Author: jgardner

    5 Secrets

     

    woman with a black binder

     

    5 Secrets of Successful Home Business Entrepreneurs

    Successful home business entrepreneurs are not born; they’re made. They make themselves successful by practicing certain habits. Without these habits, it’s nearly impossible to weather all of the storms you’ll face running your business.
    Here are 5 of the secrets of entrepreneurial success.

    They’re Passionate

    The best home-based businesses are driven by passion. The entrepreneurs behind them do what they do out of love and not purely a profit motive. Success is easy to achieve if you love what you do. Each failure along the way, no matter how monumental, will be just a minor bump in the road. Your passion for what you do also allows you to put in the long, crazy hours your business will sometimes demand of you.

    They Focus

    One of the major challenges, especially for new home-based businesses, is staying on course. There are so many ways to market and make money online that it’s easy to be led astray by shiny objects. Most home business entrepreneurs’ brains are brimming with new ideas, and these can also get you off track. You may end up spreading yourself too thin and never achieving results with any one thing that you do. Instead, focus on one goal at a time and don’t start on the next idea until you get results.

    They Don’t Make Excuses

    Successful home business entrepreneurs never whine or make excuses when things go wrong. They take responsibility for keeping their business running and work out their problems to make that happen. For example, let’s say that you spill coffee on your keyboard, your 5-year-old has a nervous meltdown, and you need to spend the afternoon taking care of emergency car repairs. Life may be a mess today, but your clients and customers don’t want to hear about it. It’s unprofessional to make excuses.

    They Keep Growing

    Although you might want to put your home business on autopilot, there’s simply no such thing. Once you attain a comfortable level, it’s time to start defining your next goal. Successful entrepreneurs never stop growing their businesses. To them, it’s always a work in progress. Find a new segment of the population to market to; develop new products that your current market can use; branch out and get into a whole other business.

    They Expect to Succeed

    Your home based business will always have its highs and lows, but when you expect to succeed at the end of the day, you can take whatever adversity comes your way. For successful entrepreneurs, success is not an option; it’s THE option. There is simply no other possible outcome in their game plan. Make the decision at the very beginning of your home business journey that you will stay focused on success no matter what happens along the way.

    If you’ve read the above list and you’re thinking, ‘That doesn’t sound like me,’ don’t give up yet.

    Remember that all of these are mindset habits, and you can create new habits if you work at it deliberately. Not everyone can be a home- business entrepreneur, but everyone can become one if they truly desire to. Try the “Be Your Own Boss Quiz” and see what you think about yourself. 

    Categories: Mindset Tags: Tags: ,

    Home Office

    office

     

    Designing an Optimal Home Office
    Your home office makes a big difference on your overall productivity and work happiness. Having a great home office makes it easier to concentrate and will help you get more done in less time. Here are some of the many things you should keep in mind while you’re designing your home office.

    ==> The Space Itself

    Your home office should be separated from the rest of your house and especially the rest of your bedroom. If you don’t have a separate office space set aside, at least use curtains or other material to partition off the space.

    When you step into your home office, it should feel like you’re stepping into a workspace. It should not be an extension of your bedroom.

    ==> Designing Your Flow

    Place all the tools you’ll need within arm’s length. In other words, your phone, your keyboard, your printer tray and your notepad should all be in reaching distance if those are tools you use regularly.

    ==> Measure Your Space

    Before you buy any equipment, make sure you take a tape measure and measure everything out. The last thing you want is to buy office equipment only to discover that it doesn’t fit.

    ==> Make Sure Your Cabinets Have Room to Open

    This is one of the more common home office design mistakes people make. They remember to measure the cabinet’s space, but forget to measure enough space for the cabinet to open out. You don’t want your cabinet to hit anything else when it opens – including you or your chair.

    ==> Add Real Plants

    Working in a home office all day can be quite stuffy. Research has shown that nature and real plants can help people concentrate and boost mood.

    Add a real plant or two in your workspace to help lift your spirits.

    ==> Invest in a Quality Chair

    Sitting in a low quality chair can result in back pain, aching shoulders and other kinds of body pains. If you’re going to spend money on anything in your office, spend it on your chair. Get a quality chair that supports your spine and allows you to work for extended periods of time without undue pressure.

    ==> Lighting Is Important

    You don’t want to work in dim lighting. Having good lighting helps reduce strain on your eyes, promotes better mood and helps improve productivity.

    The light in your office needs to appear diffused, so it can’t just come from one source. Ideally you’ll have three or four different lights that all contribute to an overall sense of having a well-lit room.

    These are some of the many things that go into designing the optimal office. Your office space has a big impact on your overall workflow. The time you put into improving its design will pay off many times over.

    Categories: Home Office Tags: Tags: ,

    Dream your future

    Habit of Excellence. 

    In the future, if you could have the life of your dreams, what would you be doing? 

    1. Where would you live?
    2. What kind of home would you have? 
    3. What would be a typical day in your new life?
    4. What kind of people would you work with?
    5. Would you work on your own? 
    6. What kind of workday do you want?
    7. Where would you spend your vacations?
    8. How often do you want to have a vacation?
    9. How much time do you want to spend with your family?
    10. How much time do you want to do the fun things you enjoy in life?
    11. How much time would be an ideal work day? 
    12. Do you like working indoors or do you want to work outdoors?
    13. Do you like to meet people or do you like to work on your own? 

     

    Once you have your written description of what kind of life and how long and what type of work you would like to do.

    You can then start figuring out how to get that lifestyle. If you just wander through life taking a job here or there without any vision of the life you really want then you will have found at the end of your days that you didn’t live the life you wanted.  So, you need to sit down now with yourself and ask “If I could live the life of my dreams, what would I be doing?”  

    You will need to have a long term vision of everything you want so that you will see the opportunities that come up to help you on that path to the life of your dreams. 

    Since all humans require growth not only for survival but also to be happy, you are giving yourself a path for growth that can last the rest of your life. 

     

    The only way you can sustain a permanent change is to create a new way of thinking, acting, and being. Jennifer Hudson 2012
     

    Categories: Mindset Tags: Tags:

    A pause during the day

    Be Grateful Always remember to pause for five minutes during the hectic workday and be grateful. Find a poem, find a video like this one with the “Birds of the Ocean” , the Manta Rays or just meditate and turn the phone off. Be Grateful for what you have in your life.

    THE VIDEO credit from Youtube

    Published on Dec 7, 2012

    Julie Hartup part of Manta Trust, a non-profit organization recently went to Yap to begin a long-term monitoring/research program. Video was complied from four days of scuba diving at a shallow cleaning station with help from the Manta Ray Bay Resort. Film was edited by Chase Weir.

    Categories: Productivity Tags: Tags: ,

    Google Hangouts great tool for business

    Why Google Hangouts?  Why Not Google Hangouts!  It is free and it can help your business grow! I did this Google Hangout On Air in 10 minutes, imperfect but viewable.  


    Google Hangouts is a free video chat service from Google. It makes it possible to participate in one-on-one chats as well as group chats. Presently, group chats can have up to ten people at a time.

    While video chat isn’t anything new – Skype, FaceTime and Facebook Video Chat have been around for a while; Google Hangouts provides much more in terms of technology and usefulness.

    Google promotes what’s often called “face-to-face-to-face” group interaction. You can easily switch the focus of the hangout to the person who is currently talking.

    Google Hangouts is also readily accessible. It can be accessed via laptop, desktop or mobile device, including Android and iOS powered devices.

    Google Hangouts also offers more than the traditional video chat. You can share documents, YouTube Videos, scratchpads and images. There’s also a feature that lets you broadcast live video conversations and make them available to anyone online.

    Categories: googlehangouts Tags: Tags: , ,

    Finding your passion

    My photo on magazine
    My photo on magazine

    I’m on a Magazine in Photofunia! What fun!

    Need Help Finding Your Passion?

    It’s a common refrain that you should “Do what you love, and the money will follow.” In fact, someone even wrote a book by that name!
    But not everyone knows what it is they love that they could build a business around. It’s easy if you’re Tiger Woods, and you’ve been passionate about golf since the age of three. If only it was so easy for everyone to find their passion!
    Think you have no passion? Well, I promise, you’re passionate about something.

    Here’s a little exercise to help you find it.

    Just think about these three things:

    What movies do you really like?
    What music do you listen to all the time?
    What food do you most like to eat?

    Maybe you really got into the Terminator movies when you were a kid, or the Star Wars trilogy. Maybe that’s something you’re really passionate about. Do a quick Internet search on either of these movie titles — or the name of your favorite movie —and you’ll find a ton of sites on the topic, I promise.
    You’ll find fan pages, fan forums, movie reviews, Youtube satires and knock-offs, gossip about the actors, directors, and writers, and of course, merchandise galore. The list is practically endless.
    Just go through some of the sites you find, and see if there’s not something related to your favorite move that strikes you, something that makes you sit up and say, “Wow! That has always fascinated me!”

    How about music? Maybe there’s a band you follow, a band you really like. You have all their albums, you see them when they come to town and play.
    That’s one of your passions. Dig a little deeper, and find out more about the members of the band, about their history, their upbringing. What got them into music? Why do they play the genre they play? What do they do when they’re not making music or touring?
    The more you learn about the musicians you love to listen to, the closer you’ll be to finding one of your passions.

    Now think about food. Everyone has to eat, right? But not everyone likes the same foods, and people around the world eat such a huge variety of foods, it’s mind-boggling. Maybe you really like Italian food, or vegetarian foods, or seafood. Do you like to cook your own food? Grow your own vegetables? Catch your own lobsters and crabs? Or maybe you’re more the sort to go out to restaurants? Have you been to all the chain restaurants? How about all the locally owned mom & pop restaurants in your area that serve your favorite dish?

    Think you could find something you’re passionate about with all that opportunity? I bet you can, if you just dig a little.
    I guarantee you there’s something in your life you’re passionate about. If you haven’t found it yet, you might just have to work at it a little bit.

    For resources and fun, subscribe to The Business of At Home Business newsletter.

    Categories: Mindset Tags: Tags: ,

    About Align with your Purpose

    Aline Boundy of Align with Your Purpose

    Aline Boundy of Align with Your Purpose

     

    ABOUT Aline

     

    Hi, I’m Aline Boundy, founder of Align With Your Purpose, which is dedicated to helping you discover, become clear and live in alignment with  your life purpose.

    Through telesummit interviews with experts in the field of personal development and my fairly regular newsletters, Align With Your Purpose disseminates information and tools to support you to:

    Go within and connect with your higher self
    Explore where your passions lie
    Dream BIG and believe change is possible
    Identify your limiting beliefs
    Release any blocks holding you back from realising your full potential.  

    I was a High School teacher for over 30 years, teaching languages (French, Spanish and English)  in the UK, France, Switzerland and Greece, where I lived and worked for over 20 years.

    I have always felt (and still feel) that every child, every person has something they do effortlessly, where they feel “in the flow”. As a teacher it was part of my job to guide and encourage my students to discover and then develop their potential. In a sense, Align With Your Purpose has a similar mission, to guide and support you to live your life in alignment with your unique purpose.

    Everyone has an inner purpose, something they were born to do. Very often these days, that purpose has been buried under a whole lot of living and life experiences, and it takes time and guidance to discover your true potential and then dare to live in alignment with it.

    I am passionate about empowering you to do just that and thus far Align With Your Purpose has featured experienced leaders in the field of personal development who share their wisdom and experience with you. On this new site, I am really looking forward to connecting with you and getting to know you better.

    There is so much information available and it can sometimes be overwhelming, so Align With Your Purpose breaks it down and presents it in a clear, concise, step by step progression, which allows you to choose where to focus your efforts so that you gain more clarity around your life purpose.

    If more people were able to live their lives doing something they love, rather than feeling trapped in a job, the world would be a better place. So my mission is …

    “To use my compassion, love and enthusiasm to encourage and inspire you to reach your full potential and live peacefully, in alignment with your purpose and in harmony with the highest good of all concerned.”

    As well as my interviews and summits, I have  a series of virtual workshops, one on each of the Five Steps and I am writing my first book, “The Five Steps to Aligning With Your Purpose”.

    Categories: Purpose

    What is your life purpose?

     

    A Guest Post by Aline Boundy of  Aline Boundy of Align with Your Purpose Align With Your Purpose       

     

     About Aline Boundy 

     

     

     

    What is Your Life Purpose?

    To be clear about your Life Purpose is to put down the foundation for future growth.
    So the sooner you become clear, the better your results will be in EVERY area of your life.

    But how do you actually find your purpose? And how do you go about Aligning With Your Purpose?

    This is a question many people struggle with. For some of us, it means dealing with issues of
    self-esteem which keep us from believing the potential we all have inside.
    Others succumb to the belief that you have to go and get a job to pay the bills to look after
    the family. And somewhere along the way, the dreams you had when you were younger fade away.
    Life becomes a treadmill of get up, go to work, come home exhausted and in all probability
    not feeling very fulfilled by your day.

    And all because you’re feeling stuck or even trapped by commitments you have made to your family
    …check out the following and see if any of them feel familiar.

    Some Tell-Tale Signs That You’re NOT Aligned With Your Purpose:
    • It’s hard to motivate yourself to get up in the mornings
    • You are stuck in a job where you feel undervalued
    • You are frustrated with yourself because you keep making the same mistakes over and over again
    • You’d like to quit your job, but who will pay the bills?

    And yet, you have a sense that there is more to life than just “making a living.” You long for
    a sense of personal fulfillment, the feeling that you are doing something which makes a difference.

    You can remember the dreams you had as a child, or teenager, when it was exciting to anticipate how
    your life might turn out – where you’d go, who you’d meet and what you’d do.

    You probably didn’t at that stage think of who you would be, or more accurately who you would become,
    but you did have a sense of what you enjoyed doing and what gave you pleasure.

    What if you were told that all the answers you need were already inside you? That you don’t have to
    go on a quest fraught with danger in order to uncover them? And that it’s actually much easier to
    connect with your source of inner guidance than you might have thought?

    If any of these reasons resonate with you, but you don’t know where to start, check out the amazing
    Happiness Workshop here.

    ABOUT Align With Your Purpose

    You deserve to live a life aligned with your true purpose, sometimes called your soul purpose, by:

    • learning how to connect with your higher self

    • trusting its messages as you face life’s challenges

    • embracing change rather than fighting it or fleeing from it

    • nurturing your dreams as you learn to dream big

    • letting go of limiting beliefs and blocks

    • celebrating every step along your path to purpose!

     

    Remember, “The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step.”
    Are you ready to take that step today?

    Categories: Purpose Tags: Tags: , ,

    Purpose found

    This video doesn’t seem to work in Google with Shockwave Flash, if you have trouble, try Internet Explorer or Firefox browser. IT is worth it!

    This CBS story spoke to me as it is the funniest things that will help you find your purpose.  Whether it is what people say about you or whether you have this inner need to do certain things, it is possible to find what your purpose is and how you can fullfill it. 

    Just the sound of the bat hitting the ball, got him off the couch and out back into the world.  Really there isn’t much more than that to say about such a wonderful story other than it was amazing he was grateful for his stroke because he was able to find his purpose in life.   Double wow!  Just awestruck.   

    If you want to find out whether you have a purpose in life, start doing some of the exercises in the Be Your Own Boss quiz and start dreaming and meditating on the idea of change…..

    Categories: Purpose

    pressSync works!

    ipad

    ipad

     

    An app to help you blog without being in the office is PressSync which I am using now with my phone!

    All you need is free Wifi wherever you are and you can send your post up onto the website.

    You can even upload a picture…. this looks like you have to only pick pictures from your library so take a live picture first and add to library then you can post.

    Will have to add picture later
    via PressSync

    Categories: Free website resources Tags: Tags: , ,