Sunday, March 29, 2015

It's all worth it!

Today is a BIG day in the Bednowicz household! 

First, Mike is coming home after having been gone almost an entire month straight. He was home, literally, for 36 hours in the middle. 



Second, Mike is coming home as a captain! 



For those who aren't familiar with my / our story, my entire entrepreneurial and personal development journey started with our decision for him to make a major career shift after he was laid off from a corporate position at the front end of the economic downturn.

He really really hated his job. To the point that it changed his personality. He actually had the thought more than once "If I got in a car accident on the way to work, I wouldn't have to go." Mind you he never took action on that thought! 

So, when he got laid off, we immediately saw the blessing in it. Immediately - I mean when we got home twenty minutes after the "news". (We were both working for the same company at the time and they sent me home with him that day) We knew he could keep making the same money by doing what he had been doing somewhere else, but I didn't want him to continue to be miserable. His happiness was more important to me. I committed to make it work no matter what it took. 

It was a risk. We had to invest a lot of time and money in the completion of his training. We went more than a year with him earning no income at all, then more than a year with him earning less than $8K. When he got hired at the regional airline, they were saying the upgrade would be 3 years. It's been 8. 

All this, after 40 years of age, knowing that the mandatory retirement age for pilots is 65. Knowing his window of earning was finite. 

And it's SO TOTALLY worth it. All of it. The people we are today, the life we have today, while not super flush with cash flow, is amazing. 

The lessons we've learned first hand about the joys and blessings of following your dream even when it seems ludicrous have been simply spectacular.

If you think it's too late to go for your dream, you're WRONG. If you are going through life every day sedated and numb, you're doing it wrong

Even if it's scary, even if it seems crazy, it is NEVER too late to follow your dream! You are truly meant to be happy every day of your life.   

Friday, March 27, 2015

Do You Need to Lighten Your Load?

I would guess that many of you are like me, and fall into the trap of getting involved in an ever growing number of projects. 



I'm often asked how I manage Chicago Over 40 Females along side my day job, not including the Over 40 Females Online Community and my skincare business. Most of the time, I have a good rhythm. 

Meanwhile, I'm building my personal brand, Whole Self Nourish around all those businesses, launching my first full day event and when asked to help out on this or that committee, of COURSE I say yes.

The problem, as we all know, is that the more balls we throw in the air, the more likely you are to drop one.



I find the detail work to be the ball I seem to drop most often. My social media planning and scheduling, or my newsletters. 

The great thing is that there are lots of resources from tools to hiring virtual assistants, or full on companies to handle different items on your list.

One of my favorite words these days is leverage. How can you best leverage your time, effort and energy? How can you get the most mileage out of work that you do?

I'm great with adding tools to help me complete my tasks faster, easier, more efficiently, but I find when it comes to leaning on outside resources, I feel like it takes more energy for me to get them "up to speed" than it takes for me to do it myself. Of course, that need for things to be done exactly the way I want is a large contributing factor as well.

But I'm learning, I'm getting better. I used to joke that I need more staff. Of course, it's for the items that I'm clearly unskilled at or simply dislike. Yard work is very high on that list.  Also, nearly ridiculous things like a person to do my hair and makeup for me every day as those are not tasks I'm very skilled at. 

At what point do you recognize that you may need to lighten your load, and what strategies to you employ to offset some of your overhead? Are you more of a team or a tool person?  I'd love to hear from you! 


Friday, March 20, 2015

Sometimes the Leap Takes a Push


As we travel through this journey called life. Each new challenge brings with it new knowledge, new confidence and new self worth. 

So why is it that we resist them each at first? I've been sharing lately about the amazing results I'm experiencing with my new business coach Chris Suva. As I have found in my experience with working with a coach, I am pushed to do or create something bigger than I have before. I am pushed to step into a version of myself that perhaps others see, but I don't completely believe yet. 

As I am working on bringing my first full day event to fruition, I find myself alternating between excitement and terror, anticipation and self-doubt. Luckily for me, based on my very first session with Chris, I can look back and see how that exact feeling in the past has led me to some of my very best moments and finest achievements. 

Sometimes, in order to take that leap of faith, we need a little push. 

  


Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Stretching

Having been a runner since high school, I am a bit ashamed to admit I'm terrible at stretching. 



When my muscles are really stiff and sore and tight, of course then I do it, but as part of my normal workout routine, I'm horrible and I skip it almost all of the time. 

I got to thinking about it today as I was thinking about how much I'm being stretched by the next project I'm working on. How stretching can be uncomfortable, but it's a very good thing that helps you to perform better in all areas. 

Whenever I work with a business coach, (something I strongly recommend) I find myself pushed and stretched in ways that often greatly frighten me. My husband would admonish me and tell me that it's because others can plainly see "how great I am" it's only me that can't.

Working on this new project, under the banner of my "new" brand, I am alternately excited and terrified. I think that's a good sign that I'm on the right track as weird as that sounds. 

Where are you stretching these days? Or where have you stretched that brought you great results? I'd love to hear your stories!   

Monday, March 2, 2015

If the shoe doesn't fit...


I think we're all familiar with the Cinderella story. Think over the part where the glass slipper has been found and the stepsisters are trying to get it to fit. Not because they find the shoe beautiful, not because it is a comfortable shoe, but because they believe ownership of the shoe will get them their desired end goal, to marry the prince. Of course, as you know, the significant obstacle here is that the shoe simply does NOT fit. No matter how they squeeze and struggle, nothing they do will change that. 

Do we ever unwittingly find ourselves in this same pattern in our business? 

Stay with me here... 

You see an idea, a business model, a strategy and you see how well it is working for someone. You perceive that it even takes them across a goal line that you are eager to achieve. That may be a title, a monetary earning amount, a significant achievement of any kind. 

But when you try to implement the same thing, it simply doesn't work for you, it doesn't have the same result, and you don't understand. 

Say, for example, you are a business coach, and you are trying to grow your practice to a $10K a month practice. And you run across another business coach, and learn that she has a $12K a month practice. (It's magic that you find this out, just stick with me here) And you see that she is active on twitter and even gaining new clients through here twitter conversations. 
So, you study twitter, you model her activity, and after 6 months, you don't have a single new client through twitter. 

For any number of reasons, this marketing model may simply not work for you. There may be more to it than you are aware of, for example, these conversations may have started with a live referral, or her audience may be significantly different than yours.

Now this is an overly simplistic example for illustration sake, but the principle is there. I think that sometimes, we see something and we believe that it is going to get us the end result we are looking for, and we get hung up on that "thing". Maybe it's a vehicle for delivering your product or service, maybe it's a business model, it could be any number of things.

So...

If the shoe doesn't fit, move on. 

I think we get tunnel vision sometimes and we think that the vehicle we are in is the only one that can get us to our destination. That simply isn't true. If you are at point A and you want to get to point B, there are any number of vehicles that will get you there, at differing speeds, and with differing levels of comfort, but they will all get you there. 

Be willing to move on. Try something else. 

How about you? Can you relate? Have you found yourself in this pattern? I'd love to hear your comments!