Journaling isn't just for angsty teenagers. A work diary can help entrepreneurs pinpoint problems and improve their professional performance.

Journaling may conjure connotations of angsty teenagers pouring their emotional ups and downs out while locked in their bedrooms, but keeping a daily diary is actually a tool used by many of the world's most successful people.

From Oprah Winfrey to General George S. Patton and artist Andy Warhol, many high achievers use their journals to reveal areas of their careers in need of amplification or improvement. Should you join them?

Yes, suggests Madeline Stilley recently on Business Insider. In the post, Stilley shares her experiences with a journaling assignment she was given in graduate school. The professor asked the students to take a few minutes each day to reflect on the following questions in writing:

• What events stand out in my mind from the workday, and how did they affect my inner work life?
• What progress did I make today, and how did it affect my inner work life?
• What nourishes and catalysts supported me and my work today? How can I sustain them tomorrow?
• What one thing can I do to make progress on my important work tomorrow?
• What setbacks did I have today, and how did they affect my inner work life? What can I learn from them?
• What toxins and inhibitors affected me and my work today? How can I weaken or avoid them tomorrow?

The journal may have started as a class requirement, but Stilley reports it soon became a useful career tool that helps her identify problems, notice patterns, and brainstorm solutions.

"During the last five to ten minutes of every work day, I would begin to reflect, and without fail, a few key events would stand out that I wanted to iron out on paper," she writes. "This tool assisted me in pinpointing communication errors, enhancing relationships with colleagues, and learning to be a better listener. After the term ended, I found myself opening up the Word document every afternoon to reflect because I thoroughly enjoyed the activity. I found that it improved my awareness and decision-making."

She's not alone, according to Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, co-authors of The Progress Principle. On the HBR Blog Network, they have argued that professional journaling is an effective tool for self-reflection, helping professionals improve their focus, patience, planning, and personal growth. "We asked over 200 knowledge workers to send us a daily diary report every day throughout," they report.

"Keeping regular work diaries, which took no more than ten minutes a day, gave many of our research participants a new perspective on themselves as professionals and what they needed to improve," they conclude.

Would keeping a work journal be a good use of 10 minutes of your busy day?

The founder of LocalVox offers a few choice words of wisdom for ambitious self-starters hunting for a mentor.

Start-up founders and employees have raw talent, but need real mentorship to thrive. Trevor Sumner offers his best career wisdom to would-be entrepreneurs.

Before processing any opinion from an "expert," you have to be cognizant of the biases that "expert" might have. So let me state mine outright: I am not a career coach, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I graduated Princeton in 1998 in an age where you seemingly had to be an idiot not to get caught up in the Internet craze. We were all going to be millionaires, you see.

But in the false promise of our irrational exuberance, I found where I did belong: start-ups. I have always worked for start-ups, eventually founding my own company, LocalVox. But they're not for everyone--they are exciting, challenging, dynamic, interesting and emotional. They breed tremendous bonds among team members.

Perhaps more than anything else, they are driven by great and often young people looking to build a career and able to take a risk early on. These are often people with tremendous raw talent in need of mentorship and career advice.

Ultimately, I believe you will excel at what you are driven by--your passions. When the gas tank is empty and it is 1 in the morning, you need to want to be there, wherever that may be. You need to make others want to be there too. So you better love what you do. A lot. So above all else, as an important litmus test, never take a job or start a company you are not excited to tell your friends about--period.

Here are three pieces of advice I've learned to take to heart:

1. It's about people.

Although it feels like every job is the crucial next step in your career, in hindsight, it's often just one of many. That's not to say you should take it lightly, just that every gig is part of a much longer journey. It's important to be at least a little over your head in any new role. Don't worry, you'll grow into it. If you are not in over your head, over-perform and look up the organization for a better fit and start positioning yourself now.

One of the most valuable ways to accelerate your learning is to find a great mentor. Nothing substitutes for having a seasoned guide to help you understand and navigate issues above your pay grade, give you context for what you are doing and be thoughtful about what skills you need to acquire.

If you can't find a mentor where you work, find someone outside of the organization. You will find asking for help to be surprisingly effective. Be open, honest and thankful and listen for the nuggets of wisdom that will change your life.

Unfortunately, the converse of the mentorship rule also holds true: a bad boss or mentor trumps all. Be careful of bozos, psychos and those who don't really care about you. There are more of them than anyone would like, and it's too easy to pick up bad habits or, worse, accept a bad situation. Don't get trapped by inertia.

Lastly, remember that what you bring to the table in any job is more than just skills. No (wo)man is an island. You can only scale to a party of one, and the connections you bring are just as, if not more valuable than your skills. If you can connect to an ecosystem of people to better answer questions, learn best practices and drive partnerships, you are much more valuable than your skillset alone.

2. Act like an owner--become a founder.

There is a vast difference between being a part of an initiative and driving it. Are you driving forward or waiting for instructions? Are you proactive or reactive? Don't wait to be "caught" when mistakes are made. It builds much more trust to be the first to explain when mistakes are made and how to correct them.

Understand what drives the business and why what you are doing is important in that overall context. Think about what could be exponentially better for the company. Experiment. Throw around ideas. Ask. Listen.

Every business is looking for leaders. Leaders try to find creative solutions, challenge the current thinking and find ways to innovate. So should you, on your own initiative.

Being an owner also means being a positive teammate. Avoid negativity when communicating horizontally and below. Lead by example and do whatever it takes to get the job done. Over the long term, strive to become a founder--the ultimate driver. It's the richest, most challenging and most rewarding thing you can do.

3. Be really smart with your money.

Being a founder or following a career that you are passionate about may involve risk, and you need a certain amount of freedom to take it on. This is not career advice per se, but it is important to manage your spending. Your freedom is a simple equation:

(Dollars in the bank) / (Expenses per month)

And it's harder to move the numerator than the denominator. So keep your costs low, save your pennies. Stay resilient. Don't make a bad decision and end up in a passionless career because of the money. Find happiness in what you do by having the freedom to make the right choice for you over the long term.

These sage pieces of advice were collected from multiple mentors; others were lessons from challenging environments. Hopefully they lead you on a path of happiness, fulfillment and a career full of rewarding memories and accomplishments.

Trevor Sumner is the founder of LocalVox, a rapidly growing start-up in New York City that provides a software platform to help local businesses market themselves online. @TrevorSumner @LocalVox

A quick reader’s guide:Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Krug

Perhaps the best guide to web usability ever written, Don’t Make Me Think is a must read if you build anything that anyone anywhere ever has to interact with. Since its original publication in 2000, Krug’s book has been adopted as the holy word by user experience designers. The premises are surprisingly simple — for instance, you obviously don’t want to make your users have to think about how to interact with your software. But they can be applied at differing levels of difficulty. I was introduced to this book by experts who still keep it on their bookshelves, when I was just beginning to think about user experience.

It’s a very short read — even the second edition, with its three extra chapters, is easy to get through. Don’t Make Me Think is designed to be a very user-friendly book. It’s worth reading all the way through, at least once, but it’s a book that’s meant to be used, even more than it’s meant to be read. When you’re working on a large project, Krug’s book can act as a checklist that you should follow to turn out the best possible product.

Development: Why does HTML think “chucknorris” is a color?
If you set the background color of a document to “chucknorris” in HTML, the result is a red background. There are plenty of other strings that also produce color, but clearly, Chuck Norris takes precedence.

Funding: Is app-era pricing making software better, or worse?
There are days when app pricing seems like a race to the bottom: when mobile apps are priced at 99 cents, it’s hard go much lower. But considering the cost of creating new features for apps, it seems like the expense of adding a new feature must be more than the value a developer will earn back — which begs the question of whether this pricing model makes for better or worse software?

Operations: Are you out of sync with your values?
Building a company requires building a culture, preferably one that matches up with exactly what you care about. This article from Michael Bungay Stanier discusses what values make sense with your company culture.

Marketing: Better for whom?
Jason Cohen’s most recent post will make you look at the products you build with new eyes. If you’ve ever looked at what already exists in the market and you’ve decided that you can do better, Cohen’s question is crucial. Just who are you building a better product for?

Beyond Tech: And read all over
Jamelle Bouie’s article first appeared in The Magazine, but since its publication there and on Bouie’s site, it’s gotten a lot of attention. Bouie points out the lack of diversity in tech writing, pointing to the very real issues of having access to the networks that help people find jobs in this area, as well as education and other trends that should be addressed. The article has sparked extensive discussion, as well as disagreements from a lot of tech bloggers. Personally, I find the article hard to disagree with.

Our most popular link this week: What it takes to get in “trending startups” on AngelList

How is a business like an apple tree? Sharpen your pruning shears and find out.

Back in July, I wrote about our efforts to bring more focus and discipline to 37signals by parting ways with some of our older products. We were so committed to eliminating nonessential offerings that we decided to sell a service that was generating $17,000 a month in profit. "We're a small company with a small team," I wrote, "and we have to use our resources wisely."

Today, we're about to launch two products. Both of them are significant departures from the way we usually do things. And we have a bunch more ideas in the pipeline.

Whatever happened to that newfound emphasis on focus? Was that a mistake? Did I change my mind?

Let me explain--by telling you about my apple trees.

I live in Chicago but own some property up in Wisconsin. There's an old stone farmhouse, a couple of barns, some majestic oaks, rolling prairie, a river, and a few apple trees.

I've been trying to learn how to properly prune them. The trees are handsome and healthy, but if you don't pay attention, they can grow unwieldy and succumb to a variety of ailments. There are any number of reasons to prune a tree. You might do it to make it look prettier. Or you might trim one area in order to favor other limbs. It could be to cut away disease or to prevent a new disease from taking root. It could be to get the tree to generate more fruit.

So I'm regularly taking a saw or shears to my apple trees. Sometimes, when I'm done, I step back and am not necessarily pleased with what I see. In fact, a freshly pruned apple tree can be a sad sight, looking thinner and weaker than it did before you started. But that's an illusion.

In almost every case, cutting things back is a way of favoring what is left. You help the tree flourish by picking the winners. What's more, pruning opens up new opportunities for your tree. Light gets in where it couldn't before. Air circulates better. And new growth appears. If you did the pruning right, you've given your tree a stronger foundation for the future.

Now, back to my business. A few months after cutting back our product line, something unexpected happened: We sprouted some new ideas. During a discussion about one of our products, a couple of ideas suddenly emerged for new ones. I can't go into specifics just yet, but one is a variation on an existing product, and the other is entirely new, something we've never offered. We're finishing them up right now and are pretty excited.

I am convinced that these ideas never would have emerged had we shied away from cutting some of our old items. Or, to put it in more arboreal terms--as a business, you won't grow strong new limbs if you don't prune the old ones.

In fact, I believe that a healthy company is like a healthy tree: Well-developed roots (your vision), a strong trunk (your people), and vibrant leaves (your products) work together to convert the sun (revenue) into energy (profits).

Hokey? Perhaps. But I often find inspiration in nature. Besides, it's high time we entrepreneurs stop using those hackneyed sports and military metaphors. But that's a topic for another day.

Transitioning vision into reality for a new business, a new model, or simply an internal process may require pushing well beyond the status quo.

Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman (who also co-founded Hipmunk and is a 2011 Inc. 30 Under 30 honoree) is teaching a Udacity online course on Web application engineering. In one of the instructional videos, Huffman reveals that many of Reddit's "users" in the early months were actually fake accounts, created by the founders.

Huffman goes on to say that these fake users were critical to building Reddit:

• The appearance of activity created momentum with "tons of content" and made the site feel alive, rather than a "ghost town" empty website.

• The articles set the tone for the site, in terms of the topics that were useful or interesting. The community Reddit built in the early days and that continues to this day was driven at least in part by the content the founders posted.

Within a few months, the site had gained enough momentum and a strong enough sense of community that the authors no longer needed to post articles under fake accounts.

In the video, Huffman talks of willing Reddit into existence. An entrepreneur must have a vision of a better world he or she can create, but vision alone is not enough. He or she must also make his or her vision real and powerful to potential customers and investors. Otherwise, he or she will never gain the resources and momentum he or she requires to be successful.

In this context, a "smoke and mirrors" approach can sometimes be critical to willing a business model into existence. The forces of skepticism and inertia can be strong among investors and potential customers. To combat those forces, we need to create a compelling vision of the future and make it seem more real and inevitable than the status quo:

• Create a compelling vision by showing customers and investors that there is an objectively better state of the world we can create, in which we serve customers better and are more richly and sustainably rewarded for doing it.

• Make it real by showing (through prototypes, pilot programs, small-scale tests, etc.) how this better world tastes and feels (in a very visceral sense), and why it is compelling and rewarding.

• Make it inevitable by painting a very clear path from vision to reality and bulldozing through (or routing around) obstacles with clear conviction and determination. Also, by rallying and motivating the resources needed to make it happen.

Important Note: By "Smoke and Mirrors," we are not suggesting entrepreneurs do anything unethical or illegal. As you will see in the example below, we are talking about ethical actions to gain traction in building a new business model. In the Reddit example above, our view is that the founders' actions were not misleading to their early customers, nor unethical.

In one recent engagement, we convinced a client that it needed to guarantee its customers 24-hour turnaround on purchase requests. This was vital to addressing a major reason for customer dissatisfaction and moving to a higher spot on customers' approved vendor list.

However, we also needed to convince the client that 24-hour turnaround was achievable, when the status quo for most requests was 72 hours. To do so, we launched a pilot program to address key bottlenecks and resource gaps. For a select set of customers, we simplified the entire process, from the level of information needed to fulfill the request to the level of judgment and process needed to approve or deny the request. The pilot results were very positive; customers were happier with a quick denial than with a drawn-out, back-and-forth approval.

Not bad for a model that we created out of thin air.

We then made 24-hour turnarounds inevitable, through the simple technique of "burning our boats behind us." We moved employees from their current teams to new "SWAT" teams and built into those individuals' performance goals and incentives a significant bias toward quick decisions. We gave them no choice but to make decisions quickly.

We also placed the SWAT teams in charge of the entire purchase request process and helped them revamp it so that they could make good decisions quickly. We allowed them to have an above-average "reject rate," because we did not want them to make bad approvals (whereas we were fine with an overly restrictive approval process and high reject rates).

Along the way, we encountered all manner of doubt and inertia. We boiled our vision down to its essence and communicated it at every opportunity. When told "it can't be done," we responded (politely, of course!), "It must be done, and here's why. Either get on board or get out of our way." Where necessary, we borrowed or appropriated folks, taking them away from their day jobs (or simply redefining what their "day job" actually was) and asking for forgiveness instead of permission.

With the successful pilot in hand, we are adding more SWAT teams across the rest of the organization.

Note that at any point in time, senior executives could step in and stop or delay this whole operation. If they did so, they would see behind the curtain, see the "spit and baling wire" with which we were holding the whole operation together. Major processes and team structures are in flux, and we're learning as we go. However, the executives remain very supportive because we have made a compelling case (and continue to make the case) that the status quo is untenable.

In this way, we are faking it until we make it.

Have you willed your business into existence? Share your thoughts with us at karlandbill@avondalestrategicpartners.com.

Author and advocate for introverts Susan Cain offers three tips for quiet types to master the art of public speaking.

You can't choose how much talent you have for an activity, but you can choose how you view the relationship between talent and excellence--and according to recent research, that choice makes a big difference.

Telling your kids they're smart, for instance, sounds like a good idea, but psychological studies have found that believing performance is down to inborn ability actually creates anxiety, reduces motivation, and leads children to underperform. Believe that achievement is mostly down to hard work and practice, on the other hand, and you're more likely to grow to your full potential--and perhaps outshine even those blessed with natural ability.

And what's true for fifth grade math students or young violinists is also true for public speakers.

Sure, you may be a born introvert, utterly lacking in the desire to listen to the sound of your own voice, but according to Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, that doesn't mean you can't become an excellent public speaker.

The first step is realizing that you're not doomed--effort and skill matter more than personality. The second is to learn some basic techniques to better approach the challenge of addressing a crowd. Cain, who is developing a course on public speaking for introverts, recently shared some of these tips for quiet types on the blog of presentation guru and designer Nancy Duarte, including:

Be yourself; good speakers are not necessarily "naturals." Have you ever watched a fiery orator or a speaker who has the audience in stitches, and thought, "I can’t do that"? You might be right--and that’s okay. The best speakers are not necessarily dynamic or hilarious – they are simply interesting. They communicate valuable information. "People think that being a good speaker means being funny or glib," says David Lavin of the Lavin Agency (who happens to be my lecture agent). "But that’s wrong. The best speakers are compelling. People underestimate the power of content and of storytelling."

What do Malcolm Gladwell and Lady Gaga have in common? At the same time, public speaking is a performance, and that’s a good thing, even if you’re not a natural actor. Have you ever wondered why people enjoy costume parties? It’s because they feel liberated when interacting from behind a mask. Dressing up as Cinderella or Don Draper removes inhibitions as effectively as a glass of wine. Think of your onstage persona the same way. Surprisingly, both Gladwell and Lady Gaga have this in common.

Serve the audience. Introverts are phenomenal listeners, which attunes them to the needs of others. And that’s why speaking (instead of listening) can feel uncomfortable--unnatural, even. But remember that public speaking is not about you. It’s about the audience. Your job is to take care of the audience, not to be judged by it or even to entertain it. Remind yourself that you are not seeking approval or love. You are a teacher, a giver, an enlightener.

Check out the complete post for the rest of the tips. Or, if you're struggling to make your reserved personality work for you in other areas of your professional life, these resources on promoting yourself despite your shyness and how to survive a party or networking event with your nerves intact may be useful.

If you're an introvert who has mastered public speaking, how did you conquer your natural reserve?

After a while, your coding fingers start asking for a break. During that free time, your mind wanders. And, sometimes, it wanders into dangerous territory. You might start thinking about marketing. You’re reading this, aren’t you? You’re asking yourself: “When’s the right time to step back and start planning my marketing strategy?”

When your mind is finally taking a bit of a rest (and isn’t overly excited about the prospect of buying a new mousepad), you start thinking about how you’re going to attract a user base. It’s in that random moment that all hell breaks loose. If you’re not thinking about whether you’re too early to start a marketing campaign, you have no idea where you’re standing. It’s that simple.

You know you’re considering marketing a bit too early when:

• You’re still worried you’d make a fool of yourself by presenting the product you have made so far to the public. This should be a no-brainer.
• You’ve got a major update coming up. When someone sees a major change in your product just after jumping on your boat, it’s something that might make this person jump off right away. Major updates right after a major sign-up streak are basically your way of saying, “What? You thought we were stable? HA!” The period after a major update, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Also a minor update, such as moving a button from the left of the screen to the right, shouldn’t give you much trouble. It’s those enormous face lifts that happen right after a bunch of people join that really bugs ‘em.
• You’d best describe the product as an “alpha-stage” project. That’s like those kids in high school that get a band together and attempt to throw a concert after their first two rehearsals.
• People other than your family members haven’t tested your product and given it a good roasting. This is by far one of the most important. Your family is more inclined to say, “Hey, Billy! That’s one sweet project you got there!” They’ll say this even if you make the most horrid thing to ever reach this green Earth. Get strangers in and tell them to give you two things: What they loved about your product; and what aspect of your product made them want to curl into a little corner of the basement.

While nothing’s worse than starting a marketing campaign too early, there also is such a thing as starting one too late. For example, if you already blew chunks out of a budget developing the project to the point you’re broke, it’s time to reconsider its fate unless you get your hands on a pot of gold real fast.

Also, do not misinterpret this as a motive to delay the release of your product. If you’re still in the pre-release stage, just make a solid product that people will use. Release the product early! Once it’s released, pull the reins on development and focus on marketing exclusively for a while. Once you get some users, you can add the features you want later on. This way, you can upsell your product when you feel it’s time to start pulling in more revenue by releasing a new feature.

When’s the right time to market? Consider marketing when your work has turned into a well-polished and finished-ish product, you had enough people test it to death, and (most importantly) you have the confidence and pride to show prospects a product that you would use yourself in your daily life without a single second-look at any other software of its nature. Oh, and don’t forget that you need money for this!