Why everyone needs a good nurse.

I love nurses. They are my absolute heroes. If you are a nurse, I worship the ground you walk on. Truly.

If you’ve ever had a baby, you know how important nurses are. When I was in the hospital to give birth to my first baby, I was understandably scared, as are most women. I knew childbirth was not going to be easy, but I had been to all the prenatal classes and had been prepped on the beauty of an epidural. Unfortunately for me, by the time I was ready for the epidural during the delivery, there were three emergency c-sections at the hospital which meant no anesthesiologists and no epidural for me. WHAT!!???

Ramp up scared to holy-mother-of-god terrified. I was going to have a baby with no meds. This was not in the birthing plan! Enter Nurse Joan… [Read more…]

Follow Your Bliss. Period. End of Story.

Follow your bliss. Turn your passions into profits. Follow your heart and the money will follow. Have you heard phrases like these? What do you think? Does it make you feel excited to think about following your passion? Or do you think it’s all a bunch of new-age hype?

I’ve heard a lot lately about how following your passion is just a bunch of hooey. Yes, I said, hooey. What these nay-sayers suggest is following your passion is not a sound business approach. It takes hard work to be successful. If you are passionate about what you do, great. If not, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is putting your nose to the grind stone and getting it done.

Again, I’ll ask you. How does that make you feel? Do you believe success is hard work? Are you  nodding your head in agreement? Or do you feel slightly pinched in the throat? Well, I’m going to tell you, [Read more…]

Did I just say that?

Jan 2014 blog.Every year during the holidays I do something stupid. It’s not the same thing every year, but it does happen every year. I may say something inane. I might accidentally blow-off an appointment. This year it was getting getting my kids dressed in their holiday outfits, loading up the car and heading to Christmas brunch with the grandparents only to realize after 20 minutes of driving that brunch was the next day.

I hate making these mistakes. It’s embarrassing, disappointing and I’m sick of it happening. So I’ve decided to figure what the heck is going on and come up with a plan to minimize my gaffs.

Five minutes later…

Ok, I’ve got it completely figured out. It didn’t take months of research to identify the problem. It was staring me right in my worn down face. [Read more…]

Do You Want Next Year to be Better?

This is the time of year when we do end-of-year reviews. We look at what went well and what we’d like to do differently moving forward. After all, we want next year to be even better than this one. What often happens, however, is January 1st comes and goes and before we know it, it’s March and things don’t look quite how we’d hoped. Why?

The answer is simple. We tend to follow the same patterns over and over again. We get comfortable with what we know, who we know and how we operate. Although repetition can be wonderful tool in business, it can also become a crutch which stymies our growth. Further, it can make our businesses and brands stale.

So how can you break the repetitive cycle to infuse your business with new life in the new year?

Here are a few tips to help.

1. Decide what you want. Do you want more money? [Read more…]

How To Get A Handle On Your To-Do List

It seems like there are never enough hours in the day to get everything done that needs doing, not to mention things we’d actually like to do.

As entrepreneurs, there are always more tasks and challenges coming our way. This is a good thing! If we finished all our work quickly and easily, we probably wouldn’t be growing.

However, there’s a difference between pushing yourself and pushing yourself over the edge. In order to be successful, and yes sane, we need to find a way to manage our to-do list in an efficient and productive way.

Here is my Top 10 List for checking things off your to-do list: [Read more…]

Do You Have What it Takes to Be a Brand Leader?

“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” — Nelson Mandela nelson mandela photo: nelson mandela nelson_mandela_return_to_cell.jpg

This week marks the loss of one of the world’s greatest leaders, Nelson Mandela. Mandela overcame unthinkable obstacles on his journey to ending apartheid and becoming the first democratically elected president of South Africa. Many a man or woman would not have survived, let alone triumphed over the adversity he faced, but triumph he did.

How many of us face struggle and adversity in our lives or businesses today? How many of us rise to the occasion? My guess is the majority of us admit defeat more often then we’d like. What are we missing? What Nelson Mandela had and what all great leaders share is a strong sense of purpose. We cannot deny even evil dictators have conviction to a cause or mission.

We often describe great leaders as passionate, but [Read more…]

Can Your Audience See You?

When I was in 10th grade I tried out for my school musical. It was Fiddler on the Roof. Ah, how many productions of  Fiddler have been performed on high school stages… I was a sophomore and had been told many times by other students that only seniors got lead roles, but I was not deterred. I practiced my little heart out and on the day of the audition I was ready.

We all sat in the dark auditorium waiting for our names to be called. Of course, with each passing second my heart beat faster and faster, but I was also excited. I wanted to be on that stage. I wanted to show what I could do. So I sat in my seat trying to think of how I could make myself stand out from the rest of the auditioners. And then it hit me. [Read more…]

How To Be A Brand Magnet

We all want people to like us. It’s human nature. In business, however, whether or not people like our brand can make or break us. In this video I give you two simple yet effective tips on how to add more magnetism to your brand. Enjoy!

P.S. Almost forgot, please give your comments in the box below. I love feedback!

Fish Where the Fish Are Jumping

Successful branding is based on the idea of being aggressively individualistic, however, there are times when it pays to be a copy cat. Well, not exactly a copy cat, perhaps more of a voyeur or maybe even a little bit of a barnacle. I’m talking about emulating and even leveraging your competition to grow your own business .

As important as it is to be original in your branding, it is not always necessary to be a maverick in your efforts to find and attract ideal clients. We often think of competition as a negative thing, but there are many advantages to having good competitors. Competition keeps you on your toes and challenges you to continually improve and innovate. It forces you to continually define and refine your niche so you can claim a unique position in the marketplace. Competitors can also be great friends and referral partners.

However, one of the greatest benefits to having good competitors is [Read more…]

The Fastest Path To Big Success

“I want a 7-Figure business and I want it NOW!” Great, so glad to hear it. I’m right there with you Sister. Let’s make that happen. I mean it. LET US make that happen.

Today I was listening to an old episode of the Oprah show on the radio. It was a very touching story, aren’t they all, about a woman who took in an 11 year old boy relative to live with her. She was a single woman who had applied to and was preparing to go into the Peace Corps when relatives approached her about this little boy who had no where else to go.  Around the same time she saw an episode of the Oprah show about another woman who had taken on the task of caring for a sick elderly relative. It was that episode that tipped the decision for her to take the boy in.

At the end of the sound bite, Oprah chimed in and said “I love the power of television.” What she was was referring to was the power of television to connect people. Because the woman in the story saw someone else being open and brave, she was able to dig deep into herself and find her own courage and conviction which in turn not only saved the boy, but also gave her life great joy and meaning.

Your business is not an episode of the Oprah show, however, [Read more…]