Month: January 2013

Falling in Love With Your Self

Post author By
Post date January 14, 2013

My blogging buddy Daylle Deanna Schwartz emailed me about a 31-day self-love challenge to kick off 2013 in January by writing about love. Receive her FREE ebook, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count The Ways.

What a great idea to write articles on self-love especially with this shift in consciousness to embody love!

Below is a revised post I wrote in January 2011. Enjoy!

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance” – Oscar Wilde

Fear and unworthiness are two main issues that powerfully affect self-confidence and self-esteem. How we feel about ourselves affects every aspect of our lives: business success, relationships, happiness, health & wellness….

Do you…

Call yourself names when you feel you made a mistake?
Sabotage your best intentions and break self-agreements?
Focus more on what you feel is bad and wrong about you rather than celebrate what makes you amazing?

When we lack feelings of self-worth and self-love, we don’t allow ourselves to receive the good that is being offered to us in so many ways. Ouch!

We often associate our value and lovability with our roles, our jobs, our responsibilities and how we serve others.

Too often we focus on what we most need to change and what is wrong with us rather than seeing what is right and valuable about who we really are. If I had a $1.00 for every time I heard people’s pain about feeling inadequate and worthless, I would have quite a bit of money.

Self-love, compassion, forgiveness…..are often qualities we withhold from ourselves without realizing it. When we are harboring negative feeling towards ourselves we neglect, punish, and deny ourselves the very things we need most to experience the best of life.

No one can beat you up better than you, right?

My good friend Anita Pathik Law used to ask me, “Whose rules are those?” when she heard me being too tough on myself rather than being forgiving. I had never considered myself a perfectionist so it was a surprise to discover that there are times when my standards and rules about who I think I should be…. sets me up for feeling awful if I fail to live up to them. Yuk!

We came into this life filled with love and wonder. Life circumstances, cultural conditioning, relationships, has wired us to question our true value and to feel we are not good enough.

You are not broken

You do not need to be fixed

You need to wake up and remember who you really are!

Below is an adapted exercise from my 4-week mini journey into Self-Love in my Pathways to Awakening program

I invite you to acknowledge what you do AND celebrate who you are.

1. What I love about myself is (acknowledge a quality, strength, or gift about yourself that you are proud of and willing to own.

2. What makes me fabulous, wonderfull, lovable, and valuable is.

3. What I am most proud of is (I invite you to BRAG. Yup, you heard me – its crowing time. Stand up and tell it like it is, baby! Whoo-hoo!)

Use extra paper to fill in your answer!

Let’s take this farther….

Begin each day by looking at yourself in the mirror and say out loud

(Your name) You are fabulous, lovable, wonderfull, and valuable!

Turn it into a declaration. Stand strong and say out loud

I am fabulous, lovable, wonderfull, and valuable!

Say these statements with ownership, pride, passion…Breathe into the words, and take them into you heart and body! Let go of feeling foolish or self-conscious. It’s time to own the truth about who you really are!

Now it’s your turn to be the recipient, ok?

Invite others to celebrate YOU! In the next 24 hours, email close trusted friends for feedback. Ask them:

What you love about me?

What do you think is wonderfull and fabulous about me?

What do you value most about me?

The first time I did this exercise I had to breathe quite a bit to take the love in. WOW!

*This exercise invites you to receive love from others that you might be deflecting and discarding. Give yourself the gift of feeling and receiving love – from yourself and the people who are crazy about you.

If you do not love yourself, how can you truly love another?

And how can you expect others to love you?

Ready to fall in deeper love with your Self?

Business Trends

Egypt’s Turmoil a Business Opportunity?

Post author By Ethan Theo
Post date January 10, 2013

Logic might dictate that right now is not the best time to invest in or to start a new business venture in Egypt, what with all that political and economic turmoil going on. But is that right? There’s this nagging voice in the head that keeps saying otherwise, a reminder of that oft-quoted piece of wisdom. What is it? Ah yes, the best time to start a business is in the middle of a recession. What about in the middle of political turmoil? Does that qualify, in terms of wisdom, that is?

The location is certainly right. Bang slap in the middle of huge markets. Europe to the north and west; Africa to the south; Asia to the east.Billions of people, lots of whom might just want what you have to offer. Then there’s the international banking and the string of trade services useful for any would-be import or export venture.

If that’s your game then an Egypt bank worth getting to know is the multinational giant HSBC. Yes, they’ve been involved with the country for many years. The bank’s reputation is second-to-none. A business bank account with HSBC brings with it many advantages, not least local business know-how and expert regional knowledge. And, of course, those useful trade services. Although there’s a lot to learn, HSBC employ well-qualified people more than happy to help ease the learning curve.

So take advantage of the opportunities Egypt has to offer. Many of America’s top companies surely are. Surprised? Maybe they know a thing or two about Egypt all of us lesser mortals don’t.

There have been a number of business missions to Egypt since the 2011 revolution. You’d think, given the unrest and uncertainty, they’d stay away. Not so. The last one was in September, last year, and involved more than 100 top American executives from the likes of Google, Microsoft, Boeing, Exxon Mobil, Hewlett Packard, The Coca-Cola Company, Chrysler, Cisco, Citi, FedEx and others.

During the three-day visit, the largest-ever US business delegation to the Middle East, members met with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, Prime Minister HeshamQandil, members of the Egyptian cabinet and parliament, heads of political parties, business leaders, and senior US government representatives in Cairo. Afterwards, a report, Investing In A New Egypt, Revitalizing the Egyptian Economy by Rebuilding the US-Egypt Relationship, was published.

The report concluded that during the visit, delegates were reminded “that the true test of our partnership will not only be our commitments to building a new relationship with Egypt, but on how we, as the private sector, deliver on these commitments to improve the lives of all Egyptians.”

The report continued, “Indeed, all of us concerned about Egypt – including those in the Egyptian and American governments and in positions of responsibility across our two societies – face the critical task of matching our words with tangible deeds. We have a unique opportunity to strengthen the bonds between our two countries and, indeed, to build a partnership that can be a model for an entire region in transition.”

Sounds very much like opportunity is knocking, right now, for you. Are you ready to take the first step? Judge for yourself. You can read the full report here.

Planning & Management

Top 6 Reasons Why Your Business Isn’t Growing

Post author By
Post date January 8, 2013

I speak to clients all the time who are frustrated and overwhelmed because:

Their business isn’t growing;
They don’t have any clients (or very few clients);
And their income isn’t where they want it to be.

And after having many such conversations over the past few years, I’ve identified six key reasons why they’re not seeing the results they want to see.

Read through these reasons and see if you can identify with any of them yourself … you may have more than one!

1. No Clear Strategy or Vision. When you’re not clear on why you’re in business or the results your business is delivering, it’s very hard to grow it – you don’t know what direction to go in; what to do next etc. etc. and chances are you easily get distracted and get off track by following those bright shiny objects (in the form of the latest hot marketing strategy or product). It’s a bit like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle when you don’t have the box in front of you to show you what the end result should look like.

2. Focusing on the WRONG Things. Related to point 1 above, when you’re not clear on what you’re doing then chances are you’ll focus on the wrong business building and/or marketing activities. And then you’ll be disappointed with the results you get. This is because you either don’t fully understand the activity but you’re going ahead with it anyway. Or you don’t know how the activity relates to your business so don’t know how it’s going to help you build your business.

3. Lack of an Automated Marketing System. Without the proper automated marketing system in place, it’s very difficult to follow up with new subscribers (that’s even if you have a system for capturing new leads in the first place). If you don’t have a system in place for following up with your new subscriber, then how can you expect to turn them into a paying client or customer?

4. Lack of Systems. Forget about the automated marketing system, you don’t have any systems in place at all! You’re surrounded by paper piles; you can never find what you’re looking for; you have no idea of your business finances – these are all symptoms of a lack of basic business management systems. And this itself is a core reason why your business isn’t growing.

5. Not Clear On The Results Your Services Deliver. This again goes back to point 1 above, but it also means that if you’re not clear on the results your services deliver, then your marketing message is not clear either. Which means you’re not attracting your ideal clients (if any clients) and your business isn’t growing.

6. Not ASKING! This is a big one. I see it happen so many times. You’ll do anything and everything not to have a sales conversation with a client and ASK them to work with you. And this could mean not even asking them to have a strategy session/initial call with you to find out more about one another. You really do need to start getting into the habit of ASKING people to work with you.

Which of these reasons can you relate to? Is there more than one?

Success Attitude

Are You Having A Love/Hate Relationship With Your Self?

Post author By
Post date January 4, 2013

If you were asked these questions:

What do you love about yourself?

What makes you fabulous, wonderfull, and lovable?

What do you value most about yourself?

What would you answer?

You might automatically answer things like: your accomplishments, personal successes, things you do for others…. Many people identify more with what they do rather than who they are. Those are great answers and I invite you to look who you are in addition to identifying with what you do!

So, what would you answer?

If you have some difficulty answering, you are not alone.

Lack or low self love affects your finances, health, relationships, business, well-being, and connection to God. Without self-love you are cut off from the full flow of wealth and all forms of abundance that enriches your life.

It’s not your fault.

Suffering caused by a lack of self-love is a dis-ease humanity has cultivated for generations. You have been impacted by your family, cultural conditioning and past experiences.

If you have been on an inner journey to heal and transform yourself, you may still find yourself struggling to release those beliefs and patterns that are still running your life. And no doubt you are feeling frustrated and wonder what the heck it will take to be liberated from the grip and pain your mind creates, right?

You cannot USE your mind to CHANGE your mind.

Some patterns are so deep that it can take quite some time to completely dismantle them with God’s help. You must be willing to listen to your guidance and keep going without quitting five minutes before the miracle might happen. Your soul knows the way to bring you “home”. You gotta trust your Self and be committed to your liberation.

That’s the journey I have been on for almost three decades. I have faced and felt self- judgments, unforgiveness, feelings of unworthiness, fears, doubts, guilt and anger I harbored towards myself for choices I made, things I did or didn’t do…. I sure was not loving me!

The truth was that pain and fears closed my heart and cut me off from truly giving and receiving love. I was starving for meaningfull connections with others, my Self and most importantly, with God.

I am happier with myself and my life is rich and abundant.

Is love, abundance, and peace what you long for?

Is connection to the Divine what your heart is yearning for?

Love is the way…and it begins with you..inside

Do you resonate with what I have been saying?

Ready to fall in deeper love with your Self?