Kim

What do high school wrestling and Leap Day have in common with your business

Kim · February 29, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Friday and Saturday I sat through many hours of high school wrestling. My son and several of his wrestling teammates had made it to the state championship tournament. I will admit, and hopefully this doesn’t make me a bad sports mom, but I do not like wrestling one little bit.So, most of the tournament when my son was not competing I spent reading on my Kindle.But some of the time I sat just watching people. You can learn a lot from watching people, especially high school athletes focused on winning. And it reminded me of entrepreneurs.

Some of the kids, mainly the ones who would not compete again on that day, were goofing around as teenagers do. Play-wrestling, doing cartwheels on the wrestling mats during breaks, looking at their smart phones, or just plain old horseplaying with their buddies. Others were intensely focused on their goals. These were the ones with a straight face, a determined expression, ear buds in and attached to their smart phone with some kind of motivating music playing, keeping their muscles warmed up by stretching, jogging or jumping up and down. They seemed oblivious to all the commotion going on around them. Even when they were competing, they seemed not to notice the screams of support and even the occasional boos (directed towards a referee who made an unpopular decision) coming from the stands. Their focus was on one thing and one thing only…overcoming their competition, finding the weakness, figuring out that one move that could set them apart as the champion. (The only time I noticed any of them look away during a match was when they looked toward their coach for some direction.)

And I saw some serious business lessons in all of this. In our normal day, every single entrepreneur out there who is determined to succeed is focusing on their goal, studying their competition, learning the best techniques, keeping their skills sharp and their business muscles warm, ready to jump in when we see an angle that will get us to the next level of business success. And there may be a lot of commotion around us, but we’ve each figured out our ways to focus. For some of us, its music playing loudly in our ears; for others its the crash of waves against the beach nearby; for yet others its total silence that their private office brings. No matter what your thing is that helps you to focus, I know you’ve got it.

If you know what I mean, then I bet you are among the ones who will succeed. You might not win the championship today, or even next week. But you will reach your goals, whatever they may be.

Today is Leap Day. That crazy day that comes around only once every 4 years to catch up the calendar and that gets a lot of laughs when people give a 20 year old a 5th birthday party. But yesterday I realized that today is really a lot more than that! Someone asked a question on Facebook and it really made me think:

Where do you want to be in your life and business when the next Leap Day rolls around? That’s 4 long years. And so much can change in 4 years, its hard to think about sometimes!

So my message to you today is to take some time, reflect on your goals, how will those goals translate into Leap Day 2020? (Wow, 2020!?!) Will you still be in the same boat you are in now, or will your focus and determination take you far beyond what you can even fathom right now.

At the same time, remember that there is more to life than planning for the future. My high school wrestler will be 21 years old when Leap Day comes again. My little boy will be a teenager. And my grandbabies will be in preschool and kindergarten. (And there will likely be more of them!) Between now and then are the important moments that you can never get back no matter how much success you focus on. So hug your babies, enjoy the love of your life, and watch more sunsets or sunrises. Pause, breathe, and enjoy your life as it is now, not just as you hope it will be 4 years from now. That will make the times you focus even better too.

Happy Leap Day!

Did you win the Powerball? If not, read on…

Kim · January 14, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Did your Powerball numbers win? Did you even play?

If not, then you know the only “easy” way to your desired wealth is through planning, using the proper tools and having the right strategy. Oh, and can’t forget hard work! (It can be fun, but its not always easy, sorry.) That financial success you desire IS out there…

Resources to get your biz heading straight in 2016

If you did fall into the Powerball madness, don’t be ashamed. I did too. We threw our hats in the ring yesterday and bought 2 tickets, hoping to wake up this morning as billionaires. Well, reality is that not even one of our numbers matched! lol So I guess I’ll get back to planning for success the “old fashioned way”. First up on this 14th day of January is continuing to plan out my business strategy for this new year, learning new skills and strategy, and constantly improving on my current offerings.

If you are working on your business plans for this year, then you should check out this great package from CoachGlue. It’s an amazing bundle of biz + marketing planners.

This bundle includes these 7 planners:

Cash Calendar: Your 12 Month Marketing + Profit Plan
How to Discover Your Purpose So You Can Love Your Business and Your Life
Planning Your Best Year Ever
Product Creation Planner
Weekly Social Media Planner
Google Hangouts Planner
Weekly Newsletter Planner

The best part of this is that even if you don’t need it for your business plans, you can still use it for your clients! Its rebrandable and you can use these planners (or parts of them) in webinars, workshops, as free offers, and more! They would really add a nice touch to your mastermind program!

Check it out!

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**The links above are affiliate links. Which means that if you make a purchase, I will receive a benefit from your purchase. I only promote products that I use and/or prefer.**

Let’s Get ANTI-social! Remove distractions so you can get in your zone.

Kim · January 19, 2015 · 5 Comments

The 15 Day Freedom Blog Challenge for today is to block distractions! Wow, that’s a hard one. Let’s see…my biggest distractions are the husband, the kid, and the dog. I don’t think there’s an app for any of those distractions! LOL

I already use noise-cancelling headphones to get in my zone with Spotify. I spend my days working hard while jamming away to Lecrae, Toby Mac or the Newsboys usually. That helps to block out most of the distractions around me that I can’t otherwise control.

The dog needing to go outside is ok, because that forces me to take a break now and then. When he gets in a “let’s bark at everything” mood the headphones again save the day.

So the one big distraction for me that CAN be controlled beyond that is Facebook. I don’t know how many times I am truly in the zone and all of a sudden I realize I have just wasted 20 minutes on Facebook. Then I’ll stop and ask myself WHY was I even there? Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don’t. Usually its because I wanted to share something cool, or often because I needed to go to Facebook for a client, either to send a message or to log in as them or post something to their business page. Instead I spot the top item on my newsfeed, and I like it or comment on it or scroll down… well you know the rest of that story!

Hmm…so I can probably find a way to prevent myself going to Facebook at all. Heck, I could do like some folks and just delete my whole account. Lol But that’s not a very good solution when you work online, network with business people ON Facebook and manage dozens of FB business pages like I do! So I guess I should just schedule it all for specific times.

In Natalie’s day 4 video today she mentioned a couple of apps that will block access to social media sites for a set period of time that you decide. I am going to check those out.

1^st up is MacFreedom, which works on Windows and Android as well as a Mac. Looks like it blocks ALL of the internet. Well, that’s not going to work for me at all. So their site says Anti-Social does the same thing but only blocks out social media sites. That may just work!

What distractions keep you from being productive during the day? Even if you are like me and have managed to block out most of the distractions, there is likely still something. What is it and what are you going to do about it?

Using apps in your business and life to improve your productivity

Kim · January 18, 2015 · Leave a Comment

I make pretty good use of apps already. I currently use Gmail for “everything;” even my professional email accounts pull into it. I use my Google calendar for organizing my life and it is synced to my mobile phone because otherwise I will totally forget. My phone is also synced to Facebook events, so if I have said I am going somewhere it puts it on my Google calendar and reminds me!

For my business I use TeamWork. It allows my business manager or me to add and assign tasks, track time, and get reminders when something is coming due.

And of course, my business manager is my greatest help, although she is not an app! Lol 🙂 But she is such a life saver at times.

So after watching today’s 15 Day Blog Challenge video which was all about using apps in your business, I got to thinking it would be nice if TeamWork would sync to my Google calendar, like Natalie’s project management software does. So I got to looking. Sure enough! Not only can it sync to my calendar, but it can also sync to Freshbooks which I use for billing and accounting purposes.

So today’s step is to assign to my business manager the task of helping me get this hooked up. That way the items in TeamWork are being added to my calendar AND sending me reminders on my phone! Win win!

What app are you using or what app will you start using that increases your productivity? Leave a comment below!

What are your most important actions for each day?

Kim · January 17, 2015 · 2 Comments

I am working my way through a couple of challenges. One of them is the 15 Day Blog Challenge. It’s not your usual “just write a post today” challenges. Natalie Sisson gives specific steps for each day that are not only getting me to write a blog post, but are also giving specific steps to building the whole business.

Today’s challenge was on MIA, Most Important Actions. The point was to ask yourself what is the number one most important thing you can do to for your business or your life each week and make that the first item on your list of to-do’s for your work day or any day.

Woman typing

My mind instantly bounced all over this client’s website, that client’s telesummit, and more. BUT it was for MY business…so at this point that is probably just continuing to develop this habit of writing and communicating with my clients. That doesn’t take an hour a day, so I feel like I should add a couple extra items to fill in that hour. So here goes…

My MIA for this week is to spend one hour each morning writing on my blog, working on my newsletter, and/or updating items on my website.

That means a blog post every single day. One newsletter a week. And updates to my website, whether it be contemplating my overall design changes or making changes to copy and adding services.

What is your MIA for today or this week or this month? It’s a vitally important step to getting yourself and/or your business organized. Leave a comment below.

I also challenge you to jump into this 15 day challenge, even if you are doing another challenge as well. We are just a few days into it and there is plenty of time for you to catch up! Even if you take it day by day, you will only benefit yourself and your business by taking on a few of these daily steps. Click here to learn more.