Sparkplugging, a “Work at Home Resources & Community for Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs,” posted some very valuable advice for women who want to stop tripping themselves up when it comes to building profitable businesses.

While the article is geared to single mothers, it offers wisdom to any woman who wants to steer her own ship and achieve her dreams. Of the 13 tips, #5 and #11 are probably my favorite.

Authors Kelly McCausey and Angela Wills address the fear of success, fear of saying no, avoiding get-rich-quick scams, getting and staying out of debt, setting rates, refusing low-profit projects, and other subjects.

Longing to leave your job and strike out on your own?

Just finished reading a fabulous book called The Career Renegade by Jonathan Fields, a highly successful entrepreneur who offers practical tips on starting a profitable business doing something you love.

Fields knows a few things about this, having gone from a (massively stressed) attorney with a top firm to making his fortune doing things he’s passionate about.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for almost five years, and I mined plenty of new profit-building strategies within the pages of The Career Renegade. Now to put them to work….

Need a pep talk? Check out this video clip. Fields exhorts you to take action (five a day, perhaps) towards your own dreams and, whatever you do, don’t let the economy stop you.

According to Small Business Trends, huge shifts are taking place in the way writers, publishers, and musicians bring in the cash these days. The site recently featured an interview with Robin Good, a successful artist, video- and filmmaker, radio broadcaster, and TV producer who tells us how they’re doing it. A highlight:

“Many are simply choosing to distribute their works on their own, and bypass major studios and publishing houses.”

What? No begging for record deals? No rejection slips from literary agents?

Get the full story here:

“You are here for a reason.”
- Marshawn Evans

Entertainment attorney and entrepreneur Marshawn Evans likes acronyms.

To her, a CEO is someone “who confidently expects opportunity” and acts on it. Formerly one of Glamour magazine’s Top Ten College Women, she’s a Georgetown University Law Center graduate who went on to start a successful marketing agency in the testosterone-driven industry of professional sports.

After years of traveling around the country delivering her you-can-do-it-too message to college students and corporations, Evans wrote a book to bring her passion to the masses. S.K.I.R.T.S in the Boardroom is one-part biography, one-part handbook, one-part workbook to help other women pinpoint and achieve their dreams.

She emphasizes the importance of helping other women succeed. In a paragraph about sisterhood, she writes:

Women need to mentor and support one another’s growth, while also learning to work togther. Therefore, I don’t mean sisterhood in the soft, fluffy sense. I mean it in the strong, focused sense. There is nothing wrong wtih soft and fluffy, but’s not a legitimate basis for professional success. Feminine is fine — nothing wrong with that, either. Heck, I still prep for a client meeting the same way I prepped for a Miss America interview. You can bet that my hair and makeup will be on point. I’m saying that there is tremendous value in helping other women learn the tricks of the trade as well. I’m not threatened by another woman’s success — even a competitor’s — instead I see it as a challenge to improve myself. As the saying goes, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. That is what sisterhood, and this book, is all about.”

I like this philosophy. Smart men have promoted each other through an “old boys’ network” for years, and it’s time we got with the program.

Evans includes exercises to help readers determine the insecurities and pitfalls that prevent their success. She includes others designed to build commitment and courage. Her chapter on developing effective communication skills is especially valuable, as is a discourse on branding oneself (according to Evans, whether you like it or not, you’re already branded; she offers solid advice on how to determine and develop a better brand).

S.K.I.R.T.S in the Boardroom is a solid guidebook for women who want to make things happen, instead of letting things happen.