OVERWHELMED?

Make Decisions.

The most overwhelming thing about being overwhelmed is getting your decision making mechanism activated. The holiday season gives rise to getting your personal leadership gears stuck. People to see. Places to go. Events. Gifts. Special meals. Family reunions. And always, there’s business and career. So much to do and so little time.

“Personal Leadership”? Yes, I did mention that. As in leading your SELF  through all the excitement, clamber, congestion, over-indulgence temptations, and disheartening year-end assessments, to a place of reckoning.

That translates to getting UNstuck by getting back in touch with your ability to prioritize and make decisions. There’s really no place else to start except with yourself. If you aren’t healthy and moving forward, how can your business be?

Here’s an old standby method that always works and will help you get UNstuck now. . .

START by listing the 6 critical personal leadership categories at the top of your Word page or Excel grid or piece of paper: spritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, mental, financial. Then itemize random points/parts/ issues that need attention under each heading. Maximum 3 minutes for each column. (If it takes longer to think of, it’s not critical!)

Then, consolidate all items that can be addressed in a bundle fashion or that may represent duplication of effort.

Next– and always with the understanding and expectation that priorities can change in an instant– assign priority number values to each item in each column. Maximum 1 minute per column.

NOW, assign * or ** or *** to each #1 item in each column, then to each #2 item, etc. Take *designated #1 item and attack it. NOW. When it’s done, move on to *designated #2 item, and so on, through **designated #1 items, etc.

Always be prepared to re-prioritize based on what may end up in your face that changes the circumstances. The trick is to use determination and stick-to-it-ive-ness to take each challenge to a point of resolution before moving ahead to the next one.

When you clear the decks of issues that jam up your personal leader-ship skills, go for the rest of the overwhelm. You will be enormously more successful at business, career, and family leadership when you simply start making decisions about how to first deal with you so the rest of what you do is coming from a position of strength, and a true leadership posture.

Oh, and take lots of deep breaths and make it fun whenever you can. Those are choices, you know.

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Hal@Businessworks.US    302.933.0911

35 years ago,

a doctor told me my back 

was so bad, I’d never

walk again. 

  _____________________________

I bought a horse

and a jet ski!

(and my back has been better ever since!) 

Stubbornness or determination? Probably both. [And Thank God, I walk just fine.]

Stubbornness and determination represent attitudes that would get corporate muckity-mucks fired, but they’re not such terrible traits to have as an entrepreneur. Ive’ heard a lot of definitions of entrepreneurship over my years of teaching, consulting and doing it, but none sum it up as succinctly as stubbornness and determination’

We always hear that entrepreneurs have to have “fire in the belly” to pursue their ideas and make them work.

That they continue to move forward when everything around them is moving backward.

That they see the light at the end of the tunnel that others can’t even find the entrance to, or once they’re in it, slam their gearshifts into reverse.

Yet we also know that entrepreneurs historically take only reasonable risks. So the point of distinction occurs a few hundred feet into the tunnel when the light from the entrance is just about to dissolve away.

It is that moment in time that separates the courageous pursuit of free enterprise from the gutless wonders of government agency security and handout-dependent careers, and from corporate analysis paralysis treadmill careers. Entrepreneurs plod fearlessly forward as others turn and run. Sound like a military invasion? Well, isn’t it?

The enemy of entrepreneurs is lethargy and complacency. You remember that pair from your C-Span Current Affairs course? They are the two culprits that have gripped our economy since the present White House occupants took control. They are what must be overthrown if America is ever to survive and thrive again as a nation. 

The only difference in fighting this war of entrepreneurial enlightenment (vs. other, older ones) is that small business owners can no longer charge forward with their heads down. This time, we’re up against liberal fanatics who are not simply putting up roadblocks; they are actively fighting in the name of progressiveness to stop progress!

Go figure.

America’s present Administration refuses to stop short of literally pulverizing small business.

Over-taxing, over-regulating, over-burdening the very entity in society that has been solely responsible for new job creation, for economic stimulation, for boosting America’s reputation and strength worldwide . . . to what end? 

It’s not a puzzle; it’s a plan.

There are 30 million small business owners  in the United States. We have no ability to “certa bonum certamen” (fight the good fight) on our own, acting as individual small businesses. We all need to accept that the strength in numbers we are capable of can accomplish more than individual efforts.

We must vote AND prompt votes for any candidate who appreciates and respects small business owners and operators, our nation’s military people . . . and stubbornness and determination. November 6, 2012. Be there. 

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.   God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

GOTTA HUNKA SPUNK?                                                                                                                               

NEGATIVE REALITY: “In THIS economy? Nah, now’s not the time to be thinkin’ about starting or expanding a business. You’d have to be nuts! Besides it costs too much for stuff like that, and –if I were gonna do a big new push, I’d want to do it the right way, y’know? Big-time!”          

POSITIVE REALITY: There will never be enough money available to start up or expand a business the way I want to make it happen. Never. So waiting won’t matter. I’ve always believed that CONTRARY to the famous quote: 

NOTHING comes to he who waits!     

That leaves spunk . . .  

1.  Spunk,

2.  determination,

3. tenacious persistence, 

4. belief in yourself and your ideas,

5. commitment,

6. and a burning desire to make your ideas succeed. 

When all six of these ingredients are front and center 24/7, odds are you will succeed by just putting your head down and charging toward the goal of making your product or service ideas come to fruition. 

When you can do that, the money you need to put things over the top will come to you from sources you least expect. Every truly successful entrepreneur will attest to this. If you doubt it, then consider these two points:

• If you have doubt, then you do not have all six criteria (noted above) going for you. Back off and shore up the weak spots before you go charging off. 

• If you are close to having the six criteria above, but still have a smidgen of doubt, talk with someone who has been successful as an entrepreneur, someone who started a successful enterprise on the proverbial shoestring, and you will hear back the exact same kind of chatter.                                           

In other words, people who worry about their ideas making money will not make money; they will, instead, make worry. 

Those who turn their backs on the making money goals and focus their energies instead on getting their ideas to succeed, will make money. 

Weird, huh?  Perhaps, but it’s true.

I have helped over 500 successful businesses and business expansions to get started. I have never seen a single exception to this thinking.  I’m sure there must be some somewhere, but not in my experience. 

You can take advantage of my experience if you’re thinking about launching a business or expanding one. For a modest consulting fee, I will serve as your temporary coach and advisor until you get things off the ground. I work with clients by phone and computer and occasionally, when realistic and appropriate, personal visit. 

You can tap into what I have learned the hard way and spare yourself considerable stress and expense. 

If you’re interested, call me direct at 302.933.0116, and let’s set a time to talk. No fee. I’ll give you 20-30 minutes to get me interested.

If you can’t afford me or I can’t help you personally, I’ll steer you in the right directions –as a courtesy– because my life’s mission is to help small businesses succeed.                                                                                                        

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Here you are, set to your own music, on a blog platter:

THE GREAT

SPUNK & GUMPTION

RECOVERY INITIATIVE

Looking back into this site’s archives, I ran across a couple of posts I wrote titled, “What Sport Is Your Business?“ and “What’s Your T-Shirt Say?” Both are still timely and both are worthy of your quick review — if you actually get through this post!

An hour later (after looking back on those earlier posts), I found myself sitting in a parking lot playing with my new satellite car radio, and noticed a string of song titles that seemed to accurately (and often humorously) describe many past, present, and future business situations.

Here’s a sampler to kick your brain into gear enough for you to come up with your own songs that best represent your past, present, and future business (and yes, believe it or not, all of these were once big hits!):

• Spooky

• Those Were The Days

• These Are The Days

• Let It Snow

• Let It Rock

• Let The Sunshine In

• Just A Dream

• Dreams

• Dreamin’

• Trouble

• Rescue Me

• Slow ‘n Easy

• Thin Air

• Over My Head

• Sailin’

• Step Right Up

• Animal Rights

• Comin’ Under Fire

• Up Against The Wall

• Gone

• It’s A Grand Night For Singing

• Bad Luck

• Hey Hey Hey

     . . . Add your own here:___________

Good job! Next, let’s start to explore if where your business is right now is where you want it to be. How did it get to this point? When you started it or picked it up or inherited it, did you infuse piles of energy and time and money into it? Are you still doing that? If you stopped somewhere along the way, when? Where? How?

Are you still “stopped”? (or pretending not to be, even though you know you are?) 

HOW are you choosing to stay there— stagnant, dormant, status quo? (In other words, what specific steps have you chosen to take, or are continuing to take every day, that have left your competitors little choice but to pass you by? What are you willing to do about that right NOW? What CAN you do right NOW?)

Where’s that spunk and gumption

that you started with?

It doesn’t take a fat bank account or 20-hour workdays or “breakthrough technology” to be able to pick up most businesses that have grown lethargic or have quietly given in to our stress-breeding economy in order to turn things around and/or get re-focused.

It takes acceptance of where things are, determination to get things moving again, recognition that it’s all a matter of choice and leadership (employee leadership, industry and market leadership, customer service and community leadership), and re-ignition of that burning desire to succeed to make it all work.

Can you? Of course you can. You got this far didn’t you? You’re reading this blog post, aren’t you? You want to, don’t you? Then, do it! Stop listening to negative, woe-is-me songs in your head (and on the radio!), and replace them with positive, upbeat tunes.

HOW?

Just CHOOSE to change the channel!

Disney wasn’t far off base when he had

The Seven Dwarfs sing “Whistle While You Work!” 

~~~~~~~~~

302.933.0116   Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!