Are You In There? Coming soon on BlogTalk Radio

Posted on September 6, 2011 by DeBorah Beatty

As many of you know, I had a show for over two years on BlogTalk Radio. With my new focus on solopreneurs, I’m firing up a new show beginning in October called, “Are You In There? Rediscovering the You In Your Business” (RUIT for short).

I’m looking for guests who would like to be interviewed. Requirements are:

  1. You are a solo business owner
  2. You work with solo business owners
  3. You have a topic that focuses on re-envisioning for either the business or the business owner in overwhelm

That’s it. We should have lots of fun. Shows will be 30 minutes in length to begin with, so contact me if you’re interested and I’ll send you my guest form.

 

 

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Edgy Entrepreneurship: Be deliciously dangerous

Posted on August 13, 2011 by DeBorah Beatty

“I’m a very dangerous woman, and I love being that way. I’m intentionally so and go to great lengths to be threatening.”

What if someone walked up to you and said the statement above? What would you think? Would you thank them for their time and book it out of there or be intrigued to find out why the person considered themselves dangerous?

Being the wordsmith I am, I set out to find a definition of dangerous that corresponds to how I use it.  I did find this in an etymological dictionary:

dangerous 
early 13c., “difficult, arrogant, severe” (the opposite of affable), from Anglo-Fr. dangerous, O.Fr. dangeros (12c., Mod.Fr. dangereux), from danger (see danger). In Chaucer, it means “hard to please, reluctant to give;” sense of “full of danger, risky” is from late 15c.

This comes closest. What I mean when I say I’m dangerous is that I threaten your status quo; intentionally, selfishly, demandingly. I’m extremely hard to please and reluctant to give an inch when faced with the ennui of “We’ve always done it that way”. (Them’s fightin’ words in my book!)

I like to make people think for themselves, outside the boxes society has built for them, and to see a vision of something new, shiny and different. As a small business owner, I find myself consistently challenged by the race of new technology, new concepts, styles and definitions. It’s fun and there’s nothing I like more than to sit down with a small business owner and ask them why they do what they do.

I know I’m on the right track when I can watch their eyes light up and soften as they get in touch with “The Dream” that calls to them. And it’s not the dream itself, it’s the feelings that living that dream evokes. They’re a heady drug and extremely communicable once the business owners allow themself the freedom to taste and experience the dream as reality.

Have you experienced business owners who don’t believe they can make it but are trying all the same? Not too impressive, are they? If they don’t believe what they’re doing is possible, why should you?  The edgy entrepreneurs are those that have a dangerous glint in their eye. a lover’s flush to their faces and that certain smile when you ask them about their business.

One of the first things I talk about with my clients is that they are safe in my space to tell me anything, discuss anything or try on new ideas. The next thing I tell them is that I’m dangerous and they should be prepared that we may make a fast right turn they didn’t see coming.

Unexpected.

Uncompromising.

Unattached to an outcome.

This is dangerous at its best.  As solo business owners we answer onlly to ourselves. We should be as dangerous as possible. We’re risking it all for that golden ring of the lifestyle we see when we mainline the Dream.This is not the time to play it safe.

So go out today and be dangerous. Do something completely new and unexpected. Live your dream, but live it all.

 

 

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Solopreneur Overwhelm:Too Tired To Care

Posted on June 25, 2011 by DeBorah Beatty

As one-person business owners, we do it all. There’s nobody to delegate to so things get piled for time to get to them. The “Round Tuit” was invented for people like us. But the stress inherent in rarely being able to feel a task has been completed and celebrate it’s conclusion is also huge. Business overwhelm is a common complaint among solopreneurs. It’s so easy to be stuck in a rut of working endless hours to get something done and yet having less and less to show for it except deep bags under your eyes and a bigger waist because you never leave your desk.

There’s so much to be done, the tasks become so huge, we’re to intellectually and emotionally exhausted to tackle them in the first place and around we go again.

How do you cope with business overwhelm? Do you just take a day and virtually put a “gone fishing” sign on your door?

That works for the business side, but when you’re feeling frustrated and in over your head, it also creeps in on the personal side as well. If you’re lucky enough to have a relationship and/or family, how do you think it affects them to have you stressed and distracted and just plain missing when you’re too busy thinking how to make the business thrive to concentrate on having those closest to you thrive, too.

It is possible to balance the two sides , but it won’t happen until you choose which one has priority. One side has to. There’s no right or wrong with the choice, it just has to be made.

Once you choose which side, personal or business, is the higher priority for you, then it becomes easier to handle the tasks that come your way.

For instance. Ani is a single mother who has started a business to attain her ultimate goal of financial security and more time to spend with her child. When we first started talking, she loudly declared that her priority was her child and his well-being. On further digging, we found that although she felt she “ought to” have that be her priority, she felt the business was more important at this time since her son was young and she could take care of his minimal needs easily, but the business was her ticket away from the 9-5 j.o.b. she worked and hated so she poured all her extra time and all her energy into it; feeling guilty that she wasn’t putting her son first.

What we were able to discern after several sessions was that by putting the business first, and accepting that she was making that her priority, she freed herself from the guilt and still was taking care of her son’s needs. She was focusing whenever she could on the business while he did not require her time and attention so that when he did she could be there for him.

Here are some tips to help with the overwhelm:

Disconnect Your Oughta-Pilots(tm) – Stop beating yourself up because you “ought to” or “should” be doing something for the business when you’re watching tv at night or just “vegging out” playing a computer game. You can’t be on the clock 24/7. It isn’t effective, it isn’t wise and it isn’t healthy. Your brain needs a distraction once in a while.

 

Take time to write out a detailed to-do list. Are there parts of tasks that can be broken up? Can you get something done like returning emails or making a phone call during a lull?  I have a practice I learned a long time ago in a time management class. Write your daily to-do list in the morning. Work on it all day. Then 15 minutes before the end of your day, take time to go through the incomplete tasks. Separate the tasks by priority and move the hit items that did not get completed either to the next day or if you’re waiting for something else to happen to continue with the item, move it a few days out. Then when you get in the following morning, you know what you have to do from the previous day before you write down all the tasks for the present day. Also with having a detailed to do list, you can turn your to-do’s into Ta-DAHs! and have visual proof that you’ve accomplished something.

 

Don’t be too proud to ask for help. A spouse, a child, or a friend can come help out sometimes. I can remember when I was younger  being asked to staple pages together for my mother. I thought it was fun and loved feeling like I was helping. On occasion when my daughter was small and I needed to concentrate on a particularly involved project, I asked my neighbor if she could watch my daughter afterschool and feed her dinner if necessary. I returned the favor when my neighbor needed a night off.

All sorts of things can be worked out once you can rid yourself of the overwhelm. Keep telling yourself that there are only 24 hours in the day and that you created your business to give you more freedom to enjoy them.

 

Set business hours. No one knows more than I how difficult that is, but you’ll thank yourself in the long run. When you were working for someone else, you would leave your work at the end of your day knowing it would be waiting for you when you got back in the morning, right? Well, there’s also a huge reward for doing it in your own business, too. You’ll be able to make plans to socialize, to eat dinner away from your keyboard and just enjoy your night.  (And just think, when you run across someone who is talking about the latest episode of a show on tv, or a movie, you’ll actually have something to contribute to the conversation instead of being so one dimensional and business focused all the time.)

Once you feel more in control and that you have more options than being chained to your desk, I guarantee you will feel more energized, more hopeful and less stressed about your business.

 

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Say what? The missing 600

Posted on May 22, 2011 by DeBorah Beatty

Whenever we’re in a conversation, we speak at an average of 150 words per minute (more if you’re from the East Coast). We process about 750 words a minute, so where do the other 600 words come from? Our inner dialog that never shuts up.

VictrolaIn my workshop, Watch Your Mouth, Your Subconsicous Is Listening, we find that we have a personal DJ playing old scratched records with commentary that have the volume turned way up so we can still hear our Original Song under all the noise. But in straining to  listen to it, we still hear and process the scratched and warped sounds, too.

A word here about your  Original Song, each one of us has one. We were born with it. The lyrics and the cadence are the basic rhythm of who we are and who we become in our lifetime. No two songs are the same, although they can be similar. The phrase about marching to a different drummer is more profound than we think.

Just as with your favorite album that gets scratched because it’s played so often, during the process of growing up, socializing and being human, a lot of noise is recorded and laid down over the master track on the record of your life. Sometimes there’s harmony, sometimes it’s just scratches and odd sounds. The problems arise when we listen to the noise instead of the master track. It’s so easy to get lost in a counter rhythm which is actually someone else’s song they want us to sing instead of doing it themselves.

Living on Oughta-Pilot™ is letting an “ought to” or a “should” be the primary motivation for how you live your life, the choices and decisions you make and the attitudes and feelings that arise.

Are you living on Oughta-Pilot or are you truly following your own dream? Are you singing your own Original Song or a parent’s, teacher’s or friend’s?

Sometimes we’re distracted by a complete stranger’s song that we resonate with. When we can’t distinguish our own any longer, it’s possible to mistake another’s melody for our own and we dance happily to it for awhile until one day we wake up and realize that there’s just that “something” that’s missing from it and we begin a new search.

And then, one day, we meet someone or hear someone who shows us how to polish that scratchy old record until the noise is not so distracting. It never really goes away, but once we can hear the first few notes of our Song once again, it’s so much easier to hear the rest of it and ignore the scratches and the dust specks.

Are you ready to polish your record? I have some great stuff to minimize scratches and bring out the beautiful notes of your Songs.

I’m offering a special summer deal between now and the end of September. When you purchase a three-month program with me, I’ll throw in a fourth month of coaching for free! Yes, you read correctly. Any of my modules or we can create one of your own! Let’s set up some time to chat about your Song and what’s been distracting you from singing it.

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Sacred Space: Recharging Your Batteries

Posted on April 10, 2011 by DeBorah Beatty

Even Superman had his sanctum sanctorum, his Fortress of Solitude, where he could get away from all the people who needed him and rest, recover or just have peace and quiet for a change.

Do you have a place of your own to think, meditate, plan and dream? If you do, good for you. If you don’t, why not? And, more importantly, if you have one, do you use it?

When you don’t have a place that is yours alone, kids-free, spouse-free, business-free and inviolate, it’s rather like trying to get a good night’s sleep in the middle of the freeway!

We all need a sacred space to recharge our batteries; particularly when you’re running a business that has you pulled in several directions at once.

So what is sacred space, exactly?

Sacred space will mean different things to different people, but in its barest form, it means a space where you can be undisturbed, at peace and relaxed. A place you can leave stress outside of and others respect. It can be as simple as a favorite chair where you can enjoy a cup of your favorite beverage or an actual room set aside for meditation or yoga or whatever recharges and refreshes you.

buddha shrineDepending on your own beliefs and practices, your space can be whatever you choose. I have clients who use their designated sacred space for reading and reflecting on Bible passages first thing in the morning and for taking a 15-minute break mid afternoon to catch their breath. I have friends who have a designated sacred space for doing yoga, meditating and their morning and evening prayers. Another friend of mine considers her bathtub sacred space. So it’s most definitely what you choose it to be.

I first read about creating a sacred space several years ago in Sarah Ban Breathnach’s beautiful book “Simple Abundance.” I felt like I needed a place to calm myself, and recharge on a regular basis. My world was crashing around my ears and I wanted to remove myself from the drama and recharge.

I like to come into my own space, take a few deep breaths, light a small candle and just be still to see what the Universe has to share with me. Sometimes it’s some wonderfulness that I might have missed while tearing around being busy.

Setting up a Sacred Space is different in your home and at an office, too, obviously. I suggest the following

For someone working from home:

Find a corner with good energy. It can be anywhere, actually.

Go “shopping”. Look around your home and find something that elicits a strong response in you — a painting, a statue, even a piece of fabric.

Set up some way of identifying that space as yours. A small table as an altar, a shelf, a chair and throw.

Ask yourself what you need to add to the space and listen to your Inner Self for the answer. You know what you’ve been missing.

Set aside a time each day to occupy that space, add soft, soothing music on an MP3 player.  Spend at least 15 minutes allowing a conversation with the Universe and clearing your mind.

For someone working in an external office

Find a space where you can be undisturbed. If you have a door you can close, your whole office can be Sacred Space.

Bring in a few things that will call to you to spend quiet time with them. An item to put on your bookshelf that has a special meaning is good, or a piece of artwork you can get lost in for a few minutes a day.

Set aside a time each day to occupy that space, add soft, soothing music on an MP3 player, if you can. Spend at least 15 minutes allowing a conversation with the Universe and clearing your mind.

Space is not the only thing you need to hold sacred. There is also time. How many times do you blow off spending quiet time or doing something you were looking forward to because you have just “one more thing” to get out of the way before you go. Ever have that one more thing turn into ten? Me, too.

When you set up your appointments with clients, customers or vendors, you wouldn’t think of not keeping them would you? Well, how about making an appointment with yourself every day or every few days to check in and see how things are going? AND KEEP THAT APPOINTMENT!

As business owners, we tend to minimize the importance of “Me Time”. I know, it seems to be a luxury to look forward to rather than experience. I used to feel the same way. But what needs to happen here is a shift to feeling that we are as important as those people who are coming through our door. We are. After all, without us we would not have our business, right?

How about trying this one on during the next few days: As CEO of your business, take your company star employee out to lunch. Spend time with them and get to know what makes them happy, what their dreams are and how they fit into your business plan. You’d do it in a heartbeat if you had an employee who gave countless hours of their own time, were dedicated to your vision and making the business work, wouldn’t you? Would you skip the appointment if you knew how much it would mean to your employee? Would you skip it if your CEO were asking you out to lunch specifically? Heck no. So, take yourself out to lunch and spend a little time with you. Make sure you keep that time sacred.

Set yourself some business hours. Decide what time you want to go home. You’re the boss, after all. Then do so. Honor that commitment to yourself and your life. The things you’d be working on will be there tomorrow and I promise you, with 99% of the tasks on your desk, they’ll wait and you’ll be far more effective for having honored your agreement with yourself and gotten a good rest before tackling them.

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