Welcome to the 13th edition of the Doing it Differently Blog Carnival!

This carnival is dedicated to the concept of stepping outside of the box and living our lives in ways beyond the "norm"!

Whether you want to learn unique ways to think or act differently, or if you want to share your own unique ideas, this carnival is for you!

There will be a new edition of the carnival posted every month, on the 15th. You can click here to learn more, or click here to submit a post for the next edition, which will be posted on December 15, 2007.

If you like this carnival or if you are one of the authors featured in this edition and you want to help your post to be seen by as many people as possible, be sure to add this post to Stumbleupon, Digg, or your favorite social bookmarking site!

In this edition, we get well outside of the comfort zone, we create our own identities, and we even learn how to make money from trees. Enjoy!

1) Michael shares a great story of living life way outside of the comfort zone with his post Upon Meeting The 100% Perfect Moncton Girl. No Top 10 list on how to make your life better; just a chord in the song of an entertainer who shares a moment worth reliving.

2) Guys - ever wondered which of your body parts get the most attention from females? Ladies - do you have a favorite piece of the male physique that you like to caress with your eyes? Check out Women's Favorite Male Body Parts and see if the human landscape is as visually tilled as you would have expected!

3) In his post Creating Social Value in Your Identity, Scott gives us some great ways to consciously create our persona, rather than letting it be dictated by outward circumstances. Don't be ashamed if you scream "common sense!" after reading this, but then realize that you haven't actually been doing these things.

4) In a true testament to the fact that the Doing it Differently blog carnival is about exactly that (rather than the normal personal development fare here at Today is that Day), allow me to introduce the very useful post Broke? Alcoholic? How to Drink on a Dime: 10 Surefire Tips from Free Geekery. Hey, if you're gonna drink, why not save some money??

5) For some truly unique around the house tips, be sure to check out 27 Helpful Home Improvement Hints. Who would have thought that toilet paper rolls and the freezer would be so useful?

6) What is more important; individual thought, or group consciousness? In the post The wiki way of thinking, this idea is explored in detail, and several interesting and thought-provoking points are brought up. 

7) Think that you've got the real estate market all figured out? What if you could radically raise the value of your property just by planting trees? Get all of the details in the post Curb Appeal: One Of My Best Investments Yet Or How I Turned $80 Into $5,000 With Minimal Risk.

8) In a post that reminds us of the true nature of things (rather than the "normal" mentality), the quote "When disaster strikes it is too late to cram for survival skills." is alone worth the price of admission.  Check out Life vs School - Life vs Job for all of the details!

That wraps up the 13th edition of the Doing it Differently Blog Carnival! Many thanks to all of our authors, and don't forget to add this post to your favorite social bookmarking website!

Apologies for this short, abridged edition. I have changed the Doing it Differently Blog Carnival to monthly instead of bi-monthly, so more time will now be available to include a higher number of great posts for your Doing it Differently pleasure! 

The next edition will be posted on December 15, 2007, and the closing of this edition is also the official call for submissions for the next one! Get the inside scoop on what this carnival is all about and access the submission form as well by clicking right here.
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Let's face it - people have bad habits. Sure, the definition changes from person to person, but for each individual, there is something that they personally consider a "bad" habit.

From a strictly logical and reasonable point of view, it makes sense to shed all bad habits, and live a holistic, perfectly balanced, and healthy lifestyle.

Yeah, that sounds like loads of fun…

Okay, so if you're not willing to go the "I never do anything wrong" route, is it possible to have a bad habit in a GOOD way? 

The answer is Yes, but as you can probably guess, there is a price to pay if you want that bad habit to have anything but a 100% negative effect on your life. In short, you have to earn it.

Let me disclaim this entire post by saying that no "bad" habit can also be a good habit. However, you can minimize the negative impact of bad habits by offsetting them with a little bit of preventative maintenance!

The basic idea here is that if you are going to practice a bad habit, why not minimize the damage by doing the opposite of that habit as often as possible? Some examples:

Junk Food

Most people have some sort of food that they enjoy that is just straight up BAD for the human body. Whether it's saturated fat, high sodium, excessive carbs, or just an all around unhealthy food choice, most people are still going to eat something unhealthy from time to time.

So, if Friday night means dinner out with the family, and you've got your heart set on a pile of nachos covered in hamburger, sour cream, and fried mozzarella, there is no way you are getting around the fact that you should NOT eat that.

What if you ate a strict, by the book diet for all of the other 6 days, though? Fresh fruits and vegetables, little or no red meat, plenty of fiber, low sodium intake, and on top of all that, you took a quality multivitamin every day?

Does 6 days cancel out that 1 day of overindulgence? Cancel? No. Minimize the damage? Absolutely.

Alcohol

Peter over at I Will Change Your Life put up a great post about how he gave up alcohol for a weekend, and the gang over at PDP turned around and had a good discussion about it.

The basic idea was that the benefits of not drinking for an entire weekend were clear for all to see, and most (all?) bad habits will fall into that same pattern. Give them up, and you will quickly experience the benefits of doing so.

However, if you are not willing to give up your fun with alcohol, why not minimize the impact on your liver, your wallet, and your brain cells by "tea-totaling" the rest of the time?

Personally, I drink fairly regularly, although not to excess, and certainly not every day. However, whenever I'm not drinking alcohol, I'm usually drinking water. Alcohol may not be good for my body, but my body gets plenty of TLC from me when alcohol is not present, so when I drink, I do so guilt-free, and I do it in moderation.

Exercise

No, exercise is not a bad habit. However a lack of exercise is certainly an unhealthy habit, and most of us are familiar with that particular dance.

However, whether it is due to weekend social activities, out of town trips, vacations, or just general laziness, very few people actually get the recommended amount of exercise 7 days per week. That being said, compare the fictional characters Fred and George:

Fred is incredibly busy, and even though he knows he should exercise more often, he rarely gets to the gym more than twice a week. When the weekend comes around, he is so wiped out physically and mentally from his high-stress job that all he wants to do is relax and enjoy his time off.

George is also incredibly busy, and he also knows that exercise is important. In addition, George really likes to relax on the weekends, just like Fred does. George, on the other hand, gets up 45 minutes earlier than Fred does, every day Monday through Friday, and exercises vigorously for 45 minutes before showering and going to work.

Both of these men take the weekends off to relax, and neither one of them exercises on the weekends. 

Who is more healthy and physically fit - Fred or George?

As you can see from these examples, the effects of most "bad" habits can be minimized by practicing the opposite of those bad habits most of the time. You will never be able to completely eliminate the negative side effects of bad habits, but you may be able to minimize their effects, and thus enjoy those bad habits guilt-free as a result of your preventative maintenance efforts!

Discuss this post at Personal Development Partners 

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As part of her involvement in the Personal Development Commune project, Priscilla Palmer just posted an interview with me on her website. 

She asked some really great questions that do a good job of illuminating what I am up to, why I do what I do, and what the future holds. The interview will help people to get a much better idea of who I am. Since I firmly believe in the fact that people tend to hang out with people that they know, like, and trust, my extreme gratitude goes out to Priscilla for giving me this opportunity to share more about myself, and what I have to offer.

Check out the interview over at Priscilla's site:

Interview with Aaron Potts

It's time to buckle down and get serious about using the Internet for something other than web surfing, and in order to help make that happen, I am going to pretty much give away my paycheck!

Regular readers here at Today is that Day will know that I have been firmly endorsing the fact that we all need to actually DO something with the massive amount of information that we find all over the Internet. Whether your thing is high-tech toys or something more esoteric like personal growth and development, surfing the 'net all day for information won't do you any good whatsoever if you don't actually put that information to good use!

Stumbling blocks tend to get in our way, however, and one of the biggest stumbling blocks is Information Overload. We keep jumping from blog to blog and from message board to message board, soaking up information about everything under the sun, but then we actually end up with too much information. We don't even know where to start as far as putting that information to practical use in our lives.

This is where the partnering aspects of the Personal Development Partners website come into play.

• If you want to grow your coaching business, are you working with other coaches for mutual education and growth?
• If you want to lose weight, have you found kindred souls who share both your goals and your challenges?
• If you want massive success with Internet Marketing, or making money from your website, do you have social bookmarking partners or groups who can all work together to make that happen?
• If you want to work with a small or large mastermind group in order to brainstorm paths to goal attainment, do have a system in place for finding those partners?
• If you want to create educational reform in our society, have you found other people who want to work with you toward that same dream?

The possibilities are, quite frankly, endless. Remember the fact that personal development is all about developing what you personally want to develop in your life. 

There is this common misconception that "personal growth" or "personal development" are only for people who want to attend motivational seminars and then run out and build corporations for making new and improved widgets.

That's a bunch of crap.

Personal growth and development means finding ways to make whatever changes in your life will make your life more enjoyable for you. Finding partners to help you along in that path is simply a case of using the knowledge and experience of other people for your own benefit.

Because, in the end, it is all about you, isn't it? Sure, you may want to help the world, save the planet, and rescue the cosmos, but even such lofty goals start with the very basic fact that you desire that outcome.

The $1,500 Personal Development Commune

I believe we should all chase after our dreams, yet use the power of other people to help us get them, and those ideals were what sparked the creation of Personal Development Partners to begin with. Now it's time take it to the next level!

I am a firm believer in the fact that the money or time that someone invests in something should be a drop in the bucket compared to what they receive in return, and I have done my very best to make the PDP site fit into that philosophy. According to the feedback that I have been getting so far, it looks like I have succeeded! 

However, my personal reach will only get so far in order to let the world know about Personal Development Partners, so I am going to call upon the most powerful ally that I know, and I am going to ask this ally to help me spread the word about PDP. What is this ally's name?

MONEY.

Cash. Official tender. Currency. Medium of Exchange. Wealth. Capital. Call it what you will, as long as we all have plenty of it, right? 

As I stated above, I believe that when someone pays for something, they should get way more value than they paid for, and that brings me to the 2 critical points that you need to read:

1. The Personal Development Partners website offers an incalculable value in and of itself, not to mention the FREE electronic products that all paid members get just for signing up.
2. The paid memberships are dirt cheap - only $20 for 6 months - and my goal is to give away most of that money!

Why would I work so hard at something and then give away the money?  

• My goal is for the PDP site to become a truly global resource with tens of thousands of members. I'm willing to pay you to help me make that happen.
• I'm not greedy, and I know there is plenty of abundance for everyone. I only need enough cash to live a moderate lifestyle that allows me the time freedom to keep building and maintaining the site. Other than that, you can keep the rest.

Crazy? Insane? Off my rocker? A few sandwiches short of a picnic? (Sorry, had to throw in that last one!)

No, I'm not a lunatic, just a passionate personal development blogger who wants to build a powerful online and offline community, and I'm willing to pay other people to help me do it.

That's not crazy - that's just good business sense! Interested? Click below for all of the details!

The $1,500 Personal Development Commune

Well, I would be a liar if I said that the past month during this contest has been as "run of the mill" as I first thought it would be!

Although I knew there would be a lot of work going into the running of a social networking website - especially during its first month - I had no idea how incredibly busy all of the members were going to keep me with some incredible conversation!

The community at Personal Development Partners has certainly grown drastically in size, but even more noticeable than that is the fact that it has grown as a community.

It is not some standard Internet message board where anything goes, and there is no real value - quite to the contrary! Every member who has been participating regularly at PDP is not only learning a lot, but giving and receiving at the same time due to the thought-provoking and inspiring conversations.

I have this desire to swell with pride over how wonderful it has all become, but to do so would be to indicate that it was all about me, and that is far from the case!

Personal Development Partners has become great because of the members, and if I am proud of anyone, I am proud of them!

Okay, I could gush all day about how great it all is, but let's get to the meat of this post: who won the goods, and what is the next contest going to be about???

1st Place

In nothing less than a gargantuan effort on her behalf, my extreme gratitude goes out to Senior Thought Leader Thea Westra of Forward Steps whose efforts to build the PDP community surprised even me - and that is saying something!

Thea has been building a network of blogs based on concepts such self improvement, personal growth, and coaching, and she also has an extremely popular Ezine called Triggers that is probably the best electronic newsletter that I've ever seen. 

Using the massive reach of her network of sites and the Triggers newsletter, Thea racked up more than 700 points in the Personal Development Push contest by promoting PDP with text links, graphical advertisements, and fully-fledged testimonials about the power of the site.

Thank you so much for your support, Thea!! You are now the proud owner of a brand new 4GB iPod Nana w/Video, preloaded with all of the audio from Mike Dooley's incredible Infinite Possibilities program, along with the CD's themselves!

2nd Place

No one who has spent any time around the PDP site - or the personal development circles for that matter - has not seen Priscilla Palmer's hand in the building of a community atmosphere when it comes to people who are interested in personal growth and development.

Priscilla's contributions at PDP have been not only consistently positive and community-oriented, but unless I missed a day or two, Priscilla has been on that site every single day, even if it was just to welcome a new member to the PDP family. She has truly been fulfilling her role as one of PDP's Senior Thought Leaders.

Priscilla, your efforts at helping to create and maintain the Personal Development Partners community have been noticed every step of the way, and you built up over 550 points with your links, referrals, and massive action on the PDP forums. You have my sincere thanks for everything that you have done, and for what I'm sure you will continue to do moving forward.

You are now the owner of a brand new 1GB iPod Shuffle preloaded with the awesome Million Dollar Mindset program from James Arthur Ray. You iPod will come preloaded with the material, and you will also receive all of the CD's from the program, as well as the comprehensive Million Dollar Mindset workbook.

3rd Place

Our third place winner is someone that I have known in the blogosphere for many months, and regular Today is that Day readers will quickly recognize the name Karen Lynch, of Live the Power.

Karen is also a Senior Thought Leader at PDP, and her wisdom and "you are in charge of your life!" attitude have been helping to empower people long before the Personal Development Partners community was built. I have no doubt that Karen's writing will continue to be a bright spot in the lives of many people for a long time to come.

Karen, I am so thankful to you for your contributions to the conversations at PDP and your efforts to let other people know about the community that we are all building there. I look forward to your continued writing both at PDP, as well as at your wonderful blog. 

Your efforts accumulated over 350 points in the contest and I know you love to read, so it is perhaps the Universe's way of handing you the type of abundance that you desire, because you now have a $75 gift certificate from Amazon.com to spend on whatever you'd like. Thanks again, Karen!

To all of the contest winners, I will be in contact with you shortly to discuss getting your prizes into your hands. To everyone else, keep reading because the next opportunity is even better than this contest was! 

Okay, what's next?

Now that the "model" for Personal Development Partners has proven to be a successful idea (not that I ever had any doubt!), it is time to really start cranking up the membership levels at the site. With 4 separate memberships ranging from free to dirt cheap, there is no reason for everyone not to climb on board!

However, that being said, I know that people tend to need a little bit of incentive sometimes, so I have created the Personal Development Partners Affiliate Program, and between now and January 1st, 2008, the affiliate program is actually going to pay out more than the 50% daily payments that are already part of the program!

Want more details? Check back here on Tuesday, October 23rd for a blog post that will spell it all out. Don't miss it!