Are you ready to take your office on the road with you this summer? I know that working outside or at least on the go, tops my list of ways to enjoy the warmer months. If you have been following me on social media, you already know that I am currently on my way to Aruba for a summer beach vacation . Yes, in a few short hours from now, I will have my feet planted firmly in the sand, cocktail in hand and laptop by my side. Of course, there is no better way for a #BLOGBOSS to work when traveling, especially since this one happens to be a solopreneur and needs to make sure the lights stay on, even when I am on holiday. So, for this installment of Office Oasis, I want to share with you some great options for taking your work with you. That may mean getting some work done during your summer vacation or it may mean checking your email by the pool, but either way, if you need to work while you are out and about this summer, these accessories will help you get it all done in style when you are out of office!
1. Water Resistant Speaker: If you are working by the beach or by the pool and want to keep your productivity playlist going, this is the perfect option for you. Portable speakers are awesome, but this one actually helps protect your tech from water, while keeping those jams on shuffle!
2. Smartphone Charger: Well my iPhone may have gotten bigger, but I can’t say I’m getting that much more battery life from the thing. Since I count on my phone for nearly everything, it’s important to keep a portable charger in my bag. Great for those early mornings and late nights!
3. Hardshell Laptop Case: I love keeping my Macbook Air in a hardshell type case when I am traveling to protect it from any extra bumps or bruises it may encounter on the road. This Moroccan inspired quatrefoil print case screams summertime especially in this lovely pool hue, but it comes in other fun colors as well!
4. Neutral Summer Carry All: I love a neutral bag for summer and this Kahki colored structured tote from Rebecca Minkoff is the perfect carry all for your laptop, accessories, makeup bag and even a file or two. Although you may be conducting business at the beach, there is no reason that you need to look like it and a tote like this is the perfect blend of work and play!
5. Adorable Summer Inspired Tech Accessories:Since you will be out and about this summer, you’ll certainly want to keep an eye on your steps. I love this double wrap bracelet designed by Tory Burch for the Fitbit Flex. It comes in a few perfect-for-summer colors and makes a great accessory!
I hope you make the most of your summer travels by taking advantage of any out of office work arrangements you can make and creating your own on the go office. I hope these items gave you some tips and things to think about while you are working and playing this summer! I’d love to see your summer office setup, whether that’s in an actual office or out and about. Please tag me in your photos on Instagram with the hashtag #strangeandcharmed so I can like them!
Does this sound like you? You are a highly motivated person with lots of passions and interests. You are working a job, or have worked a series of jobs where you perhaps learned a lot but weren’t interested in the career path in front of you. You want more for yourself and you know you deserve and are capable of more. So many of you have expressed to me how much you want to bring change to your life and take control of your destiny, so you turn to me day after day for fresh information and inspiration for your journey. As a natural born teacher and a constant student myself, I love sharing my knowledge with you in the hopes that I can help you make your life better. Although I provide you many ongoing resources both through my own products and content as well as the content and products of others, I know most of you don’t have the luxury of time that I have to spend on continuing your education, so helping you make the most of your time is important to me. A few weeks ago I hinted that I wanted to start a new series on my blog but had been waiting for the right moment so that I could give this series the time and attention it deserves. Today, I am very pleased to announce that this is the first installment in an ongoing series I am featuring on my blog called #InspirationMBA!
#InspirationMBA will be a monthly post on the blog where I will take a single piece of highly valuable content from around the web and break it down into something of a lesson plan, outlining why I think the content is important and what you will learn from it. Like I said earlier, I know you don’t have all the time in the world to learn all the ins and outs of business and productivity, so I want to make it easier for you to learn by identifying the best content that you can act upon immediately. So many people just don’t have the time or the money to spend on additional education, but I hope that this series helps you to open your mind and continue your own education through self study guided by me.
Lesson #1: Marie Forleo on Building a Business and Life of Your Dreams with Lewis Howes
I absolutely adore both Marie Forleo and Lewis Howes. Both are inspirational entrepreneurs, mentors and educators who work to help people realize their dreams. For our first lesson, I have chosen a YouTube interview between the two that I believe lays a great foundation for the #InspirationMBA course! This video is nearly an hour long, but it’s packed with some great principles for those starting out as well as some interesting tidbits from Marie’s life and mind.
What You Will Learn
• The steps you can take to figure out what you are truly passionate about so you can get started doing what you love and make a living from it.
Hint: You need to start doing new things that interest you if you want your life to change!
• The mindset shifts that are necessary for you to make major changes in your life that don’t come overnight.
Hint: Success is all about your attitude.
• How Marie expressed her truth and lived the life she wanted to live, even though she knew it would take her longer to build her business.
Hint: Follow your passions in the here and now.
• The importance of mastering the necessary skills of your current job and situation even if you have bigger and better dreams.
Hint: You need to show up in order to maximize opportunities.
• The powerful role gratitude plays in our lives.
Hint: Keep your attitude in check.
• The daily routine of a highly successful entrepreneur.
Hint: The importance of the almighty to-do list.
• How to get started changing the daily habits that keep you down so you can make room for habits that matter.
Hint: You need to acknowledge the issues so you can change them.
• The role coaches and mentors can play in your success.
Hint: Having positive role models and mentors active in your life will help keep you accountable and positive.
• The mindset that has an unexpected positive result on your own success.
Hint: Giving breaks through the scarcity money mindset.
• The top things that are necessary to have a successful business online.
Hint: Consistency is one part of the puzzle.
So there it is, lesson 1 of my #InspirationMBA series! I sincerely hope you have enjoyed this content and that you are eager to follow up with this series. I am really doing this to help you as a valued member of my community so any feedback you have on this new venture would be appreciated. If you plan to take part in the #InspirationMBA I would love it if you shared pictures of your desk set up as you are learning at home or on the go through this series. Feel free to use the tag #InspirationMBA and connect with others within this community who are taking this journey with you!
Podcasts are definitely one of the not-so-secret weapons in my entrepreneurship arsenal. Since I work from home and have no coworkers, I find podcasts are a great way to keep me motivated through my day of little to no human interaction, while also staying entertained and informed. Podcasts are also a means of continuing education for me, like audiobooks, so I like to listen to business podcasts as regularly as possible. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned about marketing, strategy and business management just from listening to podcasts, they really are a great way to keep your mind engaged in your business and to pick up new tips and tricks from successful business owners. Here are 8 great choices if you are looking for a new business podcast to add to your life!
Anne Samoilov happens to be a personal friend of mine- how lucky am I? She’s an awesome business coach, a knowledgeable launch manager and an intelligent entrepreneur. Anne happens to be one of the few female podcasters out there talking about business strategy as well as keeping your busy life organized as a mompreneur, so give her a listen and if you want, you can even start with her episode interviewing me!
Pat Flynn is hands down my #1 business inspiration. So much of my business is modeled off of his lead of creating a “Smart Passive Income”. You may think that sounds too good to be true, but I am living proof that passive incomes are real and any online entrepreneur can make use of these effortless streams of income. Check out Pat for inspiration and insight into his business, as well as interviews with notable guests!
Notable blogging business owner, Elise Blaha Cripe started her online empire from her love of scrapbooking and much in the vein of my own business, was able to turn her passions into a full time career. Although my business isn’t crafting related like hers, I personally connect to Elise because we are online business owners of about the same age who seem to be adding value to their communities in similar ways. In her podcast, Elise shares a lot of insight and almost insider type information into the realm of creative and crafting businesses, and is very willing to share what she knows and what she’s learned, which is something I too am very passionate about!
The School of Greatness podcast focuses less on business and more so on success, which is what we all want for our businesses. Former Pro Athlete Lewis Howes is one part life-coach and one-part entrepreneur mentor in his podcast, so if you are looking for information sprinkled with a heavy dose of inspiration, this may be just the choice for you!
If you are familiar with Marie Forleo, you may already be acquainted with Amy Porterfield, a B-School Alum with online marketing superpowers. I enjoy Amy because she is truly an original thinker, and constantly breaks the molds of traditional marketing strategies. If you like marketing or want to learn how to leverage marketing insights for your own business, this is required listening!
If you are reading the titles of these podcasts and thinking business podcasts may be a snoozefest, the Fizzle Show is going to knock some sense into you with their entertaining and intelligent style. This isn’t your average business podcast, it’s more of a super informative radio show that you are sure to love if you avoid bland or heavy business podcasts.
As the title suggests, She Podcasts is another great selection created by a pair of savvy female entrepreneurs. If you haven’t noticed, women are a bit underrepresented in the online business podcasting community and these ladies aren’t shy about hitting the issues and making up for some of that gap! I love that these ladies also enjoy sharing their insights into podcasting, so if you are a savvy female entrepreneur or want to get started with podcasting, this one is for you!
Well the name says it all, doesn’t it? In case you missed it, last week was the #GLAMPIRECHAT that focused on Marketing, which I think is something of a hot topic right about now. Marketing is always a hot business topic and for good reason, so if you are starting a small business and really want to get a grasp on the concept of marketing, make sure you check this one out as well. The hosts are uber smart and it’s like you’re sitting through a riveting business school lesson in each episode!
I hope these podcasts give you some inspiration for how you can be spending your time productively during work and also help to bring some key insight and inspiration into your business. I’d love to know if you check out any of these podcasts, so please send me a picture via Instagram of you enjoying these podcasts while you work!
As a small, creative online business owner, I am often asked about the tools I use to run my business. Since I am a company of one, it’s crucial that I use the most powerful and reliable tools to ensure my products are well designed and that my business runs smoothly on the back end so I can spend more of my time creating and less of it managing administrative or technical matters. Today I am sharing with you the software tools specifically that I use to design, promote and manage my small business.
As a creative business owner, I choose to use the industry standard for digital content creation, which is why I use Adobe Creative Suite 6. Within the suite, I use three main applications primarily. InDesign to create my shop printables, Photoshop to edit my images, and Illustrator to create unique design elements and vectors that are used across my business.
For my website, including my shop, I rely on WordPress as my content management system. WordPress offers a wide variety of functionality and customization for my site, and since I designed and built it on my own, it was important that these features be easy to use and open source so that I retained complete control over the look and feel of my site.
When it came time for me to develop and integrate my shop into my website, I was relieved to learn about WooCommerce, a free plugin that integrates seamlessly into WordPress to deliver enterprise-level eCommerce functionality. WooCommerce manages the back end of my shop automatically with very little input or time from me. Since I sell predominantly digital products, the automated system managed by WooCommerce makes the income I generate from my shop completely passive!
Although I don’t rely on an email list as a primary means of communication between my business and customers, I recently began dabbling with MailChimp to create some one-off mailing lists and so far, it’s working very well. I like that I can create individual lists for products or services I am working on and use it to capture information for the members of my community that want more information. That way, once my new item is ready, I can send a quick email to my list sharing the news and hopefully capture some quick sales!
For me, so much of what I love about running a small online business is convenience, so when it comes to collecting payments for my products and services, I rely on Paypal. I know it may not be perfect, but it’s a great solution for a solopreneur who needs a low cost, automated method for collecting payments. Paypal integrates seamlessly into my WooCommerce enabled WordPress shop and keeps my income flowing in without my time or attention! I literally make money, even while I’m sleeping and there is no greater feeling than that!
Since my shop acts as the primary source of income for my business, I like to keep a close eye on my site’s analytics. Although I try not to get caught up in numbers, I do believe that knowing about your site traffic can really help you as a business owner to understand the direction of your business and how to grow. Google Analytics supplies all the key information I need to know about my site traffic and shop conversions, and I highly recommend it.
As a small business owner, I am always looking for new ways to improve the level of quality in my products and promotional content. Since I rely on YouTube as a primary form of communication between my business and my customers, I recently decided to make the jump from iMovie to Final Cut Pro for my video editing software. Although I firmly believe that iMovie provides a number of powerful video editing tools, I had previously always hit a wall when editing in iMovie that I was never able to break through until I upgraded to Final Cut Pro. Now, I can create all the stunning video effects that I need to help add polish to my brand and the experience I create through my YouTube channel. The change may be slight, but I believe the long term effects are going to be very positive for my business.
Finally, it should come as no surprise that since I create a great deal of content for my platforms on a regular basis, I would need a very powerful word processing tool to manage my thoughts, scripts and blog posts. For that large task, I rely on Scrivener. In a week I have three blog posts to write, two YouTube videos to concept and outline, and numerous other messages that my business sends out on social media. Scrivener manages and organizes all my written content and backs up to the cloud so I never have to worry about loosing my work. If you would like to read more about how I use Scrivener to organize my writing, click here.
So those are the top software tools that I use to run my small, creative online business. I hope you gained some insight from this information and perhaps discovered a new tool that you can use for your own business. If you have other software favorites that you use for your business, or just to keep your digital life organized and efficient, I’d love to hear about them, so please leave me a comment below!
Last night I hosted another live installment of the #GLAMPIRECHAT, a monthly series where I share my tips, tricks and strategies for approaching online business! Last night the topic was marketing and I gave some really great information to really help clear the air around a topic that sometimes carries a negative connotation.
Marketing “becomes a dirty word” in the minds of many people who see advertising and marketing campaigns left and right and think of it as spam! However, the reality remains that promotion of your product, service or brand plays a crucial role in spreading awareness of it in the marketplace. You can have the greatest product or service in the market that people desperately need but unless you’re promoting it, no one will ever buy it!
It’s important that we first have an understanding of what marketing is and how it’s defined, so of course, I went to good old Google which tells us “Marketing is the way companies interact with consumers to create relationships that are beneficial to both parties. Businesses use marketing to identify their audience before advertising to them. Today, this is most visible through social media interactions and contests” (Mashable.com). Really marketing allows businesses to interact with their consumers on a very personal level and really build a sense of community around their brand! So, I tend to use marketing strategies that allow me to engage and build a community through my platforms and social media authentically.
So, how do I promote my products and services without feeling like stereotypical used car salesman on the internet? I use a strategy that authentically spreads awareness of my business, promotes my products like a friend who gives a recommendation to another friend, and is seamlessly integrated into all that I do.
My #1 Marketing Secret is Good Content!
Good content in my opinion is the best form of marketing you can possibly do for your business. Good content adds value to your community, it answers questions, it provides information and it gives you and your business fun, shareable media to put out into the world that your community will be able to promote for you! During the live chat last night we took a great question about how our content differs from our products, and I think that the fact that someone asked that question at all means that this strategy truly works! My products and services are completely separate from the content I create. As you may know from following me for some time, my primary business is my shop where I sell digital productivity products like planner inserts, journaling cards, wall art designs and also my Empire Building online business program. That is where my income comes from and as you may know I do make a full-time salary from my shop, which is wonderful. My content on the other hand can be found over on my blog, where I write three posts per week, over on YouTube where I make two videos a week, and on Instagram where I like to take pictures and share them at least once a day. All that content represents a significant amount of work I do, but it doesn’t make me any money directly, with the exception of YouTube which does pay out small amounts for ad revenue. Although I don’t make money directly from those efforts, my content represents a very important part of my business because it’s how I draw in and attract my audience who then in turn may purchase products from my shop. My content allows me to market my products without ever having to make a sales pitch or feel sleezy for trying to hard to promote my products because when you provide great content that people enjoy, it’s only natural that they will then be curious about the items you sell and feel confident making a purchase from you because they know you exhibit consistent quality.
Now, if you want to apply my methods to your own content creation, I have some great tips for you to help guide the creation of your own great content. These are the three things that good content must do. They don’t have to do all three at once, but good content must do at least one of these.
Inspire
When I aim to inspire, I let my photographs do the talking by taking beautiful desk shots that motivate my audience into productivity! My Instagram account really acts as my method for sharing my inspiration with my followers!
Educate
When I create educational content, it normally comes in the form of long form blog posts and even YouTube videos that give solid and researched thoughts and information to my audience to help them learn, or gain perspective or knowledge on a specific topic.
Entertain
When I create content to entertain, it normally comes in the form of videos for my YouTube channel. I like to use my YouTube to mix it up and give inspirational and educational content that aims to entertain.
It’s up to you how to apply these qualities to your own content and trust me, there are a variety of ways you can manipulate each of these into unique content, but hopefully seeing my examples will inspire you to find your own ways to create your great content! Now, have I primed your appetite for more marketing tips and tricks? If I did, you are in luck because if you missed the live show of the #GLAMPIRECHAT last night, you can watch the replay over on my YouTube channel right now! This was just one piece of the great content and information that I created for you all last night, so definitely check out the full video for more. Just a warning, I did chat for something like an hour and forty-five minutes, so you may want to get comfortable, get yourself something to drink and grab a pen and paper to take notes! Feel free to leave me a comment either here or on the video if you have additional questions. Although we did take live questions, I am sure we didn’t cover everything so let me know what I can help you with marketing wise! Also, if you love the #GLAMPIRECHAT but want to join us live, mark your calendar for Wednesday July 1st at 9pm eastern because that is when the next chat is slated. Of course, make sure you are following me on social media because I always give notice of these videos especially on Instagram! Enjoy!
Yes, it’s true! Even a productivity guru has trouble getting it all done! I’m not immune to bouts of inactivity, and I’m certainly not hard on myself about it because it’s completely normal. Everyone goes through periods of time where they are very productive and then periods of time where they are less productive. Creativity, inspiration and productivity all work in waves and when the wave hits you need to be prepared to ride it, and when the wave recedes, you get a brief moment to relax. Right now, my wave is receding and I am waiting to pounce on the next one as soon as it arrives! Because of this, I didn’t get everything done in May that I wanted to accomplish, but that’s okay!
You see, normally at the end of each month I compile a post called On My iPhone where I share the applications, podcasts and other online media content I have been enjoying, however, I struggled a bit in May and so I decided to skip this post and instead, share a roundup of articles I read recently. If you love reading articles on self-improvement, business and productivity, you are going to love the articles I’m sharing today! They are packed with great tips, inspiration and resources to help you make the most of your wave when it hits.
Like I said, I hope you enjoy these articles and that you found something to inspire you to catch your next wave of productivity! Let me know if you read anything awesome recently that you think I’d enjoy by Tweeting me a link!
As you already know, I love planners, and although I normally share my tips and tricks for getting the most out of your planner through scheduling, project management and task lists, I know there is more to planners than just productivity! Many people turn to planners to achieve a sense of peace in how they spend their time, but unless you actively and intentionally use your planner to more fulfilling ends, you probably find you’re coming up short. If you would like to get more out of your planner and achieve a sense of fulfillment that your days, tasks and choices are making an impact on your life and the lives of those around you, the concept of Intentional Planning will interest you!
In order to explain my concept of Intentional Planning, I have put together a whole video on the subject that outlines my five tips for getting started with Intentional Planning. The video covers my tips, the basis for the concept and a few methods for implementation. This video features two great Intentional Planning resources, the Happiness Planner, which I review and explain within the video, and also my new Weekly Gratitude Insert to help anyone with a six ring binder system begin gratitude journaling for increased happiness and contentment. The team over at Brandmentalist, creators of the Happiness Planner, were generous enough to offer a few planners as part of a giveaway, so if you are interested in winning your own Happiness Planner, watch the video for details on how to enter to win one of two planners that I will be giving away!
Download Your Free Happiness Planner Bookmarks Here!
Let me know what you think of my concept of Intentional Planning! I’d love to hear if this topic interests you and if I can be of service to provide any additional information and support. If you utilize any of my tips from the video and care to share a picture of your solutions in your own planners, feel free to use the hashtag #IntentionalPlanning so I can find your pictures on Twitter or Instagram and give them a like! Also, feel free to check out my latest printable inserts if you would like to get started with Gratitude Journaling!
My first Instagram photo challenge from March was so popular that I have been ready and waiting to organize another one! Since many of you know that I am going to Aruba with Lisamarie in a few weeks, she and I decided to team up to host the #SUMMERINTHEGLAMPIRE photo challenge to celebrate summer, our vacation and our ever popular monthly YouTube collaboration series called the Glampire Chat! This June photo challenge is half Strange & Charmed and half Paper & Glam, but guaranteed to be 100% inspirational and fun for those of you who enjoy celebrating the seasons!
So, this is how the photo challenge is going to work, in case this is your first time participating with one! If you would like to participate, go ahead and take the image above with the daily prompts and post it to your Instagram feed and use the hashtag #SUMMERINTHEGLAMPIRE in your description! Once June 1st arrives, begin posting a photo a day in accordance with the prompts we have outlined! So for June 1st snap a photo of your office decor, on the 2nd show us how you work, and so on and so forth each day for June! Now, if you miss the start of this challenge or happen to miss a day, don’t fret! This is a no-pressure challenge! You can catch up by posting more pictures if you’d like or you can pick and choose the prompts you want to share, either way, we are glad to have you snapping photos along with us for the month! Of course, make sure you are tagging all your images with the #SUMMERINTHEGLAMPIRE hashtag so we can search through the feed and follow along with each of you. That brings me to my final suggestion for participating, make sure you get involved! You too can use the hashtag to see all the awesome participants and photos being shared, and I really want to encourage all of you to make sure you show your support by regularly checking through hashtag and liking and commenting on the photos being shared by all the participants! I love photo challenges because they bring many different people and Instagram accounts together around a central theme and it’s a great way to get exposure for your own account, as well as a great way to find new IGers to follow!
Of course, Lisamarie and I would love it if you followed our accounts as well as our YouTube channels because we have some extra special content surprises that we are planning to share throughout the month! I hope you all are as excited as we are to be participating in this challenge and we can’t wait to see all your photos and the fun ways you each interpret the prompts. Remember, you are more than welcome to think outside the box and get creative with these photos! The more creativity we see, the better!! Happy snapping!!
Manifestation is such a powerful tool in my life and business. I realize to some, the idea seems far fetched, but its a practice that I’ve seen work first hand and I think that its one of those things that can be so simply integrated into your life that its worth a shot to give it a try, even if you aren’t a believer just yet. I don’t tend to practice manifestation in the typical ways, I’m a little bit of a rebel and I just don’t have the time or patience to sit in mediation each morning chanting my goals and dreams, wishing them into reality. Instead, I use a few key high tech methods to keep my goals in focus and slowly meld them into my subconscious. You see, the way manifestation works, more or less, is that you need to keep a mental focus on that which you desire. It doesn’t have to dominate your thoughts 24 hours a day (although, maybe that helps?) instead, you just need to be so familiar with what it is that you desire, that it slowly transitions from something you want, to something you believe you already have. Once your brain makes the transition, believing that your goal or dream is already accomplished, your subconscious begins to act in a manner to support that expectation and then one thing leads to another and suddenly you’ve made small but key changes to your mental state so that actually making that goal a reality happens nearly effortlessly. Some people call this “the secret” or “the law of attraction.” Some people say its a placebo affect and others swear by it. Either way you look at it, it’s simply enough to get started for yourself as long as you keep an open mind. So, here are the three methods I suggest for manifesting your dreams, using your gadgets to help support you and keep you on track!
1. Turn your goals into your passwords
I learned this trick from reading Sophia Amoroso’s #Girlboss earlier this year. In the book, Sophia explains that she would take things like her sales goals for her business and manipulate them into her own secret code that she would then use as her passwords for her business accounts and email systems. To me, this was genius, so I immediately started implementing this trick and I have to say, it really works wonders. So, to give this a try for yourself, start by thinking of a goal that you really want to accomplish. This can literally be any goal, a physical, financial, emotional or spiritual goal. It can be related to work or your family or your personal life, it doesn’t matter. Just write it down on a piece of paper. Look at the words and the letters and then create a secret code for yourself. Perhaps you will want to remove all the vowels in the goal or maybe you will switch around some letters to form a secret word. Once you have your goal converted into your own secret password, start using it! Switch one of your gadget passwords to this code, or change your email passcode, anything you can do that requires you to use this password on a daily basis (hopefully multiple times per day) is crucial! What ends up happening is that this password becomes very important to your life because it guards your iPhone, email or bank account, and it’s always in the forefront of your mind. Eventually, you won’t have to think about the code anymore, it will become second nature to you to type it in and each and every time you do, its like your saying a prayer to the universe to give you that thing you want. Day after day, it will grow deeper and deeper inside your subconscious until you are actually motivated in small ways to take action on it, until one day you have achieved it.
2. Keep affirmations on tech wallpapers
If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that I love creating custom tech wallpapers for my devices and I always end up sharing those with you all via a blog post. This was a practice I started implementing a while ago so that I could actually keep my daily affirmations front in center in my life. Affirmations are one of those things that really only work if you say them over and over day after day, so putting them on pretty wallpapers that I use on all my devices was a perfect way for me keep them in front of my face multiple times a day. You can do this too! Either by using my free downloadable tech wallpapers or by creating your own. You can very easily search a site like pinterest to find inspirational quotes or affirmations that you can use on your own devices or you can take your favorite image and then add your own custom text via an iPhone app like Over, or even a web app like PicMonkey. What you use to create your wallpapers doesn’t matter, but what is key is that you use an affirmation that speaks to you and forces you to confront your goals and aspirations. Then of course you need to make sure you put that wallpaper on any and all devices you spend time with throughout your day from your phone to your tablet to your computer screen. The more screens and the more times you see your affirmation throughout your day, the more successful you will be in manifesting your dreams!
3. Set alarms for mindfulness
The final way you can implement manifestation into your life via your technology is by setting yourself a few reoccurring alarms on your phone to go off throughout your day to remind you to be mindful of your goals. I’d suggest setting two to three alarms, spaced out across several hours of your day that you can utilize as small breaks from your work where you focus for a few moments on your priorities and how you will make your dreams a reality for yourself. I think when it comes to manifestation, many people dismiss it because they think practitioners are expecting a magic trick of sorts to occur where they get exactly what they want, just by thinking about it. But that really couldn’t be further from the truth. The purpose of practicing mindfulness and manifestation techniques in general is to bring the center of your focus back to your goal and acknowledge that this is a priority and it must not be forgotten about. When it comes to manifestation, things don’t just happen on their own, you need to take action, but the idea is that by practicing techniques like these, you will be more encouraged and empowered to take action because you are imbedding the idea of your goal or achievement so deep into your psyche that not taking action just isn’t a choice. Use your mindfulness alerts wisely throughout your day as short periods of time where you can meditate on your goal, brainstorm actions to take or strategize how you are going to make your goals your reality. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on these topics, but you should be spending time regularly on them, at least a little bit of time each day, so that you are always envisioning your goals and the steps you need to take to bring them to fruition!
These three methods for manifestation may be simple, but they can also be very powerful and effective tools for those who truly desire to manifest their dreams. I’ve seen first hand how useful these methods can be and I hope that you too find success with them. I do believe that it’s possible to make your dreams a reality and to achieve competitive goals for yourself and your business by using manifestation techniques. Using these techniques won’t bring you overnight success, but incremental success, so long as you remain focused against your goals. I’d love to hear about your experiences using various manifestation techniques, so please feel free to share those in the comments. I’m always looking for great new methodologies or suggestions for books on the topic as well, so if you have ready anything interesting on the subject, I’d love to hear your review!
This week I celebrated my first official year in business! One year ago, I left the safety and security of my Fortune 50 sales and marketing job to go full time for myself creating a business and income via social media! I had no clue at the time that one year later I would have completely replaced my income and grown my community online to over 50k regular viewers, subscribers and followers. If you had asked me last year what my business would look like in a year, I most certainly couldn’t have predicted that my online shop where I sell digital products and services would become my dominate area of income, that I would eventually take on a select number of consulting clients and that I would be shifting my focus to develop educational programs aimed at helping small businesses replicate my success. But despite all the success I have found in the last year, I know that I also made plenty of mistakes. No business or person is perfect and I think I feel into some very common traps my first year that brought me a great amount of insight into the way I run my business and the direction I want to take it in the future. So, for your edification and perhaps amusement, here are the 5 mistakes I made in my first year of business and the lessons I learned from each of them!
I think there is a major misconception that if you work really hard you can make a business a success, as though sheer force of will and effort will make it so, but unfortunately that’s not the case. When I left my job to go full time for myself, I took on a major amount of work, committing to producing five videos a week for my YouTube channel, thinking that this great effort would bring me success. Although I wouldn’t say this was a futile effort, it certainly wasn’t as effective because I was doing a lot of work but it was all over the place. The main problem was that I didn’t have a plan. I just thought I would make a bunch of videos and that would bring me a greater audience. Once I stopped this nonsense and made a plan for what I wanted my YouTube channel to become, I suddenly found that I was able to make fewer videos a week, but because they were focused against my plans for my channel, a cohesive vision quickly came together and my subscriber count grew astronomically!
Lesson Learned: Hard work is useless until you have a clear plan
Mistake #2: Make sure your products and services are perfect before launching them
When I started my business last May, one of my major goals was to get a shop up and running where I could sell my printable inserts. I had been asked by numerous members of my community to sell the printable inserts that I had created for my own planner and I thought that the printables would be a nice (albeit small) passive income. I did a lot of research figuring out how to set up a shop on my existing website, and spent way too much time anguishing over whether or not my inserts to high quality enough to sell. It took me until October to finally launch my shop, and once I did, my inserts were met with overwhelming praise and support. I immediately regretted taking so long to get the shop up and running. That small income I had originally expected surpassed my expectations the first month of my launch and then that small income became larger and larger as months progressed and more products were added to my shop. What started off as an idea for a small side income turned into the majority of my monthly income which eventually lead me to replace my former salary in just a few months!
Within the last year, I have experienced an extraordinary amount of growth. I know for some, my numbers may seem small, but I have been able to exceed every goal I have set for myself in terms of my community growth. When I first started off with my business, I told myself that it was of the utmost importance that I gave each and every member of my community my time if they reached out for my help, and in the beginning, this was not a problem for me. As months progressed, however, and I began to get more and more questions and emails from members of my community asking me for help, I began to realize that I wouldn’t be able to personally help everyone. There was just not enough time in the day for me to respond to each lengthy email from a subscriber with an equally lengthy email. I can’t reply to every comment, and I can’t answer every question, I’m just one person trying to do my best for my business. This was probably the most difficult lesson for me to learn, but over time, I began to train myself to give short and succinct answers to emails, to use links to my videos and blog posts to help me save time answering questions and to rely on the help of my more informed community members to pick up the slack with frequently asked questions. Although I’d love to have long email chats with my community members, I know that my time is precious and that I can help more people in less time with my new strategy, which means I can give more of myself in other areas.
I don’t know if this mistake was something I inherited from my years in the corporate world at a Fortune 50 company, but early on in my business, I became keenly aware that I needed to make sure my community thought I was very busy because busy equals working hard! As a blogger and YouTuber I knew that I was something of an (extremely) minor public figure and that people would begin to notice and comment on how I spent my time. If I didn’t look like I had a lot of work to do I thought no one would respect me. The problem is, I have always been the type of person who likes to get their work done quickly so I have more time to do what I want instead of what I have to do! I have an arsenal of systems and hacks in place that I utilize everyday to make sure I’m getting my work done in less time and that’s the way I like it. To me, it’s not about keeping up the appearance of busy. Busy is bullshit! Way too many people like to consider themselves busy as though it’s some sort of measure of self-importance. Everyone has things to do, some people have more than others, but everyone makes choices for how they fill the 24 hours that they get in a day, so don’t let the concept of being busy create some sort of excuse for you not to achieve certain goals, and don’t let the busy peer pressure make you feel inadequate if you happen to have a simpler life. Personally, I love the fact that I have a good amount of free time during my day because it gives me the opportunity to be creative in a way I could never be if I was always busy!
Lesson Learned: Busy is bullshit! Strive for productivity & efficiency
Mistake #5: You need to discover the secret to success in order to achieve it.
I’m the kind of person who likes to research things ad nauseam! When I first started my business, I was sure that the secret to success was hidden out there somewhere and that it was my job to read and research and learn as much as I could about business until I discovered the secret for myself. Problem is, there is no secret. Literally, there is no secret to success in business. There is no reason why you can’t start a successful business from scratch right now with little to no business knowledge. I didn’t go to school for business, and for some time, I thought this put me at a disadvantage, but the truth is the unique knowledge and skills that I do have, the ones I was busy building while I wasn’t attending business school, are just a marketable and important to the success of my business as any business degree. Don’t let the fear that you are lacking some nonexistent business secret sauce keep you from starting your business and kicking butt at it! You can seriously make your own rules, create your own secrets, and build yourself an empire!
Yes, you can do this! The truth is that when you start a business, you will make mistakes, you will learn and you will grow, but the most important part of the process is to continue to move forward and learn from your mistakes until you find the success you are looking for. I wasn’t the first person to make the mistakes that I made, and I certainly won’t be the last, but you don’t have to be one of them! That’s the wonderful part of having the online business community and all the resources available to small business owners today. So many people, including myself, are more than willing to share their mistakes and lessons they have learned in so many facets of their businesses. It’s so important for you to find a community of like minded small business owners who are doing the things you want to do and achieving the success you want to achieve because there is so much power in information and community. If you would like to work with me personally, I’d love to chat with you so feel free to check out my Empire Building program and shoot me an email if you have any questions! I look forward to talking with you!
