Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

HEALTH  and WELLNESS

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY by Peggy Salvatore

Health, wellness and employment

are inextricably intertwined.

As an entrepreneur, you are responsible for your own, and possibly your team’s, health and wellness.

A study released in June 2015 found that almost one third of workers would quit their jobs if they didn’t have access to healthcare benefits through their employers.

Not only are employees concerned about healthcare benefits while in your employ, a smart business owner is concerned about the health and wellness of his or her employees in the New Economy.

After all, wellness is correlated to physical, mental, and emotional health, and those states of existence directly affect on on-the-job performance and productivity. A healthy worker is a contented and productive worker.

Knowledge workers are engaged in activities that fulfill them personally. They are not disconnected from their work as the manufacturing line workers of the industrial era. You and your team will operate at peak efficiency when the mind-body-spirit connection is acknowledged and encouraged.

Health and wellness is more than just eating granola and yogurt, using skin cream and doing push-ups . . . or providing a health plan.

For yourself and anyone on your team, health is about exercise and stretching fitness, eating well and having a positive mental attitude. All those things that contribute to holistic health affect the performance of your business because–combined–they put you and those who work with you in a better position to minimize and deal most effectively with the inevitables of negative stress.

You can put your enterprise on more solid footing by making sure you are taking good care of yourself, that you are promoting by example, and that you are making health and wellness opportunities available to members of your team.

Beyond funding doctor and hospital insurance, employee health and wellness can be supported by online and telemedicine services that monitor function, give feedback to exercise and diet efforts and support people during difficult personal times. Is YOUR business jogging in place?

Smart entrepreneurs are sensitive to

the mind, body and spirit connection

for themselves and those around them.

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C’mon back MONDAY 10/19

for THE FINAL DAY (#30)

IN THIS DAILY 30-DAY SERIES.

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SPECIAL   A N N O U N C E M E N T

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LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR:

“ENTREPRENEURS ARE AGENTS OF CHANGE . . . Accelerating Your Business”

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With Hal and Peggy’s wealth of business coaching experience, you’ll learn how YOU match up with what successful entrepreneurs are thinking and doing RIGHT NOW. Get ideas you never imagined. Gain the traction you need within 2 hours — not days or weeks or months. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details, to explain your business pursuit focus and to reserve your seat! $99 total for 2 hours. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

———-

For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

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Hal@Businessworks.US      Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Business and personal

courage come in as many

different packages as there

are people on Earth

 To decide to live (personal or business) instead of to die takes courage. Being brave enough to step up conscious effort far surpasses the alternative of choosing to give up, give in, quit. Choosing death (personal or business) takes no inner strength, no conviction, no belief, no sense of self-worth, no guts. Yet both choices have their advocates, don’t they?

~~~~~~~~

I know many who have chosen life over death in spite of suffering:  and they are my heroes —  all of them!

I have unfortunately also known some who have simply chosen to die rather than fight to live and face the reality of their fantasies. We are rarely aware of these poor souls living among us in our work settings, neighborhoods, and families… until they bring us great sadness! 

How –after all— do we assess someone’s gumption? Isn’t gumption a (if not the) key attribute of courage?

Maybe we’re not consciousness-raised enough to tune in to others’ plights, or perhaps it’s just too overwhelming to think about? One need not be a shrink in order to sift through some obvious clues. Great amounts of ongoing, chronic, pain can often be a quit-life sign. Overall failure to adjust attitude or to respond instead of react are others.

Don’t go running around now trying to psychoanalyze your employees and family. Thoughts presented here are simply meant to trigger some awarenesses and prompt some introspection.

Perhaps the biggest and most dramatic difference between those who choose life over death has to do with whether people live most of their lives in the mentally and emotionally unhealthy “then and there” past, or the “if and when” future, vs. the far healthier and happier conscious stability of “here and now” present moment reality. 

Mental and emotional good health –even with physical suffering– means paying attention to and appreciating every present “what’s happening” moment as much of the time as possible. It means authenticity. It means seeing and hearing and responding to what’s right in front of one’s face. It’s Gestalt.

Do past and present ever come into play? Of course. We’re human.

Gestalt thinking and practice recognizes that past and future indulgences have value when they’re managed from the present. Past memories, for instance, can have a great soothing effect and enormous learning value. Future thinking is essential to survival because we must all plan and schedule.

The trick is to constantly work at keeping focused on the here and now. Generally, the more someone has one foot grounded in the existing real time world, the healthier she or he is apt to be, and the better prepared he or she will be to live (and continually choose to live) a rewarding and meaningful, make-a-difference life. 

How to get to the point of maximizing life requires some major letting go of behaviors that may be comfortable in favor of taking new pathways. And that bit of transition and personal growth takes courage.

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Hal@Businessworks.US  

  Open minds open doors. 

 Thanks for visiting.

   Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

When you finally slow down for

(or from) the weekend,

DEFRAGMENT!

No need to explain why. You already know all the economy, industry or profession, marketplace and competition reasons.

So let’s get to the heart of it. Use this slow-down-time period to step back, adjust your glasses, put your hands on your hips, stretch, yawn, take some deep breaths, and defragment — put all the pieces out on the table.

Start with your business . . .

What’s been going on these past few months? Weeks? Where’s your business now, and where’s it headed?

~~FINANCES?

Management? Strategies?  Communications? Budgets? Investors? A/R? A/P? Cash flow? Payroll? Other overhead? Reimbursements? Taxes? Revenues? Charitable donations? Profits? Accounting systems? Bookkeeping services? Add your own here: _____________________  

~~OPERATIONS?

Management? Strategies? Communications? Equipment? Supplies? Storage? Shipping? Inventory? Warehousing? Operating systems? Work flow? Scheduling? Purchasing? Leases? Legal actions? IT? Add your own here: _______  _________________________________   

~~MARKETING?

Management? Strategies? Communications? Branding? Sales? (Yes, sales is a function of marketing.) Public and community and investor and industry relations (Also all marketing functions, including news releases, special events, blogs, BUZZ)? Advertising (another function of marketing, including online, traditional and direct media . . . as well as the creation and production of all of it) Pricing? Packaging? Promotion? Merchandising? Social media? Add your own here: _____________________________  

~~HUMAN RESOURCES?

Management? Strategies? Communications? Benefit programs? Customer Service? Referral values? Recruitment? Hiring and firing? leadership, teamwork and skills development training? Performance incentives? Motivational programs? Add your own here: _____________________________

[So you noticed those 3 primary targets for each category, huh? Well, in my experience, poor management, poor (or no) strategies, and poor communications have consistently been the primary reasons for business failure!]

That should give you a place to start. When you’ve exhausted your business thinking, switch gears to your SELF.

What’s been going on these past few months/weeks  with YOU? Where are you now, and where are you headed?

~~HEALTH & FITNESS?

Are you squeezing in enough exercise every week to keep yourself in decent shape? You need not lift or jog for three hours a day and eat powered protein shakes with 37 raw eggs for breakfast in order to stay physically fit.

Many experts say 3 hours a week of brisk walking and avoiding overdoses of red meat and fatty foods will suffice for most people with busy schedules. Are you getting routine medical and dental health checkups as recommended? What do you need to do to motivate yourself in these directions?  

~~FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS

Are you spending enough quality time with children, parents, spouse or significant other and (get your finger out of your throat!) your in-laws? How can you combine some time-consumers more productively? Walk with family members or friends. Partner up for health tests (easier to deal with when you have company).

Get serious about sharing healthy food preparation ideas, recipes, and meals. Small specialty of handmade gifts and handwritten thank you notes work wonders as relationship cement. Add your own ideas here: ____________________

~~SELF-EXPRESSION, SELF-AWARENESS & SELF-DEVELOPMENT

Surely you know what you need to do in these categories to defragment yourselfand move forward with the adventures in creative expression and self and academic learning that you’ve always wanted to fit into your life, but never chose to make the room for. Now’s your chance to choose, and blame it on me!

The more you can learn about yourself, the better you’ll be as a leader and coach and role model . . . the better prepared you’ll be to inspire and motivate others to productivity and peak performances. Choose to make yourself make room for this. 

Weekend time slow-down periods are the perfect times to reevaluate and make commitments to yourself.

No, not token promises that never happen. Get serious here for a minute.

You have only one life, and the rest of it starts the minute you leave this blog post, so how about making the rest of your life make the kind of difference you’ve only ever dreamed of?

Hey, what’s to lose by trying?

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www.TheWriterWorks.com

302.933.0116 or 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!

The World’s Greatest Expert

on Death and Dying–

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD

–Points to Five Stages:

• Denial and Isolation
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

     She said we –all of us–  must experience each of these five stages to one degree or another in the order they are shown above with every loss experience. The only exceptions being instances where people get stuck in a given stage and never get beyond it.

     So as business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs, some of us experience bits and pieces of these five stages everyday with daily losses.

     Kübler-Ross said that losses are not limited to human death, and can  include the loss of a limb or faculty, or ability… loss of a valuable possession (a home, a car, a business), loss of companionship (including divorce and separation), loss of freedom (including jail), loss of a job, loss of a client, loss of a prospect or opportunity, loss of self-esteem, loss of authority, etc., etc.

     And to a lesser degree, we even experience these stages when we lose a dollar, a photograph, a letter, an address, a contest, and so on.

     So what’s the point? Healthy successful people do everything humanly possible to channel all their energies and mental focus on reaching the level (or “Stage”) of ACCEPTANCE as quickly as possible, and on maintaining themselves at that level as permanently as possible.

     Everything else is non-productive. Everything else leaves us feeling deflated and defeated and negative. Some people stay in these places their entire lives. Some are institutionalized. Some do themselves in.

     Stages 1-4 are pure torment. We must go through them, but the goal needs to be to move through them as rapidly as our minds and bodies allow us to. Getting through the maze may take friends and rescuers to stand by shoulder to shoulder. We have all performed that function for someone else, but perhaps have forgotten?  

     Keep always in the front of your mind that no matter how out of control it may feel to be stuck somewhere in denial and isolation, or in anger, or in a bargaining position, or a state of depression, it IS a matter of choice!

     The minute we choose to accept loss, the quicker we can get on with a happy and productive existence and make the most of the short time we each have here on Earth…make the most of the relationships we’ve been blessed with: with other people and places and purposes.

     We need not choose to lock ourselves into suffering and misery. Life and business life are way too short to have wasted time and energy with anything besides being happy and healthy and in active pursuit of our dreams.  

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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“Where laughter fails

to heal, it never fails

to ease the pain.”

 – A terminal cancer patient

     I am convinced that nothing –nothing– is better medicine or better health food than laughter.  Nothing binds people together like laughter. 

     Laughter is the magic ingredient that’s the single most overwhelming key to success in business, professional practices (I know, it;s hard to imagine laughing lawyers, doctors and accountants, but stay with me here), marriages, families, organizations, and partnerships. 

     I did qualify the professional practice types with the word “success” which may or may not interpret as financial success.  Certainly it’s not in the context of the old medical self-love acknowledgement that “the operation was a success but the patient died.” 

     I’m talking about the success in life success, as in business life, social life, family life, religious life, outdoor life, academic life, you get the idea.  Laughter may not make you a success in any facet of life, but it’s hard as hell to think anyone could get there without it!  Ha! 

     Laughter is a universal symbol of mental and emotional health.  Mental and emotional health is increasingly credited by experts as the central source of physical health.

     Did you get the last laugh when you last laughed?  Or were you simply enjoying the spirit of the moment?  Come to think of it, when did you last laugh?  If you can’t answer this in terms shorter than minutes or hours, you in deep trouble, brother! 

     You better take two aspirin, drink lots of liquids, get to bed, and call me in the morning sounding so hysterical laughing that everyone else in your household thinks you’re sick!  Think you can do that? 

     Oh, and before you make the call, pitter-patter your little bare feet into the bathroom (in all probability, an especially essential trip after drinking lots of fluids anyway), and stick that face of yours in the mirror. 

     Er, maybe take care of the fluids first unless the mirror is, well, you know . . . now SMILE into the mirror!  No, not that dorky make-believe grin you give co-workers when they offer you a bite of their meatball sub or the one you save for the neighbor seconds after stepping backwards in your sneakers onto his Saint Bernard’s fresh deposit in your driveway. 

     I’m talking GENUINE smile here.  Go for it!  What’s the worst thing can happen?  Your significant other asks what you’re doing?  Ha!  “I’m smiling.” is all you have to say. 

     Give it your all.  Teeth.  Cheeks.  Eyes.  Something that will burst into a laugh when you actually realize it’s on your own face!  YOW! 

     Man, what a struggle.  You better start doing a lot more of that.  It’s good for you, uses fewer muscles than a frown, and might even make you some new friends!  Hey, a couple of laughs won’t kill you, y’know.  What’s that commercial?  It’s in you.  Do it.  HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!        

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!