juice of Champions! Thank you all for supporting and keeping me inspired to write and keep this blog going. It has been life changing and I THANK YOU!

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The Best Feed Reader is a Social Network

Posted on May 21, 2008

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Before I get started with my main post I just want to give everyone a personal update. It has been a while, but I’m back to writing! I have been away for a couple weeks for several reasons, but it feels great to be back on the Juice. I had to go out of town for work one week and have been working on a few other projects since I have been back. I have also been spending a lot of quality time with my family, my little boy is growing up so fast. He has started talking more and more and it is just amazing how much he is changing and growing every day. I have tried to keep up with my Stumble and Digg friends and I have also been keeping up with my favorite blogs, but I have just not made the time to write. I have discovered and started reading some amazing blogs and have also learned a lot more about Google Reader.

The Best Feed Reader

I highly recommend Google Reader if you need a feed reader and even if you already have one I still highly recommend it. I have tried several readers and I am more impressed with Google than any of them. Google Reader is one of the most popular readers out, but there is not doubt why in my book. One of the best things that I have discovered about Google Reader is the sharing feature. It is so easy to use and is very quick. Google makes it so convenient that if you enjoyed the article you are reading all you have to do is a quick mouse click.

On a side note, this is one of the main reasons I like Stumble Upon better than Digg because of the simple tool bar that Stumble uses. All you have to do to Stumble an article is to click on the Thumbs Up icon in the tool bar (see photo above).

With one simple click you can share any article and have a "bookmark record" of your favorite articles. Once you share an article, you can always go back to it and reread it by viewing your shared items. You can even add notes when you share an item to let the author and others know what you thought about it. In this way Google is actually creating a social networking site where you can review and share various articles and post. Another great feature of Google Reader is the easy way that they allow you to spread the word and display your shared articles. All you have to do is click the "Share with Note" button at the end of the article and a window will pop up and let you add a short note with the article. One of the best benefits is the simplicity and how easy Goggle makes it to share and promote articles. Since I already use Google Reader to save myself time by keeping me up to date on my favorite blogs, now all I have to do is a simple mouse click to let everyone know the great article I just read. Google has K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid), down to an art.

Another great part of Google Reader is the Trending feature. By looking at your Trends in Google Reader you can find all kinds of information and keep a tab on yourself and who you are reading and sharing. With it you can track which blogs are being updated the most, which blogs you are reading the most, and which blogs you are sharing the most. I have not been using Google Reader too long, so my trends are not too in depth, but I can already see who and what I read about the most and view which blogs I share the most. I like to use it at the end of the week just to see what my focus and thoughts were. It is really an amazing feature that many social networking sites do not include.

My favorite feature in Google Reader has to be the "clip" or widget that you can add to your web site or blog to let everyone know about your shared items. It is customizable with colors and you can change the title of the "clip" to be anything you want. The "clip" is also fluid in size so where ever you put it on your site it will "self adjust". I keep my "clip" in my side bar right below my most popular articles, but as you can see right below that the "clip" is variable in size.

All in all I think Google Reader is an excellent tool and could be the best social networking site if they would integrate more social networking tools into the reader. I especially would like to see the Friend feature improved and it would also be nice for them to promote most shared items. If you have never used Google Reader, I encourage you to give it a shot. I really love it and I’m sure you will enjoy the easy and simplicity of it too!

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