I recently had the privilege of interviewing Dr. John Demartini author of From Stress to Success. Who can’t relate to that? In this day and age where just about everyone is surrounded by stressors, wouldn’t it be nice to find a way to use that stress for something positive? Perhaps we can channel that stressful energy into our business to help get it off the ground and make it fly. Dr. Demartini has 31 useful tools and tips that can help turn your stress into success. If you apply just one a day, in 31 days you will have less stress, and more success.

The first Five Secrets of Success that Dr. Demartini outlines in his book are:

1. Write and read your goals.
2. Clear away your goals obstacles.
3. Prioritize your activities.
4. Act on top priorities.
5. Visualize your success.

There are 26 more in his book From Stress to Success

To find out more please visit his website www.drdemartini.com

This is a really beautiful poem that I think everyone can learn from. Enjoy

This is a poem written by a teenager with cancer.She wants to see how many people get her poem.
It is quite the poem Please pass it on.

This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital .

It was sent by a medical doctor -Make sure to read what is in the closing statement AFTER THE POEM.

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading light?

You better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?

When you ask How are you?
Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?

You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time
To call and say,’Hi’

You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….Thrown away.

Life is not a race…..
Do take it slower

Hear the music
Before the song is over.

FORWARDED
E-MAILS ARE TRACKED TO OBTAIN THE TOTAL
COUNT.

Dear All:
PLEASE pass this mail on to everyone you know -even to those you don’t know! It is the request of a special girl who will soon leave this worlddue to cancer.

This young girl has 6 months left to live, and as her dying wish, she wanted to send a letter telling everyone to live their life to the fullest, since she never will.

She’ll never make it to prom, graduate from high school,or get married and have afamily of her
own.

By you sending this to as many people as possible, you can give her and her family a little hope, because with every namethat this is sent to, The American Cancer Society will donate 3 cents per name to her treatment and recovery plan. One guy sent this to 500 people! So I know that we can at least send it to 5 or 6. It’s not even your money, just your time!

PLEASE PASS ON AS A LAST REQUEST.

Dr. Dennis Shields, Professor
Department of Developmental and Molecular Biology

1300 Morris Park Avenue
Bronx , New York 10461

What a great day!  On Wednesday I was invited to speak at the Sotogrande Women’s Club. This was an incredible group of ladies.  If you want to find out more about this group, you can visit their website, www.sotograndewomen.com. The event was held at the San Roque Golf and Country Club and this venue was nothing short of spectacular.  The Spanish truly know how to work and play!  I did my 7 Secrets to Success presentation and am thrilled to say that it was a raging success.  After the event my friend Masha Malka, who is the author of the best selling book: "One Minute Coach, Change Your Life One Minute At A Time", heading back to Marbella where she lives.  Oh! and if you would like to find out more about this amazing place you can go to this website www.marbellas.com  It will show you all the goings on in this beautiful city. If you ever get the opportunity to visit Spain you must fit this city into your schedule. I had the pleasure of meeting Louise Cook Edwards the creator of this website and she is as fabulous as her site is… if not more!

In the evening we went to a delicious restaurant, Picasso (Italian obviously) and boy was it tasty.  I have yet to have a bad meal here and I am sorry to say that I don’t think any of my clothes are going to fit by the time I get home!

Today we are thinking of heading to Gibralter and perhaps making a stop in Morocco, Africa! 

Have a great Thursday and may all your dreams come true!

Its Tuesday afternoon in Spain and we are heading to TalkRadioEurope where I am being interviewed by Hannah Murray. if you want to listen you can just go to their website or (as it is early in the states) you can request the recording.

After my interview I will be broadcasting my radio show, Now to WOW on WBLQ 96.7FM or live online at www.wblq.net. 

After that we are heading off to the spa where we will be getting our hair, nail and toes done for a party this evening.

That’s a wrap for today.
Ciao!

I am here doing some work and some pleasure. Im staying with a friend (and author of The One Minute Coach) Masha Malka and her family.  My flight was 8 hours and I don’t think I slept a wink! Thank goodness for coffee to keep you going.  My  first night (Saturday) here we went to an opera concert in the park.  The weather is beautiful. Like a perfect Spring day in the states.  On Sunday we all slept in and I woke up at 1:15 in the afternoon! Malaga is 6 hours ahead of New York, 9 ahead CA. 

Tonight Masha and her three kids and I are going to play miniture golf and shuffleboard!

Stay tuned and we will keep you posted on Shar’s Spanish adventure!
Bye for now,
 

According to Social Media expert, Peter Shankman, the entire point and purpose of social media is to listen to your customers. You have their attention and you can find out what they want and how to they want to receive information about it.
 
At a recent event in New York City put on by American Women in Radio and Television Organization, (www.awrt.org) Shankman said there are four key elements to maximizing social media.
 
1. Transparency- Be honest and forthcoming. Lay all your cards on the table. If you screw up admit it, apologize and do better next time.
2. Relevance- Use social media to ask your clients and customers what they want. Find out how your customers want to hear about what you have to offer. Do they want you to Twitter it, email it, IM or text it? Then give the information they want, the want they want it.
3. Brevity- Shankman says that the average attention span of people today is 2.7 seconds. Therefore, you better get to the point, and get to it quickly. If you don’t grab their attention you will lose their attention, and likely their business.
4. Top of mind- How are you different? Be different and be first. Be the first person, company, product, etc, that your customers think of.
 
Social media grows your brand. It is an extension of you and your customer service. There is no better way to grow your brand than to have people recommending you and your product. The best way to do that is with social media.
 
Peter also mentioned a very cool new device called the Poken stick… check it out!
 
To find out more about Peter Shankman visit www.shankman.com
 

As an entrepreneur, most will face as some point, and possibly many times, the desire to quit.  Starting your own business can be a long and tumultuous ride.  However, it can also be one of the most valuable and rewarding experiences of your life.  It’s probably safe to assume that if you decided to leave or avoid Corporate America to be your own boss that you choose to start a business doing something you had a passion for or interest in.  Even when you do what you love, you may still feel like tossing in the towel when times get tough.  To help you through those tough times, we have provided five tips to help you stay motivated and on your path to success.

Always have something you are working towards, a goal on the horizon.  Having something to aim for can be enough to get you through just about anything.

Know when to back away.   Many times when you are pushing and pushing and things just don’t seem to budge, you may need to just walk away from what you are doing for a little while. This can be difficult I know because sometimes you just want to muscle through it.  But if you find that you are getting increasingly frustrated and things just aren’t going the way you want, then it is time to take a break.  Take a walk, listen to your favorite music, call a positive friend, go to the gym.  You know what things make you feel good so have a few things in mind that you can do when you need to get away from your work.

Remember why you started in the first place.  Sometimes when we are frustrated and things just aren’t going our way, it’s good to take a deep breath and ask yourself, “Why did I want to do this in the first place?”  There was some reason that you chose this path, remembering it can help keep you on it.

Throw a temper tantrum.  If enough is enough and you are fed up to the gills, throw a fit.  Most of us did this when we were kids, and it’s a great way to release that pent up frustration from our minds and our bodies.  Get a pillow and beat the poop out of it.  If you need to use your voice scream as loud as you can until you feel better (although if you are in a place where others can hear you, and you don’t won’t anyone to come running, I recommend screaming into the pillow) If you have a gym or place that has a punching bag use it.  Getting the feeling out of your body can be a great release and open your mind at the same time.

Lend a helping hand.  Getting out of your negative space and giving assistance to someone else can give you a great high to get you back on track.  Think of someone you know that could use a hand at something.  Check with a charity or something of the like and volunteer.  Helping others helps everyone.

I hope these tips give you the strength and determination to get past those rough patches.  Remember tough times happen for everyone, it’s what you do to get through them that says a lot about who you are, and what your made of.

To your success!

If you have ever read this blog you will know that this is an unusual post for me. However, I wanted to share with you a recent experience I had on United Airlines.  If you are someone who cares about the environment and going green you should not fly United.  Recently I was traveling from New York City to Chicago. As I was stepping onto the plane I was handed a postcard like item by the captain. The note card had a description of the 757 aircraft. It mentioned the wingspan, the size, the weight, maximum speed, etc. Quite frankly, a bunch of useless facts that I highly doubt anyone cares about. Toward the end of the flight, someone announced over the PA system that we should all look at the card we received when we boarded to see if we were the lucky person to have the card with the captain’s signature on it.  If you were two of the lucky winners then ring your call button so the flight attendant could give you a bottle of wine. 

Now, my first problem with this is that there were these note cards were all over the plane.  They were on the floor, on seats, in the trash, so clearly no one cared about the facts of the plane on which we were flying.  What a waste, and I mean that literally.  What a waste of paper that is going to pollute the earth and add to the already overflowing landfills and global warming.

My second problem is with the thousands of dollars United Airlines had to have spent to produce these cards and then give away a bottle of wine.  Is that what the $15 bag check fee is for?  I personally don’t like that I have to pay $300 for a plane ticket and then pay another $15 each way to check my bag so that United can print useless cards and help to destroy our planet.

My last problem was with the flight attendant.  I rang my call button to ask if these cards were being passed out on every United Flight.  She said the cards were given to the captain, and they could pass them out if they chose to.  I replied that I wanted her to know that I found it to be environmentally irresponsible for a company to pass out cards that are clearly going to go to waste and continue to pollute the Earth.  She answered me with “Well ma’am, some people just don’t care about that.”  Well I have to take from that comment that she meant that United Airlines and its employees don’t care about that because United is who chose to create this waste.  If they wanted to give away a bottle of wine why didn’t they just hand a random person a bottle of wine? They didn’t need to print up God knows how many hundreds of thousands of note cards that will be thrown away and add to our already environmentally troubled planet.

I for one can say, I won’t be flying United again anytime soon.

Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Tracy Piercy who is the creator of Money Minding. 12 Simple Steps to Mind Your Money. One great thing about Tracy’s program is that she shows you how to save money by spending money. How great is that! One of the things she discusses is how to find what you love and then find a way to make money at it.  Let me tell you there is no better way to make money than by making it by doing what you love.

Tracy’s 12 step program includes the following twelve key points:

Step 1: Gratitude

Step 2: Where Are You Going?

Step 3: Where Are You Now?

Step 4: Implement Systems

Step 5: Develop Saving and Giving Habits

Step 6: INCOME – Is It Enough?

Step 7: Professional Advisors

Step 8: Risk, Insurance, Estate Issues Covered?

Step 9: Credit Wise

Step 10: Income Producing Assets

Step 11: Growth Assets

Step 12: Creative, Higher Risk Investments

Visit the Money Minding website where there are free downloads, blog, podcasts and financial plans at www.moneyminding.com

In today’s web economy there are words that you may have never heard before, but need to.   Below is a list of 10 terms becoming more and more popular online.

1. Advermation- A combination between advertising and information.  Primary purpose is to give information to the viewer more so than marketing to them.

2. Angry Garden Salad- Slang for a poorly designed and incorrectly coded website.  Mostly seen when you click a link it and launches something completely different.

3. Cornea Gumbo- An overly animated or graphic website that is visually distracting

4. Infosnacking- Quickly or intermittently getting online throughout the day.

5. Interstitial- An ad that appears in a pop-up browser window when a you move from one page to another.  This is not a banner ad and include large graphics, streaming video and applets.

6. Mash-up- When two or more services or tools are combined together to create a new multi-level tool.

7. PeelAway- A pop up ad in the upper right hand corner of a web page.  Similar to a page in a book that can be “peeled away” to uncover an ad beneath.

8. Plugoo- A widget that allows you to chat with your website visitors in real time, that is connected to your IM provider.

9. Rasterbator- A compulsive digitally manipulating web designer who obsessively tweaks designs and overuses Photoshop.

10. TweetBeep- A free tracking and alert service that monitors conversations that mention you, your company, etc, and sends you an email when the mentions happen.

There you have it.  Ten of the latest and greatest web words that you need to know. Resource used and referenced for this article was Entrepreneur Magazine.  For more information see Entrepreneur Magazine February 2009 edition.