Monthly Archives: May 2010

Focus: A Vital Component of Productivity for the Online Entrepreneur

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“We accomplish more by concentration than by fitness; the man that is apparently best suited for a place does not always fill it best. It is the man that concentrates on its every possibility that makes an art of both his work and his life.”
–Theron Q. Dumont

As a writer, blogger and online entrepreneur, I find that one of my biggest challenges is to remain focused. I will candidly share with you the fact that I have both ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and Dyslexia, which is a learning disability related to reading decoding, comprehension and fluency. I was fortunate enough to have an observant mother who noticed my quirky reading and ‘inventive’ writing when I was in Kindergarten, so I was tested and given special resources to help me to overcome these challenges and accommodate my peculiar learning style in the classroom.

Because I have been blessed with the gift of a dyslexic brain, I have been forced to learn how to focus my attention and to constantly course-correct when I get easily distracted. My special learning style has taught me to be very organized in my work. I create lists and spreadsheets for everything to keep all of my concurrent projects on track. Without lists to work from and keep me on task, my ADD brain would go sailing off to find something completely unrelated to occupy herself and I lose valuable time.

With that being said, many of us approach developing and running a business with our own unique set of challenges, but the ability to focus on the task at hand and bring it to a successful conclusion is a skill that can be learned. By the time you have finished reading this blog post, you will have learned some new strategies for improving your focus so that you can increase your productivity regardless of what you are pursuing.

Your time is your most valuable asset. Everyone on earth is given the same amount of time each day. The power is in your hands as to how you will leverage your time to create the things and the life that you desire. The ability to focus on your goals will help you to manifest your desires.

Ask yourself these questions to help sharpen your focus:

What is distracting you from focusing on your daily tasks and goals?

From the moment you wake up in the morning your brain is filled with chatter about a million things. The power of concentration allows you to shut out those distractions that are vying for your attention so that you can focus on the task that you have before you.

Take a look at your work environment and eliminate things that can distract you. For instance, is your desk facing a window? Do you ever find yourself staring out the window when you should be working? Move your desk so that you are facing a wall if the window presents a distraction.

Are you distracted by the Internet when you should be focusing your attention on a particular task? If you are working on a writing project, unplug from the Internet so that you can focus on your work. If you need the Internet for a particular task open just one browser window at a time, work through that task until it complete; check it off your list and then move on to the next task.

What habits are contributing to your lack of focus?

How can you tighten up your overall work and productivity habits? Make a list of everything you must accomplish each day and create daily rituals. Create a morning routine, a framework for a workday routine and an evening routine.

What should you be focusing on?
Every business has basic tasks that must be done to keep in running, and then there is the actual area of expertise that requires attention.

Focus on practicing and honing your area of expertise and get help with the other necessary tasks that can be done by anyone.

How to leverage your time by outsourcing so you can focus on your high value tasks.
Outsourcing or hiring someone outside of your company–typically an independent contractor–is a great way to get those essential tasks such as record keeping, email, marketing and advertising, etc. done for you so that you have more time to focus on your core strengths.

If your business is not bringing in enough money to hire a full-time person, start with hiring out just a specific task and see how much time and energy that frees up for you.

Another option is bartering services. What do you have or do that other people in your network want or need? What can they do for you in return?

All of this leads back to the area of focusing your attention efficiently so that you can accomplish more in less time.

Here are some additional resources that you might want to check out if you want to pursue honing your skills of focus and concentration:

“>The Power of Concentration by Theron Q. Dumont

Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload“>Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload by Lucy Jo Palladino

Focus and Concentration Collection: Increase Productivity, Improve Performance, Self-Hypnosis, Self-Help, NLP (Unabridged) by Erick Brown

How have you solved the challenge of focus in your business? Feel free to leave a comment with your tips and suggestions for greater productivity and efficiency.

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The Power of Attention

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If you have ever had any interest in personal development than you already understand that you are an infinite being with infinite potential and that you create your own reality every day. But there is one thing that directs all of your co-creation and manifestation. This one thing is the seat of your power to achieve and that one thing is your attention.

Your attention is you directing your mind to focus on a particular thing. Your attention is a powerful force because where attention goes energy flows. Part of your evolution as a spiritual being having a human experience is to choose carefully where you focus your attention because whatever you focus your attention on expands.

Attention is a form of currency. When you ‘pay’ attention to something you take it in and it begins to shape your thinking. Advertisers pay dearly to grab just the smallest amount of your attention to try to persuade you to purchase their products. What you have been paying attention to lately will be evident in what has been showing up in your experience.

So, in order to move from where you are to where you would like to be in life, you must be diligent about where you place your attention. Learn to pay attention to what you want and ignore what you don’t want. What do you want more of? Focus your attention on that and feel good about it. As an infinite being it is within your power to do and be and have whatever you desire. But, so many of us get caught in the trap of giving all of our attention to the status quo rather than focusing on making our dreams and intentions a reality.

Here’s how to use your attention to your advantage:

•Your attention directs your powerful, creative energy and life force so use it to your best advantage. Take out that list of goals and dust it off.

•Pick just one thing that if you devoted your attention to it and accomplished it, your life would be closer to what you want it to be.

•Choose an end-date when that goal will be accomplished.

•Open your calendar and schedule in the tasks along with how much time it will take to complete each task on your calendar. If your calendar syncs with your cell phone, program in audible, daily reminders to give your attention to your goal.

•Celebrate when you achieve milestones whether they are major or minor as long as they are moving you forward.

Focus, discipline and diligence are the best weapons against overwhelm and analysis paralysis. Imperfect action is far better than perfect inaction, and failing early on teaches you valuable lessons that you can incorporate as you pick yourself up and keep moving forward. A helpful mnemonic is: FOCUS: Follow One Course Until Successful.

Your consistent, unrelenting attention and action will ensure that you successfully achieve any goal you set for yourself.

The benefits of developing the discipline to focus your attention will begin to show up in all areas of your life. Whether you want to get a better job, start your own business, go back to school and finish your degree or finish a big project around the house, your attention and your action is what will transform your vision and idea into its physical manifestation. So, pay attention!

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Encourage A Blogger: Leave a Comment

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WordPress

Mark Twain once quipped, “I can live for two months on a good compliment,” and I can totally relate to his
sentiments. It just really feels good when someone points out something positive about you in a public way.
Hearing a compliment really can make all of the difference in a person’s day.

As bloggers, each of us knows that our blog can be compared to a single tree in a vast forest of millions of other trees just like it. We spend hours doing research to write what we hope will be useful, compelling content for our blogs, but there are days when you just feel like a small fish in a big pond. You’re not getting the steady flow of traffic that you dream of, and you spend more time than you’d like deleting comment spam.

Just one positive comment from a real live person who has actually taken the time to read your post and has
something thoughtful to say in response makes you feel really good when it first starts to happen. It reminds you of why you started blogging in the first place.

But commenting is not just you being magnanimous to the blog author. Commenting is a win-win. Please take a minute and watch this video training by Amanda-Marie, a blogger that I met in the Unified Tribe community, who’s got some great tips about how to select the right blogs to comment on. I first found Amanda-Marie’s blog post because another UTribe member, Chris Bernardo, shared it with me. So, the Unified Tribe really rocks:

Here are some tips to keep in mind when you start leaving comments on blogs:

As Amanda-Marie said, choose mid-level blogs that have at least one or more of the following plugins installed:

  • Top commentator’s plugin
  • Gravatar plugin
  • Comment Luv
    Coree Silvera from the marketlikeachick, blog recommends adding NoFollow Free WordPress plugin that allows you to determine the number of times a commenter should comment before being given a ‘do-follow’ link.

  • Write meaningful comments that shows you actually read the post and found something that resonated with you.
  • What is motivating you to write that comment? Being authentic and writing a thoughtful response can be more beneficial than trying to sound like an expert. (Nobody likes a smarty-pants know-it-all) ;-)
  • Keep your comments short and to the point.
  • Be respectful and remember my grandma’s advice that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

    For bloggers who want to encourage more comments:

  • Sounds pretty simple, but ask for comments in your post.
  • Make it simple and advantageous for people to comment by using plugins such as Comment Luv.
  • Respond to the comments you receive to create a continuing conversation.

Commenting on blogs benefits both you and the blogger. The blog gets more attention and better SEO with more comments, if done effectively, you can come off as an authority in your topic and attact traffic back to your blog.

Giving that which you’d most like to receive opens you up to receive even more. In Luke 6:38 of the Bible it says, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

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The Ultimate Dream Project: A Personal Review

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I can quite easily be described as a personal development ‘junkie.’ I discovered self-help books when I was in my late teens. Already a complete perfectionist, I think that my initial motivation for reading all of those books, listening to countless hours of tapes, and watching videos of motivational speakers talk about how great your life can be, was to learn how to be the best person I could be.

But at the heart of it–my basic belief was that I flawed and I was looking to these programs and to religiousness, to somehow ‘fix’ me where I was broken and show me how to be a powerhouse of success and achievement. Somehow, despite having read all of those hundreds of books and following teacher after teacher, my life was not improving, I was still working at a dead-end job that I hated and my relationships were a classic, dysfunctional mess.

Then I met Angela Bear on Facebook. I had been meeting several spiritual teachers and life coaches on Facebook and other places on the Internet. They all had a similar message related to the Law of Attraction and focusing on being positive–wonderful messages, but I was looking for something deeper.

I joined one of Angela’s free calls where she was introducing a private, three session class where a small group could work with her personally to get support for our business or personal issues and questions. What I learned by working with Angela during that class and in the private session I had with her transformed my life in a deeper, more profound way than any other book or course I had participated in.

Angela is an intuitive who reads energy, so she can cut through all of the crap, and tell you exactly what is going on. She does not want to hear your ‘story,’ she simply reads your energy and gives you some powerful questions to work with that help to get to the heart of whatever you perceive to be holding you back. By giving you the tools to eliminate those limiting beliefs that create the proverbial ‘glass ceiling’ on your growth, it gives you a new perspective on the contextual reality that we happen to find ourselves in at this time.

Angela helps you to remember that you are an infinite being with absolutely infinite potential to realize your dreams and goals.

The Ultimate Dream Project is a membership program that Angela has created to provide a place where she can meet and interact with her clients and members can interact with each other to learn and grow and express their infinite potential. As you know, life is not all sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes when you are on a path of growth you will meet periods of resistance when you feel blocked and you wonder why you even waste your time trying to grow yourself. When I get into those funky places of resistance, Angela always has a way of snapping me out of it by asking me, “What creation of this energy am I using to validate other people’s realities?”

I cherish working with Angela because she reminds me that there is nothing about me that needs to be ‘fixed.’ I am confident now that I am an infinite being with infinite potential. Now that I have let go of closely examining the wrongness of me, I can put more energy on expanding the Universe, and modeling what she is teaching me and what I am learning for my children.

My business is now thriving, my relationships have been transformed and I feel so much more personal freedom now that I have stopped trying to ‘fix’ myself. I now have the confidence to pursue my dreams and desires because I know that everything I want is on the other side of my fears and limiting beliefs.

So, if you are ready to step away from the need for another ‘hit’ from motivational, self-help gurus who pump you up and get you excited about going for your dreams, but subconsciously, your limiting beliefs are holding up a ‘Stop’ sign on your progress, visit Angela Bear’s website, http://www.ultimatedreamproject.com, and sign up for her email list. You’ll receive a ‘taster packet,’ or what I call little mini-appetizers that will give you a feel for what it’s like to work with Angela.

You are an infinite being and when you are ready embrace the fabulousness of who you are, Angela is eager to support you in your discovery process.

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New Bloggers: Use Guest Blogging to Kick-Start Your Blog Launch

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When you launch your first blog and publish your first post, you’re full of excitement and anticipation. But the frightening news is that your new blog has been thrust out into a blogosphere that is full of millions of other blogs all clamoring for your reader’s attention. Guest blogging on established blogs in your niche/topic is an effective way to gain some favorable exposure with your audience quickly.

What you want to do is to find a way to show up where your ideal audience is already hanging out. Guest blogging is an effective way to do that. One of my favorite quotes on this topic is by Jeff Herring, the Article Marketing Guy, who says, The best way to get traffic is to find out where the traffic is going and get out in front of it.” When you get out in front of the traffic you can then direct it wherever you want it to go.

Begin by becoming familiar with the top blogs in your subject area or niche. You can do a search on alltop.com, blogsearch.google.com, technorati.com or simply type your topic into your favorite search engine. Let’s say you are looking for blogs on the topic of bird watching. Type: bird watching + blogs into the search field and see what you find.

Make a list of the blogs that appeal most to you and start commenting on them leaving a link back to your site. Actually read the posts and make comments that add value. Next, contact the blogger and ask if they are interested in guest posts. Keep the email short and tell them exactly what you are prepared to write about, but show that you are actually familiar with their blog and their audience.

Make contact with several bloggers and try to schedule your guest posts to appear closely following your launch. If the readers like your posts, they will come to your blog. It’s up to you to provide excellent content on your blog so that when your new visitors arrive they’ll find a reason to come back and maybe even subscribe.

For lots of great tips and resources to help you get started check out this guest blog posting guide. Save the time and frustration of trying to figure it out on your own and instead hit the ground running with fabulous results.

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