Independent business blogs are blogs that aren’t supported by an organization like a magazine, newspaper, company, or business school. Those people provide lots of great content, but they don’t need any additional exposure. In this post, every week, I bring you posts of quality from excellent bloggers that don’t get as much publicity.

This week, I’m pointing you to posts by LaRae Quy, Scott Eblin, Lolly Daskal, Kevin Eikenberry, and Ken Downer.

From LaRae Quy: 4 Dumb Reasons Why You Don’t Seize Big Opportunities

“I’m a hard worker and assumed this would soon become apparent to my new FBI squad. I expected my supervisor to assign me good cases, not the dog-eared ones I found on my desk. It became apparent that if I wanted to shine, I’d need to seize my own opportunities and not wait for them to be handed over.”

From Scott Eblin: Preparation Is the New Leadership Differentiator

“In watching and working with top executives and their teams over the past few years, I’ve come to a fresh conclusion. Preparation is the new leadership differentiator. You might argue that preparation has always been important. I would agree with you on that but would contend that preparation is in shorter supply than it used to be. As pretty much every organization continues on its quest to do more with less, it’s become common for executives and managers to show up for meetings and conversations only partially prepared or even fully unprepared.”

Wally’s Comment: that was all the encouragement I needed to share my favorite preparation quote. “I don’t care about the will to win. Everybody’s got that. It’s the will to prepare to win that counts.” ~ Bear Bryant

From Lolly Daskal: 7 Important Tips to Help You Focus on Your Work

“Do you find it hard to focus on your work? If so, you’re far from alone. It’s important to stay focused and distraction-free, but that’s especially difficult with multiple projects in play and a steady stream of emails, phone calls and petty tasks constantly beckoning.”

From Kevin Eikenberry: Shifting Your Time Horizon – The Power of Maintaining a Future Focus

“I love it when one skill or habit creates benefits in multiple ways. If you could build a skill that helped you in strategic thinking, problem solving, and productivity, would you be interested in developing that skill? That skill is maintaining a future focus. Let me start by telling you a story”

From Ken Downer: Dealing With Critics

“A momentary incident in a strange town one afternoon caught me off guard. I was doing something that stuck out, so maybe it was inevitable that someone would say something. But it got me thinking – any time we venture out of our comfort zones, it can feel like we’re sticking out, vulnerable to criticism. Someone is likely to say something. So how can we deal with the criticism when it comes?”

That’s it for this week’s selections from independent business blogs. If you liked this piece you may enjoy my curation posts on this blog. Every Tuesday, “Leaders and Strategies in Real Life” helps you learn about leadership by studying what real leaders do. On Fridays you can wrap up your week with “Weekend Leadership Reading” consisting of choice articles on hot leadership topics culled from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms.

How I Select Posts for this Midweek Review

The five posts I select to share in my Midweek Review of the Independent Business Blogs are picked from a regular review of about sixty blogs I check daily and an additional twenty-five or so that I check occasionally. Here’s how I select the posts you see in this review.

They must be published within the previous week.

They must support the purpose of the blog: to help leaders at all levels do a better job and lead a better life.

They must be from an independent business blog.

As a general rule, I only select posts that stand on their own, no selections from a series.

Also as a general rule, I do not select posts that are either a book review or a book report.

I reserve the right to make exceptions to the above.

Here, on Three Star Leadership, I post things that will help a boss at any level do a better job and live a better life. At the The 360 Degree Feedback blog, I join other bloggers with posts on leadership development. And, at Wally Bock’s Writing Edge, I share tools and insights to help you write better.

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