Are you ready to tap the magic of 26-hour days?

During a virtual seminar that I taught with 20 small business owners attending, we discovered the secrets to creating more time and balance in work and home life. We identified feeling overwhelmed about having too many things to do, constantly put out fires where other people decide what we do, and spending all their time on business and taking little time for fun.

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According to Small Business Trends, business owners identified TIME as one of their biggest problems.
Few seem to have enough of it, even if they are working 60 hours a week or more. After working long hours for years, they begin to feel they have become a slave to their business … that it is running them rather than they running it.
If you are working more hours than you want and not feeling like it is getting any better, then consider some changes. What if you could initiate the 26-hour day?
Let’s not stop there. Why wish for only two more hours? Think bigger. Imagine having seven, 48-hour days each week. Would that make a difference in how you spend your time?
Carol Naff, Marketing Coach, taught that the first step is to think differently about time. What will it take to eliminate those days that are not productive? Eliminate those outside forces and external circumstances.
Become very clear about what needs to get done each day. Begin with the big picture of your vision and mission. Then write your plan of how to get there. Be certain to plan every 90 days and then continue to identify what strategies and tactics are most important and need to get done each week and each day. Choose to be responsible for how your day will go.
Then when you eliminate those days that are not productive, it’ll seem as though you have 48 hours in each day.
Strategy: Decide on only three things to do each week that will affect the impact on your vision the most. Identify your biggest problems in your business with this assessment at Marinerco.com
If you are not getting as much from life as you want to, then examine the state of your enthusiasm.
– Norman Vincent Peale
If you are self-employed and not talking to people, you are unemployed.
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Kidding Around – Are you ready to have fun?

How quickly we lose the simple pleasures of childhood.

Plan now to have a great time when the weather is perfect for outdoor activities. Make sure you accomplish all that you hope to do. Now is a good time to plan for some fun before summer gets away from you. Yes, schedule these activities on your calendar.  We all need more childlike moments to balance our serious natures. This is the kind of carefree, timeless moment that children experience while having only one goal in mind ~~ FUN!  How quickly we lose the simple pleasures of childhood…. Kidding Around - Are you ready to have fun?

In the spirit of lightening up, here are some ideas that might help you to reawaken that little kid in you.

  • Buy a giant pad of paper and some pastels and schedule a time to draw, using your fingers to smudge the colors together. Buy several cans of Play-Doh and keep them in your office.  Create a new monster every week.
  • Spend an hour in the mountains noticing the height of the trees, the color of the grass, and the little pine cones, sticks, and rocks.
  • Close the shades, put on your favorite dance music and dance in your living room.
  • Get dirty. Go out and weed the yard, plant a tree, or simply dig holes in the dirt.
  • Visit a local toy store and spend some time picking out a favorite coloring book. Keep this book in your office and between your adult duties, steal some time each day to color.
  • Spend an hour sitting on the grass looking for a four-leaf clover.
  • Buy a hula-hoop and see if you can still swing it. Learn how if you never could.
  • Have a serious conversation with a dog.
  • Gather a group of friends for dinner and play musical chairs.
  • Grab a friend, buy a watermelon, and have a seed-spitting contest.
  • Buy a teddy bear and/or sleep with a stuffed animal.
  • Spend fifteen minutes mimicking your cat or dog.
  • Camp in the mountains and talk to the squirrels as the sun comes. Enjoy them as they throw pine cones at you and chatter away.

These are the kinds of things to create joy in your life. Do them for no other reason than to upset the apple cart of life and interfere with the rigidity of our daily lives.

Strategy: Create your JOY list of things you want to do for fun. What’s on your list for fun? Need more ideas?

Describe your ideal client

Marketing Coach Carol Naff

How can you market to everyone?

We cannot market to everyone unless we have unlimited time, money, and energy. Decide who to target. Identifying your niche and describing their recognizable characteristics is the first important step to prevent wasting time with people who cannot help you in obtaining new clients. Identify your niche by reflecting on your ideal clients or perhaps even just one special client. Your ideal client is the person who is most likely to buy from you, and whom you most want to serve. They are the people who:

  • Believe you can help them to achieve their goals
  • Are willing to pay your fee to get that outcome
  • Are passionate about their product or service
  • Accept responsibility for their own success
  • Are ready to identify their best strategies
  • Embrace their spiritual side

Here’s what my clients expect from me:

  • Direct talk, with no time-wasting chatter
  • My undivided attention and support
  • My strategic and creative resources
  • Proven strategies to get more clients
  • And lots more, but let’s move on…

Become friendly

Marketing Coach Carol Naff

Show interest. Ask questions

Networking is more than face time at meetings. It’s about really getting to know others. Just showing up and passing out cards isn’t enough. You need to spend some time getting to know other people, learning about their businesses, and understanding how (and when) to refer to them, just as you are hoping they will send referrals your way.

Start a conversation with anyone and everyone. Learn how to ask questions and discuss topics that have nothing to do with your business. Establish a common interest and develop a relationship. Keep asking questions until you find something in common. To be likeable, first and foremost, you must be friendly. As simple as that sounds, friendliness is not the norm. Being friendly requires time, attention, and mental focus.

Remember, many people at networking events do not know how to network. They may brush you off because they really don’t know that you have a large network and can give them referrals. Therefore, it is important to find out as much about them as you can. Then you can inform them of people and situations in your life experiences that can help them. Offer to send them an article or a link to a website that might be of interest to them. Ask who they would like to meet. Introduce them or send the information when you follow-up. Be a good resource.

Marketing: Make a good impression

Be happy to meet everyone

First impressions are worth a thousand words. Your impression determines how you are perceived as a successful business professional. It also determines if someone will build a relationship with you.

Be intentional about what you are communicating non-verbally. Pay particular attention to dressing professionally and acting that way, too.  Practice self-awareness and monitor your body language and facial expressions. That’s where the mirror comes into play. Positive facial expressions and body language are contagious and attractive. Avoid crossing your arms, frowning, scowling, and using other negative facial expressions. Recently, I toured the Denver Art Museum. It was quite obvious which kids were not enjoying themselves by the scowl on their faces. Make sure you are projecting the right image.

Maintain an open posture and upbeat expression. Watch your body positioning and never close the circle. This means, always keep an open spot for others to join your conversation. If you are speaking to just one person, stand in front of them at an angle so there is a space to welcome someone else into your conversation.

Virtually climb Mount Everest

EverestMicrosoft is teaming up with GlacierWorks to launch Everest: Rivers of Ice, an interactive website that lets you explore the areas around the world’s tallest mountain. Built entirely in HTML5, Rivers of Ice contains gigapixel panoramas that capture life in the Himalayas, and depict the daunting task for mountaineers wishing to climb 29,000 feet. The site launches in honor of the 60th anniversary since Sir Edmund Hillary’s first successful summit, and the 50th anniversary of the first American to successfully summit Mount Everest. David Breashears, a mountaineer and filmmaker, who became the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest twice, founded GlacierWorks as a nonprofit that’s designed to highlight the changes to the Himalayan glaciers. While there’s a debate whether they’re melting or not, Rivers of Ice includes comparative photography and high resolution imagery to let you make your own mind up about climate change.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Choose to be happy

Marketing Coach

Wildly exuberant people

Many people spend their lives waiting to be happy. You may say to yourself, “if only I had more money,” or “more time,” or you fill in the blank, then I would be happy. Well, here’s a secret: you can be happy right now. It’s not always easy, but you choose to be happy. In the vast majority of circumstances there’s no one who can stop you except  yourself.

The truth is, happiness doesn’t come from wealth, perfect looks, or even a perfect relationship. Happiness comes from within. This is why, if you truly want to be happy, you need to work on yourself, first.

Read the article published on HungryforChange.tv by Dr. Mercola here at 22 Habits of Happy People

Listening to Complainers Is Bad for Your Brain

Marketing Coach Carol Naff

Are you for real?

Exposure to nonstop negativity actually impairs brain function. Here’s how to defend yourself.

Do you hate it when people complain? It turns out there’s a good reason: Listening to too much complaining is bad for your brain in multiple ways, according to Trevor Blake, a serial entrepreneur and author of Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life. In the book, he describes how neuroscientists have learned to measure brain activity when faced with various stimuli, including a long gripe session. read more about the dangers and tips to avoid complainers.

Yayoi Kusama’s work on view at London’s Tate Modern through June 5

Horse Play Happening

Just recently, Yayoi Kusama jumped off the page of a magazine and got my attention.

Kusama released Happening in 1965. Since 1967 she had a lot of happenings and fashion shows not only in New York but also in Holland and Rome. As she got more active , she was influenced by an anti-vietnam war movement and American Presidential election and social elements were added to her art. She started creating Kusama Dress and textile , which were sold at department stores and boutiques all over the United States. In 1969 she opened her own boutique.

Polka dots, the trademark of “Kusama Happening.” Red, green and yellow polka dots can be the circles representing the earth, the sun, or the moon. Their shapes and what they signify do not really matter. I paint polka dots on the bodies of people, and with those polka dots, the people will self-obliterate and return to the nature of the universe. An excerpt from “Infinity Nets,” Kusama Yayoi Autobiograph. Visit Yayoi Kusama

25 Best Cities for Staying Young

Which are the youngest & oldest cities in America? Find out which places topped RealAge 2012 list for staying young and which tanked.

What a surprise to discover which cities rank healthier than Denver. You’ll also be surprised to know how Denver ranked. See the full listing here.

This year, RealAge reviewed two dozen factors that influence a person’s RealAge to reveal the best places to stay young. Lifestyle choices have a big impact on a city’s age, says RealAge cofounder Michael F. Roizen, M.D. “Cities with the lowest stress are basically the youngest. Stress, smoking, diet, exercise — all four of those seem to go together.” When residents take good care of themselves, they tend to have lower rates for high cholesterol, hypertension, and diabetes. And that translates to a younger RealAge.

Denver, CO
Residents of the Mile High City and its neighbor Boulder rank best in the country for optimism. They’re also third best for exercise, thanks to more than 850 miles of off-road trails for cycling, running, and hiking. All that activity helps Denver-Boulder rank as the best place to dodge cholesterol and diabetes, and second-best place for healthy blood pressure

Where does your city rank? Do you live in a city where you stay younger? Or do you live is a city where you are aging too fast? I was surprised with some of the rankings. RealAge