women entrepreneurs « Lorin Beller Blake

If you really want to get something accomplished, Read This Post!

August 31, 2010

Filed under: Order, Uncategorized — Tags: Big Fish Nation, bold action, clutter, mary pankiewicz, successful women, women entrepreneurs — Lorin Beller Blake @ 9:29 pm

I am a big believer in organization giving me an energy boost to accomplish big clean bold work just as Mary Pankiewicz, Owner of Clutter Free & Organized says in her blog!

And on the opposite end, I also believe that a mess sucks up our energy. Just as unfinished tasks that we set out to do and do not get accomplished and are hanging over our head suck up our energy.

Yet when we accomplish a big bold task, we get jazzed and do more! So what cycle are you on today?

My desk this morning

I just invested in a new MAC Book Pro, 15inch! I am a PC user and switching over, and spent a chunk of time since getting my MAC on organizing my ‘Big Mother To Do list!’ (no trademark needed! ) I feel so empowered. The stuff is getting done, and checked off and prioritized better than ever! I feel in charge, details are being held better.

I always have a process that is what are my top 3 things I am tackling today list…. And that list is pulled from the ‘Big Mother To Do list’ that is always running.

Just this past week a Big Fish (someone that is a part of our various programs for Women Business Owners www.bigfishnation.com) said to me, ‘just once I would like to feel like the list is complete.’ My response to her was, ‘that is on your deathbed! My hope is we all feel that sense of completion then and at the end of every day. Because at the end of every day, we can only accomplish so much so we have a choice to feel either behind of complete for the day.’

If you are feeling overwhelmed and as though you are not getting enough accomplished I highly recommend that you do the Big Fish 3 Step!

Identify 3 things tonight that you WILL get accomplished tomorrow. In other words, before you leave work today, identify the 3 things that you are committing to complete tomorrow. Be realistic!
At the beginning of the day focus on JUST THOSE 3 things! Get them complete before you open mail, check your voice mail, facebook, twitter, etc.
REPEAT for today and again tomorrow!

You see, when you set out to do something that does not get accomplished you feel deflated, defeated and lower your confidence. So it is time to change that cycle. GO BOLD AND BE BOLD!

My desk after a much needed clean up today, which is more empowering?

Mary P. aren’t you proud? Mary is a Big Fish in one of the Big Fish programs. She is a very successful professional organizer taking her business to new heights! See more about her business at http://www.clutterfree.biz/.

******
For more inspiration like this:
- sign up for our exclusive newsletter by entering your email at the top of this page
- follow us on twitter @LorinB
- friend us on Facebook: Lorin Beller Blake and Big Fish Nation!

Send this post to a friend
Comments (6)

Turn Up the Volume!

August 17, 2010

Filed under: goals, success, vision — Tags: Big Fish Nation, powerful women, successful entrepreneur, successful women, vision, women business owners, women entrepreneurs, women leader — Lorin Beller Blake @ 8:29 am

**************

Summer can be a tough time to make progress on our goals.

Summer vacations mean we are often travelling, schedules are inconsistent, and our attention is more naturally focused on things other than goals.   Don’t get me wrong – it is definitely important (critical!) to take these breaks… but we still must remember to return to our goals.

We have a little more than one quarter of the year remaining, so we really need to energetically pick up speed so we can reach the goals we set for 2010. Or to put it another way, if your goals were a sound system, let’s get back up to surround sound, then turn up the volume for WILD success!

Here are some tips to help you “dial it up” to ACHIEVE your goals:

Change your exercise routine: If you are in a rut with your exercise, or not exercising at all, your energy may be low. Try changing it up a little to bring up your energy levels and give you more excitement toward achieving your goals. The body/mind connection is important.

Take a realistic inventory of your goals and adjust (or not) accordingly: Do you have enough time left in the year to achieve each goal? Are each of your goals still important toward making your vision a reality? If so, fantastic – keep moving forward! If not, consider revising goals to make them achievable this year and in line with your current vision.   Just make sure your revised goals keep you stretching to accomplish what will make you proud and successful!

Post your written goals where you can see them each day:      If you stop noticing your goals after a while, move them to a different spot whWhen we keep our goals visible, it is easier to remember what we are working towards.ere they will catch your attention again.

Read your vision story every Monday morning: Our vision story is meant to be a motivating tool, not just something we write then put away. Many Big Fish (myself included!) report getting energized by reading their vision story because it reminds them of the exciting big picture of their future.   When our vision is fresh in our minds, each goal feels more meaningful and reachable.

Tell someone else your goals: Accountability is an amazing motivator – just ask any Big Fish!   Sharing our goals with someone else makes it a lot harder to ignore those “stretch” goals, and helps hold our “feet to the fire.”   It also gives us someone else to celebrate with when we reach each goal!

Sign up for a Big Fish program: If you are struggling to set and reach your goals each year, you might need the extra learning, support, accountability, and energy you can get from the Big Fish programs. Plan to attend the annual goal-setting teleclass in December, and read about the available Big Fish programs to see which one might fit you best for next year.   We are here to help!

Are you ready to turn up the volume???

Let us know in a comment below!

Send this post to a friend
Comments (2)

Live Each Day From Your Vision

July 13, 2010

Filed under: Mid-year Goals, success, vision — Tags: Big Fish Nation, successful entrepreneur, successful women, vision, women and business, women entrepreneurs, women leader — Lorin Beller Blake @ 7:22 am

***********
Like others of you, I enjoyed and appreciated last week’s blog post on goals, written by our regular guest-blogger Starla J. King. We all need those reminders (or as Beth said in her comment, “a kick in the rear”) to review and reset our goals!

It is also absolutely necessary to be clear about our vision and that it too is up to date. Without a clear vision, our goals can quickly become overwhelming out-of- control To Do lists.

The second principle of my 7 Principles to Wild Success is Live each day from your vision.

We often think of a vision as something that is only useful for the future, not for today, but a vision is actually about this moment!   It is about today and how we choose to live today! Today turns into tomorrow. Tomorrow is our future.

Therefore, it is critical that we live today in a way that will enable us to make tomorrow’s vision a reality.

When was the last time you read your vision story?   Do you have a vision story? If you need help creating your vision (it’s not too late!) read my earlier blog post about creating a clear vision.

Another great way to get (and stay) clear on your vision is to create a collage of your vision. This is a fun way to get an emotional and practical read on what you are drawn to, what you want (aka, your vision!) .

Go through magazines and cut out pictures representing:

things you want to do (travel, projects, accomplishments, adventures, etc)

things you want to have

the number of clients you want, or number of products you want to sell

the number of employees you want

where you want to be living

etc.

photo by Tory Johnson

Then put these pictures together on a poster board and hang it where you can see it every day.

If you already have a vision collage, take some time this week to update it – add some more photos and remove any that no longer speak to you or carry excitement for you.

As you review your goals, (see last weeks blog post), keep looking at your vision collage. Does each goal actually get you closer to your vision? If so, fantastic! If not, consider changing or removing that goal. Working towards goals that do not further your vision is wasted effort!

Each day, then, we need to ask ourselves, “Is what I am doing today, this moment, moving me toward my vision?”

Let us know what you do to help you live each day from your vision!

Send this post to a friend
Comments (7)

Clear Vision

February 2, 2010

Filed under: success, vision — Tags: Big Fish Nation, roadmap to success, successful entrepreneur, vision, vision story, women and business, women entrepreneurs — Lorin Beller Blake @ 7:53 am

********************************
“We [my family] all listen to ourselves as we do each other. We have adventurous human experiences and our moments are filled with many spiritual experiences each day. Life is decadent yet simple…”

These words are part of my vision story, the description of my life 10 years from now.

As you can see, this vision story is not just about what I will have accomplished in my business by then (although it does include that), it’s also about what my relationships and my life will be like.

*Having a clear vision is the key ingredient to a successful business.*

You see, (pun intended) a vision gives you something to look toward… and look forward to. It helps you “see” the path you need to take to meet your goals and get the results you pictured.

Coming up with your vision is a creative process, unique to YOU because we all have different definitions of success. You get to decide where you want your life to be in 10 years!

Don’t worry right now about how you’ll get there (that comes later), just focus on what the “there” will be and how the “there” will feel. Step into your WILDLY SUCCESSFUL life and describe it in your vision story.

It’s important to remember that rarely is success JUST about money.   Writing your vision story is your chance to discover other areas of your life to include in your definition of success. For example, consider what you want from/for:

Your health

Your relationships: with yourself, your significant other, friends and family

Your recreation/play time

Your community / environment

etc.

Write it all down, give yourself that roadmap to success then start making that vision a reality TODAY!   I’d love to hear how it goes!

**********************************

From Entrepreneur to Big Fish

RoadMap to Success

Need to get your “vision energy” jump-started? Try these books, From Entrepreneur to Big Fish, and Roadmap to Success, both available online (click here)!

Send this post to a friend
Comments (5)

Humility Matters

January 26, 2010

Filed under: Being vs. Doing, Thought Leader, success — Tags: Big Fish Nation, humility, self-confidence, self-image, successful entrepreneur, women entrepreneurs, women small business — Lorin Beller Blake @ 7:13 am

*********************************************************

It’s month one of a new year, and I’m guessing many of us have new or ongoing goals around exercise.

I wonder, though, how many of us are paying attention to our humility muscle? That’s the one connected to the self-confidence muscle which we business owners exercise regularly.

Our muscle groups work in pairs, with one shortening while another one lengthens, and if we ignore one of those muscles, we weaken the effectiveness of the entire pair.

It works the same way with the humility/self-confidence muscle pair.   When we balance our self-confidence with our humility, we become stronger, more effective leaders.

John Baldoni writes in his Harvard Business Review blog that a strong self-image is practically a requirement for success, yet confidence can easily become an overbearing ego.  To keep that ego in check , we need to have honest friends (to tell us the truth!), and to be aware of our shortcomings.

Notice, though (women, are you listening?), that he does not say to dwell on our shortcomings, since that becomes counter-productive and self-defeating.

Starfish ready for BIG BOLD ACTIONS!

While we do need to keep our ego in check, humility is not about down-playing our own strengths and successes or hiding our shining skills. It’s about playing up the strengths and successes of those around us, and bringing others to those same levels with us (or BEYOND us!).

Humility is equal parts confidence + goodwill + compassion, components that all lead to BIG BOLD ACTIONS – the fuel for ongoing business success.

If you haven’t used your humility muscle for a while, make sure to prevent injuries by taking the time to warm it up with some gentle stretching before going all out. It takes some time to get used to a new way of being.

Next time you go to the gym, or work, or any part of life, remember to exercise your humility muscle as much as your self-confidence muscle and get ready to experience wild success!

(Keep in mind, if you need “business exercise buddies” the Big Fish Program is here for you!)

Big Fish!

Send this post to a friend
Comments (0)

Work Life Balance, is there such a thing?

September 28, 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Expert, marketing, PR, sales, vision, women entrepreneurs, Work life balance — admin @ 10:57 am

Actually, I think there is but not the way you are thinking….. you see there is no such thing as work life balance if your basic life is not in order. You cannot compartmentalize each area of life and be sure it is all balance. Family can be a 24 x 7 ‘job’, work can be a 24 x 7 ‘job’, play could be a 24 x 7 ‘job’ — but if your basic life is in order you will naturally WANT to do a little be often, naturally having you feel grounded and balance. Let me explain further.
1. You MUST have a vision for your LIFE. It must be written down. By having a vision you more naturally say ‘yes’ to what you want and ‘no’ to the things that are not aligned with the vision. This happens naturally when you have an inspiring and compelling vision.
2. You MUST break the rules. As a women, it is not possible to do it in the normal 9-5 work hours…. Family pulls happen during that time and that is ok. That is why being a female entrepreneur in this day and age is so powerful. There are so many rules to break! I am just suggesting one. But there are others: Like needing to keep work at work and life in life, I do a lot of ‘business’ while I do life! Or Like you have to work 90 hours per week to make lots of money. These are all rules to break!
3. Do what you love and charge for it! We think that we need to fund our fun…. but I guarantee that there is a way to do what you love and charge for it, make a business out of it. You will be so much more excited about your work that way and do so much more business in a short amount of time and work won’t feel so much like work. You’ll b e having fun all the time.
4. Take full responsibility for your life. If you are not completely happy about various aspects of your life, ask yourself: What is your part? And make the changes you are able to make, design it to make you happy! Wayne Dyer says is best, ‘Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.’
5. Sales and Marketing: We must do a better job here. So many women do not see themselves as great at sales and marketing. If you have a vision for your life, sales and marketing is part of it. If you have trouble here I highly recommend our ‘Toes in the Water’ new program that is starting in early October. www.bigfishnation.com
6. Begin to see yourself as the expert in your niche….. After all if you aren’t who is??? If you are interested in how to do this…. Check out our newest program coming soon, our Starfish program! But ladies you are the expert in your field and if you do not see yourself as such, the world will not.
7. Support each other better than ever. I think there is room for much improvement here. We are very ‘shy’ about giving great leads to each other. We tell someone about this really great program, product or service, but we do not make a strong, solid introduction to people so that there is good follow up. Always, always, if you share information with someone, introduce both parties in email. Giving both parties and opportunity to follow up. After all, by raising someone else, you raise yourself up too.
Happy balance Monday! Enjoy it all, because it is ALL a part of your vision… and if it is not, redesign!

Send this post to a friend
Comments (0)