Today I'm excited to share my recent interview with Jamie-Fleming Dixon of SheRunsIt.net! During this interview, Jamie goes in-depth with me about how I got started blogging, how I manage my blog while working full-time, my best tips for aspiring bloggers and more! Here's a clip of the interview:[Jamie] How did you get started blogging?[Me] I originally started blogging as a way to promote a little business I started in college. A friend from school and I started a natural hair product company called Material Gurl Beauty after listening to a presentation Lisa Price of Carol’s Daughter gave to the business school on campus. Inspired by Lisa Price’s story and confident that we could do somthing similar given our majors (at the time, I was a Chemical Engineering major, and my friend was a Chemistry major), we set out to put Carol’s Daughter out of business! That summer, we ended up spending all of our internship money on raw ingredients (shea and cocoa butter, oils, etc.) to sell the products and had no money left for marketing. Intrigued by these little websites popping up online called blogs, I figured I could start a blog as a way to promote our products and meet potential customers. Very quickly, I ended up getting pretty good at blogging and connecting with others online. People were commenting, saying they enjoyed my writing, so I kept at it. Eventually, our little hair product business fell by the wayside, but I continued blogging. About two years after ending Material Gurl Beauty and the blog that went with it, I got the idea to start Think & Grow Chick.How did you choose your niche of personal development?Since about 15- or 16-years-old, I have been a complete personal development junkie. I love the idea of using your life as an experiment to get better in things that are important to you over time. As for blogging about personal development, I realized there weren’t a lot of young, African-American female bloggers discussing personal development in a way that resonated with our community. I noticed there were a plethora of blogs that helped women achieve goals related to their hair or fashion, but not many that were addressing the total woman. While hair and fashion are fun, I was really looking for a community of like-minded women who could inspire me to improve my whole self. Since I was really looking for that voice and couldn’t find it, I decided I would step up to the plate and be that voice! Personal development is something I’m eternally passionate about, so I feel really fortunate to be able to share my ideas in this niche.How do you balance your day job with blogging?This is very tough, and something I’m actively working on. The three biggest things that have allowed me to maintain balance are......you'll have to check out SheRunsIt.net for the rest! Click here to read the rest of the interview.

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Are you a blogger? Would you like more blogging tips from me? Tell me what you'd like to learn from me in the comments and I will share in a future post.