Have you ever had an eerie feeling that someone is following or watching you? You whisk around quickly, or secretly peer through the curtains, but realize no one is there. You’re just being paranoid. Keep moving on with your life.

Sadly, stalking is a reality. Not just physical stalking…but also Internet stalking. Stalking is a terrifying crime that affects 3.4 million people in the U.S. annually.

I’ve never cared for my last name. Even though it took me well until my late teenage years, I love and appreciate my very Italian and very unique first name (Nicolena, for those of you who only know me as Nikki). I always wished I had an awesome Italian last name to pair nicely with my first name. Not the case.

Today’s Creative Q & A feature is with Mark Ostach, founder of mymentalspace – a free tool to help manage emotions from Internet use. I met Mark more than a year ago when he joined our conversation at Tweetea one evening. I was really intrigued by the concept of mymentalspace and how it could help people who are negatively affected by the Web. Mark has been working hard to get the tool launched, and I recently snagged some of his time to have him share more about who he is and what his company is all about.

We live in a 24/7 always connected, always on, always “plugged in” world. If you’re a social media enthusiast, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. You’ve probably slapped your own hand a few times for checking email during dinner, staying up way too late thanks to Facebook or tweeting too much during an event when you should be spending more time talking to people.

I have a confession…I have a perpetual fear of the unknown. Those “what if” questions nag at me constantly, and I hate not knowing what the outcome of something will be when I make a decision…particularly a big, important decision.

As someone who is constantly bridging the gap between Ann Arbor and metro Detroit, I can tell you firsthand, the divide between these two tech hubs is very real. It’s the dirty little secret of our community.

Regardless of the root cause, we’ll all come across barriers in the various paths we’ll take during our lives that cause us to not succeed. Derived from my own personal experiences and what I’ve seen happen to others, here are five things to avoid.

We all do crazy things for love. People get tattoos expressing love. People go online and cross the oceans hoping to find a lifelong partner to love. People die for love. While my story isn’t quite so dramatic, I will be the first to say that love has changed my life in so many ways. Here’s my story.

There may be a way you can support us. We really won’t know until we start the trip. On behalf of Team Motown, I want to thank everyone who has shared words of encouragement, commented on our blog, retweeted us, liked and commented on our Facebook page, etc. It means a lot to know that we have an entire community behind us. In case you haven’t seen some of our pages and networks here, here are all the ways to stay connected with our teams during the next few days: