Can you live without the average pointless corporate meetings?
Do you embrace technology?
Can you make sure home is still home?
Do you like to work completely independently?
Before you go out and purchase your URL…
Almost everyone can live without the average pointless corporate meetings. That was actually a gimme. (The the fact the meetings are average and pointless is a direct reflection on how the meetings are run. Not the actual content discussed.)
If technology makes you want to run the other way you may have trouble finding a job. Owning your own business is exactly the opposite extreme.
Using social media and technology to market your business is the quickest way to consistently and successfully promote your business. There are plenty of ways to do it that are expensive and inconsistent so figure out what they are and stay away from them. Trust me on this. Technology must be your friend.
Home is where you live. Chances are pretty good someone else lives there with you. Even if your home becomes your office they probably still leave for work every day. If you are a two business household then you are up for even more challenges. Come to an agreement about what hours are work hours and what areas are work areas. Stick to them.
Now, be flexible. Home is where you go to recharge, reinvent and reinvest in yourself. Make sure you set time aside to do those things regularly – which means you have to shut the office door or the laptop!
“Completely independently” means you are giving up regular face-to-face interactions with peers. If you work better in a room full of people motivated by the same project then maybe you could do it but you’ll need to find ways to meet that need for interaction.
Look for work hubs in your area. These pop up frequently at coffee shops, book stores and libraries. You’ll be set where ever two or more people gather who want to use each other for a sounding board. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter if they do what you do. What matters most is that they are logical thinkers and/or want to play the devil’s advocate when it comes to problem solving with you. If you get the technology bit you’ll know I use the word “gather” pretty darn loosely!
I’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of things to consider. I remember many sleepless nights when I was deciding to launch my Virtual Assistant business. I think it is normal and health so keep a notebook and pen by your bed for these soon-to-begin late-night jam sessions.
Nibbling away -
Sundi
Today is Patriot Day.
Yesterday was my birthday.
As a gift to myself I’m going to use my blog as a personal soapbox just this once. Or, maybe this will become an annual tradition…my official complaint about Google, posted every year on September 11th.
Does anyone think it was important that UFO trended on Google last week? Google certainly did. They thought it was cool enough to change their home page anyway.
If you were given a list of the top ten events in the history of your generation do you think any of these would be on it:
Birthday of Beatrix Potter
World Cup of 2006
Persian New Year
Death of Michael Jackson
Nobel Prize Centennial Award Ceremony
Alright, I’ll give you MJ but I’m certainly not moved by it so it wouldn’t be on my personal list. I was more moved by the death of Chris Ledoux in 2005. Now that would be on my list!
It would seem that Google likes to celebrate our native holidays consistantly through the years:
Mother’s Day
Father’s Day
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Earth Day
St. Patrick’s Day
Valentine’s Day
New Year’s
Independence Day
Martin Luther King Day
This yearly list seems fairly extensive and specific to the US but then sometimes you’ll see:
Chinese New Year
Persian New Year
Summer Games in Athens
World Water Day
International Women’s Day
Lunar New Year
Large Hadron Collider
Bastille Day
La Fete de la Musique
Dragon Boat Festival
Children’s Day – Japan
St. George’s Day
Korean Liberation Day
Swiss National Day
Canada Day
Shichi-go-san – Japan
So maybe they like global stuff and maybe they don’t want to do something for a specific locale in the US. But then comes Bloomsday.
How about a quick rundown of the random birthdays or individual accomplishments they’ve celebrated since 1999?
Rene Magritte
Marc Chagall
Diego Velazquez
Walter Gropius
Alexander Graham Bell
Luciano Pavarotti
Yuri Gagarin
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Louis Braille
Frank Lloyd Wright
Leonardo de Vinci
Vincent van Gogh
Ray Charles
Gaston Julia
Alfred Hitchcock
MC Escher
Albert Einstein
Michelangelo
Picasso
Andy Warhol
Piet Mondrian
Monet
I think this list is short-sided because good ol’ Beatrix isn’t on it; however, I distinctly recall the Google logo with Farmer Brown and Peter in it. Oh, and let’s not forget that Google celebrates their own birthday every year.
Please tell me, after seeing the variety of only the ones I’ve listed here which of these dates is in our hearts as a nation more than September 11, which has come to be known as Patriot Day. I can’t think of a single one. Notice I said of the ones listed. I can think of only one holiday that means more to me than Patriot Day and that is known to Google as “Season’s Greetings.” In their ten year history Easter hit Google’s logo only twice. For me, Easter ranks right up there with Christmas and Patriot Day.
If Google doesn’t want to go a religious route that is fine with me. Leave out Christmas and Easter. If Google doesn’t want to go heavily into holidays celebrated by the US that is fine with me too. Neither of those is the point of me standing here on this soapbox.
September 11, 2001 directly impacted two-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-three lives from ninety countries. (Yes, I figure that is a violation of AP style. I did it for emphasis while on my soapbox.) Please notice I said d.i.r.e.c.t.l.y. Indirectly the event impacted a nation of people and brought many nations around the world to tears.
I can guess what some of you are saying, “Oh, Sundi. It isn’t that big of a deal. They get to choose their celebrations and what they do to their logo.” True, and I get to choose my search engine. From now on, it is no longer Google. “Hello new search engine. My name is Sundi and I’m a Virtual Assistant.”
If people in our country can walk around like this for a day, then I think Google can change their logo for a day.
Nibbling away -
Sundi
Are You in a Slump?
Posted by Sundi Hayes in Nibbles for Coaches, Trainers and Speakers, Nibbles for Virtual Assistants on 09 4th, 2009 | No CommentsWhile flipping through an industry magazine I found an article by David C. Miller titled, Are You in a Slump?
He outlined five fundamentals to get out of your slump:
1) Take a break. Sometimes we need to get away from our game and focus on other aspects of life.
2) Take care of yourself physically. If you’re not taking time to take care of yourself, you will find yourself in slumps more often. Give yourself permission to exercise, eat right and get enough sleep.
3) Master your mindset. Our thoughts and beliefs directly impact how we feel and, ultimately, what we do. Slumps effect our confidence. We must be vigilant to combat the beliefs that dis-empower us.
4) Do the “little things” every day. Practice the fundamentals of your business or career. This means doing the little things that have worked in the past. Things like picking up the phone and following up on leads, writing an article or setting up a speaking engagement. Identify three to five daily fundamentals that you know work and do them each day.
5) Get support. Get the support of a friend, partner or coach to help you stay with the first four fundamentals. No one gets successful alone.
A great list, surely! May I add one small thing David?
This little trick I learned from Michelle at Here’s to You! She was kind enough to let us use her location for a networking group I’m a member of and she even shared with us one of her favorite talks. (By the way, Michelle gets it too!)
Along with self talk Michelle also discussed catching yourself when you are in a *powerful* frame of mind. Cashing in on a powerful frame of mind means positioning yourself to succeed when you have the most positive energy to achieve success.
When do you think your most powerful juices are flowing?
Directly after a workout?
When you listen to certain types of music or specific songs?
While you are wearing a certain tie?
Make a list of times you feel powerful and start using these times to your personal and professional advantage. If you all share so will I! Some of them are pretty personal. :)
Nibbling away -
Sundi
Disclaimer: There are as many definitions of what a group is as there are twitter users! I think my definition of a group is pretty clear here. I’m not talking about people attending a conference who might want to meet up for the first time and have drinks. I’m talking about people who already have some type of a relationship or connection developed and need to communicate about a common topic amongst themselves. That being said, roll with me…
I’m in a group of Virtual Assistants who met and found common ground in the desire to build our business by reading Get Clients Now. While working through the book we utilized Skype to talk real time and Twitter to send out reminders or mini-celebrations when we hit daily goals.
Skype worked great!
Twitter, not so much.
With a group of 6 any message I sent through Tweetdeck to all the members ate up 83 characters of my message. I thought it was hard to express my extroverted self in 140 characters. Fifty-seven characters was horrible! We switched to a hash tag but not everyone was using Tweetdeck and not all of us ran a column for it consistently. Messages were getting missed and some of the luster was fading.
Then I discovered how to set up groups on Twitter. If you open an account, lock the updates, follow all the members and they reciprocate, you have a group. The system seemed pretty slick initially.
To send a confirmation for the next call a member sends a direct message to the group account. The original message is reworked into a message from the sender and flows into the main Twitter stream to be viewed by only members of the group (since the updates are private).
Here is an example of the message I’d send from Tweetdeck:
d GCN0509 Can we move the call later by 1/2 hour tonight?
Private message appearing in the Twitter stream:
Sundi_MOZ: Can we move the call later by 1/2 hour tonight?
It works pretty sweet! In theory.
With about a thousand folks in my Twitter stream the probability that I’ll see any one message is pretty small – even if the message was intended for me. Almost like an @ message where the sender left off the intended recipient after the @. After a couple of weeks the members stopped using the group account entirely because the response rate was so low.
What we really need is for Twitter to fix the group thing! All over the net you’ll find conversations about what people think Twitter groups should be. Represented opinions are as diverse as the colors in the rainbow. People want geography built in. People want levels of privacy. People want no levels of privacy and for Twitter to “learn” what groups apply when. Seriously? Won’t this almost kill the reason why MOST people love Twitter? Here I thought simple was the rule and if you wanted to make it complicated, or even hyper-complicated, there was a Twitter app out there to help you do that.
How can Twitter fix groups as they are currently known? The most simple way possible!
When I send a message to my group I want to know that everyone is going to get an equal opportunity to see it and respond. That means the message needs to go out from the group account as an @ or a DM to every member. Simple.
Do you have a suggestion for how Twitter can fix groups?
Nibbling away -
Sundi