What is a person worth? More importantly, what are YOU worth?

There are many mathematical ways for arriving to an answer. For instance, you could take your hourly wage and say that that is what you’re worth.

• So, let’s say you’re earning $45/hour. That would round out to roughly $90,000 a year. And with a working span of about 35 years, you’d be worth about $31.5 million.
• Or, let’s say you’re earning $45/hour. And unbeknownst to you, this is the last day of your life. So on this day, the last day of your life, your life is worth exactly $360.

Either way, both forecasts are pretty ridiculous. (They were intended to be!)

Let’s face it; every person IS the center of the universe (and no, you don’t have to be living in Toronto to achieve this! ). And the center of the universe holds NO DOLLAR VALUE.

I liken life to a person looking at a tree (see the sixth paragraph in Closed Minds Live Quiet Lives entry). There are many perspectives to be had, and each person is gifted with her own view of that tree. When she dies, that view ceases to be. Forever.

This uniqueness of her experience, of her “world” (or tree) view, makes her (YOU) invaluable.

You have your way of seeing, of experiencing, of speaking, of describing, of interpreting and of articulating your world view. You as entrepreneur have your commitment, your product, your service. And guess what folks? No one can do it better than you. Because no one is you.

Here are some things you can begin doing right now to recognize your tremendous self-worth:

1. Enjoy your hobby! Take the time in life to do what moves you, to do what your heart (not your family or your wallet) says is best.  Your skill set is a big determination of your self-worth. The more you follow your passion, the better you feel about yourself.

The more you enjoy what you do in your life, the more you’ll also enjoy who you are as a person.

2. Take a class. As with hobbies, learning something new is a great way to bolster your self-worth. It’s like a deposit into your knowledge bank.There are plenty of options for this choice:

• Take a class at a local community college.
• Register for an online seminar.
• Look in the local newspaper for free classes in your area.
• Call your local school district. They offer inexpensive continuing education classes in almost every subject imaginable, including hobbies!

3. Read more. Reading is a wonderful way to stimulate the mind. When you spark your imagination, new ideas emerge from the depths. Nothing builds self-worth like learning more about the world you live in!

4. Learn a language. There are a huge number of tools available that can assist you in mastering a new language. Learning new languages builds self-worth because it allows you to communicate on a completely different level with others.

5. Do something out of the ordinary. Take a chance, conquer a challenge, and step out of your comfort zone. These kinds of activities stretch you as an individual. Doing something you never imagined gives you a glimpse of your true potential.

Anything that boosts your self-confidence will also increase your self-worth, since they’re directly related. On the other hand, our self-worth becomes stagnant if we become arrogant and believe that we’ve accomplished all we can in life.

Start each day by making the commitment to your success. After all, you are worthy of great things! Even if you have a hard time believing this, take action anyway because where action is, emotions will follow.

Try something new, pick one of the topics from above, give it a shot and see for yourself how much of a difference it makes. Just remember the great words of Henry Ford:

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

Which will you choose?

Think you can! Because it’s really truly all about you!

To your forever continued growth and success,

Britt

PS If your interested, I’m developing an online course on Confidence (especially for women) to be released in September 2009. Stay tuned to this blog or periodically check in on my business website for more information! There will be a special promotion for dedicated readers of my blog. So speak up, keep up and read up, because this one’s for you!

Do you define the success of your entrepreneurial ventures in dollar value only? Sure, money is nice. Definitely money is NOT evil. Banish that thought from your mind! Money affords you the lifestyle you desire, and lets you live your purpose fully. Success is BEYOND the dollar value. Far beyond.

Beware The Closed Mind, the Singular Thought

Success in its broadest meaning is not limited to only monetary and material possessions. Success unveils abundance in countless forms in both your life and the nature that surrounds you.

The universal spirit of consciousness craves to continuously manifest and express itself; this longing naturally wants to develop, to grow and become bigger and stronger.

Realizing this longing and natural inclination for growth is repressed in many of us, because of negative thinking and nonconstructive programming. Bottom line, of lack of faith in our abilities and natural talents hinders us dramatically.

Every individual has dual natures. One part wants to move forward and embrace change; the other wants to pull back and keep things the same. What you focus on expands. The part that you cultivates determines your final results in life; both parts will seek to dominate; you can control which side wins.

People with closed minds often believe their own experience as being a universal truth. “Because I see this tree from this view, this is all there is.” People with opens minds accept their own experience as something that happened and realize there are many truths. “Because I see this tree from this view, it is what I see. And there are other places to stand, and other ways to experience this tree.” From the ground, at any angle, from a plane, from the moon, from under the earth, from inside the tree. As a tree, as a seedling, as a piece of lumber, as a chair, as firewood. The list goes on.

Having an open mind matters. A lot.

Become the Open Mind, the Abundance Mindset

An open mind first considers the possibilities of other interpretations before reaching any conclusion. An open mind does not just gather information. It gathers possibilities. (The closed mind gathers dust.)

When one closes her mind and becomes stubborn, one in essence tells her higher self, including the “powers of the universe” that she cannot grow and encounter new things. So there will be no progress, no transformation.

Whatever your mind can envision, you can achieve. What your mind sees, believes feels and thinks are all conveyed to the subconscious mind. And your subconscious mind determines how you will react when opportunities present themselves.

“Luck,” according to Seneca, the famous Roman dramatist, philosopher, & politician 5 BC – 65 AD, “is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” If you are closed to the possibility of opportunity, all the preparation in the world won’t serve you.

Bear in mind though, always and forever, that it is not sufficient to merely imagine and hope it materializes. Having the power to imagine means also having the power and the capability to work on it to achieve it.

Focus on possibilities, rather than limitations and expand your thoughts to what is that you believe as yourself.

Here are four basic steps you can take to better program your thoughts for success:

1. Continuously and abundantly display images of your “model” persons, whom you want to become, and things that you want to accomplish. Read magazines containing stories and pictures of lives that you wish to attain.
2. Read autobiographies of successful people. Constantly read self-progress materials packed with examples and ideas of women and men who had set goals, overcome hardships and misfortunes and accomplished what they aimed for in the end.
3. Always affirm yourself. In each undertaking, take the time to focus, “close your eyes” and set a clear mental image of the outcome.  Then repeatedly say and claim that you have already achieved it.
4. Nourish your mind with positive thoughts before sleeping, after waking up, at lunch break, anytime.  Do not give a chance for negative thoughts to enter into your mind.

Thoughts hold great power. Be conscious of the thoughts that comes into your mind; let the positive in, never entertain the negative.  Open up your mind to possibilities and never be afraid to try; if you fail, take it as an opportunity that you have learned so much from failing and try again.

Open your mind. Your success, monetarily and beyond, depends on it!

To your exponential success,
Britt

Hello again you lovely women and lucky entrepreneurs who have crawled out of bed and onto this site. Welcome again to the blog that aims to give entrepreneurs some information designed to help you grow and change your life for the better!

While researching for valuable entrepreneur resources for women (and yes, their male counterparts), I caught myself yet again watching TED tv. If you haven’t been there you simply have got to go!!!! (Or, of course, come back here time and time again to see my pic of the week. Grin. But I’D go to the source! I’ve canceled cable and this is about the only tv I watch. That and Just for Laughs on cbc.ca. I cannot tell a lie! )

In this broadcast, Katherine Fulton, and amazing woman, advocates that YOU (we, the average citizen, entrepreneur and/or employee) are the future of philanthropy. One key element in her presentation is the power of collaboration.

The Power of Collaboration

If you have read Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End by Rosabeth Kanter Moss you will know why collaboration is important to all entrepreneurs, businesses and athletes. If you haven’t, in a nutshell, Rosabeth states that the formula or system to all successes is to master three key areas:

1. Accountability - all successful people ultimate accept responsibility for both their gains and losses in life
2. Initiative - you can visualize your future success all you want, but if you don’t DO anything, you won’t ever BE it.
3. Collaboration - all successes come from collaboration, either in development (mentors, supporters, etc) or in execution (willing customers, joint venture partners, etc.), or both.

These three areas, or pillars as I like to call them, are key in both my teachings and my learnings in life. And for Katherine Fulton, collaboration is key to the long-term survival of humankind.

Categories of Experiments

In her presentation, Katherine Fulton  helps you RE-perceive what philanthropy is, what it could be, and your relationship with it.

She describes what she calls the five contemporary categories of experiments:

1. Mass collaboration, online, as demonstrated through Wikipedia
2. Online philanthropy market places, or peer to peer philanthropy that lets everyone – not just the rich – participate. These include Kiva, Global Giving, Network for Good, Donor Choose, Youth Give, and Give India.
3. Aggregated giving, where givers build philanthropy communities and challenge the assumption that each giver should have his/her own fund. Acumen fund, New Profit, New Schools Venture Fund, Venture Philanthropy Partners, and Global Fund for Women are examples of these philanthropic communities
4. Innovation competition, which place emphasis on the problem rather than the giving organization or key donor. I seem to remember there was one competition on how to get water to a specific village in Africa, and it was the simple well-and-water-pump that won the prize — and made a world of difference!
5. Social investing , where organizations like Xigi.net refute the idea that philanthropy is separate and distinct from business. They are creating a way for businesses that have a financial bottom line can use a small portion of their economic clout to develop social capital markets.

Interestingly, she notes, “We are not thinking our way into a new way of acting, we are acting our way into a new way of thinking.”

Act Your Way Into Being

STOP for a second to think about the power of this statement, for this is how ALL change comes about. We act our way into being. You weren’t a student until you went to school and acted like one (remember kindergarten? Grade 1? your Master’s degree?); you weren’t an entrepreneur until you acted like one. You weren’t a parent until you acted like one. (I remember coming home from the hospital with babe in arms, thinking “Okay, now what?” Grin. Over the years, I’m figuring it out.) Students of NLP (neurolinguistic programming) recognize the power of acting in order to become. As do inventors.

The Growing Moral Hunger

THERE IS A GROWING MORAL HUNGER, Katherine Fulton goes on to say, and it’s just beginning. “We hold the future of our civilization in our hands as never before.” And the only way she sees us positively impacting the world around us is through continual commitment to

• growing
• changing
• learning

In other words, step on out of that comfort zone of yours, pick up the pace, and grow as rapidly as technology is changing in our world today. Katherine leaves off with a challenge, asking the viewer to visualize how you are going to impact the world.

Which of course got me thinking about my own impact, and what is it that I am committed to.

My moral hunger is grand (world peace), and it’s hinged on three principle beliefs:

1. World peace is possible
2. Women can change the world
3. I already have everything I need to make it so

That’s why I am doing this, writing this blog, running my online business (I’m Allowed.com), and doing public speaking engagements; it’s my job to help other women believe in themselves, believe in their dreams, and actually manifest their realities.

“On With the Show…”

Watch this video, listen to this amazing woman, and hold the mirror up to see yourself in it.

What’s your moral hunger?

To your success!

Britt

Hello you lovely women! How’s the life of the entrepreneur? Need a boost of positivity? Hopefully I can infuse some magic into your minds today.

I am currently reading this book, The Magic of Thinking Big, by David J. Schwartz.

It continually blows my entrepreneurial mind! (I’ve added to my list of foundational readings in the Books section). Here’s just one highlight from the book.

THE GREATEST HUMAN WEAKNESS IS SELF-DEPRECIATION.

Read that line over and over and over a few times until it really sinks in. How many times have you decided that what you are good at really isn’t that amazing? In spite of how many times someone else has told you your talent really truly is? Many women tend to do that. In fact, we’ve been raised to undermine our talents and inner genius. Women don’t boast. Women should keep quiet. The entrepreneurial talents will speak for themselves.

Bullsh!t (oooops, did I really write that?)

Ariah, my daughter

There’s a woman in my neighbourhood, who is a mother to three beautiful children. I’ll call her Alison for the purposes of this article. Alison tinkers in photography. To the right, you can see living proof of her photographic genius. Granted, my daughter is gorgeous (!, grin), but let me tell you, this woman absolutely brings out the inner angel that is sometimes quite difficult to see.

All she did for her photo shoot was to set up a bail of hay, called over a bunch of kids (after getting parental permission), and began shooting images with her trained eye and camera.

I have tried time and time again to convince Alison that she has a transmutable skill, which is to say that she can turn her skill and passion into money, while positively serving the community. You should see this woman’s house! It’s like an art gallery when you walk into her home and see these pictures of her three children all over the walls.

And what does Alison say when I try to convince her of her talents? “Oh,” she says, “It’s nothing really, just something I do for fun. No one would ever pay me for that!”

Wrong, wrong and wrong again, I want to scream. But out of sub-urban politeness, I kindly disagree with her and then move on.

Ariah, my daughter

Here’s what happens when we learn a skill, ANY skill:

1. First, we aren’t aware of what we don’t know. Kids show us this perfectly every day. They do indeed KNOW EVERYTHING because they haven’t yet learned how much they don’t know. (BTW, in my opinion, it’s not our job to set them straight; it’s our job to guide them to knowledge once they come to whatever level of awareness they are entering.)
2. Next, we become aware of what we didn’t know. This is when you sign up for a course, read a book, watch a show, google it, and pursue knowledge and skill.
3. Then, you step out of your comfort zone and try out your new skill, and you are consciously and thoughtfully applying your new skills. This is also the make-or-break stage, where a certain amount of failure is experienced, and you will either work through it or give up.
4. Finally, you have mastered the skill and now you do it without thinking about it. You take it for granted. You say, “Oh heck anyone can do this.” And if you’re not careful, you undermine the previous three steps and self-depreciate yourself.

But here’s the thing (and the thing is this): Whatever it is you are good at, from learning to walk to singing to painting to organizing drawers, it’s a skill that someone else will appreciate. And if you are providing a service (ie something some else appreciates because they don’t have that skill or ability themselves), and if you VALUE your skill, then you too have a transmutable skill.

This book, The Magic of Thinking Big, makes it clear that each and every one of us is important, and worthy of BIG aspirations. It’s one of those timeless books, alongside the works of Napoleon Hill and Wallace Wattles.

Get it, read it, and GROW to be as gigantic as you deserve to be! And that’s BIG, baby, BIG!

To your success,

Britt

PS If you want to know more about “Alison” let me know.

Do you suffer from Fear of the Unknown? Of course you do! To some extent, all women (an men too) do. And it’s especially more so for the NEW entrepreneur, because she is navigating the abyss between the known (the past way of doing things) and the unknown (her new business).

That’s why there is a term for  the thing that keeps us locked in our status quo, no matter if it’s good or bad for us: the Comfort Zone. (Although it SOUNDS good, the “Comfort Zone” is what keeps you in a dead-end job or in a dead-end relationship, because the Fear of the Unknown supersedes the Comfort Zone.)

Overcoming the Fear of the Unknown is a challenging endeavor, but it can be done. If you suffer from a fear of uncertainty, understanding what fear is, and how it affects you, can start you on the road to conquering it.

Fear has been defined in several ways; however, the most basic definition of fear is an emotional response based on the fact that we’re faced with something unfamiliar or impending danger.

When we experience fear, several psychological and physiological responses take place all at the same time.

Psychological events include feeling emotionally overwhelmed, having high levels of anxiety, and even feeling terrified. Physiological responses include a faster heart rate, shallow breathing, and similar effects.

Experiencing fear can greatly impact your view on life, your confidence levels, and even the potential that you have as an individual.

Here’s an example of a situation where a woman had the crippling fear that everything she did would result in failure:

Janice was very successful in her career and personal life. It seemed that people were instantly drawn to her and her ideas, but on the inside, Janice was a mess.

Every time she worked on a project, she would throw herself into it. In the end, she would ultimately succeed, but on the inside, she was always worried that she would fail or that her completed project wouldn’t be good enough.

For the most part, she recognized the fact that her fear was irrational. However, Janice grew up in an abusive home. She was physically beaten and consistently ridiculed by her father. Regardless of what she did, it was never enough to meet his expectations.

The result was that she grew up to become a workaholic, often struggling to finish several things at once, and leaving very little time for herself.

The root of her fear of failure was grounded in her childhood. Her father harbored unrealistically high expectations and would be mentally and physically abusive towards her when his expectations weren’t met. Once she realized this about her past, Janice was able to ease her personal expectations and overcome her fear.

Here are some strategies you can use to help overcome your fear:

1. Recognize your fears. By realizing that you’re fearful, you’re more likely to get to the bottom of what the fear is.

• You may also have a fear of facing your fears. The best way to conquer this fear is to accept the truth behind what’s causing you to experience limited happiness in life.
• You might come to understand that you’re afraid of failing or taking chances. You may even be fearful because you simply don’t have confidence in yourself.
• Regardless of the issue at hand, it’s important that you recognize your fear and attempt to define what it is that makes you terrified of the unknown. The key here is not to dwell on your fear, but rather to understand precisely what it is you’re worried about.

2. Determine the underlying root of your fears. How can you identify the cause of your fears? An insightful look at your life might reveal the answer. By recognizing what causes your fears, it’s likely you can overcome them with great success!

3. Face your fears. Once you’ve accepted your fear and identified the root cause, you’re ready to conquer it! The best method to do this is to face it head on.

• Make a decision to purposely tackle your fears by indulging yourself in activities that push you outside of your comfort zone. For example, put yourself in a place where you’re safe, yet uncomfortable, or respectfully confront someone from your past. In the end, you’ll find that you can successfully overcome your fears, one by one!

Overcoming your fear of the unknown is a difficult undertaking. However, if you take the time to engage in these three steps, you’ll discover a renewed peace and happiness within your heart!

As you work to unlock the chains that bind you to your fears, you’ll enjoy a freedom that you’ve never felt before.