Archive for September, 2010

Brian Tracy is one of my all time favorite authors and inspiriational leaders. He is also one of our Smart Women’s Coaching Contributing Experts. Below is an article where he shares his secrets of finding and expressing your true self.

Aristotle said that the ultimate aim or purpose or human life is to achieve your own happiness. You are the very happiest when what you are doing on the outside is congruent with your values on the inside. When you are living in complete alignment with that which you consider to be good, right, and true, you will automatically feel happy and positive about yourself and your world.

Know What You Really Want
Stephen Covey once said, “Be sure that, as you scramble up the ladder of success, it is leaning against the right building.” Many people work hard to achieve goals that they think they want only to find, at the end of the day, they get no joy or satisfaction from their accomplishments. They ask, “Is this all there is?” This occurs when the outer accomplishment is not in harmony with your inner values. Don’t let this happen to you.

Trust Your Intuition
Self-trust is the foundation of greatness. Self-trust comes from listening to your intuition, to your “still, small voice” within. Men and women begin to become great when they begin to listen to their inner voices and absolutely trust that they are being guided to a higher power each step of the way. Living in alignment with your true values is the royal road to self-confidence, self-respect, and personal pride. In fact, almost every human problem can be resolved by returning to values.

Watch Your Behavior
How can you tell what your values really are? The answer is simple. You always demonstrate your true values in your actions and especially your actions under pressure. Whenever you are forced to choose between one behavior and another you will always act consistent with what is most important and valuable to you at that moment. Values, in fact, are organized in a hierarchy. You have a series of values, some of them very intense and important and some of them weaker and less important. One of the most important exercises you can engage in to determine who you really are and what you really want is to organize your values by priority. Once you are clear about the relative important of your values, you can then organize your outer life so that it is in alignment with them.

Determine Your Hearts Desire
The spiritual teacher Emmet Fox wrote about the importance of discovering your “hearts desire.” What is your hearts desire? As a friend of mine asks, “What do you want to be famous for?” What words would you like people to use to describe you when you are not there? What would you like someone to say about you at your funeral? What kind of reputation do you have today? What kind of reputation would you like to have sometime in the future?

Your Past is Not Your Future
Many people had difficult experiences growing up. They fell on hard times and became associated with the wrong people. Some were convicted and sent to prison for crimes. But at a certain point in life, they decided to change. They thought seriously about what kind of person they wanted to be known as, and thought of, in the future. They decided to change their lives by changing the values that they lived by. By making these decisions and sticking to them, they changed their lives. Remember, it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from; all that really matters is where you’re going.

Action Exercise
Describe your picture of an ideal person, the person you would most want to be if you had no limitations.

You can learn more about Brian Tracy by visiting his blog.  Share your vision for your ideal self below.  What would you be doing in your life if you knew you could not fail?  What would bring you total joy and fulfillment?  We’d like to know. Thank you!

By Ruth Klein, Integrative Brand Strategist & Productivity Coach

Are you ready for the New Branding Shift in Business? This shift is large and is having a pivotal impact on most businesses, large and small. When I think of the word, “shift,” I think of a change in mental or emotional perception…even if it’s only slight.

And, in most cases the BRAND SHIFT is slight although it has legs and has quake-like impact. I’d like you to consider three aspects of this brand shift, and if used as part of your Brand & Marketing Campaign, can help propel your brand message and ‘conversation’ with your targeted prospects and clients.

Transparency
How transparent are you in your business? There are several ways to exercise “transparency” in your business. Here are two of them…

1. Are you presently providing videos on your website or your sales letters that promote your products or services?Why is this important? People your prospective buyers want to see who you are. They will either resonate with you or they won’t. We love to “know” who we’re dealing with and face-to-face is still the most prized way to establish a business relationship. Embracing technology helps bring who you are and what you do to a whole new level…a seismic SHIFT.
2. What are your messages saying to the public? Are they coming from the mind or are they coming from a place that people can relate to from the heart? Most recently I received a question for my monthly “Ask Ruth“

Question: How much of your soul should you bare, especially if you are a very “open book” by nature & in which arenas? Perhaps “how much is too much” is a better way to put it?

This is a great question because it is real and there is a balance to how transparent you want to be in business. Many people are finding this out first hand with their online profiles on Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites where they may have been too transparent and now they’re having difficulty finding jobs, for example.

My guideline is:  If you can share it with your clients, chances are it’s okay to share it with others!

Immediacy
We all have experienced the unbelievable “speed lightning” of technology and the instantaneous responses via email; instant messaging, faxes (yes, even faxes), texting, and all the other avenues.

What I’m referring to here is the ability to think of something and then get it to market immediately! How many times have you sat on a product launch; started to offer a new service; worked on a book; or invented a new product or program and then you “sat” on it for awhile, only to find later that someone else had the idea AND did something about it? I know the answer… too many times!

Here is my best suggestion for taking action: Start taking 100% Personal Responsibility for what you’re doing and what you want to do and…. Secondly, just take action. Every time you’re in doubt, just think of Nike’s great tagline: “Just Do It.” Why do most of us resonate so much with Nike’s tagline? Because we need to be reminded to “Just Do It.”

Let me give you a perfect example of what I’m referring to above

Immediacy: 100% Personal Responsibility and “Just Do It.” Just today I saw in my inbox a conference that I would love to be part of and contribute my experiences and ideas…we share the same target market. I had asked to be part of the “speakers lineup” a year ago and it never came to pass.

So, today when I saw that the conference had grown and there were a lot of new speakers, I had a momentary ok, maybe it was more like 30 minutes of “I wish….”

Then, I realized that rather than stay “stuck” and “unproductive” and “wait for someone else to come knocking,” I had a huge SHIFT…remember the title of this whole article…” How the New Branding Shift Affects Your Business??

Well, I realized that I can take Personal Responsibility and select other businesses that I share more resonance with (I’m not even in alignment with most of the speakers!!! this awareness came to me after I made the Branding Shift) and create another large event. Done! So, I spoke with wonderful professional colleagues and we are creating our wonderful offering that will help others in a soul-centered way…reinforcing my business brand!

Relevancy
Time is the new currency today and technology has helped pick up the “urgency” of time. What that means to you and me is that if we’re going to say something to our clients, prospects, community, networking groups, social media, tweets, let’s make it relevant and not waste anyone’s time…I really appreciate businesses that respect my time!

That is the number one reason that most professionals didn’t use Twitter when it first came on the scene the element of Relevancy was not perceived to be part of the Twitter culture. Of course, the Twitter map has had a pivotal SHIFT in perceived value by professionals, entrepreneurs and others …who highly value their own and other’s time.

Here are two ways to bring Relevancy into your Business Brand:

1. Start blogging if you haven’t already. It appears that blogging is no longer a step-child to email messaging or websites…it is a full-blown branding strategy to send out relevant material. Your readers, listeners, clients, communities and subscribers want good information in bite-size pieces (Immediacy). Businesses that aren’t sending out bite-size messages (in television and radio they are called “sound bites) are losing the relationship and conversation with their followers and community. These bite-size pieces of information are perfect for tweeting good content…which in turn, can take your followers to your blog.I suggest you blog three to four times a week or offer a really good article once a week…experiment and see which works best for you and your community.
2. Keep the messaging focused on what your community wants to hear and learn… and make sure it’s valuable to them.For example, Drew Gerber with Pitch Rate (pitchrate.com) interviewed me for his Happy Hour that he offers to his clients and subscribers for free…he interviews “experts” in areas that his clients and prospects would find valuable and interesting.

   If you would like to listen to the recording, click here. The call is jam-packed with amazingly useful info about finding your unique, profitable and purpose-driven brand. Find out how to uncover your brand purpose, how to package all that you do, the myths of marketing, and more. We also chatted about how I landed O, The Oprah Magazine!

   Pitch Rate (www.Pitchrate.com) is a free media connection service for journalists, experts, and publicists…it’s amazing!  Share your branding questions and experiences with us here!

Here to becoming an Expert Celebrity!

Ruth Klein
www.RuthKlein.com
© 2010 Ruth Klein

I have always been interested in history, cultures, art, languages and travel, so when I found out that my Mormon ancestors had tracked our roots on my grandfather’s side into the 1700s I could not wait to learn more. Much to my surprise, I found out more that I ever dreamed.

My Great Aunt, Belle and Grandmother, Mary

My grandfather’s name is Wiley Galbraith, and he was born in Windsor and married my Grandmother, Mary Irvine McDonald in Windsor and later moved accross the Detroit River in the early 1900s and bought a home in Hazel Park just north of 8 Mile Rd.  He became a banker and continued to work even through the Great Depression.  My grandmother took a job working at the Book Cadillac Hotel as a switch board operator, and used her paycheck to pay thier two story home off in just 18 months. Imagine that!

Sunday night I decided to pull all the documents out regarding our ancestry.  It was already midnight when I got started, but I logged on to Ancestory.com to see how it worked.  Three hours later, I had traced my ancestors on the d side back to the 1700s and found our first ancestor who had emigrated here from Glascow, Scotland, James and his son Walter Galbraith in 1769.

I also located our family castle, Culcreuch Castle in Stirling, Loch Lomond, Scotland.  Yes we have a castle now the home of Hercules and Janet n of Culcreuch, Baron and Baroness of Culcreuch.  It had been the home of Barons of Culcreuch since 1699, but before this was the ancestral fortalice of the Galbraiths and indeed the Clan Castle of the Galbraith chiefs for over thee centuries (from 1320 to 1630). 

Culcreuch Castle is now a bed and breakfast/hotel, so we plan on having a family reunion next summer! It’s been described as a ‘gem of outstanding beauty’, and yet is situated within twenty miles of Stirling, Loch Lomond, Callender, The Trossachs and Glasgow, and is but an hour’s drive from the city of Edinburgh.

This is our family crest.  Apparently the GalbraithClan were pretty warlike, even rising up against the the Scottish Crown. This is our family crest – wolf!  Well, I just wanted to share with you some of the history I dug up on my ancestors.  Between my Mormon relatives and ancestory.com, creating an extensive family tree was not only fun but very easy.

In addition, they allow you to invite collaborators to join and fill in their branches of the tree. Please share with me below what your experiences have been with seeking out your family heritage. If history, culture, travel, anthropology, languages are your hobbies, you may enjoy learning about your own past using this tool.

What are you passions and hobbies?  Do you make time for them? Are you encouraging others to join you?

On October 14th, my partner, Marilyn Schwader and I will be offering a wonderful free teleseminar, “Purpose and Passion into Prosperity”.  Let me know if you want to join us and I’ll send you her free ebook on Purpose and Passion, written by Marilyn…she’s a fabulous author!  Just send me a note at katana@katanaabbott.com  See you on the radio show today at 11 am EST!