I really love Fast Company. I started reading the magazine back in the early 2000s and now read their daily brief which is filled with great stories about people building business. Recently they have been launching a bunch of online initiatives that I feel are tremendously valuable in regards to managing email, meetings, and your schedule. Here is a recent one that makes a lot of sense about how to avoid ‘the busy trap’. I had a colleague that used to be so busy with things, but wouldn’t get anything accomplished. When I’d ask her what she’d be working on, she’d start listing off things, but none of them relevant to her business. Enjoy this video and see if you can catch yourself in any of the descriptions:

I came across this great video on Fast Company. This is something I’ve been doing for years. They call it ‘eating the frog first’. I call it ‘ripping off the Band-Aid”. Either way, good information on how to tackle the most important task of the day…first.

Best,

Chris.

www.ghostceo.com

Whenever you’re hunting for new business opportunities it’s vitally important to stay curious. When you get attached or desperate, you lose all of your creative and intuitive powers. It’s like putting on a pair of blinders and heading out in to a forrest. You’ll never see anything but what’s right in front of you and therefore will miss over 270 degrees of view. Often times the most exciting opportunities are already in your life, it’s just that you haven’t noticed them in that way. When you turn on your right brain, get creative and innovative, and are curious about what opportunities are all around you – you start to notice things in a new way.

Take notice over the next week of your ability to remain curious and see what opportunities you can spot and furthermore hunt up.

All the best,

Heather White, CEO, 2020 Communications Inc

There are tons of opportunities all around you to build your business. In the local newspaper, on business blogs, at networking events, in the shape of the person in line next to you in Starbucks.

The key is to be curious and talk to people. Every day. Ask them what they do and listen to their answers. And if you see a potential solution you can offer, then do it. Don’t start giving yourself all the reasons why they won’t be interested.

Finding new business opportunities is not some deep, dark secret. Neither is it complicated. Know what you do (the solution you provide), know who you do it for (your target markets) and then go out and start contacting people. That’s how you build successful business. One contact at a time.

Fiona Walsh, CEO, FM Walsh & Associates Inc., www.fmwalsh.com

When you’re hunting for new business, and especially when you’re a single shingle entrepreneur, it’s important for you to stretch your resources. One of the easiest ways to do that is to find the watering holes where your niche markets hang out together. If you can have an opportunity to speak to your target audience in a group, you’ll get far greater results than if you tried to find them and speak to each of them individually. Start today by profiling who is your niche market? What are their commonalities? What kinds of books/mags/websites etc. do they read? Where do they hang out? What do they watch on TV?

Once you’re clear on who they are and where they can be found (aka the watering hole), hunting becomes a walk in the park.

Happy Hunting!

All the best,

Heather White

CEO, 2020 Communications Inc.

Feeling blah about work and business? Feeling like you are missing the passion and fire you used to have? Working harder and longer isn’t going to bring it back. But I know what will.

Find yourself a really cool project to work on. Something that stretches you, excites you, invigorates you. Perhaps something you have been thinking about doing but haven’t really found the time to do yet. Yes, I know you’re probably thinking: “I’m so busy now – I can’t fit in anything more!”

Here’s how a really cool project could refuel you:

1. Whenever I start something new, and often it feels like a lot of work that I really don’t want to do, I always find myself attracting bright, talented people to the project and all kinds of unexpected doors open.
2. The sheer joy of doing something new and different gets me excited and passionate. It makes me realize that if you want to have an impact, you have to try uncharted waters. That’s truly how you make a difference.
3. When you pull people together that are excited and passionate, things move quickly, which means you don’t have time to moan about how overworked you are. You are having too much fun instead!

So if you are having a case of the February ‘blahs’, then do something memorable!

Fiona Walsh, CEO, FM Walsh & Associates Inc., www.fmwalsh.com

It’s not that the passion that lives within us is ever that far away, but it is true that it can become dormant if we don’t activate it. Sometimes that activation comes from a profound idea or thought, a stimulating conversation, a book or article that your read….or…a Flash Mob:

Watch the video here: Vancouver 2010 Dancing in the Streets Flashmob

How’s that for inspiring your passion??

All the best,

Heather White, CEO, 2020 Communications Inc

I think passion is another one of those words we toss around, assuming the meaning, but often not digging deep enough to understand the essence. Passion to me is alignment. Alignment of your natural gifts and talents with an arena of expression. Passion is the skater with a sheet of ice, the skiier with snow covered mountain peak, the golfer with a plush green fairway, the teacher on stage with an audience watching.

I think the biggest barrier between you and your passion is your knowledge and acceptance of yourself. Our whole life we are conditioned to believe that we are not good enough. That we have to learn more, earn more, say more, do more in order to reach some holy grail of accomplishment. This paradigm no longer serves us.

In the silence and stillness of your life is where you will hear your inner voice of wisdom talk to you about your true passions. From there, your job is to be open, to be honest and to be willing to take the necessary inspired action steps that will lead you on a path of alignment.

Passion is not something external that you need to go out and get. It’s internal and you simply need to allow it to come to the surface of your life.

Be brave!!

All the best,

Heather White, CEO 2020 Communications Inc.

There is one definite inevitability in life and that is, of course, death. Not usually a topic that most people want to talk about or frankly think about, but, nevertheless something that we cannot escape. Personally, my consideration of the concept is something that has given me an incredible amount of strength thus far. Whenever I have a desire to do something there is the almost immediate reaction from my mind. Sometimes it tells me why I can’t do it, sometime why I shouldn’t, sometimes it just laughs at my plans. I’ve heard many theories about why this happens, why do we get in our own way, why would we stop ourselves from giving something a try? We shouldn’t! We have to go for it!

When I watched the below video I was further convinced. The man on the video has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only months to live. In this, his last lecture, he gives a moving, practical, matter of fact speech about how and why to live a life in pursuit of your dreams. There is no time to put things off – we have to pursue those things that we have a desire to!

A version of Randy Pausch’s last lecture as seen on Oprah

All the best,

Heather White, CEO, 2020 Communications Inc.

Last week we talked about being selfishly selfless as a rule to live by. If you did your homework, you should have a long list of things that you need to take care of in order for you to be operating at optimal capacity. Today, we’re talking about the next step in this process, which is: communicating your new rules.

In my experience, in my own life, one of the reasons I struggled to put this selfishly selfless concept in to place was because of how it was going to affect the other people in my life. For example, in the early days of my relationship we were on totally opposite schedules. I worked all day, he worked all night (well, almost). I’d often stay up and/or wake up when he got home in order to hang out and spend time together and hear about one another’s days. BUT, when my alarm went off at 6am the next morning – I was tired! And, as you know by now, I don’t do tired well. Something had to change, but, at the same time, I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to hang out with my boyfriend….what to do??

First – I had to get clear on what I really wanted – #1 to hang out w/ my boyfriend + #2 a good night sleep. So how could I be selfish in this case and get both? I needed to COMMUNICATE my new rules. So that’s what I did.

We came up with a new plan that included a special ‘date day’ every week, when we could coordinate our schedules in order to hang out and catch up with one another and meanwhile, there was no more getting up in the middle of the night. In retrospect, I realize that I was nervous to ask for what I really wanted out of some fear that I had made up in my own mind. (i.e. Would he commit to this new plan, would I miss out on something if I didn’t get up in the middle of the night, would my relationship last if I didn’t spend every chance I had to work on it?)

As you can imagine – none of this was true, but, I needed to experience enough pain (feeling exhausted all day) to realize that this wasn’t working for me. Then I needed to get clear on how things would work for me. And lastly, I needed to communicate what I wanted/needed to change in order for me to operate at optimal capacity. This is the same for you. After last week, you now know what you need – this week – communicate those needs/wants to those in your life who will support you in honouring you.

Let me know how it goes!!

All the best,

Heather White, CEO, 2020 Communications Inc.