“How you do anything, is how you do everything!” Anonymous

I can do anything….for 30 days!

What a refreshing approach to goal setting and changing habits and patterns. I smiled when I saw this great TED talk by Matt Cutts. It brought back memories in my own life of doing full raw eating for 30 days. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done nutritionally and health wise! Yet I felt great!!!

Breaking something into 30 days allows you to laser focus on one or a couple of simple issues. The more we can break something down into simple steps the easier it is….suddenly we don’t go into overwhelm.

We’ve all heard the analogy about ‘how do you eat an elephant….one bite at a time!’
This video highlights that approach to any habit, pattern or goal that we might have.

I Can Do Anything is a post from: 2 Inspire

“Don’t underestimate just how badly many people want to fit in. We say we want to root for the underdog, but actually, we want to be seen as rooting for whomever everyone else is rooting for.” – Seth Godin

Are you doing things the same way you’ve always done them? Or the same way everyone else in your field is doing them?

Have you lost connection with what makes you unique, and distinct?

I saw this great image I’ve posted with this blog as I was checking out the site of Dave Ursillo. I checked out his site and work after reading The Skool of Life recent blog post about 21 People Who Will Change The World in 2012. I found this so refreshing to read about people and their work that I haven’t heard about. People doing unique and different things, based on what they are passionate about.

Another great resource for people changing the world is Hearts on Fire by Jill Iscol. Check out the wonderful video blogs of people following their hearts and changing our world.

It made me ask myself these questions again about what makes me unique, and am I sharing those gifts and talents? Or am I caught up in the day to day of running a business and living a life. Things are good, yet are they great?

Let’s make 2012 the year to reconnect with our unique qualities, passions and commitments. And to share those with the world! And who knows…along the way we might just change the world!!!!

Doing Things Differently is a post from: 2 Inspire

In just the ‘right’ timing, I ran across a document that I had saved. This was a mass email that had been sent to me by a friend who knew I was having a day/week that I was struggling with trusting some things that were happening in my personal life. And as all things are, they re-appear at just the right timing. I wanted to share this with you, apologizing that I do not know the original author or source:

“It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I’m thinking, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’

Obviously not; no one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me
at all. I’m invisible. The Invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more! Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this??

Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock to ask, ‘What time is it?’ I’m a satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is the
Disney Channel?’ I’m a car to order, ‘Right around 5:30, please.’

Some days I’m a crystal ball; ‘Where’s my other sock? Where’s my phone?,
What’s for dinner?’

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history, music and literature -but now, they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She’s going, she’s going, she’s gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when she turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, ‘I brought you this.’ It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe . I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription: ‘With admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.’

In the days ahead I would read – no, devour – the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:
1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals – we have no record of their names.
2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, ‘Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it. And the workman replied, ‘Because God sees.’

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does.

No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last minute errand is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don’t want my son to tell the friend he’s bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, ‘My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3 hours and presses all the linens for the table.’ That would mean I’d built a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, he’d say, ‘You’re gonna love it there…’

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers.

Share this with all the Invisible Moms you know… I just did.

To all the wonderful mothers out there!!”

Building Cathedrals is a post from: 2 Inspire

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Starting a new year can bring up mixed emotions. Excitement, intrigue, fear, trepidation. There is often a real mixed bag of feelings and thoughts. We might be strong and confident in one area of our lives, and fearful and cautious in others.

One thing that is consistent….we take ourselves where ever we go! So a powerful key, no matter what the external circumstances, is to focus on ourselves!

To do that often means starting with self care. True gentleness and caring of ourselves.

I was sent a powerful video link of a TED talk that I have linked to below in this post. Wow!!!! What really stood out for me in Brene Brown’s talk, was about courage. The true definition of courage and applying that to our lives. And a willingness to be vulnerable. It takes true vulnerability, as she so eloquently reviews, to live wholeheartedly.

Take the time to review this video….it’s truly worth it!

Start The Year Strong is a post from: 2 Inspire

“If you knew everything was really all right, and that it always has a happy ending, then you would not feel trepidacious about your future. Everything is really so very all right! If you could believe and trust that, then, immediately everything would automatically and instantly become all right.” Abraham

As this year quickly draws to a close and you plan for 2012, I’d love to share with you some powerful questions that I ask myself at year end. If you are interested, start a page in your journal to ask yourself these same or even deeper questions!

Dare to list your two or three biggest mistakes of the year. 
Don’t blame yourself or get upset over them, but study and LEARN from them.

Where did you mess up? Where did you delay too long or rush ahead too quickly? If you see patterns or warning signs, jot them down. You may learn something useful. We ALL make mistakes, or head down paths that we quickly realize are not where we’d really love to be!

Also list your best successes! How did you achieve them? What did you do right, how did you use your brilliance, your skills or your initiative to accomplish good things and powerful results? Take notes — you’ll want to repeat them in the future!

If your year-end review suggests a couple of personality or character traits you’d like to change (something to over-come or to begin), jot them down! Consider ways to become stronger, wiser or more effective in the coming year. Study people who have the quality you admire and ponder how they’ve achieved it. If you’re really bold, consider asking them for advice!

And of course, in the coming weeks, get very, very clear about exactly what you want in the coming year. What are your priorities, your values, your dreams? What’s important? What will make a difference for you and your loved ones? For now, don’t worry too much about “how” you’ll pull it off, just note what’s true and what you really want in 2012. When you’re clear about “what,” you’ll figure out “how.” I personally use a mantra in my life…”It’s not my job to figure out the how, it’s my job to hold the vision!”

What have I learned? What has life taught me? Where am I wiser, stronger, more skilled or (perhaps) sneakier than in the past? How will I take better advantage of opportunities in the New Year? What will I do differently?

To help guide you I’ve listed some questions. A few have blanks, and I want you to trust your intuition to fill them in. Answer what fits you, and leave what doesn’t. They are simply a guide to help you review 2011 and move powerfully into 2012!

What were you most proud of this year?

Describe the investment in ______________….what was most impactful to you about this? How can you see and continue to language the expense around this as an investment?

Describe the feeling/emotion of your _______________:

What changes did you make this year that had significant impact on your life? Personally and professionally:

What would you love more of in your life? (what worked, and how to enhance and make sure you keep doing this)

What would you love less of? (usually see we need to then work on systems to clean up things like paperwork, etc. etc.)

BHAG for 2012 based on learning in 2011? Big Harry Audacious Goal (different than the goals you have listed….what is a really far out there idea?????)

What is you number 1 toleration?

What systems for success do you rely on most? (affirmations, reading, etc.)

What one system for success do you choose to enhance this year?

Why do you succeed at times and fall a little short on others?

May you take the time to review and see how much you have grown in 2011. And take this learning forward!

A Year In Review is a post from: 2 Inspire

“You’re the same today as you’ll be in five years except for the people you meet and the books you read.” Charlie “Tremendous” Jones

There never seems to be a shortage of great books to read. I love physically holding a great book, and doing the classic ‘curl up with a great book’. I love my ipad2 and the book experience on it. Although not a kindle user, I know many love it as well.

With year end quickly approaching I created my reading list for 2012. I like to blend both personal and professional books, so i have a list of my top 10 in each category. I started created lists for myself once I realize that I all too often bought books people suggested and then never really got around to reading them. So by sitting and pondering, and creating my lists, then when someone tells me about ‘another’ great book, I ask myself if this new recommendation goes to the top of my list. If it does, great….I get it and read it. If it doesn’t, then I simply add it to the bottom of my list to check out later. This method allowed me to stay focused on great reading and learning, without getting too distracted!

One of the business books on my list for 2012 is Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur by Richard Branson. Well, ask and yee shall receive. Today I got another great blog post from The Skool Of Life, summarizing 14 inspiring lessons taken from this very same book.

And then didn’t I just receive an early holiday gift…and guess what, it’s the same book!

I’ll summarize the 14 lessons here from The Skool Of Life blog:
1.You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and by falling over and it’s because you fall over that you learn to save yourself from falling over.
2. Entrepreneurship is not about getting one over on the customer. It’s not about working on your own. It’s not about looking out for number one. It’s not necessarily about making a lot of money. On the contrary, it’s about turning what excites you in life into capital, so that you can do more of it and move forward.
3.Having savvy is far more important than formal education.
4. Circumstances and opportunities change. The only constant is change itself.
5. Befriending one’s enemy is a good rule for life and business.
6. Publicity is Absolutely Critical.
7. Don’t Promise What You Can’t Deliver and deliver everything your promise.
8. If you’re running an airline, restaurant, or any other company, it’s attention to detail that defines great delivery.
9. Success one day doesn’t give you a free lunch everyday thereafter.
10. Every risk is worth taking as long as it’s in a good cause and contributes to a good life.
11. When you’re first thinking through an idea it’s important not to get bogged down in complexity. Any fool can make something complex. It’s hard to make something simple.
12. Never do anything that means you can’t sleep at night.
13. Failure is not giving things a go in the first place.
14. Success for me is whether or not you have created something you can be proud of.

I can’t wait to curl up and dig into this book. Please read the newsletter referenced to see more insights into these lessons. Or like me….get the book!

Inspiring Life And Business Lessons From Richard Branson is a post from: 2 Inspire

Success in Reverse
By Dave Lavinsky
copyright 2011 Growthink, Inc.
follow Dave Lavinsky on Twitter

When starting a business, most entrepreneurs dream about the finish line; specifically how their lives will be radically better once their business becomes a huge success.

But, soon after they start their businesses, entrepreneurs/business owners become trapped in the day-to-day, week-to-week, and month-to-month goals of generating more sales and profits, improving employee performance, and trying to reduce their hours and stress.

At some point, the vast majority of entrepreneurs become 100% focused on these short-term goals and lose sight of their long-term visions. As a result, they begin to wander, and never achieve the vision they initially hoped to achieve.

The solution is rather simple: you need to stop what you’re doing and dream again about the finish line. Specifically, you need to reassess what it is that you’re trying to accomplish with your business.

In many cases, this long-term vision will be the same as the long-term vision you had when you started your business. In other cases, your long-term vision might have changed.

But in EVERY case, you must reassess what your long-term vision is, or you’ll have virtually no chance of achieving it.

And importantly, once you identify this vision, you need to reverse engineer it.

That’s right, you need to fully imagine how your business will look once you have achieved your long-term vision, and then create the action plan for achieving it. For example, if your dream includes a company with 300 employees, you need to create the plan now for hiring and training these employees.

To help you achieve this, follow my step by step plan below for identifying your long-term vision and reverse engineering it.

1: Identify your long-term vision

Write down what your ultimate goal is for your business.
For example, do you want to sell it to another company? Sell/give it to your employees or children? Take it public? Continue to run it forever and reap ongoing profits?

2: Identify your key end-game metrics

By what date would you like your vision to be achieved?

What will your company’s annual revenues be at this date?

How many customers will you have at this date?

How many employees will you have at this date?

On this date, what will your day to day responsibilities be?

On this date, what will be your top selling products and/or services?

3: Reverse Engineer Success within the Key Functional Areas

Answer the following questions as if today was the future date in which you achieved your long-term vision and you were looking backwards.

Marketing:

What marketing channels allowed you to attract/gain the most customers?

What have you done to fully satisfy your customers?

What business partnerships (if any) have you forged that have resulted in significant numbers of new clients?
R&D

What have you done to develop your top selling products and/or services?
Human Resources

Who are your key managers that motivate and manage your other employees? When did you find these key managers? Where did you find them? How did you develop them?

When did you start ramping up your hiring process?
Operations:

What systems have you built to ensure your business runs smoothly and without your required day-to-day involvement?
Finance:

Who funded you along the way? How did you meet these funding sources?

4: Create Your Action Plans

Create action plans from your answers above.

For example, if you answered “direct mail” as your top marketing channel, document your direct mail strategy. For example, document who you will mail to, what your message will be, what your direct mail timeline will be, etc.

The exercise above is critical in ensuring your success.

The key is to not only dream about what your business looks like when it has achieved success, but to reverse engineer that dream. You need to think through how your business got to its successful state. And then work backwards in creating action plans that will get you there. And once you create these action plans, be sure that you and your team stay focused on executing them.

copyright Dave Lavinsky Nov. 29, 2011

Success In Reverse by Dave Lavinsky is a post from: 2 Inspire

Have you ever stopped yourself in mid stride when you are reacting or over-reacting to something? Tough to do, yet very revealing. If you can figure out how to stop yourself from your own emotions, or ranting, it’s interesting to take a look at the ’story’ that you are telling yourself.

Are you reacting to real details, real truth…the facts? Or are you reacting based on the emotions?

Still on of my favorite rules of operating, after reading The Four Agreements, is to ‘not take things personally.’ The challenge…is really living by this. Anything that has us feel challenged or threatened generally has us go back into the adolescent component of our brain. We immediately begin to react and go into protective mode. Or else we try to rationalize and justify our position!

A summary from Miguel Ruiz’s excellent book includes The Four Agreements:

1. Be Impeccable with your Word:
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

Some questions I like to use to ask myself:
Who taught me that?
What old pattern or belief system is this pulling to the surface?
What are the facts here?
What is the emotion that I’m truly feeling?
How can I stop this pattern?
How can I communicate my own emotions and reactions to this situation?

All too often I realize my reactions, and over-reactions, are based on me being emotional. I’m building a story based on the fiction around the issue…my perceptions. If I can pull myself back to the truth, the facts, it’s much easier to then reconnect with what the situation is really about.

These tools can help us all re-write our ’stories’!

Fact vs. Fiction? is a post from: 2 Inspire

“I want to put a ding in the universe.” Steve Jobs

You can be as innovative and impactful as you choose. You…could even potentially be the next great innovator!

As I’m reading The Innovator’s DNA, by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen, they are sharing simple and powerful steps and behaviors to help improve my creative impact. They identify and outline some of the behaviors of the world’s best innovators. This book outlines 5 discovery skills that distinguish innovative entrepreneurs and executives from ordinary managers and business people.

1. Associating – Innovative breakthroughs often happen at the intersection of diverse disciplines and fields. Innovative thinkers connect fields, problems, or ideas that others find unrelated.

2. Questioning – Questioning, and a passion for inquiry, is at the center of the innovative process. “If we tried this…what would happen?” Innovators questions provoke new insights, connections, possibilities, and directions.

3. Observing – Innovators carefully watch the world around them – including customers, products, services, technologies, and companies – and the observations help them gain insights into and ideas for new ways of doing things.

4. Networking – Rather than simply doing social networking or networking for resources, innovators actively search for new ideas by talking to people who may offer a radically different view of things.

5. Experimenting – Innovators are constantly trying out new experiences and piloting new ideas. They visit new places, try new things, seek new information, and experiment to learn new things.

I’d love to harness these competencies, individually and within the organizations that I’m involved in. This would help me generate ideas, collaborate with colleagues to implement the ideas, and build innovation skills throughout the organizations and projects!

This book offers practical insights into each of these core competencies. Fabulous examples highlight the great companies we all know…and many we don’t.

Although I’m certainly not the next Steve Jobs, watch me create and innovate as I more consciously apply these competencies more consistently. Won’t you join me by becoming aware of these competencies, and applying this learning to your work?

The Spirit Of Innovation is a post from: 2 Inspire

The Non-Linear Path to Success
Written on October 31, 2011 by Srinivas in Uncategorized
(reprinted in it’s entire form to honor the original author….please visit the link for the web site and more great information from The Skool Of Life)

Today has the potential to be one of those days that changes my life forever. For that matter so does every single day of most of our lives. It’s just a matter of what we decide to do with our time. We don’t often seen the fruits of our labor until we we water the seeds of accomplishment for an extended period of time. Where people go wrong is when they stop watering those seeds. They give up because they’re attached to outcomes and don’t see results as early as they had hoped.

Success Isn’t Linear

Most of us have a plan for success but as you probably know by now, sometimes life doesn’t go according to plan. In fact success in any endeavor is usually not a linear path. It involves some ups and downs and the willingness to veer off the beaten path and take the scenic route. The traditional view of how people become successful looks something like this:

* Go to a good school
* Get a good job
* Do well
* Get promoted
* Go back to school
* Get a better job
* Get promoted until you’re at the top

Sounds like a nice and simple plan doesn’t it? It rarely goes that way for anybody who has done something of significance. But somehow we’re convinced that forcing square pegs into round holes is how we succeed. Unfortunately there are going to be circumstances that are simply out of your control that will force you to alter your plans. There’s no question that to make progress in life you’re going to have to be flexible. You can’t exactly walk in a straight line when it might require one turn in a different direction in order to get to your destination. However, there are multiple paths to any destination and making too many plans is what limits possibility during our journey. Flexibility isn’t about compromising your core values or giving into somebody else’s demands. It’s about the willingness to try something different when what you’re doing is not working.

How the Dots Connect

In his famous Stanford commencement speech Steve Jobs said “you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.” The events that have transpired over the last couple of years, months and weeks, even though a perpetual roller coaster ride have finally seemed to connect and today I want to share that story with you. It all really started with my first wave

If my friends had stayed in Brazil as planned I may have never caught that first wave.

If I had received an offer from my summer internship at Intuit, I wouldn’t have been unemployed for 9 months after graduation from business school.

If I hadn’t been unemployed after graduation, I wouldn’t have started The Skool of Life or spent that time surfing for 6 hours a day for 8 months straight.

If I hadn’t started the Skool of Life, I wouldn’t have started that weekly series called Interviews with Up an Coming Bloggers

If I hadn’t started Interviews with Up and coming Bloggers I wouldn’t have met Sid Savara.

If I hadn’t met Sid, I wouldn’t have had the foresight to create BlogcastFM

If I hadn’t developed the network and connections I had from BlogcastFM, I wouldn’t have been able to staff the Flightster blog the way I did.

If it hadn’t been for my work on the Flightster blog, I wouldn’t have had my first speaking gig on the art of digital storytelling.

If my hours at Flightster hadn’t been cut, I wouldn’t have moved to Costa Rica, (which wouldn’t have happen without that first wave)

If I hadn’t moved to Costa Rica I wouldn’t have met our first sponsor for BlogcastFM.

If I hadn’t lost my job and have our sponsor unable to continue our agreement, I wouldn’t have started the pursuit of another sponsor.

If I hadn’t started the pursuit of another sponsor, I wouldn’t be able to share the following news with you today.

As of a few weeks ago, BlogcastFM signed a new sponsorship agreement with our new sponsor and strategic partner Livefyre. Listen to my interview on BlogcastFM today with Livefyre CEO Jordan Kretchmer to learn how you can win a Kindle Fire.

So all I can say is that even when it seems like your life isn’t going according to plan, maybe it’s just nature taking its course and you just have to keep that in perspective.

http://theskooloflife.com/wordpress/the-non-linear-path-to-success/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PersonalDevelopmentSelf-improvementPersonalGrowthEducation+%28Personal+Development%2C+Self-Improvement%2C+Personal+Growth+Education%29

The Skool Of Life…On Success is a post from: 2 Inspire