About

Welcome to my “Business Life Success” blog. My name is Paul Jones and this is where you can find out everything there is to know about my site.

On this page you will find out:
  1. Why I setup this blog
  2. What this blog is all about
  3. Why I initially kept the blog anonymous
  4. Who I am


1. Why I set up the “Business Life Success” blog
The book that inspired action
I started this blog back in 2009. I had already made a few attempts at blogging (which I provide a bit more background on below), but the thing that really triggered the creation of this site was a book called the 4-Hour Work Week (see my post about it here).

So why did I set it up then?
If you read the various posts tagged “about” you will see what I intended for this blog to be about, but that doesn’t really say why – and to be honest, given the source of my inspiration, I could summarise my reasons as:
  1. To explore alternative income streams i.e. to make more money
  2. To take some action right now based on something I already know about (web design)
Having said that, as I already had quite a bit of experience in the world of the web, SEO and even a bit of blogging, I knew that it’s never as easy as it says in books and on other blogs and that there had to be more to it than that – and I can assure you that there was (and still is!)

So, to add to the reasons above I would also say that I set this site up to:
  • Provide a tool to develop myself personally and to explore personal development ideas for my own benefit
  • Practice writing and develop a different set of writing skills
  • Create content that is my own intellectual property and is therefore an asset to me
  • Develop content that is of genuine use to people – so that if people did visit my blog they’d actually get something valuable out of it and want to come back!
This last point is actually the most important one for me: anyone who knows me will tell you that I like to help people. It’s what I do, it’s why I have enjoyed every job I’ve ever had and I believe that it is one of the main reasons that I’ve been so successful in my career and in general.

One area that I have always found particularly rewarding has been whenever I have acted as a career counsellor, mentor or coach to someone. I have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to do this quite a bit over the years and have always found it to be both extremely satisfying to be able to have a strong positive impact on an individual’s development, and also to be one of the best ways of learning myself.

Similarly, I have also always enjoyed presenting to groups, running training sessions and facilitating workshops and engagement exercises that identify and resolve problems with people.

So, when I was thinking about what I should make the focus of this blog, the answer seemed obvious to me: it should be all about helping people to help themselves, in their lives and at work.

This wasn’t the only reason I chose personal development as the topic of this blog...

My secret love of self-help books
My introduction to the world of self-help and personal development books really happened by accident. Whilst I had always been keen to develop myself and had some formal training in setting SMART objectives, career development and the like through the jobs that I had worked in, I had never thought that I needed to do anything more beyond that. My thirst for knowledge was focused squarely on business books, and I regularly bought books on topics about consulting, project management, business, leadership, psychology, NLP, philosophy, and specific subject areas that were relevant to whatever I was doing at the time such as Knowledge Management or Data Governance – but for a long time I didn’t find the thought of a more general personal development book even remotely interesting.

I’m not sure exactly when I read my first “self-help” book, but I remember what it was. It was a book called “How to be Brilliant”,by Michael Heppell. I had actually bought it for someone else who I felt needed a bit of a boost in their lives because they were feeling low and lacking in direction – but they weren’t interested in my attempts to help them so I ended up keeping it, and for a while there it sat on my bookshelf, unread and unappreciated.

I was thinking about giving it away to someone else, but something made me pick it up and to my surprise I found it inspiring and extremely relevant. Part of what interested me was the idea that it put forwards about the way that our minds work and the other thing that really opened my eyes was the more balanced “wheel of life” concept that it introduced, covering a much wider range than just career. Doing a couple of the exercises quickly made me realise that I had been missing something!

I won’t go into detail about exactly which books I read next and how each one led me to where I am today (partly because I couldn’t remember even if I wanted to), but I could easily list 20-odd books that I read in close succession that provided some very interesting perspectives on life, motivation and personal development that I endeavoured to put into action.

Some of these books were full of pseudo-scientific nonsense and self-promotion that diluted the messages, others were overly philosophical and abstract, but taking them all together it was easy to see similar themes and principles that they shared and even when the content was clearly marketing drivel, at least I was able to pick up some great ideas on motivational language!

It was my exploration of these books that led me to the 4-Hour Work Week and to the creation of this blog. My aspiration has never been to stop working and become a beach bum – I actually enjoy my work and the various challenges, experiences, relationships and interactions that come with it way too much for that – but the ongoing quest for self improvement is something that I will always maintain – and if I can help other people in the process whilst gaining any other personal benefits, financial or otherwise, then all the better!

Previous attempts at blogging
As I mentioned before, I had already had a couple of attempts at blogging and my main problem had always been that I had a great idea and some great content but couldn’t motivate myself to write regularly enough about it to make it worthwhile. I also found that I had an aversion to publishing anything that wasn’t of a high enough level of quality that I would be happy to tell everyone about it.

I have faced similar challenges in developing this blog, so in true blogger style have posted about it. If you ever try to write a blog or are struggling yourself, hopefully these posts on blogging will help you too:


2. What this blog is all about
Are you looking for inspiration? For ways to motivate yourself? For ways to overcome life's challenges and achieve your aspirations?

This blog covers topics including personal development, self improvement, influence and influence tools, happiness, entrepreneurship, career success, success in life, work-life balance and blogging.

Started back in 2009, the three main things covered by blog are:
  1. Personal development tools and templates
  2. Book recommendations (focus on personal development / self-help and business excellence)
  3. Notes and thoughts on my own personal, personal development journey
I'm a strong believer that the key to success in business and in life is in taking positive action - so there is a focus wherever possible on templates, tools, exercises and actions that you can take to make a difference in your life right now.

I have a Google site setup to share documents that are posted on this site, which can be found here: http://sites.google.com/site/businesslifesuccess/, and the following page provides more thoughts on why I focus on creating tools and templates that you can use now rather than just talking: https://sites.google.com/site/businesslifesuccess/personal-development-tools.

I have also written several posts on the purpose of this site and the background to certain sets of posts, which can be found tagged with the label “about”: http://business-life-success.blogspot.com/search/label/about.

3. Why I initially kept the blog anonymous
There are four main reasons that I originally kept this blog anonymous:
  1. Career alignment: the blog’s content is not directly aligned with my career and as a result, I did not want to dilute my public web presence with topics that were not directly related to my areas of professional specialism.
  2. Reputational risk: I was worried that colleagues might stumble on the site and that it could affect what they thought of me. I am proud of the great relationships that I have built with my colleagues and my reputation is important to me so I did not want to risk that.
  3. Personal content: this is directly related to and impacts the point above: this site includes my views on my own personal development, and just as to this day I still do not connect to any work colleagues via Facebook because I see its purpose as being totally personal, I held a similar view of this blog as being a personal one (see my Paul Jones Data Governance Expert LinkedIn profile for my professional profile).
  4. Insufficient content: once again, this is a reputational thing. For a long time, there was not enough on the site, both in terms of quantity and in some cases quality, for me to open it up to the world.
However, I am no longer worried about people seeing this site and the fact that I created it. I believe that there is enough useful content on here for people to find value in it and in the content I post.

I am still conscious that the level of quality of the content still is not always of the level that I would produce as a deliverable at work and yet I am also clear that that’s the whole point of it: to get content out there quickly, even if it is in a bit of a rough state at first, because I can make it better and revise it over time.

I hope you find this site useful and I would be happy to hear your thoughts on it.


4. Who I am
For the most up-to-date view on my role and where I am currently working, my Paul Jones Data Governance Expert LinkedIn profile is always the best option (http://www.linkedin.com/in/pauldanieljonesuk). I also have another site, www.PaulDanielJones.com, which is my “official” professional home page – although it’s not been around for as long as this blog so doesn’t have as much content.

I have spent the majority of my career as an IT and business consultant, am experienced in running a range of business analysis and change management projects and have developed particular expertise in Data Governance, Knowledge Management and Enterprise Architecture. Whilst I have a technical background (Computer Science degree, software development and data analysis experience), the majority of my experience has been from a business change perspective on large information management programmes e.g. process change design and implementation, team performance improvements etc.

On a more personal note, I am married to a lovely wife with two beautiful children and live in Basingstoke, Hampshire in the UK.  My life outside work revolves around my family and I can honestly say that life is great!


Thanks for visiting my Business Life Success blog and I hope you find its contents useful. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please do get in touch!

Best regards

Paul Jones
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