Guest Bloggers Include:

• Duane Aubin
• Regina Baker
• Karen Russo
• Lisa Robbin Young
• Darnyelle Jervey
• Diane Cunningham
• Sarah Robinson
• LaTara Ham-Ying
• Silvia Pencak
• Maruxa Murphy
• Karen Coffey
• Sanyika Calloway Boyce
• Rachel Bellamy
• Katy R. Pent
• Janice Johnson
• Melissa Stewart
• W. Terry Whalin
• Tiffany Johnson
• Deborah Skye King
• D’vorah Lansky
• Teresa Romain
• Sage Lavine
• Carrie Wilkerson
• Kelly Thorne Gore
• And Me

You can read my post here.

I would consider it a personal blessing if you visited, read and commented!

Inspiration for this came from a little book I read last night. “Your Spectacular Mind” came with a birthday card from my aunts last month and I’ve had it on my desk waiting for a good time to enjoy.  I’m so glad I finally made the time because it was a very good read.  (Written by Dave Williams if you want to check it out yourself.)

Halfway through it’s pages I realized I’d been lacking in quality input lately – watching too much television, wasting a bit too much time puttering around news sites, etc.  That’s what led to this goal.  I’m going to focus on reading, watching and listening to only the most positive things I can find.

Have you ever done this?  Do you have any suggestions for positive input?

A couple of great sources I’m turning to are Pandora, where I can choose music that makes my heart smile – and iTunes where I can find podcasts on all kinds of topics I enjoy.  I’m also finding some great positive content in my Netflix streaming movie account.

If you have any great suggestions for me, please do share!

Hopefully it won’t surprise you to learn that I like myself.  Despite a lifetime of negative media messages, passive aggressive behavior from others and a general lack of kindness from the world at large (something we all live with to some extent) I just don’t dislike myself.

There are a lot of things about myself that I don’t like – but the me deep inside – I like her.

Not saying that it’s always been this way. My sense of self and appreciation for who I am comes from a secure foundation.  (Jesus loves me.)

Don’t roll your eyes at me.  I’m not setting out to preach here – just had to say it.  I feel valued because God values me.  That is all.

Because I like myself, I’m generally kind to myself. I don’t have a lot of negative self talk going on inside my head these days.

Self talk – it’s the inner sound track of your mind.

Some of us don’t really talk to ourselves in our thoughts – but most women I know do.  We provide a running commentary on our day.  Complimenting job’s well done, criticizing mistakes and failures.  Sometimes it’s mild, other times it’s vicious.

Consider the following situations and see how negative self talk compares to positive self talk.

It’s the afternoon, your mind isn’t moving as fast and it’s harder to focus.

• Negative self talk: Here comes my afternoon blahs, I’m not gonna get anything done now.
• Positive self talk: I feel the afternoon drowsies coming, time to take a break and clear my head.

A client emails you with corrections for a project you turned in the day before.

• Negative self talk: Oh no – she must think I’m an idiot.
• Positive self talk: Great, I can fix these up and get them back to her in no time.

You realize you forgot to put clothes in the dryer last night.

• Negative self talk: What is the matter with me? Why can’t I do anything right?  I have nothing to wear!
• Positive self talk:  Oh well, now I have an excuse to wear a nice dress to run my errands.

Your mother gives you a back handed compliment on your new hairdo with her usual criticism chaser.

• Negative self talk: Nothing is ever good enough for her – I’m such a disappointment, why bother to try anymore?
• Positive self talk:  As usual, mom can’t be pleased – oh well – I like it!

You find out a group of friends got together for coffee and you weren’t invited.

• Negative self talk:  They must not like me, I wonder what I did to make them mad at me.
• Positive self talk: Bet they had a nice visit – I’m going to remind them to call me up next time.

We all make mistakes.  People around us do and say hurtful things – on purpose and on accident.

Self talk is the voice of our inner interpreter – it’s telling us how to digest these things.

Negative self talk says it’s our fault, we did something to deserve what happened or what was said.  Basically, we suck.

Positive self talk says it’s OK, learn something from mistakes, shake off failures and move ahead.  Make like a duck and let insults roll off your back.  Just because it was said, doesn’t mean its true.

Next time you notice your own negative self talk, think of how you can turn it into a positive and say that to yourself instead. It won’t feel right, you might not even believe it – say it anyways.  If you practice positive self talk, it gets easier and more natural.

A few great things will happen.

As you interpret your life in a more positive light – life actual starts to seem more positive.  In truth, it may be just the same – but your experience of it is improved.

Because you’re happier, you take more positive step and your life can actually improve!

When you make a habit of being kind to yourself in your own mind, you’ll be more mindful of the unkind things said to you – you might just find yourself sticking up for you – and getting more respect and consideration from others.

When you’re kind to yourself, you’re even more likely to be kind to others. When you’re kind others…

See?  It’s a ripple effect.

There’s no risk involved in practicing positive self talk.  Only good can come from it.

So go for it.

In the unexpected fashion of most family crisis’, something came up suddenly and I’ve been spending a lot of time with the kids this week.  Their stay at home dad had to check into the hospital for IV antibiotics when a wound on his leg took an ugly turn.

Thankfully – the drugs did the trick and he’s home tonight convalescing in his own living room instead of finishing out the seven day stay the doctor’s originally wanted.  To give him peace to get back to 100% – the kids get to hang out with me and my sister for the weekend.  I love this of course because I can never get enough of them!

As if a serious health scare wasn’t enough to throw this family into distress, try adding the croup to all four little ones, keeping most of them out of the first week of school, and finding the much loved family dog has suddenly passed away the first night that hubby is in the hospital.  I’m so glad I could go and just be there for my niece.

Do you know what happiness it gives me to have the sort of business that lets me do that?  With a bit of finesse and a few tough choices – I was able to clear my plate for the rest of the week and hold down the child front.

Those choices did make me realize something my business and the direction I’ve let it take this year. The first thing I realized right away is that I have been letting my time get client heavy.

I have income from a variety of sources and many are passive in nature – meaning that I did the hard work in the past and enjoy income from it today.   This is key to me being able to drop everything and go where I’m needed.  Some of my income is from providing my time to others over at Freshnets and some of my time is required to manage my blog network over at Mom’s Talk Network.

When my niece called Tuesday night to explain their situation and ask for help, I felt panic. I recently started volunteering at the local women and children’s homeless shelter on Tuesdays so my Wednesdays are pretty packed on the calendar.  I scanned appointments and projects and groaned inwardly – rescheduling all of these and pushing back a few deadlines – this is going to annoy my clients who expected to see things finished this week.

I would never consider saying no – these kids always comes first.  But I’d never felt business guilt about it before and that is what brought about a ‘loud and clear’ attitude adjustment for me.

Just because time is abundant lately and I’m enjoying myself serving client, letting my time be overtaken by client projects is irresponsible.

I made a decision right then – the projects I hadn’t started yet would not be delayed.  Instead I released the clients, refunded retainers and gave them a referral to another respected provider.  I felt fifty pounds of weight lift off my mind.  Next I emailed clients with open projects and made arrangements to delay action until the following week.   Everyone was understanding and gracious, thank goodness!

I had time for these projects – plenty of time.  I wasn’t overbooking myself by any means.  It still wasn’t smart for me to do.

From now on I’m going to be more vigilant over my calendar.  Empty space must not equal saying yes to another client project.  Instead, if I’m going to work those hours – they will be devoted to building future income.  I’m hiring an Assistant Blog Editor to help run Mom’s Talk Network , this is a decision I’d made before this attitude adjustment and I’m doubly committed to making it work now.  I’m going to outsource more at Freshnets and keep my own involvement on the project management level.  To do anything else is foolish and wasteful.

Life and business should be purposeful, not aimless.  You never know when life will go into a tailspin and business will have to take a back seat.  If you haven’t worked to build in margin and a variety of income streams, you’re going to have added stress and limited choices.

I’m glad this little crisis is short lived, so long as nothing changes, things will be back to normal for me on Monday.  It easily could have gone in a different, longer direction.

I’ve got five sweet reasons (finally sleeping) to take this seriously.  Before this, it was my own son and after this (hopefully) it will be my own grandchildren.  Not to mention all of other other precious people in my life I’d gladly drop everything for.

What reason do you have to work smarter?

I was definitely operating at a disadvantage when I first began to work at home on the internet.   Paying for a domain and hosting account was a challenge. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.  Everything had to be a do it yourself project which meant hours scouring the internet for how to advice and more hours spent stumbling my way through mistakes and frustrations.  Nothing came easy.  Everything I learned, I learned the hard way.

For that, I’m so glad.

Was I glad for it back then?  Heck no!

But today, I look back and choose to see it all as a wonderful gift.  I am a graduate of the ‘Internet Marketing School of Hard Knocks’.

Are you operating from a disadvantage right now?

• Are you working with a negative budget?
• Do you feel like you know no one and no one knows you??
• Do you know that you don’t know is more than you do know?

Don’t worry, you’re just a freshman in my aforementioned Alma Mater

So don’t whine about what you don’t have and don’t gripe about what you wish you had.  Just get moving.

I started out offering my meager graphic design skills $5 and $10 a time.  My hourly rate probably averaged about $2.50 – but I gained experience and made friends that helped me get where I am today.

Do you have a skill that you can bootstrap into similar benefits?

Most people do, but a few don’t.  If you don’t like to write, type, talk, be social, do math or have a knack for graphics – you’re probably not cut out for business on the internet and may want to choose a different school than mine

If you do like to do those things, chances are you can leverage them to get where you want to be.

• I’d weigh exactly the same.
• I’d be earning exactly the same.
• I’d be doing the same things every day.
• I’d know all the same people.
• I’d have seen the same places.

I don’t know about you but I love making progress.  I enjoy change. I like new.

That motivates me.

What about you?

My first sale online was for $5 (a 125×125  button graphic) and I worked two hours for it.

Just sayin’.

Shortly after, this was posted on Twitter:

Six Figure Entrepreneur?  Who?  Me?

I actually sat back in my chair and stared at that tweet for a few moments to let is soak in.

You will probably think I’m a nutbar but I hadn’t actually thought in annual numbers yet so I almost didn’t even believe her.  Then I realized it wasn’t the ‘actual number’ that caused my reaction – it was the personal identity that I struggled with.

Me, a six figure a year earner?

Do I still feel like I’m that broke single mom who needed help filling the propane tank, who woke on Thanksgiving to no water because the water pump motor broke and had no money to fix it, who had to let her truck go back to the bank because the payments were soaking up 30% of her take home pay, who had to be satisfied with one $7 game under the Christmas tree for her son..

No, I’m not that person anymore.  I’ve come a long way to be debt free and financially stable.  I no longer think like a broke person but it took some doing.  I had to grow into it and let go of some old mindsets.

I can see that I have some more growing to do and a new mindset to adapt to.

Six Figure Kelly.

I think I’m gonna like her.

My interns commit ten hours a week for ten weeks to learning, researching, writing and putting themselves out there in a big way.  Depending on how you look at it, it is both a huge commitment and a reasonably small one.   Either way, the commitment is understand beforehand and very carefully considered.

The payoff (coaching, experience,  insider knowledge, expensive learning resources) makes the arrangement attractive to a mom who might otherwise not be able to get access to these things.  She considers the time required, compares it to the benefits and decides to apply.

Internship space is limited (I accept about 6 interns at a time) and I only want to work with those who want it bad so I spend  time during the interview trying to scare the applicants out of the commitment.  I stress that the internship involves challenging projects, firm deadlines and tough critiques!

Anyone who gets in has to want it pretty bad and convince me of it.

That being clear, will it surprise you to learn that I ALWAYS lose at least one intern in the first two weeks and usually lose at least one more before the first month is through?

The reasons vary.  Some, despite my best efforts to drill it home, are unprepared for the reality of committing ten full hours a week to working on the internship so they fall behind and drop out.  Others experience unexpected family situations like illness, death, flooding, computer failure or job loss.    (When crisis strikes, you have to put your family and yourself first.  I completely understand that the internship must take a back seat 0r even be dropped entirely.  I wouldn’t have it any other way. )

Losing interns has become so predictable I almost wonder if I should place a warning on my internship application.

“Warning:  Efforts to improve your life, business and finances will wreak havoc in your life.  Apply at your own risk.”

Many attempts to improve your life will be met with some resistance.

Some things happen completely out of your control and foil your plans.  You have to adapt to a new set of priorities and that’s just that.  It’s not the end of your goals, just a redirection.

But what about those things that come up that you could control if you really wanted to  – but you decide to use as an excuse to quit because this is all so much harder than you expected it to be?

Don’t accept opportunities to make excuses.  Make it an opportunity to resist the urge to quit.

If you’re ever going to reach that next level of success, resistance is necessary.

It’s way to soon to know if this is something that will ‘stick’ for me, but I can tell you that it isn’t nearly as scary as I had built it up on my head to be.  Some of the things I had used as excuses in the past were:

There’ll be men there!

I thought I would hate exercising around men and most gyms are totally co-ed these days.  I let this hold me back for so long.  Interestingly enough, the men at the gym don’t bother me one bit.

There’ll be skinny women there!

Almost as bad as exercising around men was the idea of doing it around thin women.  I guess I was worried about feeling worse about myself by comparison.  As it turns out – thin women at the gym don’t bother me either.

I’ll feel ridiculous!

I’ve always been afraid of sticking out like a sore thumb at the gym and who knows, maybe I do?  But my experience isn’t like that.  The trainer I worked with was fabulous.  We were able to plainly discuss my weight and limitations and come up with a program that suits me perfectly without making me feel dumb.

It’s too expensive!

This was the big reason that help me back in my frugal years.  I was so worried about taking on an extra monthly payment.  Honestly, back then I was so pinched for cash it really was outside of my reach.  But today it’s definitely not.   If I had to pay for the entire membership on my own it would still only be equal to eating out once a week – and I’m blessed to be able to share my membership with a friend.

I probably won’t stick with it anyways!

That remains to be seen for sure – but why should fears about follow through keep me from giving something a try?

I’m actually enjoying myself.  I’m loving the elliptical and weight machines.  I don’t dread going and I don’t wish it were time to leave while I’m there.

It helps that some friends are doing it with me but they’re not always on my schedule so I’ve done several workouts on my own.

What have you been building up to be really hard?  Give it a go, I bet you’ll see it’s not nearly as bad as you think!