Overcoming Adversity

In talking with a friend of mine the other day I realized that we are all going through challenges in our lives. We are living in a time that is changing rapidly and some of us are having a hard time keeping up. Add to this the adversities that we have had in our lives and we get stuck, depressed, anxious and worried. We start to feel like we are the only ones on earth who are going through a tough time. Well, I am here to tell you, you are not alone. Everyone, from the wealthiest person, to the bum on the street, has gone, or is going through some kind of adversity. The real test of a person’s character is how do we get through it and come out on the other side with our passion for life still in tact?

Count your blessings! That’s it. By counting our blessings we will see that there are some things in our life worth living for. When we focus on the good things in our life, then, we can overcome adversity against all odds. Each one of us was born for a reason, we each have a purpose for being on this earth. Finding the thing that gives us a passion for life is what our purpose is. Whatever we are doing right now is what we are supposed to be doing. There is something to learn, not for us to keep to our self, but to share with others. That doesn’t have to be a big, grand or over the top idea, it is more about the little things in life. When each person does something small, collectively it adds up to something big. Whether your passion is for people, animals or the earth, that is up to each individual. Just do it, and the results will come.

When our backs are against the wall and there is no light at the end of the tunnel, that’s when we have to shift our mindset. We can use our time of adversity to think out of the box, be practical and simplify our life. Remove the junk that is blocking the way to success. This can be physical or mental. When there is clutter in our life or in our mind we can not move forward. We need to remove the clutter in our life by either cleaning up our environment or our minds, removing the things or the thoughts that are not of use to us anymore. Whether it be an old worn out mindset, or couch, it doesn’t matter, if it doesn’t bring us joy or it doesn’t create an atmosphere for creativity then it is not of use in our lives. Be flexible, open minded and aware when it comes to opportunities. They are all around us if we just take the time to look. Sometimes we put ourselves in a box and think that there is only one way of doing things, but when it comes to overcoming adversity, we need to recognize that we can use our adversity to our advantage. In finding a way out of our struggles, we have found a solution to our problem, this can then be used to help others who may be having the same problem, that creates opportunity.

Surrounding ourselves with people who have the same goals as we do is great, but surrounding ourselves with people who have the skills we lack is the key to our success. We need each other, and not one person has all the skills it takes to be successful. It is just like a good marriage, they say that opposites attract, well, that is because where one person lacks the other picks up the slack. That is how it is in life. We find the people who, not only share in our passion, but also have what it takes to work together, to get us to our next level in life. By working together, we can spread the wealth, and boost the economy. By pulling our resources we can come together and solve, not only our own problems, but also help someone else with theirs.

“Find your purpose”, “be courageous”, “face your fears”, don’t just know these cliches, live them. That is where the fire burns, is in actually living your purpose, actually being courageous, and actually facing your fears. Whatever they may be, whatever is going on, whatever is holding you back, don’t let it! Stand up, take charge and go for it. Quit looking for purpose in life, whatever you are doing is your purpose, and in there somewhere is your passion, that is what you need to find, what is it that drives you each day to get up and move, why do you keep getting up each day, who is important enough to keep you going, when are you going to realize that you are important, where are you going and why are you alive? Important questions that will change your life. Be yourself and remember that in adversity is where we find out more about who we are.

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Planning for Success in Business

Why do women entrepreneurs not plan for success and have a “lets just see what will happen” kind of attitude when it comes to their businesses? Why do women feel more responsible for their home, children, and husband, than they do for their business?

 

Planning is the key. Most women start a business because they are looking to make a little extra money, not really looking at where their business can grow to. We women think we are just going to help out with the bills until our husband finds a job, or work picks back up. We don’t take what we are doing very seriously. We don’t visualize where we want our business to be in 5 years, and then, create the system and operate the business as if we were already there. But this is the mindset that will propel our businesses to succeed. Because then, when the business starts to take off and become successful, the system and the infrastructure will be in place to support it and the business will continue to grow.

 

When we go into business, what is our mindset? Are we in hobby mindset, “oh I just need to make a little extra money and I’ll be fine”? Or are we in the mindset of looking at ourselves as the CEO of our own enterprise, which sometimes, as women, we are afraid to even say. If that is our mindset we must change that thought. When we first think about becoming an entrepreneur it is usually because we have found a problem and we are going to solve it. The purpose of starting a business, shouldn’t be just to make a few extra dollars, because then the business is not going to be successful. The purpose has got to be much more important and passionate than making money otherwise its not going to succeed.

 

What is the common mindset in women who struggle in business? With the economy the way it is today, with things getting kind of crazy, and things not really going well, the first thing we want to do is withdraw. Not just the business, but also personally, our spirits withdraw as well. In the economy right now there is so much opportunity for business. To start a business or to grow a business, but we have to get to a point of expanding where we think we can go. Do things that inspire us, things that inspire our spirits. We shouldn’t be going around looking and feeling like we are in lack. We need to keep ourselves upbeat; drink out of our fancy glasses, eat off of our good china, dress nicely, even if we don’t have to leave the house. These are the things that will inspire our spirits to succeed. If we are not inspired we are not going to do well in business.

 

If our sales are down, the first thing we want to do is cut back and consolidate as much as possible. But the reality is, since that is what everybody else is doing, it is time to do more. Get out and meet people and network and talk about your business. Regardless of what is going on in the economy, we need to trust ourselves. Whatever the economy is doing doesn’t matter, in the end it is up to us and how passionate we are about what we are doing. So, don’t withdraw, expand instead, which makes us more creative and solution oriented; it makes us trust ourselves more, and as long as we believe in ourselves and the service we are providing, we will have the great feeling, that in the midst of struggle, we can recognize who we are and what we are made of. Look for ways to be creative, take advantage of new opportunities, get stronger, tougher, and step up.

 

The first step in creating a new mindset is to decide that we are going to do it. Once we decide that we are going to do it, then we need to decide,  what is the purpose, what is our passion, so that when adversity strikes, we will do whatever it takes, because we want to grow. The reason why successful people succeed is because they have failed more. But in their failures they haven’t given up. When we are passionate about what we are doing, even when we make mistakes, we will keep on trying.

 

One of the biggest mistake people make is thinking that their service or their product is the most important thing. But, what we don’t understand is that it is all the systems around the business; the marketing, the accounting, the cashflow, the legal aspect, these are the things that make a business. So we need to plan for abundance and be ready for increased business when it comes. Which will come with abundance thinking.

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TRUE ABUNDANCE IN LIFE

Money, now there is a word that peaks peoples interest. We take money into consideration for every decision we  make in our lives. It has been said that money is,  “the root of all evil”, that when “we have money we have power”, and “money makes our world go round”. So, with all that being said, the question is, is having money the only way that we can have abundance in life? Can we have appreciation and live a life of gratitude with or without money?

It is our duty in life to understand ourselves, our relationships and what money means to us. If we do not understand these things then we will not have abundance in life. The mistakes we make in our lives are many, a lot are from good intentions; not knowing how to create boundaries, not trusting ourselves, never coming to the realization that our lives are not defined by our external situations, but by our internal beliefs and ideas and and for some of us not realizing that we need to love money in a balanced way.

As we have gotten older and have had to make our own decisions about money most of what we learned came from whoever our primary care givers were. We learned about money mostly by watching them and how they handled money and what they thought about money. This may have given us some misconceived notions about money. Some of us think that money is out there somewhere and if we could just get to “somewhere” we could bring it into our lives. Some of us think we don’t deserve money because of our background or the beliefs and ideas we were given as children about money. And then there are some of us that think that the system is just not set up for us to have money. Some of us look at people with money and think they have all the answers, but, just because a person has money doesn’t mean they know anything more than how to make money. So, we need to do the work of knowing ourselves first, then, whether we have money or not, we will have Wisdom, Knowledge, and Power, which is the true meaning of abundance in life.

I just recently heard of money being described like this by Sarah Ban Breathnach, best selling author of two books, “Simple Abundance” and “Peace and Plenty”:
M = My
O = Own
N = Natural
E = Energy
Y = Yield

Some people, especially women, are bought up to think that we are not good with money. In the past men were the ones who were taught about money and how to get it. We looked to the man of the house to bring in the money. Men were set up to understand that it was their job to make sure they make and bring home the money. Which made women think they didn’t deserve to make a lot of money. Times may have changed the gender roles, but I don’t think it has changed our beliefs about money, all that has changed is who is bringing in the money. The person who doesn’t bring in the most money or any money is sometimes looked at as inferior. We are made to believe that with money comes power. But, that does not bring true abundance in life.

When we remove the emotional and spiritual affects from our lives and only focus on money we will, “know the price of everything, but the value of nothing”, Jacob Needleman. Our value does not come only from money, but also from the emotional and spiritual energy we bring to our relationships. Money may come from our time and our creative energy, but we also have to get rid of our emotion, because money doesn’t care about emotion. Money will take care of us, but, if we open our lives up to all that is available to us by holding the space for every aspect of our lives, thats when we have true abundance in life .

Money brings on so many negative emotions like, fear; fear of, losing it,  how we spend it, investing it, or just not having it; shame, the shame of making mistakes with money, the shame of not being able to afford the things that we want for our families or the shame of what we spend our money on like, spontaneous buys on things that we never even use, and frustration; frustrated with the fact that we work so hard and never get ahead, the frustration of seeing others get ahead, but we are stuck, or frustrating ourselves, trying so hard to get where we think other people are. These negative emotions bring us down and make us feel unworthy, but this is not our real self. These emotions are not who we really are. They do not bring us real abundance in life.

If we allow money to bring out negative emotions from inside of us, we will not have the life we truly deserve. In order for us to feel supported and joyful and receive what we truly deserve in life, we need to become aware of our true inner self.  By becoming aware of the emotions we associate with money we can reveal our true inner self. Money only magnifies who really are. If we are a jerk before we have money, then we will be a big jerk with money. Money is only a means to an end. When we do the work inside us first, money will only enhance our inner beauty and give us the tools we need to have true abundance in life.

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EMBRACE CHANGE

Life is all about change. Everything is changing constantly. We are changing, our environment is changing, the way we do business is changing, our world is changing. The question is, “In what ways are we changing and do we celebrate those changes?” Change can be more about opportunity than a challenge. Since everybody and everything is constantly changing, we ask ourselves “Is it always for the good?”

We live in such a fast paced world. Everybody is on warp speed trying to get everything done. Some people thrive on always having a full plate, while most of us are drained, exhausted, stressed and frazzled. It does not have to be like that. We can learn to slow down, become more comfortable with who we are, we can become more available and attract better, deeper relationships, we can relax more and stop feeling like we have to always be doing something all the time.

We can start by learning how to choose, not only our battles, but our schedules. Are you a all or nothing kind of person, doing very little in moderation? Keep in mind that we can ware ourselves out trying so hard to get it all done immediately. We tend to go completely overboard when trying to make changes in our lives. We wake up one day and think, “I need to make a change in my life.”, and then by the end of the day feel defeated because we didn’t accomplish the results we were looking for. It takes hard work and dedication to arrive at the goals we set for ourselves; it is especially important to remember that it takes baby steps to achieve the worthwhile things in life.  Results never happen in a day or even overnight. By taking small steps when trying to change we will have a much better chance of accomplishing and achieving our goals.

People like recognition. We like it when others tell us that what we are doing is good, helpful and inspiring. That is what makes us feel good. But, again, we can ware ourselves out trying so hard to get the approval of others. Looking for that pat on the back and having someone tell us, “Good job”. If we are doing something in our lives that makes us happy and we feel good about, that is all that counts. We do not need to be worried about who approves.

Another thing that can be very stressful in our lives is opening ourselves up to other peoples emotional turmoil. We tend to try to solve everybody else’s problems other than our own. We spend more time caught up in other peoples excess  baggage than concentrating on ours. We have a mindset that we need to handle everything that comes our way. But that is not true. What we should be doing is prioritizing. We need to make a list of whats important to us and our families and stick to that list. We need to learn to say “NO” to the things that don’t get us closer to the goals on our list.

So what is it that you want to  change? Make a list of those things that you want to change in your life and don’t be too hard on yourself. Allow yourself time to evolve. Take responsibility for your internal change. Evolution is about constantly growing, and realizing that it doesn’t ever end. Don’t resist change, don’t be a person who has to hit a wall before they realize that change is inevitable. Ease into change. Know that things are going to change and allow yourself the gift of going with the flow of change.

As we change the people around us notice our changes and they will either change with us or they will resist the change. We should surround ourselves with the people that will support our changes and encourage us to change for the better. Change is good, and by changing the way we think about change, the more uninhibited we become. So lets celebrate our changes and realize that every single day is a day is another opportunity for change, we can wake up everyday and start all over again.

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Are Women Changing The World Economy?

Women are changing the World Economy. The economist and News Week Magazine recently said that the world economy will be turned around in the next 5 years by women, not even China’s or India’s booming markets will compare to this next growing trend. Women empowerment is leading the way to more and more women owned business, especially those that are on the internet.

Now is the perfect time for women to start a business on this ever expanding fertile ground. Women owned businesses are growing more and more and the reasons are endless; it could be because of the economy, education, or just because we have to. But whatever the reason, this economical crisis could be what we needed to reboot our belief system.

By starting a business online and using it as a way to communicate our passions worldwide we can take control over our own destinies and create our own communities. The Dalai Lama said that the world will be changed by the western women. This is because of the tools we have available to us. One of those tools is the internet.

Think about it, what is your passion? Do you have a movement, purpose, product or service that you would like to promote?  Its up to each one of us, the possiblilities are endless. The internet is specific and we can do our own thing. It is a  niche market, so we can create our own movement on whatever it is we are passionate about. We don’t have to wait for someone to knock on our door, we can do it for ourselves. We are in control. The internet is a tool that serves our purpose, our higher purpose, it is a way we can connect to people all over the world, to really do something  meaningful. We can not do it by ourselves, but when we come together as an online community, that is powerful, and then, when we link our different communities together we can bring change to the world, and together we can have one world wide tribe.

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How to Accelerate Your Life

You don’t have to be superwomen to be successful in life. Just follow some simple rules and you will be able to manage your life without stress, frustration, and exhaustion.

There are 3 keys to balancing your life:

Attitude – Life isn’t about what happens to us, its about how we handle what happens to us.
Choices- Make the right choices. You instinctively know what choices are right for you.
Relationships- Develop the right relationships, business and personal.

Start your day right by getting the important things in your life done earlier in the day, that is when you are most focused.  When you start your work day, don’t get started by reading emails that you probably don’t need anyway. Get started with the things that take the most focus. Mornings are usually when your creativity is flowing. You can maximize your time and effort and feel like you have accomplished something  at the end of the day.

To reach your potential customers you don’t have to spent lots of money branding yourself. The latest and most effect way is through Multichannel marketing. Multichannel  is marketing using many different marketing channels to reach a customer. It gives you a chance to fully engage with prospects and customers through  communications, including social media and RSS. You can use your direct response marketing skills to give value everyday for free. Once your customers feel comfortable with you then you can sell what they need that take them to the next level.

The complexities of multi-channel marketing can be daunting but realize that it takes time to build up your list. You have to first start by taking action, do something even if its just research, get the knowledge you need to take your ideas and passions to the next level. Get up earlier to get done what you need to get done. Understand what works for you, follow your instincts and intuition.

There are three things you need for great marketing:

Copy-  Make sure there is value in what you have to say. Its not about you its about what is important to the reader.
List-  This is the  most important thing, be methodical, remember its not just a list, its how you build a community of like minded people, don’t send the right message to the wrong people.
Offer-  Take it to the next level. Once you establish trust, then offer your customer a product or service that they can’t live without and that will transform their life.

Make your life count! Live your passion!

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What about online videos to boost your business?

Do you know how to leverage technology to boost your business? Videos can make a significant impact on your business, taking the internet to the next level. You don’t even have to have production experience, big expensive cameras, or a production crew, anyone can start with a flip phone camera. Even if you start small it could have a big impact.

All you have to do is share your story, talk about your life. Like attracts like. Inspire people with your passion. Think about it, what is your passion, what is your purpose? Use your story to connect with people on a human level. Talk about simple stuff. Just by sharing your story you can connect with your viewers and build trust, you don’t have to sell them. Then you can use the video to drive people to your web site. By thinking out of the box you can become successful while at the same time promoting your passion. Video will get your message out. Marketing with video will build your contact list so that you can get the most out of your leads. It’s the human connection that helps sell your product.

Google has just bought out youtube and because of this they are giving more preference to videos on their search engines. So its like owning real estate on Google. With your video and the right key words, you will be driving people to your site in no time. Positioning yourself higher on the search engine will bring more visibility and more traffic, which will drive up your views, which will get people to your web site, which will drive up your sales.
Give video a try. It can’t hurt, it can only help.

Sindy
Dove Chocolate Discoveries
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How Are You Communicating?

Communication is one of the things that can hold you back in business. Grammar IS important. People are judging you by your communication style, your dress, your body language and your speech. One big area where you are judged is your use of pronouns. In business people will pay attention to the emails you send and your social networking profiles. When you are speaking to people and you make a mistake in grammar people may think that you just made a careless error, but when you are writing it you are putting it out there for the world to see. With the technology that is out there today where everything is abbreviated we are loosing our use of correct grammar. Even though you may not be unintelligent you will come across as unintelligent by your improper use of grammar.

The common theme of women who struggle in business is not having presence. You have to remember that as representatives of your companies you will not always be working with people your same age. You will have to deal with people who are older and more mature than you are. So, when you are trying to sell yourselves or your product you should always keep in mind that you will be judged by our presence. So to enhance your presence  you should be concerned about your body language, facial expressions, demeanor, dress, and image.

Another thing to think about is how well you think on your feet. Senior executives will notice things like how long it takes you to answer a question. So you not only need to know the rules of English grammar, but you should also be concerned with our presence. This will help you  to come across as credible. It all comes down to your look, your language and your likability. If you want to be successful in business and in life, you have to be willing to work on yourself, internally and externally.

Live the sweet life with a sweet career!

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