DISQUS

If you're a visual person like me, and you tend to collect way too many bits of interesting information, ideas, websites to visit, etc., then you'll love free mind.

This is basically a "mind mapping" software that keeps track of these things in a branching networking of ideas. I use this to keep track of my marketing plan, ideas to follow-up on, and it follows the nonlinear way that people naturally think by clumping like with like. Best part: it's free. Go to http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/... to download a copy.

As a psychotherapist, we're taught early on in our training that self-disclosure is a "dangerous" thing to be used cautiously and sparingly, and only if it could benefit our clients in some way. So when I was a novice therapist, I developed a false sense of what I thought a professional should act like, which bordered on cold. It was only once I witnessed a cotherapist behaving this way in a group therapy session, that I realized how unhelpful this really is.

Hiding behind a mask of "professionalism" only makes you less human, and in any field where the RELATIONSHIP is what matters, e.g., therapy, networking, consulting, coaching, etc., this will only hurt you. Be real. Have an opinion. The more comfortable I get with being myself in my own work, and opening up about my own personal experiences, the more I am able to form a genuine relationship with my clients. This helps to build the know-like-trust factor, as you call it. If someone doesn't like who you really are, then they aren't your ideal client anyway.