If you’re a mom and an entrepreneur, and you’re anything like me, my guess is that you’ve had moments of guilt. It can be challenging to balance all of your responsibilities without feeling like your neglecting something, whether that’s your work, your children, your partner, your friends or yourself.
Mom Entrepreneurs Need Self-Care Not Guilt [Metromom Podcast] [7:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
When I started planning my Metromom Online Success Telesummit I was torn on whether to focus exclusively on marketing techniques or to expand it to include mindset tips as well. Then I realized that no amount of learning will help you achieve your goals if you’re stuck with a negative attitude or mindset. That’s why I created the final track of the Telesummit to be about – How to Put It All Together With the Right Mindset.
I’m really excited to have two fantastic speakers from Ladies Who Launch join me for this track of the Telesummit: Victoria Colligan, the Founder of Ladies Who Launch, is one of my personal heroines. If you’re hesitating about taking the next step in your business make sure you listen to this call on, 7 Steps to Realizing Any Dream.
Traci Long the Chief Revenue Officer of Ladies Who Launch specializes in competitive marketing positioning. She’ll get you motivated and then show you how to execute your plan during her talk on Building the Foundation of your Brand to be a Lucrative Business. Traci will show us how building your brand isn’t just about your logo and your tagline.
I’m also really happy to have two of my “business” girlfriends sharing mindset tips at the Telesummit:
Laura West, the founder of Center for Joyful Business, specializes in supporting women entrepreneurs in creating a business that is meaningful AND that makes money! She makes marketing simple and takes the confusion and fear out of promoting your business with integrity and grace. I’m really looking forward to her talk on, Attracting Clients and Building Strong Relationships: 5 Easy Attraction Marketing Tools
According to my friend, Gina Bell, “Belief is the bridge between your dreams and your dreams come true!” Gina is the co-Founder of TheNetworkingMasters.com and creator of JVmavens.com. Hers passion is to work with motivated entrepreneurs who are ready to identify and eliminate their resistance to self-promotion and success. If you feel stuck, you’ll love her talk, Not Sure You Can Succeed? Get a Believability Makeover!
I honestly believe that the right mindset is the number one determining factor of success in business and in life. Which why I can’t express how grateful I am that these four wonderful women have agreed to share their “mindset gems” at the Telesummit. Especially now, it can be challenging to stay positive. It’s easy to become negative when faced with negative influences in our life – be it a skeptical friend or family member or the never-ending media cycle of more and more bad news.
If you feel like you could benefit from some positive (and practical) encouragement please join me and listen in on these calls May 1st and 2nd – there is no charge to participate in the Metromom Online Success Telesummit.
I admit it, I’m a huge fan of American Idol. Last season, every Tuesday and Wednesday night our whole family crawled into bed to cheer on the underdogs and revel in the beautiful singing. Last night, my husband gathered me and our 3 children around his computer to share a YouTube video of Susan Boyle singing on Britain’s Got Talent. Not knowing anything about her, and not being great at surprises, I wanted to know what we were in store for. As is typical of Allan, he didn’t let on.
Susan Boyle came onto the stage, looking little like an Idol, and the snickers started from the judges and the audience. The laughing stopped immediately when she began to sing. Her spectacular voice left me with tears in my eyes and full body chills. Why? Because she defied the odds. No one believed in her and she completely blew them away.
It’s now 24 hours since I’ve first seen this video and all I want to do is share in her glory and re-listen again and again. She reminds me of what’s possible, and I want to share that with you.
In this podcast, I share some reflections on lessons learned over the past year as I’ve launched my business, Metromom.com. A key lesson…the need to stay open to what’s possible.
Open Up to What’s Possible in Business and in Life [Metromom Podcast] [6:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadThis podcast shares how women entrepreneurs can be authentic and enjoy doing business on their own terms. I speak about the importance of developing self-awareness and self-confidence as you align your actions with your beliefs. I show entrepreneurs the value of trusting their instincts, even if they’re new to business.
I’ve been working from home for over ten years and I believe it’s very important that your work environment be conducive to working effectively. The right environment can really empower you to work at your full potential. The wrong environment will slow you down.
One of the benefits of working from home is that you have control over your own environment. No more cubicles! You’re the boss so make sure you make the best of it by following these tips.
• To start with you need to remove clutter. Clutter drains your energy. If you clear out the clutter you’ll instantly feel more enthusiastic and energetic. Then, create a system to manage clutter on a regular basis or it will be back in a matter of days.
• Make sure you have all the tools you need to do your job accessible and functioning properly. There’s nothing more frustrating than hassling with an old photo copier or stapler when you’re trying to get your proposal out the door.
• Create a boundary between your work space and your home. Having a separate entrance to your home office is ideal. If that’s not an option try create your work space in an area as far from your bedroom as possible.
• Position your desk so that you don’t have your back to the door. I recently had my office reviewed by a Feng Shui expert and this is what she recommended. Now that my desk faces outward, I’m in command central and don’t have my back to others.
• Surround yourself with colors, images and items that help you feel energetic and successful. Try to design a home office that reflects the energy you want to project.
• Be mindful of the quality of air and light in your home office since this has a direct impact on your energy level. If possible position yourself by a window with natural light or consider investing in full-spectrum lights. Make sure you have air-purifying plants in your office as well.
• Consider hiring a Feng Shui expert. Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of placement and design used to balance and enhance the energy flow in our living environments. Feng Shui experts can advise you on creating an environment that sparks your creativity and allows money to flow.
Working from home brings numerous benefits and the right environment can help you be more successful. Some effort is involved but by creating harmony and balance in your physical environment you can empower yourself and your business.
Even if you’re naturally optimistic it’s challenging to stay upbeat all the time. Here’s the thing, if you’re an entrepreneur you cannot afford to be negative. If you’re down, if you’re worried or stressed you can’t maintain a positive mindset, which is the key to success in ANY economy.
If you’re a mom all the more reason to keep a positive attitude. Even small children are picking up on the negative news about the economy. They’ll pick up on your mindset even if you’re not aware of it. Make sure you’re modeling through your thoughts and actions a positive attitude.
So, what are you doing to stay positive? I’ll share some tips that work for me:
1. Choose to only surround yourself with positive people. Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on now and then but if all you hear is whining and complaining consider finding healthier friends.
2. Manage your intake of outside information – particularly the news. You don’t have to bury your head in the sand but you can’t watch CNN four hours a day and not feel the impact on your attitude.
3. Give yourself some quiet time to meditate daily. I’ve recently been listening to the Holosync CD’s.
4. When you feel yourself going into negative fearful thinking, catch yourself, shift gears and do something different to shift your energy. Go for a walk, call a friend or read something positive like my favorite book, The Go-Giver.
5. Exercise daily. My favorite is yoga as I feel the benefits mentally and physically.
6. Read a daily intentions statement of what you want to bring into your life. Read my blog post on how to write an intention statement and why it’s such a powerful tool.
Let’s support each other as we stay positive, please share comments on what works for you.
Check out my action oriented ebook with a compilation of tips and action tips around mindset – The Motivated Mindset.
Most mom entrepreneurs start their businesses to have a career that’s flexible enough to have a meaningful family life. We give up the 9 to 5 grind but sometimes we end up feeling guilty. This can be a daily struggle. When you’re working, you feel like you should be spending time with your kids. When you’re with your kids, you’re worried about work.
Many entrepreneurial moms I know feel guilty even thinking about putting themselves first and therefore their needs are often relegated to the backburner. This reasoning won’t support you in achieving your goals. You can’t afford NOT to take care of yourself. Instead of feeling guilty, recognize that with self-care everyone in your business and personal life benefits along with you.
Letting go of the guilt is not an easy thing. When you go on an airplane, they say, “Put the oxygen on yourself first. Then take care of your children.” You need to be a whole and healthy person to fully care for your children, business, spouse, home, etc. Just knowing and accepting that allows some of the guilt to go away.
When I’m well rested and I’ve cared for myself, I can be that much more giving to everyone – especially my children. They feel it and know it. It’s very important to model the behaviors we want our kids to see. They need to experience that self-care is of value.
Guilt is a feeling and an attitude. Turn that feeling into gratitude for having an opportunity to run a stimulating, challenging business and raise a happy family. We often feel guilty for taking time to renew our own spirit, but when we do we have an entirely new energy on the world.
Ask yourself…
If you answered YES to any of these questions, then I’d like to extend an invitation to a very special FREE teleconference, featuring several women (including me) who were fearless!
Call Topic: LIVING FEARLESSLY IN 2009!
Date: Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
Time: 9 PM Eastern
This call is based on an audio series I was interviewed for – Living Fearlessly: Stories of 7 Fearless Women Who Felt the Fear and Did it Anyway. As one of the 7 women featured, I share my story of overcoming various fears in order to create the life and business I have today.
The series creator, Carey Powell, is an Associate Certified Life Coach and owner of Fearless Soul Life Coaching. Her vision was to bring together the dynamic stories of 7 different women to inform, motivate and most of all INSPIRE FEARLESSNESS in others looking to live their dreams!
On this call, you will:
If you can’t make it to the live call make sure to register anyway. Everyone registered for the call will receive a link to the recording, so be sure to register either way!
REGISTER for this powerful FREE call.
I hope you’ll join me in making 2009 your most fearless year yet.
I woke this morning to spend some quiet time updating my personal intention statement–a statement of all that I want to bring into my life both personally and professionally. Two years ago I’d never heard of an intention statement, the whole idea sounded very illusive. My coach, Baeth Davis, kept mentioning it to me and when I took the plunge to sit down and write it for myself, the impact on my life was huge.
For me, writing doesn’t always come easily to me so getting my thoughts down in language that felt good and realistic AND achievable initially took me about a month. The results, however, were incredibly worthwhile. In four pages of single spaced writing I had noted what I wanted to bring into my life as a mother, wife and business woman. I noted who I wanted in my life, what I wanted to be doing, how much I wanted to be earning and the difference I wanted to make. Talk about making my heart sing!!
For a few months I read my intention statement out loud first thing in the morning. It took me about 10 minutes and grounded me to my purpose and set my outlook for the day. A key point I’d like to share is that the language you use is incredibly important. Your words must resonate with you. You’re putting this statement out into the world but if you just say it and don’t feel it, I personally believes it a waste of your time.
The purpose of the intention statement is to provide you with a vehicle that when read aloud, really raises your energetic vibrations. When you read it, you want it to feel achievable for you. None of that awful impostor feeling.
I didn’t choose to say things like "I intend to make a million dollars this month" or "solve world peace" because that didn’t feel true for me. Instead, I used some other phrases that made my words feel attainable and gave me a feeling of possibility. For example, when I say "I’m in the process of creating a life that will provide us (meaning my family) with great freedom and choice to do what WE choose" feels amazing each time I read it. I’m not fully there yet but when I state that aloud in the morning, I have that immediate feeling of "YES".
Another example of language that always feels great is to say "more fully than I’d imagined". For example, "I am open to new and unexpected opportunities that utilize my talents more fully than I’d imagined." It leaves space for some good unknowns to show up.
In 2007 I was in a very different place than I am today. My vision for Metromom was not clear. My ideas sat tucked away in a "pretty box" waiting for me to put them all together. I was working with a direct sales wellness company called Melaleuca and not doing particularly well until I wrote the following statement and read it daily. My business completely shifted. It was also the experience that I then had with Melaleuca, and the clarity I gained that helped me clarify the missing pieces of my Metromom puzzle and "take it out of the box." If you choose to write a version of your own, I’d love to hear parts of what you come up with. It’s an incredibly powerful tool.
