Ten Tips for Success in Business

At MoMondays Montreal this week, Montreal Entrepreneur and Author, Herman Alves, talked about his illustrious career in business, giving ten tips for success. Basic, yet true, these tips serve as a reminder to those of us in the trenches of self-employment and entrepreneurship:

Photo courtesy of Morguefile

1. Everything is possible
2. You need a burning desire to succeed
3. Have a destination - the route is both strategic and tactical
4. The two E's: Emotion and Energy (Think Passion)
5. Be willing and able to take risks
6. Cultivate the attitude of a missionary (Do what you love and believe in and the money will follow)
7. Do it NOW
8. Be proactive
9. An action creates a reaction - we never do anything for nothing.
10. Be creative and set yourself apart

How do these tips resonate with you? What is your business success story?

Seeking empowerment coaching to create greater success in your work and life? I'd welcome the opportunity to work with you! Call me: 514.996.2414 for a free consultation.

Let the Money Flow

Money doesn't grow on trees. Money is the root of all evil. Spend and save equally. Money makes the world go around. Did you grow up with ay of these messages about money? Or others perhaps? How have these compelling messages shaped your belief about money and its place in your life?

You see, money is a resource, a tool. It flows around us and through us. We give money. We receive money. When we hold tight to money, feeling a lack in its flow around us, we are telling the universe that we are undeserving and unworthy. Money will indeed be tight and scarce. When we think abundance, we act as if. We attract money to us. Try this next time you walk into a store and observe yourself thinking that you cannot afford to buy anything.

Go with the flow around money. A few affirmations I like to use are:

• Financial abundance is now coming to me easily and effortlessly (Shakti Gawain).
• I am living in abundance.
• I am prosperous.
• I am wealthy.
• I am financially secure.

Then stop worrying. You have put your wish out to the ethers. Let money flow back. And it will.

What compelling messages have you told yourself about money that may have you stuck and not in flow with money and financial abundance?

Empowerment coaching can help you harness the abundance in all areas of your life. For a complimentary discovery session, call: 514.996.2414.

Listen When Someone Shows You Who They Are

Actions speak louder than words. Show, don't tell. These phrases speak to the concept of authenticity and integrity. Maya Angelou brilliantly captures the essence of integrity: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” Someone’s words just don't jive with what their actions are showing. Perhaps they don’t call you back, they arrive late, they make nasty digs. These people are showing you who they are by their actions.

Notice your own reaction: perhaps second-guessing yourself around what your intuition is saying and feeling crazy around the individual, frustrated even because of powerlessness in the face of this contradiction. At first you might even disbelieve them and when they prove themselves true, you act shocked that their actions have impacted you.

This is where authenticity comes into play. If you shrink from the truth of the situation, denying what you are experiencing, then you may be enabling the other person's behavior. You are not being authentic to yourself. It is easy to continue making allowances for someone else’s bad behavior. We tell ourselves any number of untruths: It’s not that bad. I’m just being oversensitive (It must be me). Maybe I can help them change. They really have so many other good qualities…and so on.

Step back and think, then think some more:

1. Listen when someone tells you who they are
2. Believe them
3. Trust yourself: avoid second-guessing your intuition
4. Lovingly detach from the person and their actions
5. Be direct in telling the other how their actions are affecting you, then let them deal with the consequences of their behavior
6. Take care of yourself: carry on with your own life and self-focus

We don’t own other peoples’ actions or reactions. We can only focus on own integrity and be our authentic selves. Do you need to take a step back and really listen to what someone in your life is telling you that contradicts their actions?

Empowerment coaching can help you get clear and gain clarity on relationships. For a free discovery session, call: 514.996.2414

Break a Plate, Break a Pattern

Write what you want to release then let it go!

At Robin des Bois Restaurant in Montreal, there's this little room off the entrance where you can break a plate for a donation. How cathartic an experience it was to write on a plate, something I had wanted to let go of and in full protective headgear, throw my plate against a hard object and see it smash into a million little pieces--a release of what I've been holding onto!

This action was all about releasing my lack of clear boundaries in certain situations, with certain people. And breaking this plate symbolized breaking a pattern that no longer serves me.

Is there a pattern you'd like to break that no longer serves you well? How can you symbolically break that pattern as you move into action to actually break it?

Empowerment coaching can help you become aware of patterns. For a complimentary discovery session, call: 514.996.2414

Are you a snake charmer?

I've always had a fear of snakes. I remember participating in a university research study where I was hooked up to electrodes, facing a snake in an aquarium; it was moved closer to me on a track as I sat contemplating whether I should touch or simply observe the snake. I chose not to touch the snake and later learned that had I done so, this action would have ended my participation because the researchers were measuring fear response. Never had I thought that my fear and healthy respect for snakes would come to be a metaphor for some of my adult relationships.

Snakes are insidious. They strike out with their venomous bites when you least expect it. Snakes are false prophets. While they may seem confident, rather, they are self-protective. They bite when provoked or not. If you poke a snake and it bites, it is your fault because you touched it. Even if you were trodding through the grass unaware and happened to step on the snake, it is still your doing. You needed to know the snake was there and instead, charm it, finding a way to co-exist with the snake.

I call this walking on eggshells around someone who always has the potential to strike out. And this is a very tentative unbalanced way to live in a relationship. There is a sense that the control lies with the snake, that you are never in control. In fact, you are powerless...over the snake, over its bite and over your relationship with the snake. You cannot be your authentic self with the snake, so you cannot BE with the snake.

As long as you expect a snake to be like a warm furry mammal and try to hug it, its forked tongue will always seek out your cheek to plant a venomous kiss. Leave the snake charming to the experts. It may be safer to hug a lion!

Are you trying to hug a snake? What would it look like if you instead, kept a safe distance?


Empowerment coaching can help you deal with false prophets who may feed self-limiting beliefs. For a free discovery session, call: 514.996.2414

Getting Roped In

Nasty, mean, insensitive, manipulative, rude--do any of these characteristics describe people you consistently deal with and to whom you keep giving second (third and fourth and millionth) chances? What's that about? Is it about compassion? You're just too nice; you think that maybe they will change or better yet, that you can somehow change them? There is this sense of continually getting roped in by their manipulation and in the process, ceding your serenity.

I've faced this reality in my life: finding myself in a difficult relationship feeling compassion towards someone who consistently mistreats me, thinking they will do better, that they will have an awakening and treat me differently. What is this dynamic grounded in? Guilt? A sense of misplaced loyalty? How does my compassion for the hurtful person overshadow my own need for safety and security in the relationship? Perhaps this is what is meant at the extreme by Stockholm Syndrome, where the abused identifies with and feels compassion for the abuser.

I suspect some early programming at play here: a behavior that may have served you well as a child needing to trust in the parent whose actions hurt and offended. This was normal. The maltreatment didn't feel right, but you found ways to navigate the rough waters: keeping silent, staying out of the way, denying your feelings and even placating the offender, thinking "If only I do more of this, then they won't act mean toward me."

This behavior no longer serves you as an adult. The phrase "being a doormat" comes to mind. In the grown-up world, you can simply walk away--choose to love from afar and be compassionate from a distance. This is loving detachment. And loving detachment is about self-preservation because it lets you love yourself more than you love the person hurting you. A dear fellow coach and creator of the the blog Nutrition-INCheck tells me that she deals with this reality by constantly checking in with herself around food and her relationships. So work to love yourself MORE and lovingly detach to maintain your serenity.

Empowerment coaching can help you self-focus. For a free discovery session, call: 514.996.2414! You're worth it!

Just sit with it

Have you ever wanted to make a decision while you were feeling emotional? Have you wanted to reply right in the moment when anger, sadness or even happiness were the lens through which you would do so? This post is about sitting with it...sitting with the situation that arises and taking the space and time away from that situation to give yourself the gift of clarity. Answers will come; they always do.

Recently I found myself spinning around a situation that clearly did not belong to me. The old fixer in me was rising up and out, ready to resolve as I found myself back in that dynamic of wanting to make everything better and okay for the other person. I was emotional and spinning around a situation I did not cause, cannot control and certainly cannot cure. The raw emotion and pull I was feeling had me wanting to "do something" and on top of it, I was in the middle of a full schedule in my own life that my emotions were preventing me from being truly present to.

There are so many things you CAN do when you want to reply, promise or decide:

1. Go inward and focus on what's coming up for you.
2. Detach with love and see yourself as separate from the person, place, thing or situation to which you want to respond.
3. Focus on yourself--what can you take care of in your own life where putting that attention in the now will make the greatest difference?
4. Do something physical such as exercise or dance it off to some favorite music. Movement shifts energy.
5. Just sit with IT (In fact, give IT a chair of its own)...and get on with your own life!

This simple prayer offers so much around stepping back as you sit with something...

Dear God/Higher Power/Universe:

Bless the other person, change me.

What are some ways you step back from replying, promising or deciding right in the moment that work for you?


Finding it challenging to take that step back from a situation while you're in it? Empowerment coaching can help you to look at what's coming up. For a complimentary discovery call, contact me: 1.514.996.2414.

What is YOUR worth?

When it comes to putting a price on our work, my fellow coaches and I talk about owning what we do and how much this is worth. A colleague and dear friend of mine often talks about "free the coaches" as this relates to cutting our rates to pro bono or sliding scale, sometimes out of fear of not getting the work due to fees. This post is not so much about setting our worth as professionals as much as it is about feeling our worth and challenging those self-limiting beliefs about money that no longer serve us. This post is about prosperity thinking.

When you approach a professional for services, you pay the posted fee, recognizing that the professional is worthy of their fee because you have confidence they can do the job. They are rendering a service for a certain amount of money, which is justified in the value of that service. So what is it about asking for that amount of money we charge for our services that stops us in our tracks, perhaps second-guessing our own worth?

What messages did you receive about money while growing up that may be impacting how you view yourself in relation to money? Think about these common phrases you may have heard:

• "Money doesn't grow on trees."
• "Money is the root of all evil."
• "Money doesn't buy happiness."
• "Money makes the world go around."
• "A penny saved is a penny earned."
• "Time is money."

How is your current attitude toward money and about the way money flows in and out of your hands and around you, shaped by these and other messages? Do you engage in poverty or scarcity thinking, focusing on lack of rather than abundance of? Think about this next time you walk into a store to purchase an item: where is your focus? I enter a store setting the intention that I am affording what I have come for. Consider intention as you budget your finances or face your debt. We get what we focus most on.

The law of attraction tells us that money is simply a resource, an instrument that flows to and around us, and that there is more than enough money for us--we must merely ask for it. When we feel at ease asking for what we want, knowing that what we charge is fair and deserved in exchange for the value we give, we are in flow and aligned with our core values and purpose. Whether this means requesting a pay raise or posting our fee schedule, we are affirming the value of what we do and what we can deliver. We must challenge those old beliefs about money that have us undermine our worth and instead, know that the service we give meets a need. We must engage in prosperity thinking. And then we must express gratitude for the abundance we receive in all areas of our life.

What is YOUR worth?

Empowerment coaching can help you uncover those obstacles standing in the way of abundance: call 514.996.2414 for a complimentary discovery session to see how we might work together.

Fear's Loophole

Loophole in Castelo de Guimaraes

You can stand in your fear and do nothing or you can feel your fear and do SOMETHING. What is holding you back? What might be the one fear anchoring you, preventing you from taking action and stopping you from moving forward with some goal or project? Spencer Johnson once said: "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" Really--what would you do indeed?

Fear paralyzes and you know that deer-in-the-headlights feeling. So sit with your fear. Observe it. Notice what your fear feels like. Consider what fuels it. Watch how you are NOT your fear. See where your fear leaves you a loophole through which to slip, then slip through. Slowly, but determined. You can do this. You've done it many times before. And you've succeeded!

What truth do you need to uncover that once viewed through the lens of fear, will help you move into action and achieve your goal?

Empowerment coaching can help you move past your fear and do something to slip through fear's loophole: call 514-996-2414!

Modeling Mindful Driving

They’re never too old for lessons about safety. Sometimes you can capitalize on that teachable moment with your child, that plum moment when a lesson is right in front of them and the learning opportunity is clear. Other times, life has its own lessons. Like the one where she drives down the highway late at night with her friend on cell phone speaker. There’s a whooshing noise coming from the window cracked open on the passenger side. So she puts her phone down, unbuckles her seat belt and leans over to roll up the window. Five months later she’s still recovering from the ensuing head-on collision with the highway median—she cannot work and undergoes extensive physical and psychological therapy because she suffered a brain trauma. And she’s the lucky one, getting out alive. This is one hard lesson that you never want your child to learn. Unfortunately, this is a lesson our family recently witnessed: one young family member now faces the consequences of an action many of us may take behind the wheel with no repercussions.
 

People often fall prey to distraction while driving. Before cell phones and texting, there already existed a host of other ways to pass the time in traffic or on long drives: eating, listening to music (and all that fussing with CD cases and radio dials), reading the newspaper at lights and traffic line-ups, even applying make-up while stopped! Conversations during driving are even distracting. 

We live in an era of multi-tasking, cramming as much as we possibly can into moments, activities and driving time. Just watch a teenager at the computer—chatting, listening to music and gaming, while doing homework!

What message are we communicating? Is multi-tasking just another way of trying to be ENOUGH? Is there so much pressure on us to be more, do more and achieve more, that focusing on one task at a time with concentration, mindfulness and presence, is novice and trite?

Here’s a thought: no phone call, no text message, no conversation, no hit song or newscast is worth your life or that of your passenger and other drivers on the road. Saying “No” to distractions means saying “Yes” to yourself. Now there’s a novel idea! And in disallowing distractions, you’re being socially responsible.

You’re excited driving off the lot in your new car. And the vehicle you’ve bought reflects your taste in styling and design, backed by car manufacturer safety testing that speaks of social responsibility. You’ve chosen a car known for its safety features and safety ratings; you bought an ideal that aligns with your values. What is your social responsibility moving forward through traffic? How are you modeling mindful, safe, responsible driving for your children?

Empowerment coaching can help you cultivate mindfulness around mental distraction--for a complimentary coaching session, call: 514-996-2414.