Sara Hand

It is easy to get bogged down in the negative messages that we are bombarded with daily. As an entrepreneur – a business owner, those messages can be overwhelming as we face the challenges of navigating in an economic environment that bears little resemblance to our, in hind-sight, relatively safe world of yesterday. So what do you do?

It is crucial that you take responsibility for your own mindset. Here are a few tips to keep discouragement from keeping you from doing the things you need to do to be effective.

Tips for Winning:

1. Stop and breathe…Some people just run faster and try harder. Others shut down altogether. Neither response will effectively produce results over the course of time.

 Take 3 deep breathes and release slowly each time. Your nervous system will kick in and you will begin to relax. When you relax you can make better choices.

Exercise: It releases endorphins which will help you feel better. Ride a bike, walk, dance…do something you love.

(Alcohol and other substances to “feel good” don’t count.)

Hold hands with someone you love. Look them in the face and TELL them that. Build Joy…Yes, Joy is a real thing.

2. Set realistic goals. The world is tough enough. Stop trying to be Super person. Unrealistic expectations reaffirm an inability to succeed. Affirmations are great, if you really believe that in your heart…if you don’t, it is NO better that the unrealistic goal. Let yourself grow into big goals, one baby step at a time.

 3. Set up accountability with someone who actually cares whether you succeed or not. Ask someone to give you honest caring feedback. I have a coach, a counselor, and an advisory board and a couple of incredible friends that I have empowered to let me have it…they help me stay on track through constructive criticism and act as cheerleaders when the going gets tough. They believe in me, even when I may begin to doubt myself.

Although you may have many people in your life who are a part of your journey, people who encourage you and help you along the way, when it comes down to it the responsibility for winning in your life is yours. You will need to choose to ask for help when you need it, to give yourself a break when necessary, and to choose to grow and embrace change as the friend it can be.

The sun rises and sets each day as time goes and the days get shorter. At first it is not so noticeable; but little by little, one change and then the next, as day goes into day, seasons change.  

Depending on your business, the change of seasons may mean different things. It might mean a time of rest, a time of harvest, a time overwhelming business, or maybe even a time of regrouping. Regardless of the seasons or cycles of your business; to ignore changes of one season to the next is to ignore the very nature of life.

As you see the birds flying in the v formation of migration, as the grass needs to be mowed less often, as the days become less humid and the traffic on our roads doubles (hopefully); are you positioned to move into this new season? If not, what will you do about it?

“Have you ever been on the winning team?” For those that have, we know it is an experience of a lifetime. Yet as good as being a part of a great team can be; the team building experience can also be devastating.

As a business development specialist with a MA in Marriage and Family counseling, my perspective might be somewhat unique. However I see many similarities between building a marriage and developing a team. The most valuable thing any couple considering marriage can do is to invest in pre-marital counseling. And similarly, if a leader takes the time and effort to clarify intent among the members of your developing team the process of reaching a real place of performance.

“Why, and what does this mean for my business and my team?” you wonder.

In building a team there are various stages of growth and development, and some of these stages aren’t all that fun. How and if a team moves through these will be determined by the skill of the leader. When leadership takes the time to discuss in the beginning the reasons the team has come together; when they clearly identify rules of engagement with a  commitment to the team members and purpose , and model communication and effective conflict resolution…teams move on to perform incredible feats.

The business world we live in is not the same as it was several years ago. As owners and professionals attempt to make sense of a changed landscape, diversification has been a common tactic. For many this may make sense, for others in their attempt to meet every need they have become so diversified that they no longer have a clear message.

Seth Godin, popular author and blogger: 

“Pick the biggest market you can successfully dominate, the biggest slice where you can get through the Dip and be seen as the best in that world. If you can become number one in your niche, you’ll get more than your fair share of profits, glory, and long-term security.”    

The enemy of FOCUS is fear of loss.

 Often used in conjunction with the term abundance, is the common misnomer “Everyone is my prospect.”  Yet no matter how good you are and how much what you offer is used by the general  public, it is true that some people will like you and some people won’t.

Consider these:

Focus: Where do you provide the most value? What makes you unique? 

Market: All the prospects you could serve.
Market Segment: A segment is a portion, a particular group within your potential prospects that share similar characteristics.

Ideal Prospect: The best potential prospect for your purpose.
Value Proposition: A stance on how you provide value and what makes you unique, combined with the needs of the prospect that can most benefit from what you provide, AND can reward you profitably for providing this VALUE!

Success is in finding those who will like you.

It’s hot. It’s rainy. The kids are getting restless as the time to go back to school approaches and so are the parents. Business owners have been playing phone tag around summer vacations, and long weekends. In Florida, on August 23rd that will all change and everything will begin to get back to normal. At least that is what many people will tell themselves. Once we get back from vacation, once the kids get back in school, once Labor Day weekend is over…

Not everyone can ride a wave...

If your business only runs well during normal, you are looking at a brief 7-8 weeks before Halloween gets here and then Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving everyone will be waiting to make decisions at the start of the New Year. In the beginning of the year it will take a couple weeks for everyone to get back in the swing of things after a long break. Then again, there will be a brief 7-8 weeks before Spring Break and Easter Holidays disrupt normal business.  Somewhere after Spring Break we have another 7 weeks or so before graduations, weddings and summer vacations kick in again.

21 weeks of normal sounds ridiculous! Yet we didn’t count tradeshows, CEU’s, national holidays or all the other things that business works around. We didn’t even consider the fact that many businesses don’t even get ready for those 21 weeks during their “off times”, but wait until everything is back to normal to get ready to do business as normal.

“So what do I do about this,” you wonder?

“I have enough challenges from recent economic turbulence to only have 105-120 normal working days.”

 Moving past normal takes an understanding of seasons. A season in business is much like surfing. If you wait until the wave is here to get ready to ride…You are too late! In between waves, when things are little slower is when you paddle out to be ready. Days when there are NO waves are days for servicing your board, or possibly cross-training to master other skills that might be beneficial to your success.

Consider moving past normal and getting ready to catch the wave!

Although it is still HOT, and it is still Rainy and not everyone is in their office everyday; consider being strangely different. Consider moving past normal and getting ready to catch the wave!

Check out growing your Business!

Every so often I really am tempted to have someone just take care of the yard for me. (That does not mean that everyone reading this with a landscape business should call me.) Because, if someone else took care of it, I would miss out on all the important stuff I am supposed to learn through the experience of getting out there. For those who have received my newsletter in the past, you have read about butterflies, weeds, micro-climates and a host of other yard related topics. Well this week it’s about potato vine or kudzu. Let me explain what I mean.

Looks Beautiful!

A number of years ago we built a new house on a wooded lot, a heavily wooded, previously un-cleared or ever mowed au-natural lot. This gave us a head start on that Florida landscape, that Sunken Gardens’ look that I love. It also gave us some interesting plants…like potato vine. If you are unsure what this is, think of driving on I-75 and those beautiful vines that fill the wooded sides of the road. That is what the back third of our lot looked like, with some beautiful native plants that we wanted to keep and some palmettos and palms…so we cleared this by hand.

This week working in my backyard, I realized that it is just like some of the other areas of my life. I may have been eating well, exercising, and taking my supplements or maybe I have been pursuing personal development by reading or maybe I have made a commitment to manage my finances more diligently and have been more careful in my spending. However, maintaining these habits is more than 21 days to a different life.  21 days is a start, but real lifelong development of behavior means periodically checking in to make sure that there are no little pieces of that old weedy behavior trying to rear its ugly head.

I am still clearing by hand! Now it isn’t what it was. But I still have to be diligent, I still have to get out there and rescue the palmettos from this lovely, encroaching, invasive vine that would take over the world if there were not people like me. Although this vine has less of a hold on my yard year after year, like my life and the things that are important to me…auto pilot is not an option.  Have you checked in lately to see how your garden is doing?

“Not me,” you say. I work in customer service; I would never be in sales. Or me either, I’m a preschool teacher, or an auto mechanic or bank teller or a nurse or a doctor or anything…but don’t tell me it is sales!

When you are a kid and someone asks you what you want to be, few people answer, “When I grow up I want to be a salesman.” It just doesn’t seem to be on the top of the list along side ballerina, football player, and founder of Facebook.

 So I know this isn’t going to be pleasant. I know you don’t want to hear this.

However, everyone is in sales.

Yes, whether you like it or not, you too are in sales; and the sooner you recognize it, the more productive you will be. Because when it comes down to it, a sale is about influence.

If you have children who don’t throw their food on the floor at dinner time, you have made a sale. If your friends ever visit a restaurant you recommend, you made a sale. Making a sale, or having someone buy into a belief that you have shared with them happens all the time. Although this type of sale usually happens without an exchange of money, it is still a sale.

Now, who doesn’t want to be a person of influence when they grow up?

It is not often that you see democrats and republicans agreeing on the issues. However, across the board, Chambers of commerce and other business minded organizations have gotten behind this upcoming Sarasota County School referendum the issue.

They are unified to continue the work that has been started to increase the quality of education in Sarasota County.  They are committed to economic development and understand that the type of enterprise we attract and grow is connected to our commitment to education.

However this election looks like a case study for the effectiveness of social media. There is a contingent from the Republican Party that dissents on this upcoming school referendum and they are good. They are wordsmiths prolifically contributing to the blogosphere. Try and find great content from other than the school board and you have to dig for it, though it is worth the effort.

This means more than ever, that supporters need to not only vote, but to speak up.  We can’t take for granted that enough people will do the right thing.

AND voting is easy. You don’t have to count on your day going great on the 16th. You have two weeks to get out there and vote and to encourage others to join you in renewing Sarasota County’s commitment to education and economic development.  

Early voting will take place from March 1-14, 2010, at the Supervisor of Elections offices in Sarasota, Venice and North Port. The office will be open for early voting from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. on weekdays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. on Sundays. 

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2009 was a challenging year.  Everyone was presented with change of some sort. Yet the challenges presented, did not produce the same results in each person.  How did you respond? Did you jump up and down and embrace change joyfully? Did you initially resist? Are you still resisting? Did you climb back into bed and pull the covers over your head? Did you shut down? Did you do a combination of those things…before embarking on your course of change?

The journey of the hero is one well documented throughout history. All heroes face difficulties and at times they want to quit. Although there may be many characters in the story called your life, we are all a part of a much bigger story. In your story, you are the main character…the hero.  Mentors and traveling companions join will join you on this journey, as well those who could be considered enemies. The journey won’t be easy, yet through adversity and trying situations the hero will survive. During this journey the hero is transformed, accomplishing what they call character development.

Heroes learn to believe that:

• Life is sooooo much bigger than me.
• Each individual has a responsibility to reach toward their best self.
• Each person has a circle of influence, for some that circle is bigger than others.
• Leadership comes from influence.
• Everyone has the potential to be a person of influence
• Becoming the best “ME” allows others to become the “best” of themselves.
• Each of us can make a difference.
• Making a difference happens with one small decision at a time.
• If not me, if I don’t step forward when presented with opportunity, then who?

 During the journey the hero discovers powerful solutions and answers that if he has the courage to return, when he returns, hold the potential to transform/rescue his world. It was Joseph Campbell who was credited for bringing this attention to the Mythic and Archetypal principles embedded in the structure of stories. According to him:

For a human hero, it means achieving a balance between material and spiritual world. There is freedom to live and freedom from the fear of death. This is sometimes referred to as “living in the moment”.

From biography through fiction the hero’s journey captures our imagination and inspires us to dream. If someone were writing the story of your journey, where would you be? In the midst of adversity? Finding your mentor? Returning with the prize? If you are interested in making some edits to your version…go to www.JoyBeyondFreedom.com where you will find a number of resources for your trip.

The New Year is here and the list of things that you are going to do and accomplish is formidable. I applaud you for thinking big. Yet, one of the most common causes for failure is trying to do it all now!

In goal setting with clients, we create a list of all we want to achieve…to experience…to share in the coming year. Then we take a simple one page overview of the year with only the titles of the months on it and divide the objectives from our yearly “to do list” under the titles. There is a desire to want to place most of the items in January…let’s get them done and get them done NOW! However, most of us have heard the question, “How do you eat an elephant?” and know the answer is “One bite at a time!”

This last year has been challenging to most everyone. Whether business has been good or bad, everyone has had to make some changes of some sort. For many the list of changes to incorporate is long. Instead of focusing on how far and how much still needs to be down…talk about an elephant…what one thing could you do today? What one thing would be a good choice today to make the most difference in your life, in your business? And then tomorrow, choose one thing.