Archive for the ‘Inspiration’ Category

Now that I’m settling into my life in Florida, I am really appreciating how at ease I am here and how much I am energized by my surroundings.  I am truly home.  I want others to experience similar tranquility about where they live and how they are living their life.  I also appreciate efficiency and getting the most out of every precious moment we have each day, so I began to ask myself, “What would be the most fundamental, useful and reasonably doable life practices that could help someone be the healthiest, happiest, most fulfilled person possible…especially given the crazy pace of life for so many of us?  How could we have our most robust life?

We’re bombarded with so many ideas on how to be a better, smarter, happier, richer, prettier, healthier – you name it – person….Which way do you turn?  Who do you believe?  Who has exactly the right answer for you?  It can be confusing and overwhelming.  I’ve done a lot of research about a lot of life issues and the conclusion I came to years ago is that I can take in all kinds of good stories and good advice, but it’s only by checking in with myself – keeping communication open with my intuition and my personal values – that I can make sense of all the input in a way that will be useful to me.  Context is key.

So how do we live the life we want, keep our stress low and energy high, and get the most out of each day – both personally and professionally?  I call it maximizing your “daily effectiveness”, and it begins by looking inside, getting clear about your core values and engaging in positive life practices that can be maintained consistently with a small investment of time, thought and intentional action.  Over the coming months I’ll share a variety of tips and resources on how you can increase your daily effectiveness; you decide what feels right for you. 
 
This e-zine comes to you just once a month; if you’d like to learn even more, you can receive my weekly blog posts with additional tips, resources and timely updates by clicking here  to get the RSS feed.  Talk to you again soon!
 
KB

Lately the majority of the media and some politicians have talked over and over about how bad the economy is.  They feed on each other’s comments and replay the same negative quotes repeatedly.  It also feeds people’s fears and focuses our attention on the negative and what’s bad about the economy until it’s all people are talking about – what’s wrong, the threats, and what is not possible.

I’d like to offer a different perspective:

The U. S. Department of Labor reported that in April 2009 the unemployment rate was 8.9 percent.  The combined unemployment and underemployment rate for that month was reported as 15.8 percent.

During the depression of last century the unemployment rate was 25 percent.  We don’t know what the combined unemployment and underemployment rate was – they weren’t measuring underemployment back then.

So let’s look at these statistics from another perspective:  The employment rate during the depression was 75 percent, meaning 75 percent of people who could work were working at some job.

In April 2009, the comparable statistic was 91 percent.  Considering the unemployed and underemployed together, the number of people working in the U.S. in April was 84 percent.  This number represented our potential to achieve, which is still promising.

The economy runs, to a great extent, on the confidence of individuals that if they invest their money in themselves, their property, their business and their savings, their wealth will grow.  It is when people like you and I become gripped by fear and withdraw – our energy, our enthusiasm, our brain power, our hope and our resources – that the economy continues to contract.  If we continually focus on what’s wrong with the situation, we don’t leave much time and energy for creating new possibilities for economic success.

Get Into Action 
You can leverage what you know and do in new, creative ways:

• Connect with fellow entrepreneurs in ways that spark new approaches to what you offer.
• Affiliate with entrepreneurs who are not direct competitors.  Refer business to each other for a small affiliate fee.  As long as you are doing this for a colleague whose work you know and trust, this is ethical and helpful to the customer, as well.
• Joint venture with another business to bring fresh products or innovative services to the public. 

All these strategies are win-win-win – good for you, good for your fellow entrepreneur, and good for the greater community.  Keep your mind focused on the abundance you do enjoy – remember that what you focus on expands and when you write down your goals you are more likely to achieve them.  Brainstorm it, envision it and do it!

If you would like more information on how this leveraging works, contact my team at info@RobustLifeCoaching.com.

…you’re in for a treat.  In keeping with the theme of looking at the upside of the economy and how to capitalize on it, I suggest you take a look at Blue Ocean Strategy — How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.  The fundamental concept of the book is that a business can choose to compete in a “red ocean” market, head-to-head with its competitors with the same products or services, or a business can create new products or services by combining ideas from diverse markets, thereby operating in a “blue ocean” with little or no competition.

A prime example is a group of entrepreneurial street performers that in 1984 took the idea of a typical circus like Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, combined it with the aspects of a dance company such as Pilobilus, and created Cirque du Soleil.  According to Chan and Mauborgne, this blue ocean enterprise has been seen by “almost forty million people in ninety cities around the world.”  And they are still going strong.  When I was in Las Vegas this spring, Cirque du Soleil was running six shows simultaneously throughout the city.

The book is well organized and easy to skim for key concepts if you don’t have time for the full read right now, but I highly recommend you do read it cover to cover when time permits.

Get Into Action 
Make a list of the products or services you currently offer.  Make a second list of all your talents and skills, whether they relate to your current business or not.  Now put those lists side by side, pour yourself your favorite festive beverage, turn off your phone and computer, and think about links between items on the two lists that have blue ocean potential.  It can be fun and fruitful to do this with a friend/colleague – together you can stir up quite a brainstorm, including ideas for joint ventures!