LIVE LIFE UP HIGH

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In this final post discussing Dr. Caroline Leaf’s book, Who Switched off My Brain?: Controlling Toxic Thoughts and Emotions, we will briefly describe the last three detox steps outlined in the book.

Detox Step 11 – Diet – Dr. Leaf suggests that you should never eat when you are angry or facing any other unpleasant emotions. Eating during those times can make your food toxic to you. Your toxic thoughts will interfere with the proper working of your digestive system. 

Another important point is that when you eat well you will properly feed your brain. Dr. Leaf explains that a major source of food for the brain is glucose. Of course, you need to eat this in the proper quantities.

Finally, it is important to think about what you eat. In the book Dr. Leaf mentions a few of the types of foods that help us think well and feel good.

Detox Step 12: The Spiritual aspect – In this section Dr. Leaf talks about the power of spiritual truth to deal with toxic emotions. The Christian faith is the guiding belief of her life and mine. I encourage you to live in your spiritual truth.

Detox Step 13: Relax – The “acceleration syndrome” is the cause of many mental, physical and emotional health problems. The key point here is to learn to spend your time wisely. You must focus on what is good for you and you must take time to relax.

We have reached the end of the steps to detox your thinking.  These last 3 detox steps are obvious and we hear them all the time, but sometimes as entrepreneurs we don’t do them. Make a decision today to begin using all the steps to detox your thinking and improve your life. 

As always I appreciate your comments.

Please click the image below to obtain this resource.

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Do you want to grow your business quickly and have a ready base of customers? My fellow entrepreneurs and business owners, take the time to ask your customers these two questions and you may be surprised at the positive results that accrue to your business.

Is there something you want that we don’t carry?

No matter what kind of business you are in there are probably products and services that your customer wants that you don’t carry. Most customers won’t volunteer this information they will just go somewhere else to get it. Many times, the only way you will secure this information is to ask the customer directly.

Keep an open mind.
You may be surprised at what your customers say. They may suggest a simple extension of your current product or service, or they may suggest an entirely new product or service. Whatever is suggested,  keep an open mind. Take the ideas and do some research to determine if you can profitably supply this product or service.

Is there something that your friends or family would want that we don’t carry?

This is an extension of the first question, but it may give you additional information.  Sometimes the products and services you offer are just right for your customers but you may be missing products and services that their friends and families desire. Imagine being able to easily gain additional customers by having a whole family or group of friends shop together for your products and services.  This could make buying  your products and services a social experience.

Final note

These questions seem simple and the fact that a business owner should ask them is obvious right? I agree that the questions are simple but you would be surprised at the nubmer of business owners that don’t ask these questions. Just think back to your own experience in a small retail shop. How often are you asked these questions by a salesperson or by the owner? Almost never.  I believe a lot of potential business is missed because these questions aren’t asked.

Try asking your customers these questions and let me know the results. As always I look forward to your comments.

photo credit: Arturo J. Paniagua

Stress can kill you.  Most people think this is stretching the truth a bit, but it is not.  Stress causes unhealthy changes in your body and makes you less effective. Most entrepreneurs are faced with lots of stressful situations. As entrepreneurs, we must manage stress before it gets out of hand. In this post, I present four simple stress-busting techniques to help the entrepreneur live longer and more successfully.

Stress is our response to outside forces exerted on us.  For example, if an employee makes us angry, how we handle it affects our entire life.  Some entrepreneurs hold it in which puts pressure on their minds.  Others let the anger dissipate in order to keep it from affecting their lives.  You want to be the latter. 

Have you ever noticed that you get headaches when dealing with certain situations?  How about that stomachache that comes on when your client calls on the phone to demand that past due project you promised?  My entrepreneurial friend,  learning to manage these stressful situations makes all the difference to your body and your health. Holding things in can make you sick and kill you so don’t keep it in. You want to be around to create your next entrepreneurial venture. Learn how to get it out of your life in an appropriate manner.

Stress-Busting Technique #1 – Take a time out.  No, we are not talking about sitting in the corner facing the wall.  Time out means distancing yourself from the situation in order to get a fresh perspective.  People have many different ways to take a time out and you can choose a few that work with your schedule and lifestyle. Here are two good ones.

Go for a walk.  If you work from home, going for a walk can break up the work of the day.  Getting fresh air and sunlight, as well as exercise, increases the oxygen flow to the brain.  Working an exercise session into your day on a regular basis is the perfect time to sweat out all your problems and increase the feel-good endorphins in your system.  A body in good shape can combat physical changes due to stress.   In fact exercise reduces stress levels.

Pray. Praying is a smart way to deal with stress because it gets the focus off of you and puts it on God. Most people who pray sincerely notice a sense of peace after they pray. There is an old adage that says “prayer changes things”. I think it is also true that many times “prayer changes us” and equips us to change things.

Stress-Busting Technique #2 – Communicate with others.  Some stressful situations are caused by what we perceive to be the truth.  We do it all the time.  Interpreting a look or a gesture without verbal confirmation leads to trouble.  If you think your client is unhappy with you, go and ask her.  She may be having a bad day which has nothing to do with you, but you are getting a stomachache because of a faulty assumption.

When you are offended or have a problem, talk it out with the appropriate person.  Clearing the air goes a long way to clearing the mind of toxic thoughts and the body from harmful effects of those toxic thoughts.  Also communicate positive words to others to create a sense of well being for yourself.

Stress-Busting Technique #3 – Spend time doing something for yourself.  Every person needs to have time to pursue their own interests.  Maybe you like to sew, read or paint. 

Whatever your passion, it is an important part of who you are and it is important for maintaining your sanity.  When the pressure gets to be too much, making yourself the number one priority can soothe your soul.

Stress-Busting Technique #4 – Focus on generating solutions instead of  focusing on the problem. What you focus on tends to expand. If you constantly focus on the problem not only will your stress levels increase but the size of the problem will increase in your mind. It will appear a lot larger than it really is and this will increase your stress. However, if you focus on generating solutions and thinking about solutions, the solutions will swallow up the problem along with the stress that came from the problem.

Entrepreneur, stress is manageable with a few techniques.  Before you head towards the deep end, keep stress under control:  communicate, incorporate “me” time, keep your body healthy and focus on solutions.  You and your family will be glad you did.

photo credit: alexdecarvalho
In my second post on the 7 deadly mistakes new entrepreneurs make and how to avoid them, we discussed two more potentially deadly mistakes many new entrepreneurs make. In this post we will address another deadly mistake that both new and experienced entrepreneurs make. This mistake can be quite deadly and can affect all aspects of your business and personal life. What is it?

Deadly Mistake 5: Not recognizing and consistently applying the 80/20 principle

The 80/20 principle has been called by many names including the Pareto Principle, the Pareto Law, the 80/20 Rule, the Principle of Least Effort, and the Principle of Imbalance. As some of the names suggests this principle was discovered by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) in 1897.

What did Pareto discover?

To put it in its simplest form Pareto discovered a counterintuitive imbalance between causes and results. In other words, we naturally expect that 50% of the inputs to a process will produce 50% of the result, but this is not usually accurate. It is more likely that a smaller percentage of inputs will produce a disproportionately large amount of result. Indeed many times 20% of the inputs produce 80% of the result (see important note at the end of the post).

What does this mean to the entrepreneur?

This principle has far reaching implications for the entrepreneur. For example, we tend to think that all the activities we do are equally valuable in moving us forward. This is simply not true. There is an imbalance. Indeed 20% of the activities provide 80% of the results we desire. Further, the other 80% of the activities only add an additional 20% of the results we seek. This is instructive because it says that as entrepreneurs we should focus on the 20% activities that give us 80% of our results and delegate the other activities.

Another example of the 80/20 principle at work

We as entrepreneurs tend to think that all of our customers are equally valuable and should be treated equally. Using the 80/20 principle we would discover that 20% of our customers provide 80% of our profits. Here are a few ways you could use this information:

1. Do research and determine who these customers are
2. Interview these customers and find out why and how they use your product or service
3. Profile these customers so you can go after other customers with similar characteristics
4. Align your resources to serve these customers more effectively
5. Figure out ways to convert more of your customers into this category of customers

There are many other such imbalances. For example 20% of your products provide 80% of your profits and 20% of your employees produce 80% of your desired results. The point of this post is to get you to diligently look for these imbalances and find ways to use them. If you don’t, it can be deadly to your business.

Why not using this principle can be deadly

Hopefully it is obvious how this principal can be useful to you. It can be deadly if you don’t recognize and use this principle because you will not move forward effectively and you will miss huge opportunities. For example, simply not focusing on the 20% of customers that bring 80% of your profits can cause you to go out of business. This is deadly.

Important note

I know that this is an over-simplification of the Pareto principle. I wanted to keep it simple for the purpose of making it useful. There is a lot of variety in this principle that I plan to present in future posts. For example, it is an over-simplification to say that the split is always 80/20. It is not. It can be 60/40,70/30 or 99/1. The key is that there is an imbalance and we can exploit this imbalance.

Additional resource

For more information check out Richard Koch’s site.

Please let me hear your comments and please don’t keep this blog a secret. Tell your friends. Thank you.

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