Daddy knows BEST!

When you are leading a business, it is easy to join the ranks of the overwhelmed. You start the day with good intentions to grow the business and attend to your personal obligations, but at day's end, you may find you have accomplished very little. Growing up, I always remember my father telling me to work smarter, not harder. I am consistently trying to find ways to streamline my days in order to work smarter and not harder. To stop becoming overwhelmed, first congratulate yourself on your achievements. Then forgive yourself for what you haven't finished. Balance comes from not letting the magnitude of the work get the best of you. To achieve success, planning is the ultimate tool for increasing productivity and reducing stress. Move forward positively by working smart with these steps:

1. Remember happiness is your end game. Of all the people I've met, the happiest are those who have treated their lives and businesses like a journey of discovery. Instead of stopping when you become frustrated, simply decide on the best action you can take, and take it. Your willingness to deal with all obstacles, no matter what, gives you the confidence and strength you need to achieve success.

2. Create specific short-term goals. So much changes so quickly in today's world that your long-term goals will have to be modified as you learn what works and what doesn't. Break your larger goals into realistic short-term goals. If you want to get a book published, for instance, start by writing articles on your area of expertise.

3. Develop a nightly to-do list. Keep yourself on track by breaking short-term goals into realistic steps you can take immediately. In a to-do notebook, focus your intentions by writing down the tasks you want to achieve the next day. Don't set yourself up for failure by putting too many items on your list. Break major tasks into even smaller components that are easy to accomplish. I don’t know about you, but nothing satisfies me more than when I can check off items on my to-do list. As you take action, your frequent successes will motivate you to push forward.

4. Evaluate and learn from your actions. At the end of the day, congratulate yourself for what you've accomplished, and let go of what you have not. Review what you have learned, and decide on the next best action to take to reach your short-term goals. Develop a new to-do list every night by transferring your unfinished items and prioritizing the new list.

5. Realize you don't have to do this alone. As you grow the business, many tasks become routine and can be accomplished by someone else. Develop a list of these tasks, and delegate them. When you mentor and train your staff to help carry the responsibilities of the business, you will be amazed at what they can do.

Working smarter and not harder is part of the intimate dance of balancing work and personal life. That work-life balance is the ever elusive search for that middle ground where we will be pleasantly busy and challenged and yet able to enjoy life as it comes. It is a constant work in progress and I find that there is not just one way of achieving it. What three things can you do in order to achieve more balance for the next 30 days?

Thanks Daddy for helping me to work smarter more often than harder! I love you!

True leaders come in pink tennis shoes and jeans!

True leaders are mentors with a servant's heart. These are not just pretty words to fill out space. If you are NOT a true servant with a true passion for helping people you will not be a true leader in the real sense of the word. It is that simple. You may be doing well and have a list of people listening to your advices, but that alone does not make you a leader. People are not numbers you can just add on your email list or connection networks. They are people with dreams and goals like you. As a true leader, it should be your goal to lead people to where they want to be.

Being a leader, is not something you have to be born with. You can develop the qualities of a leader by being a good follower. True leaders, however, are not average people, they must be above average. I mean by this, that if you are an everyday average person, you are most likely a follower, not a leader. Once you become a leader, your thoughts, actions, and achievements will be above average, because you will be reacting differently than the average person. So what does a leader look like?

Look at the young girls that are shown in this picture. They are a true depiction of leadership in its purest form. I understand that we typically do not think of leadership in jeans and pink tennis shoes, but maybe that is part of the problem. We often expect to see leadership in a certain “format” and we miss all of the magical leaders that have the potential of changing the world. We walk right by the ones that would most likely soar above any of the others because we have a narrow predetermined vision of what it “should” be.

The girls that you see here have decided to take the reality of their life, learn from it and focus on others so that they can make a difference for the generation that will walk after them. Before they were a decade old, they had already set their legacy in motion. Three of the four children that you see here have terminal cancer. Their dream of life and what they and their families thought that it could be have been shattered by the hard and cruel facts of reality. They could choose to get lost in that reality and lose their dreams, and yet they are finding the empowerment in the journey. That is right! They have chosen to NOT be a VICTIM but have made a decision to embrace empowerment. The journey is the part of life where we must consciously choose to capture the lessons from the darkest of our experiences and focus outward on other people. This is the trait of a real leader. This is where the reward happens. Not just a reward for you and the individual that you focus on but also with all of the people that they interact with. It is a true ripple effect.

These girls have inspired a foundation called “Friends Helping Friends” (http://www.fhfproject.com/). They are dedicated to raising awareness of childhood cancer, raising research dollars for it and identifying children in their county that are experiencing it so that they can teach them how to lead in jeans and pink tennis shoes too! In the last two years they have raised countless spirits, pulled a community together, inspired numerous other businesses to get involved and have raised over $75,000. Beyond that, they are inspiring a movement of people. They have a level of influence that most leaders only dream of. When they enter a room, it is like a magnet. People stop and are automatically mesmerized. Not because of their lack of hair or the hand tremors from the variety of medicine cocktails that they have to take daily. Not by far! They have a special twinkle in their eye and energy in their step. They chose to see the light in the darkest of closets and the good in the shadiest of people. They truly have a different perspective on life and appreciate and value all that come across their path. Like I said, a true depiction of leadership in its purest form.

Excuse me. I must go now. I need to go and find a cute pair of pink tennis shoes and play webkins with the girls. If I am observant enough, I might learn a thing or two about leadership!