by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Mar 27, 2013 | Delegation, Guest Blogger, Virtual Assistant
Have you ever watched popcorn pop?
It appears to be doing nothing and suddenly a loud burst and a hard kernel turns white and fluffy and jumps into the air! Then others begin to follow and the bursts become more frequent. Then the popping gets faster and louder and suddenly you have gone from a handful of kernals to a bowl of popcorn!
My brain works la lot like a popcorn popper. I can be in meetings, in the middle of conversations, reading, watching television or sound asleep and suddenly it as if someone has turned up the heat and the ideas start popping. …Fun but hard to follow – sometimes even for me!
Many times in my life I’ve sat in meetings and had so much popcorn flying around in my brain that it was hard to sort out and articulate it in a way that others could follow. (It can also be hard to listen to others with all of the popcorn flying around!)
Over-time I learned that in order for those kernels to mean anything to anyone else, I need to create bite-sized popcorn balls before I shared them.
• For me that means pulling those kernels from my brain and writing them down.
• Then thinking through what is there and sometimes just letting it sit for awhile.
• It means researching and reading, and listening, thinking and then “balling” the perfect kernels.
• Doing all of that takes time.
• But it helps me turn mountains of data and stories into something meaningful.
• In that process I learn and grow and am better equipped to help others.
As a small business owner I’ve learned that spending my time in that space is one of the most important things I can do. And as a result I’ve decided to hire a Virtual Assistant so that I can stay focused on listening, learning, sorting and “balling”!
Shortly after I made that decision, I read this article about Einstein. Wow! What a powerful way to reinforce that decision!
So tell me: In your position what should you spend more time on?
Guest post via:
Chery Gegelman, President
Giana Consulting LLC
Chery helps individuals and organizations seek truth, connect dots, solve problems and amplify their potential. She is a co-author of the Lead Change book “The Character-Based Leader.”
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 1, 2013 | Guest Blogger, Life Thoughts, Organization
Your parents are requiring more and more time as they age. You’re working on having a new sort of relationship with your adult children. Your vacation is coming up and you haven’t quite figured out how to manage your business and still relax while away. Your business is at a key stage and you want to spend more time in it.
You’re overwhelmed by all of this change. You know it, but you don’t know what to do about it.
Your First Two Steps
1. Rearrange your time and your work:
What do YOU want from the time you’re spending with parents/adult children? What do THEY want? These might be different, so think about this first.
How much time per week or month do your parents need? What percentage of your work time is this? Are there other ways to arrange their time to make it more convenient for you? Is there work you can take with you while you’re waiting on appointments? (Be careful of working too much while you’re with them; it’s also very nice to have this time together, so balance this carefully.) Are you possibly doing too much; it’s worth looking at it.
Get the idea here? Use this approach for your parents as well as for your adult children and the new relationship you want to have with them. Look at your time differently, and look at your work tasks differently. Reorganize to fit a new time commitment; don’t try to use the old ways to fit the new commitments you’ve made.
2. Forget about the future for awhile.
Too much future thinking is overwhelming. And with these life changes happening, the overwhelm quotient is going to be higher.
The key question here is: What’s important to you now? That’s “now” versus “not now.” That’s the only decision, for now. That’s what to fill your calendar with.
Your vacation is in three weeks. Block time in the next few days to review the status of each project and client, even if this has to be done on personal time, because this helps you get away on vacation with a calmer mind.
Identify which steps/tasks have to be completed before vacation. Not completed projects, but steps or stages of the project. Don’t use vacation as a deadline to force yourself to complete more than is really necessary, just because it’s an easy deadline.
This is the “I can’t leave for vacation unless these are done” tasks. These are the truly important priorities. To keep the focus, mark these in some way that’s clear and obvious when you review your daily goals.
Block working sessions right on your calendar, so you know for sure that you’ve protect time for these priorities. Once this is done, step back for a minute; are you overcommitting at all? Is it possible? Remember that crises happen, so plan buffer time for people coming at you at the last minute, clients not realizing right away how long you’ll be gone and needing something before you’re out, and so forth. The puzzle of your time must have white space.
Changes interrupt our lives. Change is change, whether it’s a welcomed change or one foist upon you. Accept that things are changing; that’s a key first step. And then reorganize to work through it.
Guest Post Courtesy of
Sue West
Certified Organizer Coach®
Certified Professional Organizer®
In Chronic Disorganization
ADHD Specialist
Do you have enough time for you? Enough time for what’s becoming more important to you? Sue’s clients do and because she’s an organizing coach, her approach is practical.
Her specialties are organizing through change, ADHD and time management. Her clients have called her: insightful, wise, inspiring, filled with hope, gentle yet productive. Sue works privately, by phone or in person and is also the author of Organize for A Fresh Start: Embrace Your Next Chapter in Life, a book about reorganizing your stuff, your home and your time to move onto your next chapter in life. Get to know Sue by signing up for her blog, visiting her on Facebook, or signing up for her newsletter.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jan 15, 2013 | Goals, Guest Blogger
After reading one of our recent posts regarding goal setting, Allison Morris reached out to me and asked if I would like to share this post and infographic with my readers. It is a powerful image with stats that speak volumes about the importance of not only setting goals, but writing them down and taking action!
Is 2013 the year you reach your goals, or is 2013 the year you’ll set your goals?
While January always brings us the promise of a new year, business people everywhere have to set goals constantly. Explicitly writing down your goals makes them almost ten times easier to achieve, but only 20% of goal setters ever write down their goals. And the results are astounding: In a survey of Harvard University MBA graduates about goals, only three percent of exiting students had clear, written goals. More than 85% of the graduates had no particular goal. Ten years later in a follow up interview, the goal setters who had written down their goals were earning ten times the amount of the other 97% of graduates. The proof is in the pudding: it’s time to write down your goals.
Employees and business owners alike would benefit from writing down their goals. Other helpful hints for making sure you achieve anything resolve are: don’t set your goals alone, don’t try to do too much extremely quickly, and write your goal down. These simple steps can help set you and your business up for year-round success. Be serious, be precise, and have a plan of action to implement steps to surmount any milestone. Successful people set achievable goals, while eight in ten people complain that their life lacks an overall goal. Dare to be different and more focused this year.
Check out the infographic below, by OnlineEducation.net, for more information about who sets goals, who achieves them, and how your business can benefit from your resolution.
Where do you want to be? How far do you want to go? Since you are in the driver’s seat, it is your choice.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 12, 2012 | Guest Blogger
For those of you who don’t know me, I own a tiny Canadian food manufacturing company. We make all natural and organic as well as fair trade certified food products for general consumption, specializing in Fresh Pepper Sauces.
So, when Suzie asked for something that would be useful information for business people to improve their business skills, etc. I thought, what better way to improve one’s business than to improve their lives. So, I sat down to write such an article.
Here’s what I wrote…
How to Increase your Bottom Line and in so doing Rescue the Economy by Changing your Eating Habits
A loud refrain during the latest Presidential election was all about creating jobs in order to help the economy. Both sides trumpeted how it was going to happen. But nobody really presented a solution that seemed workable at the John Q Public level.
As an outsider looking in, it seems pretty obvious to me that the easiest way to fix the economy is to improve the productivity of those employers who are already feeding the economy, lower their bottom lines and they’ll quite naturally invest further in their company feeding the coming economic boom.
Follow my train of thinking here.
75% of business owners are single proprietorships. That means that you as a single business owner, really are the economy. The better your business does, the better you do.
So, how do you do better?
Well, for starters, if you aren’t already there, get healthy. And I don’t mean go out there and start an exercise regime, although, exercise is a very valuable part of it, I mean start eating right.
According to the most naturally holistic meal programs going, the best thing you can do for your body is to eat the best quality food you can afford. That means, eliminating all chemicals whose traces may be left in your food and eating a balanced meal, eliminating GMO ingredients and irradiation by eating foods you’ve grown yourself or which are monitored such as organic certified food in balanced meals.
What’s a balanced meal? well, according to Livestrong.com Five servings of fruits and vegetables, 2 proteins and 50% of what you eat should be carbohydrates. Ideally you’d want to turn as many of your red meat dishes a week into another protein; fish, chicken, pork, eggs, cheese, beans, nuts, etc. So you’d take a bowl/plate about the size of what you’d eat. 50% of should be rice or pasta or bread. 1/4 of it should be fruits and vegetables and 1/4 of it should be proteins.
Figuring out how much to eat is going to depend on each person, if you really want to go to the extreme, you can hire a dietician to help you create a specific diet or you can go all loosey goosey and just eat when hungry, as I do.
Avoid fat, high fructose corn syrup and salt, and eat chilli peppers; as hot as you can stand.
Why chilli peppers? Well, in 2000, the University of Laval published findings that 200 calories were burned per day through the simple practice of ingesting chili peppers. These studies have since been replicated by an American University and a Japanese one. Eating chillies lowers your caloric load. Seems a no-brainer to me.
However you do it, know, that the healthier you eat, the less you will weigh. And personally eliminating the obesity epidemic will go a long way to contributing to your financial bottom line.
Here’s how.
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| Peppermaster Hummus Dip |
It is a proven fact that the more overweight, or obese a person, the less productive they are and the more medical intervention they require. The numbers of chronic diseases increase with excess weight; Type II Diabetes, heart disease, cancers, and other problems. Interestingly, obesity has also been implicated in creating a higher risk for accident in the workplace. All of these things combine to create a financially detrimental atmosphere. Insurance premiums are higher, direct health costs are higher since chronic conditions tend to cost the patient not their insurance plans and overall productivity is lower through lower output as well as higher use of sick leave. So, it behooves the small business owner to get healthier and improve their bottom line.
Interestingly, though, you can actually improve your bottom line by instigating a company-wide health and diet plan, as a business expense. Since the larger your workforce, the higher your insurance premiums — and I mean that in the size of the waistlines. You can shrink your waistlines and shrink your insurance premiums. You can also lower the direct costs related to the health problems as well; because as you get healthier, you require fewer prescriptions or direct health care costs.
So you see, if you get healthier, lose a little weight, the whole economy benefits.
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Tina Brooks, VP Marketing, co-owner Brooks Pepperfire Foods
Tina is a retired Financial Advisor, currently working in sales and marketing with her husband and Peppermaster, Greg Brooks. When not working with their food manufacturing company, Tina runs a successful private Tarot reading practice from a tiny specialty food shop in Rigaud, Quebec, Canada.
You can find Tina posting as @Pepperfire on Twitter and on Facebook.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Aug 8, 2012 | Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger
And One More Thing… Be In 2 Places At Once by Clemens Rettich
Every small business owner, regardless of what goals they are dreaming of must do two seemingly contradictory things: focus on the future, and be completely in the present.
You cannot be successful in growing a small business if you do not keep your eyes on the future. You know where you are going, or go nowhere. You must create your own future as much as you can, or live a future created by others.
You must also be fully present or miss everything that matters right now. You will run off a cliff because you were too busy looking at the sky. Each moment you are not present for, you will not live at all.
So how do you focus on the future and live in the present? How do you plan and execute simultaneously? How do you remain grounded and fly at the same time?
The answer lies in the concept of the Great Performance. A Great Performance in sports or the performing arts is based on 3 fundamentals that business owners could learn a lot from.
Practice for 10,000 hours.
Being really good at planning for the future and at acting with intelligence in each moment is the product of one thing: experience.
10,000 hours of experience.
This has implications for growing a small business.
You must have the resources to be patient. If you create a financial plan that has you hitting maximum net income in 24 months, and you are betting the existence of your business on that timeline, you could be in trouble. Make sure you have the resources to go the distance.
Master The Script
Great performers spend the time between performances practicing the fundamentals of their discipline over and over and over again. They rehearse the script or score or choreography until they have absorbed what matters on a cellular level.
In growing a small business this means:
- Write a simple story. Create a simple and compelling vision for what next year, or the next decade looks like. If it is longer than a page, shorten it.
- Master the five fundamentals: finances, human resources, marketing, operations, and management. Read, attend seminars, and take courses. When you come across a gap in your understanding make a note of it and look it up.
- Build a team. We talk about the team in business a lot. Drive it deeper by thinking ensemble or band. A band is incomplete without a drummer. An orchestra is incomplete without a brass section. In your business focus on developing specialists each with a set of skills required for a whole Great Performance.
- Embed everything. Commit to the two fundamentals of great operations: publishing and training. Write everything that matters down. Then train, meet, talk, rehearse, practice, and train some more. Recording what matters embeds it into the documents of your business. Training and practice embed it in the people of your business.
Let Go
When your 10,000 hours are up, and if you have spent them in learning, recording, and practicing, it is time to let go. Letting go involves trusting yourself and your team enough not to over-think the details, to micro-manage, or study threats and opportunities to death. Act.
Trust and be present. Show up clear and rooted in the present, not weighted or distracted by the past, or fearful of the future.
There are 4 components of letting go a business owner must tend to.
- The never-ending conversation. Great business owners don’t ever stop learning through conversation. They talk to everyone and listen to everything. The experienced business owner connects those thousands of points of information or the energies of thousands of relationships to her decisions in subtle and nuanced ways.
- The never-ending dues. You are never too good or too old to acknowledge your debts, to invest in more learning, to continue your practice, or plan your next step. At the letting go stage the practice focuses on deeper skills of leadership and communication; the planning is more strategic than tactical.
- The conductor’s baton. Put down your violin and pick up the baton. The orchestral conductor is concerned with the success of the performance. Her job is to be present to the largest picture possible: the performance of the entire piece, the experience of the audience, and the energies and dynamics of a 2-hour performance. I tell my clients that if they are spending more than 30% of their time focusing on operational concerns, we have not yet reached the stage of letting go and must continue to work towards that.
- The continuous present. This is the heart of mastering the Great Performance in business: the ability to see the whole performance, the past, present and future of your business as one single point. That is the true resolution of the question “How do you live in the moment and plan for the future?”
Business leaders who have earned this position see the details on the shop floor and the strategic objectives for the year as the same thing. Both are the product of one vision and a consistent culture. They don’t see yesterday’s economic news and tomorrow’s plans to enter a new market as isolated points. They deeply understand their intimate relationship.
The future is the natural extension of things done right in the present. The present is the only place where real decisions can be made and real action taken. It is in the present that the vision for the future is created. The future is the present anticipated.
The greatest performances come from a place of understanding you cannot control everything. The weather happens. Period. You trust you have the foundations to make the best of whatever happens. And if you don’t, that is not a problem for the future; it is a problem for right now.
Guest Author: Clemens Rettich
Business Coach, Writer & Workshop Leader
Twitter: @ClemensRettich
Clemens Rettich Business Consulting Ltd.
Designing for Great Management & Business Growth
Follow his blog: Small Business Fundamentals
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jul 8, 2012 | Guest Blogger
The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit.
He must be quick to break those habits that can break him – and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires. – J. Paul Getty ::
I found this quote as I was reading Jack Canfield‘s book The Success Principles. . . It was interesting to learn that 90% of our behavior is habitual. 90 percent!
“What ever habits you currently have established are producing your current level of results.”
This is such a simple idea. How many of us have areas in our lives that could use more productive habits? I think the most intimidating thing when recognizing something needs changing is knowing what to do next. There is no manual for our specific needs, wants or dreams and how to achieve them . . . or is there?
If you want to be a chef – where do you start? In the kitchen right? You buy recipe books and spend your free time buying the tools. You start baking, cooking and learning how to become a gourmet chef until you can produce a 5 course meal for 6 people in your sleep.
Regardless of where you need more productive habits – I think the success habits you are searching for can be found when you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, from short term to larger long term goals, and consistently performing the actions necessary to reach them.
“Success is a matter of understanding and religiously practicing specific, simple habits that always lead to success.” – Robert J. Ringer, Author of Million Dollar Habits
One great take away from my reading of Principle 34 . . . “Good or bad, habits always deliver results.” How true!
Below are 7 ways I have helped myself reach my goals. I sure hope they help inspire you!
Success Habits : 7 Ways to Reach Your Goals
- Start with identifying the most important specific things you are doing that need improvement.
- Go through your list and come up with at least 3 alternative actions for each item that could help you change the bad habits.
- On note cards (or on the note pad on your phone), write out each specific thing that needs improvement with the alternative actions. Each day review these actions – over breakfast, waiting in line at the grocer, Lunch . . . when ever you have time to review them. Knowing where you can improve and learning an alternative response that then becomes a success habit takes time.
- Have 100% commitment to your goals. Stand firm and don’t give in. . . you are the most persuasive person when you don’t want to do something, are too tired, or don’t have enough time. Stick with it. Results take time.
- Stay motivated. Read books & blogs by people that inspire you. Subscribe to magazines, take classes, reach out to and find a mentor. Go through your social networks and create the environment you need to achieve your goals. That means unfriending or friending, unfollowing or following until you have the right balance for each social network you use on a daily basis. Each network is a unique environment. Because so many use social sites on a daily basis – making your online experience one that will help you stay motivated, positive and on task is up to you!
- Drink plenty of water. I know some of you are asking – “What the hell does this have to do with success habits?” Well, let me tell you. Water plays a vital role in healthy brain function. So put down that soda, tea or coffee and make a commitment to drink half your body weight in ounces daily. How can you develop your new success habits if you can’t focus?
- Review your results regularly. If you start to see that your new success habits are producing the results you had hoped for *woo hoo! Congratulations! It’s time for you to add a new goal to your list. If not, it’s time to review your alternate actions that you came up with (# 2) and hit reset. Just because you didn’t see the results you wanted with one action – it doesn’t mean that the situation is hopeless and success can’t be yours.
In an article published in the European Journal of Social Psychology in July of 2009, researchers stated that “The time it took participants to reach 95% of their asymptote of automaticity ranged from 18 to 254 days; indicating considerable variation in how long it takes people to reach their limit of automaticity and highlighting that it can take a very long time.” So if you want to banish bad habits – be patient and stay committed!
I have to say that Jack Canfield has some amazing FREE resources over at The Success Principles to get you started on your new success habits!
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Share the success habits you have developed!
How do you stay motivated to reach your goals on a daily basis?
Thank you to Danielle Hatfield for submitting this post. Danielle is proud to be the Chief Dirt Digger at Experience Farm, the Community Manager and Editor of Linking Triad, Managing Partner of Linking Greensboro, and that chick who is responsible for hatching @gsotweetup. You can also follow the wonderfully incredible Danielle on Twitter @dhatfield.
