The She Team
January 1 was the official launch date for The She Team. This website is a free, on demand business coaching website for female entrepreneurs. (Not that guys couldn’t pick up some useful info too.) I am thrilled to be a part of this online team as we bring valuable information on the successful development of your business from five unique perspectives: business development, sales, marketing, personal success, and organized productivity. Check out daily blog postings, a plethora of resources of information and leave your comments as we are in the business of serving you. Make 2009 your best year in business yet!
Clear Sailing
The Innovasion Trade Show today at the Agradome brought out many of the brightest minds in the Province. Though most were very inexperienced, and frankly a majority were still in High School, the ideas, the visions, the goals – very impressive! The one thing I noticed throughout the day, however, was the lack of clarity in peoples plans. They all had amazing ideas, but few, if any, could “see” the course of action between where they are at right now, and where they want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years.
As an entrepreneur, you have to be able to envision how you want the future to look. But, the kicker is, you only have to envision for about 20 minutes. After that you need to put dates on when that ‘picture’ will become a reality, chart a course that takes you from where you are today to where you want to get to and START.
What seems to inhibit people from that necessary action step? Good question. For most, it’s some form of procrastination. That said, procrastination can be caused by many different things: perfectionism, boredom, laziness, the one I saw a lot of today – lack of clarity, making excuses, and a variety of others.
As a Business Coach I know the three most important elements to having success in business and in life are:
- A clear image of exactly what you want
- A measureable action plan that charts a course to the reality of that image
- ACTION
Your ability to respond
It’s no secret about what’s going on in the economy and there’s no shortage of FEAR based information circulating the major publications. As business coaches, the Ghost CEO organization has been fielding calls around the globe from frantic business owners and corporations asking how they will keep afloat in these rocky times. This brings me back to one of life’s fundamental lessons – responsibility.
It’s easy right now to buy into the shear terror that exists in the market as we enter the unknown. Predictability is out the window, Wall Street is bleeding money and everyone is looking for answers in all the wrong places. Breathe! Back to basics is the best, and easiest way to get your business on course and a sure bet to surviving these tumultuous times.
If you are panicking right now you can be sure your spastic energy is spilling over into everything you are doing. Your customers are sensing your fear and it is making them worry too. Go back to the beginning, when you were thinking about starting the business that you are in today. The time when you were brainstorming about the markets that would well receive your products or service, the prospects you wanted to meet and educate, the measurement and management tools of your business development. These are still the most important areas of focus for your business. Answer the below questions, and take responsibility for doing all the fundamental business development tasks that will get you where you want to be. You can’t take responsibility for the world’s economy, but, you can take responsibility for your attitude (thoughts, feeling and actions), your business development and your customer care. Relax – this too shall pass.
1. Who needs what you are selling? Go back to the drawing board and prospect like mad.
2. Schedule meetings with anyone who you curiously suspect would want what you are selling.
3. Leave all your prospects and customers with an impression of increase when you leave them. With all the bad news going around – give them something to feel good about.
4. Measure your business development. (If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.)
Standing in your power
My colleague, Fiona Walsh, recently appeared on Jann Taber’s ‘The Rebel Woman’ show where she was discussing ways in which women can have extraordinary success in business. I was thrilled when she addressed what is one of the most difficult things for women to do when it comes to selling their product or service – believing that what they are offering is of value.
The fear of rejection in sales is what holds the 80/20 rule in place and makes the line in the sand between those who produce and contribute to the bottom line and those who don’t, so deeply entrenched. The best analogy I’ve heard for having success in business development is to treat it like an Easter egg hunt. There will likely be hundreds, maybe thousands of pastel coloured pebbles, you will need to pick up in order to discover the rare chocolate eggs in the bunch.
Where women seem to easily fall into the category of not wanting to be ‘boastful’ or to ‘brag’ about whatever it is that they are offering is old paradigm. I think Fiona makes an exceptional point. We as women must believe in ourselves, in the value that we are offering and in the opportunities that are out in the market for us to match our solutions with a customers need or want. If we hear a ‘no’ that’s a good thing, because every ‘no’ is that much closer to a yes. We are not trying to convince anyone, shove a square peg in a round hole or hog tie someone in order to buy what we are offering.
Instead we are curiously exploring the market, combing through, knowing that opportunities where our product will bring positive change to someone’s life are only a few ‘no’s away.
The Glow Project – Extraordinary Women
How is it that some women are wildly successful, while others, with the same relative education, experience, passion and goals for success, struggle? We all have the same amount of hours in a day, yet some are able to accomplish so much more. What is it that they do so differently? What is it that they possess that is unique? What is it that makes them GLOW?
There is a powerful essence inside of every woman—a critical ingredient that only women possess. When realized, nurtured and expanded, it becomes the key to true happiness and success. You deserve happiness, fulfillment, and the opportunity to achieve wild success. STOP what you are doing. Take a breath, and connect with your GLOW.
The GLOW Project has brought together prominent corporate achievers and dynamic entrepreneurs, to share with you how they manifest, unleash and expand GLOW. Witness their struggles and pain and their strategies for success. By focusing on GLOW, they are fulfilling their destinies and achieving more success than they ever imagined. These women exude the kind of grace, confidence and strength that every woman can achieve, while also being mothers, daughters, wives and leaders. The GLOW Project will ignite your spirit and inspire your dreams.
The GLOW Project will show you that, no matter how hard you work, no matter how hard you try, you can never achieve your full potential and happiness without GLOW. GLOW is your birth right as women. Your essence, your passion and your dreams can no longer be denied. You are brilliant, magnificent, and unequalled! Embrace your essence and forever live in GLOW. See and experience the GLOW Project movie.
The Confidence Factor
Yet again I have been the victim of another universal conspiracy – something I’ve become pleasantly accustomed to. After writing yesterday about fear I had been thinking a lot about it and because of that it’s been showing up in very interesting ways. For example, today I was coaching a client who is absolutely incredible (as all of my clients are) and she was having a bit of an issue holding her level of confidence. Her good old pal doubt was paying her a visit and instead of slamming the door, my client had innocently and ignorantly let doubt in. She was saying things like “am I even cut out for this?”, “is this even a good idea?” It was hard to hear knowing how incredible, talented and successful she is and will continue to be (as long as she doesn’t buy in to this negative thinking!)
We spent time discussing strategies on how to counteract her negative thinking and feelings and by the time she left she was back on top – ready to take it all on again!
Later on, over my lunch, I picked up a book I’ve read a few times “The Power of Focus” and because I only had a few minutes I decided to open randomly to a page and read whatever was there. Well, wouldn’t you know it I opened right up to the chapter entitled “The Confidence Factor” – how fitting. The chapter begins with a great quote by Stan Smith which says:
“Experience tells you what to do; confidence allows you to do it.”
Now keep in mind here that it doesn’t say “your experience”, it says experience. Out there in the world there is a wealth of knowledge and experience based on millions of years of human being’s trial and error. Our job in life is to discover what it is that we are truly passionate about and spend the rest of our lives doing it. However, action, the act of doing, is something that requires confidence and we have to build our confidence in order for us to act. As I’ve discussed before nothing happens until you actually do something – it is the action step that is crucial.
Here’s some tips on building your confidence:
1. At the end of each day, journal, or write down all the things that you did really well. (Nothing negative)
2. Read, read, read empowering and uplifting books and articles about people who inspire you. People who have done the impossible, despite circumstances or situations. (Nelson Mandela, Helen Keller, Oprah, etc.)
3. Have an attitude of gratitude. (No matter how bad things get, you can ALWAYS find something to be grateful for. By doing this you change your vibration; you remove yourself from the low vibration where thoughts of “poor me” and “why doesn’t anything ever work out” live and raise your vibration to where opportunities and possibilities live just by finding one thing to feel thankful for.)
4. Build a safety net of support. (No one said you have to do it alone. Make sure you are surrounded by people who support you and believe in you. We ALL have ‘off’ or ‘down’ days and we all need someone else to remind us of how great we are once in a while.)
5. Set goals. (If you don’t know how to properly set goals, get your but to my upcoming seminar – you won’t regret it. It is our birthright to live in abundance! If you don’t presently have all that you want in your life – setting goals is the best way to change that!)
Change the dance
I was reading Fiona’s blog at FM Walsh & Associates where she has most recently posted about good old FEAR. For some reason, reading her take on it, and furthermore, how to counter act it with an action step in spite of it, reminded me of a few things. I think it’s best summarized in the title of Susan Jeffers‘ book “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”. The reality is that Fear is an emotion that is brought on by a certain thinking process, whether conscious or subconscious is really not important. What is important, as Fiona notes, is that in a moment of clarity you realize that it is there.
I find often with emotional reactions, for myself, that it is often in retrospect that I realize what’s been going on. As Fiona points out, she had been rationalizing why she hadn’t moved ahead with a certain project, coming up with all kinds of intellectual reasons why, but, not recognizing the lurking, lingering emotional background that was the true cause for not moving forward.
What I think is most interesting about all of this is how we, as humans, often try to out think our emotions and we don’t realize that it’s our emotions that drive our behaviour. Yes, emotions are provoked by thought, but, once you’re experiencing the emotion, you can’t out think it. So, what do you do?
You HAVE to break the cycle. Thoughts drive emotions, emotions drive behaviour, behaviour drives paradigm, paradigm drives thoughts – uh oh! Do you start to see what’s happening? Without even realizing we are in stuck in a cycle or a pattern that is often outside of our own conscious awareness. We don’t ‘think’ about what we’re thinking about, we don’t notice our emotions and how they sabotage us, we behave in the same habitual way day in and day out and we wonder why we don’t get different results in our life?
So, back to the solution and back to “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”. The title of the book is a great example of how you can jolt yourself out of this pattern. Even though you feel the emotion of fear, if you act in spite of it, as Fiona did, in that moment the emotion has lost control over your behaviour. And therefore, you have changed the dance. Your new behaviour will yield you a different result. (paradigm) The different result will allow you to think differently. Your new thinking will yield a different emotion (since you will no longer be afraid) and your behaviour will no longer be controlled by that emotion.
