Archive for the Entrepreneurs

Waiting in the very crowded Bare Lounge at the Mirage Hotel last week during a Blog World Expo party, I was standing next to a guy i didn’t know. Naturally we were talking as there was nothing else to do but wait. It was hot and we were thirsty. He never told me his name but he was nice and funny so I didn’t mind. I ended up seeing him wherever I went the rest of the evening but still didn’t know him. That is, until I walked into my first session the next morning on Monetizing Your Blog. There he sat on the panel. Famous Brian Clark, aka CopyBlogger. Brian’s blog is a Technorati top 10 and he recently won the #1 spot of Top Ten Blogs for Writers for the third consecutive year.

I just returned from an 18 day trip last night. My last stop was Blog World Expo ‘08 in Las Vegas. I went to the conference to enhance my understanding of the New Media industry and to learn how to better serve you, my readers, as a writer/blogger. Little did I know of the almost limitless benefits that this little four day trip would bring me. I’m still digesting everything I learned over the past few days and I know I will be for quite some time. However, the one gem of the conference is this:

For several years, I’ve been saddened as the Starbucks, Gaps and Banana Republics of the world take over the mom and pop shops of local neighborhoods. The local charm and personality of every American city has slowly morphed into the same homogenized version so that you can’t really tell whether you’re in Hillcrest or Kansas City. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Starbucks fan right there with the rest of you. (In fact, I really like the book Pour Your Heart Into It, How Starbucks Built a Business One Cup at a Time as one of my favorite quotes about confidence and dealing with uncertainty comes from the author, Howard Shultz, Starbucks founder). However, in general, I’m not a fan of chain restaurants and I’d drive way out of my way on a business trip to experience local personality versus visit the same old Ruth Chris anyday.

Have you ever seriously thought about what you would do with your life if you won the lottery? If your answer is no, then I must ask you, WHY NOT? My prescription for you is to devote some quality time to this question and write a press release about yourself as if you won enough money to live the life of your dreams. I know some of you naysayers are shaking your heads and saying, “Why would I ever waste time working on something I know is unachievable? I’ll do that if and when I actually win”. Well, with that kind of attitude. It likely IS unachievable. But, if you can change you paradigm a bit and work with me here a little, we can have a little fun and develop a plan. Your mission is to visualize your dream life and then work backwords. You just might get closer than you think to your dream life. For example, my highlevel dream if financial resources were unconstrained consists of the following:

Last night, I had the great pleasure to visit with my friend, Kim Crumpler, award winning Style Coach and Owner of Uniquely Savvy based in Seattle. Kim runs her business with one of my favorite life flavors, she uses authenticity in people to help them build confidence in themselves through wardrobe selection. Kim is here in San Diego to attend a Buffini and Company seminar. That’s another thing I love about her. She consistently works on herself and personal development reaching further to know herself on a deeper level and to push herself.

There have been a lot of articles in the media over the past few weeks debating whether Facebook actually has any value.  This, in itself, indicates that there is a whole lot of value in Facebook.  I wanted to share with you an interesting article from Harvard Business Publications by Jeff Stibel.  Jeff talks about why Facebook is so much better than other social networks and why it fundamentally works.  Personally, I continue to be amazed at the functionality of Facebook.  Almost every day I discover something new that you can do with it.  Did you know you can even hire a Facebook coach?  Yes, it’s true, many mainstream corporate employees continue to choose LInked In and Plaxo over Facebook since some perceive Facebook is for a younger generation.  I did an experiment last week after attending a UC-Irvine MBA Alumni event.  For all of the business cards I collected, I checked to see if the folks were in Facebook and Linked In.  >90% were only in Linked In.  Interestingly enough, the next day I received a phone call from someone looking for a coach who had been refered to me in Facebook by the other 10%.  These folks also happened to be the younger people in the crowd.  Point in case, if you want to do business with Gen X, you’ve got to be in Facebook.  You know what their vote is regarding whether Facebook has value. 

During a break at the ASTD conference last month where I was coaching, I wandered over to the conference book store to see what they had to offer.  The selection was quite extensive.  I smiled when I saw a stack of Nan’s books, Hitting Your Stride: Your Work, Your Way that just thinking of her life made me happy.  I’d rather write about her here than tell you about her book.  That’s the great thing about a blog, I get to choose the content.  I’ve never met Nan in person but I interviewed her for my book, Quitting is Everything!  and became a life long fan.  Here are some other reasons why I love Nan:

In his bestselling book, The Dip, Seth Godin, Internet Marketing Extraordinaire writes about leadership and perseverance.  Seth tells us that great leaders are the ones who can push through the hard times to get to the finish line.  Specifically, The Dip indicates that most of us can achieve a moderate level of success.  Next, things level off again and then we experience a little dip in performance because it gets much harder to get to the next level.  Maybe we get bored, maybe the highs of accomplishment wear off.  It sometimes feels easier to regroup and change direction than to continue pushing boulders uphill.  I like Seth’s concepts.  They fit nicely with the “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” mantra.  The Dip is especially relevant for working women and entrepreneurs because there are so many tests along the way that it’s normal to have days where you want to give up on pursuing what’s most important to you.  You have to be committed and you have to keep reminding yourself that The Dip and other bad days are all part of the learning process to get to the next level.  Easy stuff is boring anyway!