Here’s the show link. 10 AM Mountain / noon Eastern today, talking about professional blogging, SOBCon09, Blog Action Day and other assorted goodness.

Listen below:

Barack Obama.

Quick! Say the first word that comes to mind.

…

Was it “change?”

“The change we need.”

“Change we can believe in.”

Obama owned that word in 2008. His masterful social media campaign gets a lot of the credit for that.

Do you love the power of words? Do you relish them?

Most blogs consist entirely, or almost entirely, of words.

Words can create. Words can destroy.

Words wield scary power for businesses.

Your blog is going to help or hurt your business in 2009.

How careful are you about the words you use or avoid on your business blog?

What are you going to do this week to become more so?

Welcome to the Visionary Blogging Links series!

What is The Visionary Blogging Links Series?

Every Friday here at Visionary Blogging, I’ll share the best URLs I’ve discovered over the past week that have to do with business blogging or professional blogging in general and blogging/social media strategy in particular.

I promise to only share links of the highest quality, and never more than 10 per week. You deserve the cream of the cream.

Since today is the second Friday of 2009, we’ll call this week’s edition “Weeks 1-2.”

By next week I’ll create a centralized page where we can keep track of all the links throughout the year and have them organized for maximum usefulness.

When you’re looking for the perfect flower to give to your lover, do you want any bent petals?

When you order a meal at your favorite restaurant, of course you don’t want it to come out to your table half-cooked.

But is blogging like that?

Many people have asked me to help them make their blog more successful.

One of the most common questions I ask in reply is this: “What’s your overall vision for your blog? Where do you want it to take its target audience in the next 12-24 months?”

Once they answer that question, they’re ready to hear what I have to say about how to improve their blog and get the results they want. Here’s why the blog improvement process ultimately hangs from the feet of vision.

This post may seem different to you from what you generally get from me.

That’s because I am literally forcing myself to write it just once.

You see, I struggle a lot with perfectionism – wanting things to be done perfectly – especially when I write for you.

Wanna know the secret to being a successful blogger?

I’ve been working with business blogs full-time for over three years. I know the secret to easy blogging success.

Trust me: I’ve learned this easy lesson the hard way.

Ready?

Here it is. Here’s the grand secret to smooth sailing in your business blogging.

First, hit play so you can listen to the song while you read.

I don’t wanna spend my life jaded, waiting
To wake up one day and find
That i let all these years go by wasted

The other day I listened to Wasted by Carrie Underwood.

It hit me hard.

It also prompted these thoughts on how not to waste your time blogging. I hope you find them not to be a waste.

I don’t matter.

Those are the three most despicable words you could ever say as a blogger. Or as a professional.

Or as a human being.

On this fine Blogtipping Day, I’d like to blogtip the whole world of business blogs for a minute.

If I had 60 seconds left before my blogging voice was silenced forever, I would leave you with these three classic business blogging tips.

They are near and dear to me above all others.

And they are crucial to visionary blogging.

1. Listen.

Stop talking.

Be still. Observe. Pay attention. Seek awareness before anything else.

Listening enables deep conversation – the kind that builds relationships of trust.

And trust is the single most valuable thing you can cultivate through your professional blog.

A business blog works best when it listens more than it talks.