By Zaheen Nanji

Resiliency means the ability to bounce back from misfortunes, challenges or setbacks. What does bounce back really mean? It’s not about forgetting all that happened and continuing in misery. Bouncing back is the ability to get unstuck from a problem by finding a solution and continuing to function. Bouncing back is the ability to feel the fear and do it anyway because you will come through with new learnings. In my research on resiliency, these seven principles are important to bouncing back.

1. Approach challenges with flexibility

When something doesn’t work, do you tend to give up after the first try and think you’ve failed? View a challenge like a chess game where you have to not only think ahead but come up with several different strategies. This demonstrates flexibility. Finding different methods to overcome a challenge keeps a person more in control of the situation. Having only one strategy is inadequate preparation.

2. Excellent communication skills

Think of a leader or manager whom you admire and notice how he or she interacts with you or with others at all levels in the company or when networking. You will notice that she’s listening to your words and your communication style and communicates back in your style. She’s looking for the underlying reason behind your communication so she can relate to you. Finally, she’s subconsciously picking up on your body language and tone of voice and mirrors it. These communication skills come naturally to resilient individuals because they want to create rapport with you.

3. Live life with positive attitude

When resilient individuals approach a difficult situation, they have an attitude of being curious, but a positive attitude also encompasses the following three traits:

Realistic Optimism – All the research on optimism says that people who are optimistic are happier, have great relationships and are good at problem solving. However, what makes a person happier? It’s when they maximize their strengths and accomplish what they want knowing there are risks involved.

Embrace Change – research has shown that change becomes easier when we have the resources we need or seek out the resources we lack. Most people hate change because they fear the unknown. If you seek out the resources that can help you, managing change becomes easier.

Sense of Humor – laughter is the best medicine and being able to laugh at life’s frustrations is a great way to bounce back and strategize your next move.

4. Have a mentor

When a resilient individual feels stuck and finds herself in a worrisome state, the first thing she’ll do is contact a mentor or pretend to be her mentor. Imagine you’re faced with an obstacle right now. Think of a mentor who’d be able to overcome that obstacle. Now pretend you are your mentor and step into your mentor. Ask, as your mentor, “What would I do to overcome this problem?” Make sure you are seeing life through his/her eyes and listening through his/her ears. You’ll notice that you’ll have solutions right away.

5. Turn a challenge into an advantage

When you focus on your failures, you dwell on the past and the problems you experienced, which in turn, drives the fear of failure even deeper. Resilient individuals don’t view failure as failure; instead they view it as learned outcomes. Why? They look for insights that can be used as great learning opportunities. They then use that learning to their advantage which leads to the creation of new possibilities and outcome.

6. Create an outcome mindset

Most of us get stuck in the “blame mindset” when we are faced with challenges. In this mindset, you may catch yourself saying things, such as:

• Why do I have this problem?

• How long will I have this problem?

• Whose fault is it that I have this problem?

When you use this type of questioning method, you’ll feel oppressed and you’ll lack choices. However, it’s possible to re-program yourself to an “outcome mindset” by asking alternative questions, such as:

• What do I want and when do I want it?

• When I get what I want, what else in my life will improve?

• What resources do I have available to help me with this challenge?

• Can I use these resources to the best of my ability or do I require extra help?

• What can I do now to improve this situation and get what I want?

Having an outcome mindset propels a person to start thinking of solutions right away.

7. Park negative emotions and live for fulfillment

Resilient individuals accept hardship and work through it instead of dwelling in negative emotions and thoughts. They have the ability to park these emotions by using positive language while simultaneously focusing on the current challenge and finding solutions. This principle of dominating their negative emotions allows them to shift their focus from feeling anxious to feeling hopeful.

Zaheen Nanji is a resilience champion and a business owner in Alberta, Canada.  Embracing change and fear is Zaheen’s trademark because she overcame her speech impediment, her struggles with weight and learned to live in a new country, at the age of 15, without her parents. Her book, The Resilience Reflex – 8 Keys to Transforming Barriers into Success in Life and Business, became an International Best-Seller on Amazon Kindle. Zaheen teaches people how to make resilience their first reflex using her 3-step system: Release, Re-program and Resolve. She can be reached at http://www.zaheennanji.com

By Jessy Troy

When it comes to self-publishing an ebook, authors are afforded all kinds of freedoms that they’d never be able to achieve when releasing a book through a traditional publishing house, allowing them to retain all of their profits even as they take pride in the fact that the good job done was all theirs.

Unfortunately, they also lose the typical advertising team that comes hand-in-hand with a publishing house, forcing them to play marketer all on their own.

Luckily for all of you self-publishing ebook writers out there, the internet has made it possible to do just that, and to do it well, with social media leading the way in that regard.

I highly recommend that you first read this article: 5 Myths About Writing an E-Book, by Ovetta Sampson.

Here are six creative steps to promote your self-published eBook:

1. Set up a Separate Website

It’s easier to brand your eBook if you have a separate mini website for it. It will rank easier for the eBook name and will accumulate links and exposure naturally. Plus you can use branding colors, calls-to-action and logos to make sure people remember the eBook and will be more likely to convert next time they hear about it.

SiteGeek can help you find the cheapest hosting for it. Plus it has all those user reviews so you can make sure you are making a good choice.

And here are some essential basics for you to easily build a website.

It’s amazing that we can actually handle website development ourselves these days!

2. Be Informed

First things first: when it comes to social media marketing, like any other task, a bit of planning is in order; while you’re very likely familiar with major social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, have you ever really considered how to utilize them for business purposes?

Reading this article is a great start, but making the most out of what social media has to offer to you and your ebook means taking the time to do some serious research on each platform that you plan to tackle.

For example, tweeting your latest goings on simply isn’t the same as capturing an audience for a book in 140 characters or less, just as maintaining a personal Facebook account isn’t the same as leveraging a Facebook page to promote a product.

3. Be Informative

In order to get your campaign off on the right foot, start things off by tackling the big players in the niche. You’ll need to create thorough, in-depth, and always engaging social profiles that give your visitors – a fickle bunch, to be sure – a reason to stick around and learn more about who you are and what you have to offer them.

To achieve this, be sure to create fleshed out profiles that give visitors a good idea about who you are and, more importantly, why they should take an interest in your ebook.

4. Push Your Content Far and Wide

No matter what kind of content you find yourself adding to your social media streams, it is invariably true that the further it reaches, the more effective it is. With that in mind, it’s very important that you utilize all aspects of the social web in order to help your content grow wings and fly.

One excellent example of a social tool that can help you to achieve just that is Viral Content Buzz, a platform that brings together content creators in order to help each other to like and share content on the social web at large.

5. Engage Your Fans and Followers

One of the biggest tricks that needs to be utilized by any social marketer, especially one pushing a product as intimate and personal as an ebook, is to present yourself as a living, breathing human being to your followers.

The social web is full of content that looks as if it came straight from a spam bot and falling into that game, even inadvertently, is an easy way to turn off fans – and potential buyers – for good.

In order to stay approachable and engaging, be sure to always present your content additions as something deeper than simply trying to sell another copy of your ebook, and always make a point to engage one-on-one with fans and followers who take the time to ask questions and leave comments.

6. Stay on Top of Your Social Game

Even when the fans, followers, and sales start to roll in, be sure to stay on top of your social game, continuing to indulge your social enthusiasts by engaging them on a daily basis. This should continue to include the posting of content relevant to your ebook, one-on-one and group discussion, and teasers about your upcoming work.

More useful ebook marketing ideas:

• Set up a Twitter party to announce your ebook. Here’s a great site for that!
• Here are more tips on promoting your eBook on Twitter
• Consider these free sites to promote your eBook
• Get interviewed to build your author brand: That’s actually doable even if you are not famous yet

Besides allowing you to continue to successfully push your existing work, these efforts will also help you to build a platform with which to generate interest in and sell future works!