Tag Archives: small business owner

What is Your Personal Definition of Success?

How do you define “Success” and how do you know when you have “Succeeded”?  Recently I was asked to answer both of these questions. I had to think about it for sometime before I could respond. I felt like I had been successful, but the question made stop and think about what it really meant.

Success! It is something we all want. But what is it really? It should be different for each individual. However, more often than not, we are striving for someone else’s definition of success not our own. Maybe it is society’s view of success, our friends or our parent’s. Or, maybe it is a combination of all those things. In order to be seen as being successful we focus on what is accepted as success and work towards that. For many, success is only measured by wealth and fame, but it is so much more. Success is about who you are on the inside.

Success is a very subjective term, and it does not mean the same thing to two different people. Not knowing how one defines success in life can make the process of becoming successful even more challenging.

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How to Drop Fear

Guest Post by Pragito Dove, Discover Meditation Training, Inc.

Fear is the absence of love. And the problem with something that is absent is that you cannot do anything with it directly. Fear is like darkness, which is the absence of light. There is nothing you can do with darkness directly, because it is an absence of something — which leaves you nothing to work with. But you can bring in more light.

Switch on the light. If you want darkness, switch off the light again. You work directly with the light, not with the darkness. The same is true with fear and love. Don’t bother with the fear—focus on love. You can do something with love immediately. Start loving.

Love is born within us, it is an intrinsic quality. We can just start giving love, sharing it, allowing it to flow out of us. As we do that, it grows. Don’t hold back; don’t be miserly with your love. If we don’t use our natural qualities they become blocked, grow stagnant, and wither away. That’s what happens to embittered people—they become frozen by their refusal to share their love.

When we give love, in the very giving we become richer because our love starts radiating outward. And then our fear starts to naturally disappear. It simply cannot exist in the face of so much love.

So it is not a question of dropping fear; it is a question of sharing your love, and then the fear vanishes of its own accord.

MEDITATION: Start Loving!

BENEFITS
The more you do this technique, over time you feel the joy in your heart expanding and your fear dissolving.

Become more and more loving, and you become more and more joyful. Don’t worry about whether or not your love is returned; that is not the point. Joy follows love automatically, and fear is dissolved automatically. The beauty of love is that its result, its value, are intrinsic. Love does not depend on the response of another, because it is totally yours.

Choose a person or pet to be loving toward. It makes no difference to whom you are loving—a dog, a tree, a stranger in the grocery store. Smile at people in the street, be more loving toward yourself.

Join Pragito Dove on Success Institute,  August 9, 2011 at 1:30pm CST, to Revitalize your Entrepreneurial Enterprise with the Power of Laughter Meditation.  Learn how to revitalize your entrepreneurial enterprise while discovering inner calm!


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How to Optimize Your Conference Experience!

Guest Post by Sandra Yancey, Founder and CEO of eWomenNetwork

The 2011 annual eWomenNetwork Conference (#eWN2011) is just 47 days away.  Susan Rueppel, a long-time eWomenNetwork member and devoted Conference attendee, has gathered some valuable tips for optimizing your Conference experience.  From Susan’s list, each week we will be featuring three things you can do now so that you feel well prepared to take full advantage all the benefits—from soup to nuts—that the Conference has to offer.

Over the next two weeks, we recommend the following:

  • Order business cards – take plenty (200-300).  We recommend that the back is blank so that people can write down notes about you, like what you are looking for and how they can best serve you.  We also recommend that you bring cards that are not coated with a waxy finish that doesn’t allow people to write on them.
  • Check out the Conference banner on the website.  Particularly, click on the link Travel & Hotel.

Tips from Susan Rueppel, Ph.D., Chief Intuition Officer, ChiefIntuitionOfficer.com

If you plan on flying into Dallas, you may wish to explore American Airlines.  AA is a national sponsor of  eWomenNetwork.  That’s great news for you because they provide a discount on flights for the Conference.  In order to capitalize on our sponsorship savings, call       1-800-433-1790 and give the American Airlines Representative our STARfile number 9971AN, or go to www.aa.com/women and enter it there.

Did you know that if you fly American Airlines, you can help the eWomenNetwork Foundation in a big way and it costs you nothing?  That’s right, when making your airline reservation, simply either mention or enter the Foundation’s Business ExtrAA account #756327, and AA will gift “matching miles” to the Foundation.  Isn’t this cool!  This is how we fly in our Grant recipients and Emerging Leaders so that they can experience the Conference just like you!  Again, nothing is taken away from you!  You can still use your own frequent flyer number and accumulate AAdvantage miles.  This is simply an “added” benefit and bonus to help the eWomenNetwork Foundation!

  • Finally, don’t forget to make your hotel reservations.  At the discounted rate of $149, our room block is selling out fast.  We can’t guarantee that the hotel will honor our special discounted room rate after our set-aside block has been met, so make your reservation today to secure your room at our special rate.  For your convenience, you can click here to register or call 1-888-421-1442.

With these basic fundamentals out of the way, we’ll be back with more information to fill you with more strategies to pace yourself, take full advantage of all the offerings, and ensure that you maximize your Conference experience!

 

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CEO FOCUS: Executive Perspective

Guest Post by Premier Success Coach Sharon L. Hardy, MA, PCC, Executive Leadership Coach

As CEO of your business, are you spending more time focused on your business priorities, or fighting fires and caught in the daily grind?  This CEO FOCUS blog post will give you strategies to develop an Executive Perspective.

I work with company executives who run business units or functions within a larger organization.  They usually have a large staff, departments and infrastructure in place to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.

As a small business owner, you may not have the large staff, but you still have the need to think like an executive. You are in charge of vision and profitability as well ensuring effective sales, marketing, product development and service delivery.  How can you think like a CEO?

An Executive Perspective means a 30,000 foot view – seeing the big picture and how the parts fit into the whole of your business (and life!).  The first key to success is:

PLANNING!  Annually, quarterly, weekly and daily. This puts you squarely in the CEO mindset, supporting your business growth.

Three tips from executive pros will make your planning more effective:

  • Annually:  Every October, re-set your goals and objectives (What & Why); in November, develop strategies and projects (How & When), and finalize your budget in December. Ensure that staff are part of the process and goals are written and assigned.
  • Quarterly:  Review the plans with those accountable and adjust projections as needed.  Glean the learning – what went well, what did not, what did you learn and what will you do differently?
  • Monthly and Weekly, review your goals and make sure action steps are on your daily schedule. Use a planner system that works for you.

Making planning a habit brings clarity, peace and balance – isn’t that why you wanted to be a CEO in the first place?

Connect with Sharon Hardy at eWomenNetwork

Original Post @ SharonLHardy.com

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