Fearless, Fabulous Life

I have put together a fun and educational telesummit for new and
budding women business owners, and I thought you might all like to
know about it. I’ve recruited what I consider the “best of the best”
mentoring across five broad themes: Knowing oneself, business basics,
selling your values, building support teams, and online/offline
promotion strategies.

I invite you to join in or to share with those you think may be
interested.

All the details can be found at: www.abusinessofonesown.com

Fifteen dynamic speakers will share inexpensive business-building
promotion strategies you can use to give authentic expression to what
matters most to YOU! Speakers include:

* Viki Viertel (The Business Buddha) * Lisa Earle McLeod (Forget
Perfect)* Debbie LaChusa (10Step Marketing) * Suzy Spivey (Daring to
Dream) * Adam Urbanski (The Marketing Mentor)*
* The Blog Squad™ * Sheri McConnell (Association of Web
Entrepreneurs)* Kyle King (Inspiring the Amazon Within)* Christina
Merkley (The Shift-It! Coach) * Michael Port (Book Yourself Solid &
Beyond Booked Solid)*
* Joe Nunziata (Spiritual Selling)* MaryPat Kavanagh (The Queen of
Connections) * Lynn Scheurell (My Creative Catalyst)* Mara Castello
(Navigating from the Heart) * Wayne Kelly (ON Air Publicity!)*

These hand-picked experts have been brought together to illuminate
your path to becoming the successful business owner you know you can be.

Learn How to Sort Through the Clutter of Business Building Tactics,
Focus Your Marketing Strategies, and Claim Financial SUCCESS—without
Abandoning the Passion Behind Your Goals or Killing Yourself and the
People Around You.

And you will have the choice of either phoning in to each session or
streaming live over your computer. If you aren’t able to make the live
calls, you’ll be able to listen to every call via MP3 download
following the event, so you won’t miss a single session!

The cost for the entire TeleSummit including MP3 downloads is only
$97! Many of these speakers charge thousands of dollars for their
business building programs and materials. Imagine having access to
each one for an hour for not much more than the cost of a Starbuck’s
Mochachino!!

In addition, a BONUS CD will be sent to every registrant: “A Business
of One’s Own™ — Women’s True Path to Authentic Expression & Financial
Independence”.

Visit www.abusinessofonesown.com for more information or to register
now! Even if you don’t want to participate, I bet you know someone who
would like to start her own business, so please share this email with
them.

I have a very exciting announcement to share with you! Mo Bailey & Associates of Write4Good Research & Communications™ selected me for their September Transform Your Life Guru of the Month Award. They award Businesses, Individuals, and Services who are “Caught in the Act of Excellence.”

Write4Good’s topic of the month will relate to “Making Every Move Count.” Since neither Andrea Williams and Fearless, Fabulous Life nor Write4Good R & C trade, sell or share contact information, you must sign-up yourself in order to receive the feature of my highlight.

This is a prestigious accolade and I would be flattered if you choose to sign up to read it. To see this feature, personal interview, and four other honored category recipients complementary to the month’s topic, please sign up to receive the FREE Acts of Excellence newsletter in the upper right corner of the page at www.write4good.com

Tags: MoBaily, Write4Good, Act of Excellence, transform your life guru

It’s Monday and you want to jump out of your skin. By the time Friday rolls around, you tender murderous thoughts toward your colleagues or boss. The wear and strain of dragging yourself to your current workplace each day is akin to the dread of a dentist drill.

Aside from the ever-present need to earn sufficient money to support your commitments and lifestyle, often our professional identity and presence in the world is tied up in our definition of “work” as well as where and for whom we do it.
The bottom line can be assessed with two questions. Will the path you are on eventually lead to personal satisfaction and pride in your efforts? Are you good enough–or could you apply yourself more seriously and consistently to become good enough–to meet your definition of contribution and reward?

Tearing You Down Instead of Building You Up

Instead of growing professionally and finding opportunity in the projects and responsibilities presented to you, are you feeling like your skills are getting stale or that you may be falling behind technology and current business thinking?

Assess what is available to you and whether with a bit of effort you could make more of the time you invest in your job. Are there additional resources you could tap? Can you meet with your boss to consider a redefinition of your role and daily tasks? Does your employer have other positions you could move to laterally if not up the ladder?

You are responsible for how you feel. You also bear the weight of responsibility or your own behavior. Are you guilty of self-sabotaging chances for recognition, more challenging assignments, and even advancement? When we fail to deal with minor issues, they can blossom into bad habits, feeing sorry for ourselves, and sloppy work that only serves to undermine our ability to to feel good about our work and contribution.

Putting Off the Vision that Calls to You

Do you see yourself in a different environment, accomplishing something personally important and fulfilling? Is there a completely different way of “being” that requires changing several aspects of your life, not just those related to work?

Waiting to fulfill a personal mission or ambition can make us feel small and less powerful. It’s not so much a matter of striking while the iron is hot, but rather acting in our own best interest to achieve what will make our spirits sour. When we deprive ourselves of that experience, our internal fire to be uniquely exceptional gets snuffed out over time.

It’s critical that you separate your self-worth from the very different consideration of whether a particular job or even profession is worth your time and effort. Satisfaction in life is more complex than simply “right” work, but finding the work that sustains and fuels personal passions can be the road to self-actualization. Knowing your true talents and unique contribution, is a gift to yourself and everyone around you.

Doing “It” for Someone Else Instead of Yourself

Do you secretly resent that all of your hard work supports the reputation or image of another? Do you fantasize about how you could do the very same work — or a slightly upgraded version of it — to support yourself and your family, leaving the emotional overhead of “boss” out of the picture.

In this case, you may consider self-employment. There are numerous other considerations if you are tempted in this direction. Working for oneself is not a bed of roses; ultimately you become responsible for every failure and success from timely delivery of paper and coffee supplies to satisfied clients or customers.

However, with complete and proper preparation and a solid team of support, there is no reason anyone why anyone can’t create a satisfying and profitable business.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

If you are honest with yourself and you have considered the questions above, you may know immediately or at least feel deep down what you need to do.

You may discover or realize that it is actually you that needs a bit of alignment or total attitude readjustment. Take full advantage of professional development or enrichment opportunities, use career counseling… and actually use up all of your vacation days! Rather than stagnating in place, seek out information, challenge yourself to consider what else there is, and take very good care of yourself so that you’ll have the energy to either improve things where you are or prep the path to a new venue.

You may decide that a new job or self-employment is the path for you, though the timing may be a completely different matter. No matter how intense your current frustration, this is not the time for rash action. It sometimes feels like a great relief to abandon what drives us crazy, but the failure to prepare sufficiently for the change you dream about could have you on your knees begging for your old job back.

Enlisting the help of a coach can challenge you to navigate a course of self-discovery and determine your best options and next steps. Making any kind of change takes great effort and is stressful. You want to be at the top of your game, if or when you take the leap to something new.

Tags: coaching, big fish, coach craft, quitting time, personal mission, right work

This week marks the one-year anniversary of my leaving a corporate communications job where I’d spent more than six years building an internal team of talented professionals, creating standards and protocols, and managing the creation and production of all kinds of publications and products.

That time in my life was rewarding and I’ll never regret my investment of time to learn, grow, and master new skills. Sometimes it was hard and I didn’t know if I would succeed or not. Sometimes I felt like quitting, but I persevered and experienced great satisfaction in eventually making things work smoothly and producing things on schedule.

I also don’t regret my choice to leave when I did. I spent a significant amount of time soul searching during the months leading up to my departure, and I knew when the time had come to move on to the next “right” thing for me.

My life has changed so much in one year, and I am glad I had the courage to make changes, try new things, and jump back into “beginner’s mind.” By putting myself on the line again, I’ve set things in motion that will produce big results—and satisfaction—in the near future. More importantly, I trusted my instincts and acted on my vision of the quality of life I wanted. Now I’m turning my dreams into reality.

Tags: followyour bliss, self-employment

As I think about our Memorial Day holiday weekend and what we’ve got planned, it occurred to me that it’s a pretty good mix. It’s also a metaphor or model for moving effectively forward in life. It works whether you’re aiming for a good time or just trying to get things done. I’ll use the screen of this weekend and an upcoming vacation to show what I mean.

Clean Out Clutter

The need to do this is so obvious with the yard sale preparations. We are clearing out the old stuff, so that we can breathe! The belongings we’ve got stashed down the hill in the garage represent past lives and earlier preferences, and provide plenty of evidence of long-abandoned projects. In order for us to get clear to embrace our ”now” and future plans, we’ve got to ditch the dead weight.

It’s equally valid when planning for a vacation. You select the very few things you’ll need to provide comfort and to suit your immediate, short-term needs. You don’t pack things you won’t have time for or that have to do with the very things you left behind in order to relax and explore new territory.

Just thinking about all the stuff takes up space in our minds, and makes it difficult to have new ides and the freedom to be creative and expansive.

Is your current life an extended vacation, or have you moved on to a new phase. Do you really need the albatross of the past dogging your new plans and intentions? Think about how you could lighten your load before you begin your next adventure.

Build Future Memories

On Sunday, we’re going to plant seeds and seedlings in our vegetable gardens and place annuals in the whiskey barrels out by the wood shed. If I can get away with it, I may sneak in a flowering bush or two.

We’re doing this with faith in and anticipation for what we are building: a steady stream of salad and stew parts, pie ingredients, and herbs to flavor our home-cooked meals and to scent our living space.

As we plan our Dominican Republic vacation for mid-June, we’re similarly collecting the good reads, sunny clothes, and warm weather toys (snorkeling, yeah!) to create an experience that matches our vision for relaxation and fun.

I’m a strong believer in always having something dangling out in the future as reward for good work and behavior. That’s why I like tasks like gardening and planning vacations; they are shared and about full-throttle enjoyment.

Learn from the Previous Show

On Monday, we’re spending the “holiday” day learning from what we’ve been doing lately, so that we can improve our productivity and satisfaction from work. We’ve actively been pursuing a lifestyle where we get to work half-time at our passions and half-time in our shared work in marketing and small business development.

Doing and doing with no time for reflection, pretty much assures that we’’ll charge ahead with so-so results and fulfillment from our efforts. We’ll get things done, but may miss the opportunity to fine-tune to do better work and have more fun.

Photographs and other souvenirs collected from trips are useful tools in a similar process. They serve as reminders and evidence of what worked and what falls into the “let’s never do that again!” category.

By considering the full value of past experience, we can plan for more successful projects and trips in the future. We can clear out what failed to work, build in what we think has a better chance the next time around, and then we can carefully observe what happens the next time.

Clean, Build, Learn… and repeat. Works for me.

Think about what it would be like to start a project or plan with this framework in mind. Do you think you’d have a better outcome? Does it sound like more work? How do you go about your work and life?

Let me know what you think or share a story from your experience.