No One Climbs Everest Alone - And Lives To Tell About It

That's right.  Oh I am sure there are a few stories of some body who did not need any body - and who set out to scale the toughest mountain ever to climb - alone.  But if you can give me an example of anyone who did so without the help of anyone at all - I will award them the 'super-hero' award - along with all the others who were awarded posthumously for dying to do something alone.

That's right - "dying" - because they were too proud, too independent, too controlling to ask for or accept any help from those who offered or who could help.

Chances are though if you are like me, it is not that we cannot afford to ask for help or delegate - it is just we do not do it.  Plain and simple.  We have never tried it, measured how much money it might save us, or looked at the time we could be spending focusing on what we do best.  In addition, we fail to build that all important support team around us who can support us and assist us by doing things that we are not so good at or that take too much of our attention away from our 'core genius'.

Two weeks ago, I decided as the time management guru - that I would begin to follow some of my own advice. (Imaging that!) I also put my hands on a new technique called the two minute time management solution.  And I made the decision to delegate some of the tasks that were causing me grief.

I booked everything into my calendar including meals, meditations and exercise time, and in addition I tried something new.  I booked everything into four days instead of five.  I booked Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays off.  For me that was a first!  Most who know me would be shocked.  And finally I took a few related tasks that were not getting done but were causing me great stress - and delegated them.

As a result, something very interesting happened.  I began to get everything done on my list and more. More importantly - I got more writing done than I had in the past four weeks together.  ( I love to write)   And when Friday came, I had no guilt about taking a free day off.  I did not worry about phone calls.  I did not worry or even look at emails.  I puttered around the house, doing some much needed cleaning, some baking, had a nap and even listened to a great audio book.

In the end - I actually accomplished more last week than I have for months.  When I focused on what I do well - and delegated other activities to the team - I actually became happier and more productive. And I had a much deserved rest so that I was able to start the week refreshed and full of new ideas and strategies.

When I tried to build the business alone - it was like setting out to scale Mount Everest - without getting the right advice, assistance and support that I needed.  No wonder I was 'dying' and that business was suffering.  My ego had overtaken my common senses and I had insisted that I do it alone.  (Control freak!)

Next time you decide to do it all yourself, remember how many people actually have to support the climber to get to the top of Mount Everest.  There are often 12 people supporting one person to get to the top.  No ones does it alone.  They may die trying - but that seems like a pretty big price to pay just because we were afraid to ask or insisted we could not afford to have someone else do it for us.

If you are looking for administrative support, coaching or marketing support for your business - be sure to check out the trusted services available here: http://www.roaringwomen.com/business_services.php

Knock, knock. Hellooooo! Is anybody home?

We all live very busy lives - and most of us agree - it is often too busy!  And so it is very common to call someone at home or work and get an answering machine.

...." Press 1 .... Press 2...to access the company directory, Press 3...to leave a number you can be reached at ..enter it now.." 

In fact in this high tech world - we even have our emails send direct messages letting others know we received their email - and we will answer it within the next 48 hours.

But how often have we received a message in person and given out a recorded answer?  How often are we focused on what has happened - or  are worrying about what is going to happen - or even thinking about what is happening somewhere else instead of just being in the "present moment"

I know I lived my life mentally planning for 10 minutes, 15 minutes and maybe even 2 days later while still 'functioning' at a local level.  The result?

Missed conversations - "did I really say that?"  Mis-communications - "did you really say that?"  Missed opportunities - "I didn't see that!"  

I was not living in the 'present'.  You could say that I was 'not all there'! (no one was home)

But the most unfortunate thing that happens when we live somewhere outside the moment is that we cannot offer the world our gifts and talents.  They stay buried beneath the worries and thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow.

Each one of us plays a significant part in the expansion and growth of the world and in other people's lives.  We are all connected in thought and in energy - and when one of us is not 'present' in the moment - the chain of energy and information is muffled or in some cases broken.

Secondly - when we are not present - we are not connected to 'spirit' or a greater spirit which guides us.  We are not 'inspired'. (being in spirit) Inspiration can bring us great ideas, lead us down paths we may not have traveled and prompt us to interact with others for special purposes.

So when we are not living in the present moment - we miss those great opportunities to bless others and be blessed by others.  I learned a difficult lesson from one of my children whom I always thought I had been  'there' for.  She said to me "Mom you were there in body, but you were always busy doing other stuff - and it was hard to get your attention".  The other stuff I was doing was 'thinking' - about past or future - but I was not in the moment.

How do we 'stay present?'

Staying present takes a little practice - but it really isn't that hard to do.  Every morning I now take 20 minutes to meditate - and remain in the present - before I create my day.  For many 'meditation' seems like a 'woo-woo' thing to do - or it may seem quite daunting.  I know I was afraid of it - because I did not understand it.

If you don't meditate - take five minutes several times a day - and reground yourself.  Breathe deeply.  Listen to your breath going in and out of your chest.  Smell your surroundings.  Touch the table or chair you are sitting on and focus on how it feels.  Scan your body - and feel the energy that flows through each toe, each finger, your arms and legs - and listen careful and you will hear you heart beat.  Doing this will bring you back to the here and now.

Now take a look at the miracle that we call life.  When you are grounded and living in the present - chances are that when anyone calls your name - they are likely to get YOU and not your 'internal answering machine'!

No yesterdays are ever wasted for those who give themselves to today.  ~Brendan Francis

Gratitude - the only choice

Just recently I began keeping a gratitude journal.  Until them I never realized how important a role gratitude played in our well being.

It's funny, when we focus on what we do have - and not what is missing - our entire outlook changes.

For example, I began to focus on how great a mood my husband was in and how kind he had been lately.  It had been a long time since I had seen him smile so much.  And the more I noticed it - the happier he seemed to be - and more often!  Hmmm, I thought - maybe this is the key?

So when I sat down to do my bills, I began to get excited that I could pay each one.  And believe it or not I even hurried one day to the post office so I could get the payment in the mail before it went out that day.   Within hours, I received two unexpected jobs come in - that equaled the payment I had just made and more!

So yesterday I looked back.  After completing about 3 weeks of daily recording all the great things that were happening in my life, I realized how lucky and blessed I really was. 

Gratitude is the greatest form of love.  When we focus on what we have - and we are thankful, we are sending out the highest form of energy that exists.  For me it is becoming very exciting.  I have started looking at all the little (and big) things that I have taken for granted for many years.

What we think upon grows.  And even though I have a vision for the future - I can now move forward instead of with impatience -  with gratitude!  It's a much more peaceful place to be!

Have you ever looked in the mirror and said.....

Have you ever just looked into the mirror and spoken to yourself?  Oh yeah - we all do it at one time or another.  It doesn't mean we are "nuts", (ok, maybe just a little) it just shows though, that we are constantly communicating with ourselves. (Some more often than others!)

Some of us may sing or dance - but often we use the mirror to find the little imperfections.

We go looking for a stray little black chin hair, or we examine our hair loss, freckles, double chin and any other flaw that needs to be fixed.  And we talk to ourselves. 

"You see - you are fat - just look!".  "Who were you to think you could become a famous dancer?"  "Wow, I wish the wrinkles would disappear".  "Now that was a dumb move".  Which one of us has not said at least one of these things to ourselves?

Last week I attended Jack Canfield's 7 day Train the Trainer event in San Diego.  One of the exercises we were tasked with was to look in the mirror every evening and tell ourselves what we appreciated about ourselves.

Sounds easy huh?

The technique may be as old as the hills - but how many of us really do it?  How many of us can look in the mirror and without cracking a smile can tell ourselves that we appreciate ourselves and name the things we appreciate? 

In my world - I was so busy trying to 'one up' myself and always do something bigger and better that I failed to recognize the achievements and the talents I had.  I even refused comments and praise for helping someone on their business journey.   I was never good enough for me.

It took me six days of the feared mirror exercise to realize that I had achieved great things - and then to say them out loud.  In my mind up until that point nothing had been quite good enough.  

My little voice constantly berated my achievements and sabotaged my self image. There were never enough people at the event, or she already had that answer inside her - I really did not help her much -  were constant thoughts.

What would it take for me to feel like I had achieved something great? 

Would making a lot of money make me feel like I was a success?  Was it fame that might make me feel like I was enough?

Then I realized - it was neither of those.  My success - my enough-ness was all about accepting my gifts and my shortcomings - and focusing on how I managed and used the gifts I was given.

If a surgeon performs heart surgery on a movie star - and becomes famous as a result - is that man any more of a success than a the lady next door who helped the senior citizen carry their groceries in?

Living our purpose and making a difference in one person's life is all it takes to become successful.  And the bigger success yet - is acknowledging the greatness inside you - and then using all of it to make a difference in our own lives and in the lives of others.

I know now that even the smallest of my talents, offered to the world in love and service - will start a revolution that may change the world!  Now that's success!

The most successful words of all will always be "I am - good enough!"

Welcome to the future!

When I was a child I was shocked to hear my teachers explain that we only used 10% of our brains for cognitive thought. Where would we store any more information if we filled it up? Then, several years ago I learned that information that used to take years to change is now becoming obsolete in less than 3 months - and that is a conservative estimate. Many experts are now saying information of technical nature is redundant in less than 6 weeks!

Today we are on information overload – and yet we crave more of it. It is almost impossible to know ‘all that is out there’ about any particular subject. In the movie “What the Bleep do we know”, quantum physicists and philosophers agreed that the information really is not ‘out there’ but in fact we already have it. It is available to us at all times – without consciously trying to find it. Let me explain.

I have often compared our bodies to cell phones. We use cell phones everyday without full understanding of how we send out packages of information. No wires, no tangible proof that information has been sent sometimes to someone half way around the world. And yet the information arrives there. However, if one cell phone is turned off - the information cannot not be transmitted.

There is much talk in the scientific and holistic circles that would indicate that our minds and bodies work exactly the same way. We give off information and energy, as does everything and everyone around us. If we are open and turned on- we receive information all day, everyday. The trick is now to allow our brains time to process the information- and give it back to us in a form we can understand and use. This ability is available to everyone – and it is incredibly powerful.

I believe that we have left the information age - and have entered the intuitive age. We have only just begun to understand the power of our mind, heart and spirit, and the merging of the three. We have long known that we only use a fraction of our brains. But we also know that there is so much information ‘out there’ that it is virtually impossible to ‘learn’ it all. So we must begin to understand how to employ the intuitive sense that we have had all along and learned over time to ignore. (How ever do you think ‘quantum physics’ or the micro chip was developed)

Our intuition involves assimilating information - some of it as old as time, without reading writing or ‘thinking hard’. Our brains are such powerful tools that if only we learn to master – will provide us with all the information that we need to achieve whatever it is that we want to achieve. How is it that some people predict things that will happen, or understand situations that others cannot? It is the power of the intuitive – the mind at work. If you add the power of intuition and the assimilation of knowledge not seen-to the mastery of our thoughts- there truly is nothing we cannot achieve.


The intuitive age will present us with new techniques for developing our new ‘listening’ skills. Our brains take in information every day through all of our senses and forms packets and files of information that we can have access to. Just like the hidden files in your computer – our brains have similar files that contain valuable data that we can use on our decision making if we only learn to tune into it. So how do we do this?

Consider the entrepreneur that wakes up in the middle of the night with an idea - scratches it down on a piece of paper and develops the idea into a successful business. This is an example of individual allowing their brain to ‘rest’, organize information and assess it until it forms into a packet of information that becomes an idea. What if we could learn to let our brains do this during the day?

It is becoming a very common practice within entrepreneurial circles to rely on our intuitive senses to bring new business, products and services into being. Books are springing up all over with discoveries of new ways to receive information. No crystal balls, no weird incantations or special prayers – simply a call out to the universe for information that we need and the belief that we will receive what is necessary for our success. There is power in listening in solitude and hearing more than words. There is magic in quiet thought. There is much to learn by listening to the sound of nothing.

So take time this month, every day to stop thinking. Let your brain work for you and give it the space it needs to do so. Commit to yourself to accept information it gives you- believe it and act upon it. It is only by trusting that it can work for you that you will experience the benefit of information you have not actively searched out and ‘learned’ the conventional way. And so - enter the intuitive age. (See you there!)

I am so tired of make believe business owners

Maybe it's middle age - but I seem to be doing a lot of ranting lately.

But the amount of 'junk' I hear daily from business owners has me wanting to stir the pot a little - maybe just be honest about how I feel about it.

I mean really - can't anyone be honest any more?

"$200.00 to attend the weekend event? Oohhh I can't afford that". "$45.00 for a meal and a speaker - ohhhh - that's too much".

These are the words coming from the lips of micro business owners - who will always be micro business owners and never make more than just enough to pay the bills. And that is ok if that is where they want to stay.

But these same business owners are the first to whine about not having enough business. These are the business owners who continue to advertise using poor copy - and subsequently spend hundreds on an ad that no one reads or responds to. Or they have a website built from a template that they never update and complain that they are not getting any traffic on their websites.

Yet if you ask them what they want to achieve you will hear them say - next year I want a six figure income.

Not using outdated strategies and penny pinching they won't. In fact they will stay exactly where they are. And that's ok if that's what they want.

But pleeeaaase don't tell me how hard it is to get business when you are not willing to spend money on your business.

And come on! How do you expect to keep up with everyone else when you refuse to invest in yourself and learn new business strategies?

And get real! Do you really want to keep going to the same place month after month, meeting the same people over an over again - talking about the same issues - and making the same money (and mistakes) as you did 15 years ago?

If you really, really want to grow your business invest in yourself. Stop whining. Think from the end.

Yes $200 can be a lot of money. But what if you learned one thing, just one thing that would raise your yearly income by 10 to 20 %? Wouldn't that more than cover the $200?

You know it would be much easier if you were just honest with yourself and the rest of us. Why not just say - "you know I really don't want any more business - I just like to come out to dinner and socialize once a month". Or maybe admit, "I really just enjoy getting paid once in a while for my work - but I really don't want this to be a big business - it's too much trouble and just interferes with other things I would rather do."

Great. I can respect that. But please stop pretending to yourself and the rest of us that you are trying to build your business. If you are unwilling - yes UNWILLING to invest $200 in learning something new then you are not serious about your business.

There I said it. Now let's get some serious work done. Those of you playing at business can go back to your game of make believe.

By the way - we have a great business event in Hamilton October 16th and 17th. Why not join us. But be advised - this is serious stuff. You might even learn something new.

Nickle and diming ourselves to death - Shrinking thinking!

When I was a little girl, I remember my Dad using the expression "nickle and diming ourselves to death". The Beatles were becoming popular, Twiggy was in vogue, my allowance was ten cents a week and I still had a pixie cut!

Over the years I heard that expression may times when my mother and father were shopping, or talking about finances. My understanding was that pinching pennies could put one in the poor house.

Today we understand much more about the universal laws that govern personal finances. I am careful not to fall into scarcity thinking, but also not to carelessly live outside my means as well. It can be a fine balance.

However over the last 12 months, I have watched as business owners became fearful of their financial situation and began to 'cut back' in places where they thought it would help their businesses. Unfortunately, this hurt them more than they may know.

I was at a business dinner last week when I heard someone say, "Hey, why don't we just all meet here for a dinner, order off the menu and save ourselves $15.00. I just shook my head in disbelief.

Why? Many psychological reasons and universal principles come to mind - but logically there is a dollar and cents (sense!) reason.

Had these ladies gotten together for a meeting and all paid their own dinner - it may have cost them $25.00. Unfortunately, according to CRA, only half of that amount can be written off as a business expense. However if they attend a meeting that is catered, the full amount of the ticket is tax deductible. In other words their business can write $40 off (or whatever the ticket cost) against $40 worth of income.

If they had paid for their own meals, they could have only written off $12.50 off of $40 of income - AND they would have had to suck up the other $12.50 as personal expense.

So in other words, someone who 'cheaped' out and paid for a meal instead of attending a meeting spent $12.50 of personal money instead of being able to write it all off on the business!

Not only that, but the ever searching attitude of 'look, look, look, oh let's find it cheaper somewhere else' energetically sets a person or business in a negative process. It is scarcity mentality. It is not expanding and creative thinking - it is negative, penny pinching, shrinking thinking! It will bring us nothing but more need and want and will lead a person into poverty.

Now I know what my dad meant when he talked 'nickle and diming ourselves to death."

BTW, Join us for a great event where business and creativity meet: Rebuilding the Dream - in Hamilton Ontario. Read more here!