Entrepreneurial Leadership?

… Practice “The 5 Freedoms”

World renown family therapist and author Virginia Satir spoke with me once after a workshop she ran at the University of California. She told me that small business growth and strength, and family growth and strength could both be most readily achieved with the acceptance and conscientious practice of what she aptly called “The 5 Freedoms.”

I share these with you here, now, not as some plaque to hang on your wall, or slogan to bang into your head, but as a road to travel. You may want to slow your brain down and digest each, then ask yourself how your family, small business or professional practice might grow stronger, quicker, by following your commitment to pursue this avenue.

The 5 Freedoms

by Virginia Satir

To see and hear

what is here,

instead of what should be,

 was, or will be.

To say what one

feels and thinks,

instead of what one should.

To feel

what one feels,

instead of what one ought.

To ask

for what one wants,

instead of always waiting

for permission.

To take risks

in one’s own behalf,

instead of choosing to be

only “secure” and

not rocking the boat.

How and when and where can you use this road to help guide your business and family development interests? Please be sure to let me know if this message works for you, if it helps you think big, and to share it (together with your own thoughts if you choose) by clicking on your choice of social media buttons shown below.

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US     931.854.0474

What will you do with

your time this year?

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US          931.854.0474

        I just re-discovered a Christmas ornament my 14-year-old grand- daughter Gwyn made . . . five years ago. The brightly painted piece of heart-shaped plywood is the stage for her blobby-marker-printed starstruck words. But where did you get those words? I asked. “I just thought them up in my head,”  she said.

HER WORDS ARE THE BEST WISDOM I CAN SHARE FOR 2016:

Life is a question. No person on earth is your enemy but you. You can’t decide what you’re born with, but you can decide how you end up.

Being happy is beyond a feeling. It’s a way of life.

Questions are endless but the only one answer is YOU.

You can dream without imagination, but you can’t dream without a belief.

You are who you are, and no one can stop you.

— Gwyn, Age 9

As you head into 2016 building your life and your business, do Gwyn’s words have as much “start the new year” clout for you?

Please let me know YOUR thoughts . . .

# # #

God Bless You One And All . . .

and HAPPY NEW YEAR To You!

 # # #

Are You Making A Difference?

‘

Until your life and career purposes are interwoven as one, you’re not

likely to be on the road of making a difference for yourself, or for others.

Making a difference may not always measure up to what others consider as success, but there’s little doubt that making the kind of difference in life that really matters requires determination, dedication, commitment, stick-to-it-ive-ness, and resolve.

Okay, you may say, that all sounds good, but what does it actually mean for me in my life, in my work?

It means that –no matter how or where you live, no matter what kind of work you do or career you are in or aspire to, making a true difference in life demands that you do the best you can possibly do, and then more… and that you never give up your pursuits no matter how many discouraging roadblocks block your path, no matter how many opinions cloud the intersections you come to, no matter how many temptations seem to reach out for you to change your path.

It means that –no matter how you feel when you wake up every morning, no matter how stressed or tired, you must remember that you are the only one who can carry your own torch, who can take steps every day on your own behalf by doing what you do best for others… family, friends, co-workers, partners, customers, clients, patients, community, church, and –of course– pets!

Is this a diagram to study? No it’s simply a model from which to create your own diagram that fits your own life and career circumstances, but the model does represent the key ingredients most of us need to move forward with and toward on a daily basis to get where we want to go. The circular motion indicated is not to say we should run around in aimless circles; it is to say that this kind of flow awareness is what it takes to make things happen.

As Shakespeare’s Falstaff once said:

“Discretion is the better part of valor.”

In other words, let your daily pursuits be guided by good judgment. And perhaps the most important message to keep in mind — because it literally dictates everything else, every word and every action, is that every behavior is the result of a choice that we make or that we once made. So if everything we say and do today is a choice, then why choose to make things hard on yourself when you can just as easily choose to make them easy, including how and when you deal with others.

# # #

Keep your head cool and your feet warm

God Bless You and thanks for your visit!

OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!
hal@businessworks.US

WAKE  UP  AMERICA!

Reveillez-vous, les Etats-Unis!

An open letter to Republican presidential hopefuls

[Opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author, Hal Alpiar]

The Bible tells us that there is a time for everything. For America,
with the agony of Paris in our rearview mirror. . . that time is NOW!

As a lifelong small business coach and advocate, my perspective of economic recovery is borne of the fact that small business provides the underpinnings of a strong economy. By over-taxing, over-regulating, intervening and meddling with private enterprise, by discouraging innovation and job creation, by pretending to have entrepreneurship savvy, our government is killing our economy.

Is this a political stance? No. You undoubtedly know I speak reality because each of you has in one way or another already expressed this viewpoint. Clearly, they are indisputable facts.

So what’s the connection? You care about what just happened in Paris, or you wouldn’t have read past the first line. Government failure to grow the economy illustrates the same kind of purposeful ignorance —an inexcusable refusal— to confront the relentless reality of Islamic terrorism.

What, sadly, could be more proof positive than the ISIS violence than just showed its ugly face in Paris? You need to step up in a way that’s meaningful, that makes a difference. Solo speeches don’t cut it! It’s nice to express your feelings, but while speeches and interviews may win votes, they don’t win results.

Beyond any doubt, ISIS poses a real and serious and immediate threat to every American’s life, family, values, and community. So NOW is the time to act!

Here is my proposal for a rallying-cry

Action Plan strategy to imagine and think about:

Imagine that somehow each of you agrees to put aside your personal and campaign differences and your individual egos for the couple of hours it might take to join one another at the front gates of The White House (with only a last-minute tip-off to the media). Then, you request a spontaneous and urgent audience with Messrs. Obama and Biden and Kerry to make your collective points for urging immediate and specific action steps that need to be taken NOW:

1) Steps to preserve and protect America’s families and towns and cities NOW (not after the next election)!

2) Steps to lead promptly to the complete defeat of ISIS NOW (not after some other—closer-to-home—mass slaughter)!

This will require the politically-unthinkable of having to individually rise above the fray and put your personal agendas and commercialized candidacies on hold long enough to join in lockstep with each other – to demonstrate genuine leadership to those you aspire to represent and to the rest of the world.

Real leaders nurture and weigh the input of other leaders. In this case, by physically standing together (as you have on the debate stage) you will serve an important purpose by representing the concerns en masse of all American citizens.

In the possibility that Messrs. Obama, Biden and Kerry cannot or will not be available, that choice makes it clear to the public the inappropriateness and insensitivity of their priorities, and instead you can each deliver your 5-minute (UN-political) position statement to the media people who show up, while standing at The White House gates.

You will individually also benefit personally by keeping your focus on communicating action solutions (each perhaps taking 5 minutes).

Consider the range of positive impressions that can benefit each and all of you in this scenario. Though you shouldn’t need any added incentive, my best guess is that if this is done “correctly,” it will also serve to completely eliminate any Democratic candidacy in the minds of voters. You can then all be free to re-ignite your individual campaign efforts after making such an innovative and unprecedented effort.

And, hopefully, your unified appearance and purpose will produce some concrete actions and rallying-point results.

Just some thoughts I hope you will each consider.

# # #

Keep your head cool and your feet warm . . . and thanks for your visit!

OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!
hal@businessworks.US

R  E  A  L   C  H  A  N  G  E

DOESN’T TAKE TIME.

IT JUST HAPPENS!

And the reason for such thought diversity between what small business represents and upholds, and the self-aggrandizing departure words of America’s Speaker of The House today has to do with the same reason small business has been under constant blindside attack by the government since 2008.

. . . our federal government is devotedly invested in management by consensus, where everyone involved must agree at least somewhat with every decision. This approach to problem-solving and getting things done has been religiously adhered to by all U.S. Government agencies. It has infiltrated the management behaviors of many if not most in funding-sponge academia, and in the upper ranks of many if not most failing lethargy-infested corporations.

Consensus-seeking management theory (like other “dead soldiers” e.g., Theory A and Theory Z and group hugs) might have solved problems and gotten things done decades ago in the “Hippy” years of the 1960s and 70s. But they simply do not work any longer in today’s world.

“Entrepreneurialism” and small business innovation –which thrive on maintaining a sense of urgency and taking REASONABLE risks– continue to be the true solution-directions that work. Yet they are consistently undermined by shortsighted government agencies that are relentlessly invested in maintaining the status quo.

Waiting for change instead of making change may have a place in history, but can no longer be tolerated as a modus operandi. There just is no time for such nonsense as waiting. ENTREPRENEURS ARE THE AGENTS OF CHANGE!

We live in a world of impatience.

Forward motion that plods

is backward motion.

When small business and entrepreneurs are punished with over-burdening taxes and unnecessary government rule and regulation intrusions designed to do nothing except further the cause of interventionist government in our lives, it proves itself more inadequate and less representative of the reasons it exists every day . . . in fact, every minute.

As the government continues to prove it’s own inadequacy, misguidance, and misdirection that have led to outright thievery of freedom, to outright undermining of our very economy (and knowing our economy is literally and unarguably dependent on small business growth and development), it is indeed time for change.

But REAL change–the kind that happens now, the kind that makes a difference, the kind that underscores the life/liberty/pursuit of happiness foundation of our country must be encouraged, not squashed, not stepped on, not bidden good riddance. It must be nurtured.

Small business owners and entrepreneurs need to get their heads out of the sand and stars long enough to realize their sand and stars are being eroded by slow, gradual, plodding change fostered by years of government intrusions and restrictions on small business growth and development.

It’s time to acknowledge that staying immersed in the sand and stars actually serves to allow, actually encourage and reward long-term politicking — politicking intentionally aimed at lining political pockets and underwriting meaningless wasteful programs that create greater business, family, and individual dependency. It does this by not paying attention to what’s swirling around the rest of you while your head is focused on business growth and development.

It’s easy to pick your pocket while you’re

bent over, star-gazing through a telescope.

Entrepreneurs and small business owners can no longer afford to feign ignorance or not take action . . . even if it’s simply speaking up and out more to others. Unless some changes happen quicker, our small business-dependent economy is destined for extinction. If you rent your workspace, there surely comes a time when you need to tell the landlord about a water leak or temperature control. Responsiveness is the entrepreneurial key to success. It’s time to step up to the plate and go to bat for CHANGE.

ADDENDUM EXCERPT FROM THIS BLOG (August, 2011 !):

It means taking just long enough to visit or write a couple of letters or emails to politicians about why you think small business matters. Take just enough time to support those who support your ideas about why small business matters. Why? Because small business does matter. And because it matters that we all step up!

Imagine the impact: 

THIRTY MILLION

(Estimated Total U.S. Small Business Owners)

visits and letters and emails calling attention to the economic recovery role of small business and why government must invest in small business –not with more wasted cash handouts– with tax incentives for innovation and tax incentives for job creation.

# # #

Keep your head cool and your feet warm . . . and thanks for your visit!

OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!

hal@businessworks.US

BLOWING  OFF  STEAM

Is For Steam Irons & Engines,

Man-Holes & Rock Star Stage Crews

“Hot Head” behaviors have no place in the workplace (including offices, vehicles, locker rooms, sport facilities, or military missions). Why? Because –besides the increased odds of someone getting hurt– it’s a useless waste of energy that deals with something that is in the past (longer than a second ago!) or the future (more than a second away!).

The past and the future are both fantasy.

This exact split second moment as you’re reading this is the only reality. If what you’re upset with is older than a second, it’s over and you can’t do anything about it. If it’s more than a second away, it hasn’t come yet and may never come. [If any of that creates commotion for your brain, you may want to read this paragraph one more time.]

This is not to say that any time, anger or upset feelings get the best of you that you need to be jacketed directly to the nearest psycho ward. It DOES mean that you need to do a better job of self-control by keeping your mind 100% in the present moment every passing moment as much as you possibly can when you do feel your tolerance level dissipating — or be prepared to face the consequences of losing your job, relationships and others’ trust.

Being a hot head is nothing to

 have cold feet about dealing with!

And this is experience talking, because I have done all of the above at different times in my life, including yelling in an office and banging locker room doors, and making the mistake of dismissing the idea that it mattered. Of course it matters. Leave emotional eruption behaviors to Hollywood where people are paid to pretend.

In case this line of thought strikes you as easier said than done, it’s not! Self-control –even under fire– is really quite simple to achieve in (could anything be more descriptive than what my father used to say): “Two shakes of a lamb’s tail!” if you are willing to own up to the fact that making it happen is worthwhile and that it is, in fact, your choice.

It’s useful to remember that all of your behavior is the result of your choice, or the result of a choice you once made . . . and that if you really want to change, change is a choice!

Okay, so what’s the magic answer? No magic! Just some increased awareness of what triggers your upset feelings and then doing something that you do every minute of your life in a slightly more pronounced way. That’s it. You’ve read this far and want the quick free (no-sales-pitch/no-gimmicks) steps that will work for you right this minute? TAKE THESE STEPS NOW

# # #

Keep your head cool and your feet warm . . . and thanks for your visit!

OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!

hal@businessworks.US

And perhaps you thought “Whew! This is the end of the 30 Days.”

But guess what? It’s just the beginning of The New Economy . . .

Entrepreneurs,

it’s time to get moving!

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY by Peggy Salvatore

The next 7 steps you need to take now. Now? Now!

Over the last 29 days, we’ve discussed the ways in which yesterday is over, and today’s markets are not the same as they’ll be tomorrow. You need to be ready to pivot.

If you haven’t yet, you must be ready to continually assess and adjust and re-position as conditions change. Success loves speed. That’s because the New Economy is knowledge-based, nimble, and driven by technology—with the Internet as its infrastructure.

Old rules don’t apply.

If you’re an entrepreneur in this environment, working alone is no way to navigate this wild frontier.

You need to plan for the unique challenges and issues you will face in all facets of your business – marketing & competitive analysis, sales, finances, vendors & sourcing, labor & management, training & employee development – not to mention how to balance your business drive with your personal life to achieve maximum performance.

If you are just beginning or partway down the path already, make sure you keep these 7 STEPS TO ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESS on your mind and in your pocket:

• Define realistic objectives – Besides “realistic, make sure your goals are also specific, flexible, due-dated, and in writing (even if it’s simply on the back of an envelope) . . . keyboarding simply doesn’t cut it if you’re truly serious about pursuing your vision of the picture you mentally paint for your enterprise five or ten years from now.

Write down your realistic/flexible/specific/due-dated goals that will lead you to that vision. If you feel you’re not getting there, simply adjust something about your goals (due date, sales numbers, whatever). Being able to make goal adjustments is exactly why it’s important to keep them flexible. Just put your pen to the back of another envelope!

• Create hands-on strategic plans – have 90-day plans as well as a one-year plan. You can count on delays, screw-ups, people problems, government interventions, market changes, inopportune news events. Don’t trow away your plans. Just keep adjusting them. Let reality dictate.

• Employ winning entrepreneurship tactics – Figure out what’s working, what’s worked in your market. Master the art of permanent beta

• Work with all your critical stakeholders – customers, employees, vendors and investors . . . and especially customers! See problems as opportunities. Demonstrate your trustworthiness daily . . . people trust actions not words.

• Motivate employees to share your enthusiasm – share your vision and work in tandem with your people to help them create team goals.

• Take Care of Your SELF! – without your good health and well-being (including not taking yourself too seriously), even plans etched in stone will do you no good!

• Stay alert to new connections and new opportunities – but don’t “jump” at any of them for the sake of money alone, no matter your financial need. This is hard to understand when someone waves cash at you (and you’re living on peanut butter sandwiches) . . . until you’ve been swindled or until you discover that you’ve underestimated your budgeting. You may never fully understand the need hold back when you’re feeling broke. But it’s more likely than not to happen. If you’re not a world-class underwater combat swimmer, stay away from dreaming about Shark Tank! Reality, remember?

# # #

Watch for 30 More Days to the New Economy where

we look at today’s people and businesses that are crushing it.

In the meantime, come back next week to catch Hal’s newest small business, branding, marketing and entrepreneurship commentary

# # #

SPECIAL   A N N O U N C E M E N T

Sign up NOW for NOVEMBER 29th (Sunday Night after Thanksgiving)

LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR:

“ENTREPRENEURS ARE AGENTS OF CHANGE . . . Accelerating Your Business”

Get fresh, informed, proven insights geared specifically to your business market, your biggest problems, your biggest opportunities.

With Hal and Peggy’s wealth of business coaching experience, you’ll learn how YOU match up with what successful entrepreneurs are thinking and doing RIGHT NOW. Get ideas you never imagined. Gain the traction you need within 2 hours — not days or weeks or months. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details, to explain your business pursuit focus and to reserve your seat! $99 total for 2 hours. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

———-

For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US      Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Your Role In History As An Entrepreneur

HEALTH  and WELLNESS

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY by Peggy Salvatore

Health, wellness and employment

are inextricably intertwined.

As an entrepreneur, you are responsible for your own, and possibly your team’s, health and wellness.

A study released in June 2015 found that almost one third of workers would quit their jobs if they didn’t have access to healthcare benefits through their employers.

Not only are employees concerned about healthcare benefits while in your employ, a smart business owner is concerned about the health and wellness of his or her employees in the New Economy.

After all, wellness is correlated to physical, mental, and emotional health, and those states of existence directly affect on on-the-job performance and productivity. A healthy worker is a contented and productive worker.

Knowledge workers are engaged in activities that fulfill them personally. They are not disconnected from their work as the manufacturing line workers of the industrial era. You and your team will operate at peak efficiency when the mind-body-spirit connection is acknowledged and encouraged.

Health and wellness is more than just eating granola and yogurt, using skin cream and doing push-ups . . . or providing a health plan.

For yourself and anyone on your team, health is about exercise and stretching fitness, eating well and having a positive mental attitude. All those things that contribute to holistic health affect the performance of your business because–combined–they put you and those who work with you in a better position to minimize and deal most effectively with the inevitables of negative stress.

You can put your enterprise on more solid footing by making sure you are taking good care of yourself, that you are promoting by example, and that you are making health and wellness opportunities available to members of your team.

Beyond funding doctor and hospital insurance, employee health and wellness can be supported by online and telemedicine services that monitor function, give feedback to exercise and diet efforts and support people during difficult personal times. Is YOUR business jogging in place?

Smart entrepreneurs are sensitive to

the mind, body and spirit connection

for themselves and those around them.

# # #

C’mon back MONDAY 10/19

for THE FINAL DAY (#30)

IN THIS DAILY 30-DAY SERIES.

# # #

SPECIAL   A N N O U N C E M E N T

Sign up NOW for NOVEMBER 29th (Sunday Night after Thanksgiving)

LIMITED SEATING COACHING WEBINAR:

“ENTREPRENEURS ARE AGENTS OF CHANGE . . . Accelerating Your Business”

Get fresh, informed, proven insights geared specifically to your business market, your biggest problems, your biggest opportunities.

With Hal and Peggy’s wealth of business coaching experience, you’ll learn how YOU match up with what successful entrepreneurs are thinking and doing RIGHT NOW. Get ideas you never imagined. Gain the traction you need within 2 hours — not days or weeks or months. Simply call 931.854.0474 Central Time: 11AM to 4PM Monday-Friday for details, to explain your business pursuit focus and to reserve your seat! $99 total for 2 hours. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

———-

For more information on Peggy Salvatore’s book: 30 Days to the New Economy [© Peggy Salvatore 2015. All Rights Reserved.] click on ENTREPRENEUR NEWS or visit ow.ly/RysnP for the E-book

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US      Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!