Be a Believer Today!

March 7, 2008 by Liz

Even the Humblest Star Still Shines

Just a few words, a reminder, that we’re all meant to be brilliant.

Somewhere along my life, I picked up a message that believing in heroes was naive at best. White knights and folks who do things without thought of gain or glory are often portrayed as fictional creatures. People who cared for my well-being told me that often enough. For them, I tried to believe, but how could I after the dad I had? My only recourse was to decide Iâ€™d rather be a fool than live in a world where heroes couldnâ€™t be.

I chose right.
from About Heroes and Believing

Make a Difference Today!

March 6, 2008 by Liz

Even the Humblest Star Still Shines

Just a few words, a reminder, that we’re all meant to be brilliant.

We make our ideas smaller by thinking we werenâ€™t meant to do something. Other folks were meant to change things. We were meant to live with them. Why do we argue for that? Isnâ€™t the opposite an equally valid argument?

Why do we shy away from what we long to be doing?

Are we afraid that we actually could make a difference? — from One World-Sized Idea

Reviewing Your Face to Face Networking Techniques

March 5, 2008 by Liz

Liz Goes, Lorelle Guest Posts, Lorraine Gets Control

When we’ve got a lot to do, we rely on friends to help us out and over the mound of work that we’re facing. I was delighted when my dear friend, Lorelle, jumped in to help me by writing a guest post for the time I’ll be gone to SxSW.

But as relationships work, sometimes our friends come with their own circle of relationships. A few months ago, Lorelle and I invented an alter ego of hers named Lorraine, who keeps popping up when Lorelle writes certain kinds of blog posts.

Well, Lorraine caught a thought that Lorelle was writing about networking for me and you. Lorraine’s fabulous street-wise, huge-size ego could not allow Lorelle to write that post on her own. Next thing we knew, Lorraine had taken over . . .

Lorelle and I want you to know that we hope you’re in no way offended by Lorraine’s take on the subject. She’s . . . um, er . . . direct and sometimes a little colorful. Enjoy!

Reviewing Your Face to Face Networking Techniques

by Lorraine, alterego of THE famous Lorelle VanFossen

Who are you more willing to come to aid of? A complete stranger or someone you’ve met?

Okay, so we know the answer. People are typically more willing to help those they know than total strangers. So it helps to know as many people as you can so you will get help if you need it, right?

Attending a business conference is about turning strangers into acquaintances into friends. You want to work with your friends, people you trust, people who trust you, and the ones you know can get the job done as well as help you get your job done. Right?

You want the experts and you want to get to know the experts.

Oh, wait. At a business conference, especially one on blogging, you are also the expert. People want to know you. You are the one they are waiting for to come to their aid. This is your chance. Are you ready? Are you trained? Are you prepared for the moment when the moment to perform arrives?

The Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference (SOBCon) is the place where experts come to rub shoulders with other experts – no matter what your expertise.

Are you ready to share your expertise and meet the experts at SOBCon in May?

Let’s review your preparation techniques.

What to Wear:
Yes, clothes make the first impression, so what should you wear to be your best at such a powerful business of blogging conference? The first impression is your best networking tool so you want to look your best. At SOBCon though, we’re a bunch of bloggers. We are people who dress for success for the public and work in our underwear. Choose something in between that represents you and your blog while dressing for warm temperatures and hotel air conditioning. Chicago is warm in May. Informal, clean, with a spot on the left shoulder for a name badge.

Wear something that says, “Hi, I’m a blogger but I’m a successful and outstanding blogger.”
Practice Your Smile and Handshake:
I know you are used to virtual meetings and social networking, so you probably haven’t practiced your smile and handshake in a while. Take some time to rehearse in the mirror and practice on a family member or pet. You want the smile to not look like you have the hemorrhoids that come with blogging. Make it natural, fun, coy, and endearing. Like on television when the sick and dying child looks up and smiles to let you know that it will be okay, don’t worry, mommy and daddy. Make the handshake strong and firm without ripping off their arm. And wipe those sweaty palms.

Be a professional networker now.
Practice Your Babble:
Repeat after me: Hi, my name is [your name] and I blog about [your blog purpose and goals]. Wait, how many words does it take to define you and your blog? Can you do it in less than 200 words? If you can, work harder. Prune it down to 10 words or less and you have a powerful tagline to kick off a conversation with. Get your blog goals and purpose on paper and rehearse it. Practice introducing yourself and giving your spiel. You are going to get asked, so be ready for the moment.

You’re there to get known, so if you can’t tell them what you do, who wants to know you?
Pry Open Your Brain:
Crack open your virtual skull and get ready for new input. You’ve come here as an expert to learn from the experts. Get your head ready to fill with exciting thoughts, ideas, business techniques, tips, and the tools you need to ratchet your blog up 10 notches.

The inspiration can’t get in unless the brain is open. Pack your can opener in your suitcase so you’re ready.
Remove Brain Filters:
Yeah, yeah, heard it, read it, bought the book and the t-shirt. Stop that thinking right now. Clean out all the filters on your brain that thinks there is only one way to do this blogging thing. Get ready for new tips and techniques to drive themselves into your gray matter and come out with clearer blogging, networking, and marketing skills.

Remove preconceived notions and cobwebs and get ready for new input to strain through the sifters in your skull.
Remember What It Means to Make Friends – Real Friends:
Living online, we often forget the nuances that turns acquaintances into great friends. Remember how a look could fill say a paragraph of meaning and intent with your friends in the real world? I know the skills are rusty, but you can do it. Practice clever witticisms and comebacks. Work on that sly grin. Be ready to poke a little fun – appropriate fun – in the moment that will turn a chance meeting into a life-long relationship of working and playing together.

It’s these little things that you do that change a stranger into a friend.
Did Someone Say Networking Means Business?
You’re not just there to meet and greet. You attend these things to make money. You can make money by meeting the people who have money to share, or learn from those earning it hand over fist. It’s not just about the money. It’s about the money-making connections. What skills do you not have that you wish you did? Find someone who does and maybe you may have the skills they don’t have. SWAP! Pushing into the consultancy business? Then you better have a vast list of resource folks to help fill in the missing parts of your business services. Start collecting business cards and getting to know those missing parts people. NETWORKING!

The more people you know with the right skills and resources, the more likely you are to sing in harmony to “Blogs Will Keep Us Together.”
Spread Yourself on Everyone:
Become like jam. Be prepared to spread yourself everywhere during the conference. You want to be in all the pictures, podcasts, live blogging, and videos. You want to be the one who stands up and asks the brilliant question that gets everyone talking about you, you smarty pants, not the speaker. You want to be mentioned in every report from the conference as the witty, wise, and wondrous person who stole everyone’s heart with your dazzling brilliance and networking skills. After all, it’s who you know not what you know that can make all the difference in your blogging career.

Start spreading your who around.
Be Thinking Blogging Every Moment:
You know by now that anything can be a blog post, so keep your note pad near you at all times and jot down every blog post moment you can think of to blog about the event and the lessons you learned when you get back to your blog. You’re an expert now. You know that the networking doesn’t end with the face to face handshake and smile. It’s back to the blog salt mines where the real networking begins.

Start your linking!

The power of online social networking is amazing. You meet people you would never run across in your daily life. You rub virtual shoulders with the whose who of the web. It’s a never ending network of connections as you find new sources of information daily, and others find you as their source.

However, the potential in these networking possibilities only show up when you show up. Show up.

—
Lorelle VanFossen writes for Lorelle on WordPress,
Blog Herald – Taking Your Camera on the Road where you’ll also find
Lorelle’s Family History Blog. Order Her Book Now! Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging

Lorraine is usually locked away where she cannot cause harm.

Thanks, Lorelle!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz to get over your networking phobia!!

Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Why It Takes a Personal Plan to Be Outstandingly Successful

March 4, 2008 by Liz

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

The road to success — We’ve all heard of that one. Do the things everyone does and you’ll probably get to something that’s . . . well, . . . not broken. But if you want to be successful and outstanding. Doing what everyone does won’t get you there . . . because to be outstanding, by necessity, you have to be individual.

To do stand and shine as uniquely valuable, a business or an individual needs a road that leads in a singular direction.

Note that I used the word leads.

A Plan to Be Irresistibly, Outstandingly Successful

Any effective, efficient project, business, or life has structure and direction. It starts with a destination — literal or figurative — and then a route to get there. Without a plan, we leave ourselves open to winds that push us toward distractions or detours. A plan, well thought and well provided for is the only way to get where we want to that shining end point.

Have a plan and work the plan is sage advice.

Why It Takes a Personal Plan to Be Outstandingly Successful

Last week we talked about making decisions. Here are the reasons that outstanding success demands a plan.

If we don’t have a plan, we’re just wishing.
If we don’t have a plan, we’re always here and success is always out there.
Without a plan, we have no direction. Any road will take us anywhere, but we won’t end up there.
Without a plan, every decision is likely to have as much power as a whim.
A plan is the only way to benchmark our progress and to build on what we’ve accomplished.
A plan is keeps us focused when other ideas tempt us away from our dreams.

Decide. Plan. Get determined. The plan makes a dream into an outstandingly success. It’s the plan — the decisions and determination — that fuels the reality. Distractions are easier to disregard when we can hold them up to a plan we know we can achieve.

Without a plan, we’re always getting ready to succeed. Christine Kane says it eloquently.

“How will you go the long, long journey,
if you’re always about to begin?” — Christine Kane, Falling in Love with the Wind

If you want to be outstandingly successful, plan for it. Outstanding is a stake in the ground that we keep our eyes on. It’s a path that we plot for the life that we want. It’s as easy as a decision.

Have you planned outstanding success into your life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Need help deciding? Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Do You Think You Have ADD? Should You Tell Anyone?

March 2, 2008 by Liz

Do You Know or Are You Wondering?

In 1965, there were no gifted kids, no kids with behavioral disabilities. They were just smart kids, dumb kids, and kids who got in trouble a lot. ADD was only heard of during that hour or two that we spent doing Math.

Now we hear about ADD — Attention Deficit Disorder — often and in many contexts. Now the problem is that the what we know isn’t necessarily accurate. Bad information gets in the way of good things happening.

We can misdiagnose our problem and work with a broken solution.
We can decide that we’re hopeless, stuck, and need to stay in the closet.
We can miss all of the options for finding out how to use our creativity and intelligence.

I’d rather understand myself and be understood by others.

Accurate information makes life easier. Here’s a great example of how getting past that information barrier changed a life in the most dramatic way.

Dear Friends,

Last night I finally got up the nerve to “out” myself as having been officially diagnosed with ADD last year. I was so nervous about it because of how controversial and laden with stigmas the label of ADD is. — How I Survived My Life with Undiagnosed Adult ADD and Learned to THRIVE!

I’ve had a lot of time to go round and round about how it was possible for me to have ADD since prior to becoming a professional organizer and ADD specialist I had some of the same misconceptions about ADD that a lot of people do. For example:

People with ADD:

– never finish anything

– are unreliable

– can’t sit still

– can’t focus on anything

– can’t listen and always interrupt

– are reckless and in trouble all the time

– don’t care how their behavior affects others

– are losers

etc. etc.

What I have learned was that ADD is much less obvious than that. It’s kind of like having back pain, you can’t see it, but it sure makes it hard for you to walk. But you find a way to do it anyway. You may not know that people have it unless they complain about it, or don’t try to compensate for it.

ADD can be harnessed and channeled. For me it was a very privately painful struggle that I worked very hard to conceal and minimize the impact on others. Not knowing why everything seemed to be so much harder for me than for other people, I often wondered if something was wrong with me, but I chalked it up to my creative personality type and persisted in trying to overcome.

It’s amazing to me how many people thought everything I was able to achieve came easily. In fact, it didn’t and still doesn’t. For almost everything I do finish, I probably have at least 2 unfinished projects, and countless ideas for projects I have to keep saying no to in order to focus. It’s soooo exhausting at times.

When I read, I reread every paragraph several times. It’s takes me many hours to finish a book, and even to read all my email. When I type I usually have to retype at least half of my words and sentences due to transposing words and letters. It’s takes me at least an hour for every blog post and sometimes over 4 hours. This email just took me about an hour and a half to write. That’s why I can’t always respond to all my email. I would never leave the computer if I did.

People in my life I’ve shared this with actually don’t believe I have ADD because they think all people with ADD are total messes. It’s so not true. I work with so many gifted and productive ADDers who cry at night like I did.

It was written by my friend and hero, Ariane. Read her story of finding out about her ADD.

With information and tasks to complete coming at us from every direction, it’s easy for us to think that we might even have it ourselves. To get more information, check out these resources.

PsychCentral Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD) Test

ADDitude Magazine

What’s It Like To Have ADD? by Edward M. Hallowell, M.D.

Attention Deficit Disorder Association

WebMD ADD&ADHD Health Center

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Need to sort the chaos? Work with Liz!!

Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Decision or Choice: Is the Difference Stealing Your Focus and Your Time?

February 28, 2008 by Liz

Possibilities and Direction

You walk into an ice cream store. So many flavors sit in the case before you. You consider or you know right away. You place your order.

You have a meeting with your boss only to find out that the job you love is likely to be gone in six months. You have an opportunity to take a higher position in another state or you can stay in the city you love with a fair certainty that your job is going away.

One is a choice. The other is a decision.

One is about possibilities. The other is about direction.

Decision or Choice

Whether we’re thinking about sending a child to private school, where to go on holiday, or buying office supplies, every day we opt for one thing over another. Sometimes we’re choosing. Sometimes we’re deciding. Doing one when the other is called for can get in our way.

Do you know the difference between a choice and a decision? Consider what the words mean and how that might apply to your business and your life.

The Definitions [via Answers.com ]

A choice is a selection from a number or variety of options.
A decision is reaching a conclusion or passing judgment on an issue.

The Etymology — History of the Words [via Merriam-Webster Online,]

Choose — Etymology: Middle English chosen, from Old English cÄ“osan; akin to Old High German kiosan to choose, Latin gustare to taste
Decide — Middle English, from Latin decidere, literally, to cut off, from de- + caedere to cut

Synonyms [via Thesaurus.com]

Choose — (definition select) — accept, adopt, appoint, call for, cast, co-opt, commit oneself, crave, cull, decide on, designate, desire, determine, discriminate between, draw lots, elect, embrace, espouse, excerpt, extract, fancy, favor, finger, fix on, glean, judge, love, make choice, make decision, name, opt for, predestine, prefer, see fit, separate, set aside, settle upon, sift out, single out, slot, sort, tab, tag, take, take up, tap, want, weigh, will, winnow, wish, wish for
Decide — (definition determine) adjudge, adjudicate, agree, award, call shots*, choose, cinch, clinch, commit oneself, conclude, conjecture, decree, determine, elect, end, establish, figure, fix upon, form opinion, gather, guess, judge, mediate, opt, pick, poll, purpose, reach decision, resolve, rule, select, set, surmise, tap, vote, will

When we choose, it’s like picking an item from a menu. If we come back the next time, we can make another choice. But a decision, cuts off — kills — other options. By its very definiton a decision is a turning point.

Is the Difference Stealing Your Focus and Your Time?

Decisions and choices build our character, form our life path. They’re the sum and substance of what makes our resume and our business success. Even so, what is a decision or a choice for you, me, or anyone is, in itself, a decision or a choice.

How we handle decisions and choices deeply affects our lives.

Do you angst over every choice as a life-changing decision? Take a look at what you’re investing — time, energy, stress — and what you’re investing in.
Do you avoid clear decisions by treating them like choices? Take a look at the options you’re holding onto and how they’re holding you in place.

Those two mistakes steal time and focus and often generate stress.

The difference is fairly simple.
A decision marks a direction.
A choice marks an option until we return to choose again.

How will you use this information?

It’s your decision . . . or your choice.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss