ARE YOU

BREATHING?

1-Minute private technique kills business stress

This 4-step, on-the-spot stress management technique is being used—right this minute, as you are reading this—by millions of healthcare, business, sports, entertainment, teaching, and homemaker professionals.  It works for every age and level of health.  

It will work for you too!

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Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

“I know how it feels to have 

wings on your heels, and to

fly down the street in a trance”

                                                              From the classic song, “HELLO YOUNG LOVERS”

     Sure you can stop to smell the flowers, but that just gives you a breather. What you really need to do is stop for a minute and remember how it feels to have wings on your heels and to fly down the street in a trance because THAT will give you M O T I V A T I O N.

     Think back to the last (or first) time you were so excited, you might as well have been flying. Go on. Do it! Think back. Remember what was going on? Remember how great you felt? Remember how you knew at that moment that you could conquer the world?

     Stay with it.

     Now, do it again. Whaaaaat? Yes, do it again! Feelings and behaviors are a choice! Sometimes choices are conscious and sometimes they are unconscious. Make a conscious choice to recreate the exhuberance you felt at that magically high moment and bring it all back into focus. Get your butt cranked up to fly through this coming week!

     Go to bed tonight convinced that you own the world (regardless of reality and woes and worries)! Be in 100% charge of your SELF and your feelings. Go to bed telling yourself:

I will awake at ___AM (insert whatever time you rise) feeling happy, healthy, rested, alert, physically fit, and ready to take in all the money that comes easily and frequently.

     Don’t question me. Don’t dismiss this. Don’t X off the page. Don’t give up on yourself! YOU OWE YOURSELF a huge, successful week. Make the choice and do it! Stop making excuses. Stop allowing (choosing for) your mind to drift back to negative, bah-humbug nonproductive ways of thinking!

     You know in your heart that you can do better, and that you need only to drive your energy with a positive thrust of attitude. TURN OFF THE 11 O’CLOCK NEWS and go to bed reciting the blue boldfaced sentence above. Go on! I dare you! Take up my dare and watch what happens! What have you got to lose? The 11 O’clock News? (It’ll be there tomorrow. Same old stuff. You won’t have missed a thing. I promise.) You might even get up on time!

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      . . . I’m open to your input anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thank you for visiting. Good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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Rule 1: Chunk it up!

If your job is to paint the Brooklyn Bridge, and your goal is to paint the Brooklyn Bridge, you’ll never make it!. If, on the other hand, your goal is to paint the first 100 feet of cable on the northeast quadrant by one week from Friday, and the first 100 feet of cable on the southwest quadrant by two weeks from Friday, and so on, and keep it flexible based on weather, etc, you will undoubtedly succeed.

If you put “clean house” on your list, it won’t happen. If you chunk it up into a series of small tasks like vacuum the second floor carpets, fold and put away the laundry, wash the first floor windows on the front of the house, de-clutter the kitchen counter, and so on, you will have much greater success.

Being specific and reducing the monster chores to small individual tasks not only keeps you on track, it serves to motivate as well because you’ll gain a sense of accomplishment each time you complete an item and cross it off your list (use a second color, by the way, to be able to still read what was on the list and keep track at the end of the day).

And interruptions? Life is an interruption! When interruptions come along add them to your list. (You run into a bee’s nest while painting the bridge and it takes an extra hour to get rid of it? Add “get rid of bee’s nest” to your list and then cross it out when you’ve taken care of it. While washing the first floor windows, you notice an overgrown shrub that’s scratching against the house siding? Add “trim overgrown shrub in front” to your list and cross it out when you’ve taken care of it.)

Keep reviewing your list of goals to see better ways to chunk it up. As you achieve or complete each chunk, cross it out, and add new chunks. Never-ending? Yes, goal-setting, like exercise and eating right, require commitment to changing your lifestyle. No one achieves their goals by dabbling with them. If you’re serious about goal-setting and pursuits, you need to be constantly monitoring them.

It helps to have a weekly checklist of goal criteria to be certain that you’re on track with keeping your goals specific, flexible, realistic, and due-dated. Without all four of these criteria, you have only a wish. Wishes, like hopes, get us nowhere. Action gets us somewhere. Any action is better than no action. Chunking up what you need to do and where you need to go works light year’s better than “paint the bridge” and “clean the house.” Now apply the same dynamics to your business and business planning.

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Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT Day for Someone !

Are you on target?

     Everyone likes to help others when they can. Some of us, however, dwell on being do-gooders to the detriment of our own interests. And when we do that, we are not helping others. We can only genuinely help others when we’re coming from a position of strength.

     Some among us like to surround ourselves with people who are less successful (to feel more important), or people who have bigger problems than we do (to minimize the perceptions of our own problems), or people who are just plain lazy or negative (because of a lack of self-esteem or self-confidence…or perhaps backbone)…and if any of these scenerios describe you, and you run a business, you’re in BIG trouble. 

     Draw a three-ring target on a piece of paper. Put the names of the most important person or people in your world in the center circle of the target. In the next-to-the-center-circle ring, put the names of those you spend the most time with in your personal life. Circle those who are most influential.

     In the next ring, put the names of the people you spend the most time with at work. Circle those who are most influential. On the outside ring or edge of the target, write the names of those you would like to spend more time with in your personal life and in your work life. Circle those who are most influential.

     What’s going on here? What do you notice? Are you spending the limited time you have here on Earth with people who are not helping you to get to where you want to go in life? Are you wasting too much time with too many negative people who are influencing your thinking in negative ways?

     Why? What is it exactly that makes you gravitate toward these people? What keeps you from moving on? How hard are you making it on yourself to part ways with those with whom you surround yourself who are bringing you down physically, or mentally or emotionally?

     What keeps your brain from accepting the fact that the negative relationships in your life are preventing you from getting to where you want to go and are –lo and behold– your choice!? What will it take for you to choose a more productive, more positive circle of friends and contacts to surround yourself with?

     Remember, you need not be rude or caustic or uncaring in the process of separating your forward-moving interests from backward-moving friends and associates. You need simply to recognize that it’s time to grow in the ways you have planned to. It’s your choice.

     When you choose to move on with your life, and extract yourself from the clutches of all that have been holding you back, you make yourself and your business stronger, and you strengthen your ability to reach back and help those negative thinkers and doers who matter. 

I am always open to your ideas and suggestions. Please email me anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below.

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“Your success in life will

depend on what you do

after you do what you

are expected to do!”

— FROM A STORY TOLD BY INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED

AUTHOR AND MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER BRIAN TRACY

     In its heyday, upstart computer giant IBM had a rallying cry that reverberated throughout the entire sales and customer service industry. The words, “The sale begins after the sale is made!” set the tone for an entire generation of customer service based sales and customer relationship management that followed.

     IBM support people were said to literally descend from the sky in parachutes within an hour of any service call. In fact, we are still following this tenacious, persistent, kill ’em with kindness, build-that-database, get-that-return-sale attitude. And actually, it’s more pronounced now than ever, ushered in by lightening fast advances in hi-tech and media communications, and the rapid advances in consumer savvyism.

     What does this mean for you, the entrepreneur, you the small business and professional practice owner/manager? Here are some thoughts to think:

     Brian Tracy’s quote at the top says it best. The point is that you who own/run a business are of necessity, engaged in sales. Keeping sales and production (that’s service production as well as product production) in balance is part of the alltime great entrepreneurial challenge. The whole world admires a one-man-band, but that doesn’t make producing the music any easier.

     Going the extra mile is what it’s all about. Moving forward even when you think you can’t is what it’s all about. Greatness has only ever come from those who pushed onward in the face of major losses, and who did it again and again.

     Edison tried unsuccessfully to invent the lightbulb 9,999 times before defeating the darkness. Babe Ruth’s incredible home run record was matched only by his incredible strikeout record. We all know and have seen many of the great Olympic performance hero stories. Each has always involved taking the extra step, even when all hope seems lost. 

     When you’ve completed what others (partners, family, employees, customers, vendors, industry and community associates) expect you to do, keep doing! Starting in a half hour before others and staying a half hour later is a good beginning. Making better use of time scheduling and delegating is another.

     Regardless of the tools you choose, it’s what’s under your hat that makes the difference…and the overriding awareness that whatever you do to exceed expectations is 100% your own choice. No one else will choose success for you and make it happen. But you can do both! Starting now.   

 Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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“Is what I am doing right now

helping me get

where I want to go?”

     This is a very Gestalt question in some ways because it prompts a focus on the here-and-now, present, what’s-happening moment that’s right smack in front of your face (…which mentally and emotionally, is the healthiest place your mind can be!).

     In other ways, though, it may seem too futuristic a focus for Gestalt purists because it could be construed to be entertaining or spotlighting the destination or finish line instead of the here-and-now journey. 

     But no matter how you philosophize it, the bottom line is that the question works!

     In fact, the more often you consider this question, the greater its impact. Of course, you are the only one who can answer it. And it should probably go without saying that it can only be as effective as you are honest with yourself. But what will prompt you to ask yourself in the first place?

     If it’s not beneath you, or too contrived, or too childish, there really and truly is no better way than to plaster your life with it. Print it out in different sizes and colors with different fonts. [If you’re the artistic type, try different shapes and illustrations to go with the words–a clock, a goalpost, a stack of money, a portrayal of you as the boss, or physically fit, or in perfect health, or whatever result you seek.]

     Next, tape the different versions to your bathroom mirror, your closet shelf, the inside of your refrigerator, your dashboard or sunvisor. Put a small version on your watchband or watchface frame, your rearview mirror, inside your wallet or pocketbook, inside your briefcase, on your TV screen frame and remote control, on your computer monitor, as a screen-saver . . . anyplace you will see it during the day . . . and leave these question prompts up for three weeks.

     Take them down in 21 days, when you will hopefully no longer need them (at least if and until you find yourself drifting back into wasteful behavior patterns: dwelling too much on the past, for example, which is over and you can do nothing about anyway, or worrying too much about the future which hasn’t come yet, and may never anyway!).

     This brings us back to the journey. It is more fun and healthier all-around to be tuned in to where you are instead of where you expect to end, but that doesn’t mean you should gloss over your goals. Always keep them (your goals) on the horizon you aim for, but pay closest attention to each step you take–as you take it–instead of tripping over your own feet while you become preoccupied fixing your gaze on the distant target.

     My question: Is whatever you are doing right now helping you get where you want to go? Your answer?

Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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SPIT: Rarely the object of

attention in a tender love story

     If we laugh out loud the first time we see a child’s bib block lettering proclaim “SPIT HAPPENS,” it may be because those of us with little kids in our lives know it does.  Or perhaps the humor surfaces as our minds flash unwittingly to the bumper stickers (with the adult version of the saying) and know instinctively for it to be true grit more often than not.  Isn’t it, after all, simply the unsophisticated, Americanized version of C’est La Vié?

     Spit.  We do it in disgust.  We do it in relief.  We watch baseball players do it on TV 14,397 times every game.  Boxers have their own buckets.  Spit conjures up thoughts of adrenaline, mucus, repulsion and sinusitis.  Sometimes we miss the spittoon, the gutter, the car window (yucht!) and end up with it on our sleeves, the fronts of our shirts, the tops of our shoes, rivuleting uncontrollably down our cleavages or hunkering down somewhere deep inside the thickest of our beards.

     Spit is swapped and mopped, and comes in all shapes and colors and levels of viscosity (yucht again!).  Then there’s the specialized version of spit we all know as flem.  Flem—having once been front and center in the embryonic form of a booger that got sniffed back—usually originates as a kind of loose stalagtite structure hanging mercilessly from the back recesses of the nasal passages. 

     Flem can be lumpy, smooth, or intricately woven into kiwi and mustard colored strands, occasionally available in nasty deep brown globs.  The thickest and most projectile-worthy of these is probably preceded by a throat ravaging clearance effort that sounds like a lot of little haagggt, haagggt, haagggt noises—or one death-rattling H-A-A-A-A-A-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-T !!!

     Tough guys spit from atop their horses, tanks, and tractors.  Adolescent boys (and some adolescent-minded men!) will dry themselves up by having distance and closest-to-the-wall contests.  But many of the winners move onward and upward to the higher challenge of launching their spittle from rooftops, movie balconies, and prime bridge locations over passing cars, boats, and trains … and unwary pedestrians.  Tomboys and other masculine females use it to draw their lines in the sand, and don’t dare step past the bubbly little puddle!

Anyway, one thing’s certain: spit has rarely been the object of attention in a tender love story. Until now. 

Stay on this site and just click here for (in the words of the immortal Paul Harvey) the rest of the story (just a few very short paragraphs!) :

http://halalpiar.com/?page_id=30  

Good Night and God Bless You!  halalpiar     

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What’s blocking

your success

right this minute is

INSIDE YOUR HEAD!

     Ellen Degeneres says she wants a million Twitter followers. Good for her! That’s her goal. She believes in and sets and has consistently achieved her goals. That should have absolutely nothing to do with you except to set the stage for inspiring you to set and achieve YOUR own goals.

     Remember to make sure your goals are realistic, specific, flexible and have a due-date. Without all four criteria, you have only a wishlist!

     Pay attention to Ellen. You don’t have to like her (I do) or like her politics (I don’t) but she is teaching us all some important life lessons that we never got in school. When you believe in yourself and in your ability to achieve what you want in life, you will achieve it.

     There are skazillions of great motivational and inspirational sayings out there, and –by the way– you need only watch Twitter updates for about 10 minutes to see hundreds of these being tossed out like grass seed. There is no shortfall of resources or words of wisdom.

     The shortfall that is blocking your success right this minute is INSIDE YOUR HEAD! Either directly or indirectly, you are doing something to prevent yourself from making the things happen that you need to make happen in order to reach the point where you consider yourself to be a success.

     If you REALLY concentrate on this, you should be able to figure it out and step over the roadblock. If you simply can’t come up with what and where that roadblock is, get a professional to help you. What that means is a professional shrink, psychologist, psychotherapist, Gestalt therapist, reality therapist, counselor, tutor, traditional physician, nontraditional healthcare professional, lawyer, accountant, investment specialist, personal and professional growth group facilitator, etc.

     If you can’t get or afford professional help, start up or join a group dedicated to serve as a sounding board for business leaders. I ran one of these for years, meeting regularly on Sunday evenings for awhile, just business owners interested in giving and getting ideas and input to/from other business owners.

     Meet. Find one person who can facilitate discussion and buy her or him coffee. Recruit one other person to be the organizer, to get attendance at the meetings, circulate agendas, and publish master contact lists for everyone. It’s that simple. Try it.

     Make it like Twitter LIVE. Just by trying, you will be moving yourself and your business ambitions forward. Stay open-minded, and see what you can learn from others who are experiencing similar dynamics. If it’s not working, call me 302.933.0116. I’ll help you get on a roll.  

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Happy St. Patrick‘s Day!

What happens for you on this day every year? Do you get up and put on green clothes? Pig out on corned beef and cabbage? (This “traditional” meal is an Americanism, by the way. Like pizza not coming from Italy, the Irish eat spareribs and sauerkraut on St. Patrick’s Day!)

     Maybe you eat green bagels (ah, many of these in New York, but positively not an Irish thing!) Can you even find a florist with any green carnations left? Do you get smashed on green beer and end up with a hangover on March 18th?

Or is today just a day like any other?

     Y’know what? I think that if you think this day is just like any other, you have a problem needs fixin’ because what you’re really saying is that everyday is just like every other one, that nothing much changes and that nothing much is special, except maybe Fridays at 5pm and your birthday, right?

     Well, hopefully this isn’t you we’re talking about, but maybe you know someone who fits that description? And if you do, maybe wish her or him Happy Birthday more often!

     The secret of a prosperous business is to practice the secret of a prosperous life. The trouble is that practically no people get this until they achieve AARP status. The secret, after all, of a prosperous life only comes with the hindsight and wisdom of age and the kinds of genuine appreciation and gratefulness that only come from deep, deep inside.

     To me, it’s a lot like learning the positive and productive life changes that come from discovering the simplicity, value, consciousness and energy flow that come from deep breathing.

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Click this link for a free, 60-second, 4-step “how to” that can change your life. No sales pitch. No gimmicks. Just a valuable “how to” that you’re likely to wish you’d learned long ago!       

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     What can we do to come to realizations like this sooner in life? Maybe nothing. Maybe we just need to be grateful to have finally grabbed the brass ring (whoops! showing my merry-go-round age again!). and we should just take it and run!

     Well, breathing and running can get us nowhere if we’re living on a treadmill and afraid to step off. Breathing and running won’t take us where we want to go if we don’t believe in ourselves. and believe that we have the ability to get there, wherever “there” is for each of us.      

The point is that EVERY day –St. Patrick’s Day and the day after St. Patrick’s Day included— is a new opportunity to be the best that we can be, to do the best that we can do!

It’s a new opportunity to move another step closer to the “there” that we want to get to, the “difference” we want to make.

     Making your life happen the way that you want it to happen is 100% in your mind. It is your CHOICE! When you find your brain falling out and weakening and upset feelings coming in, STOP! Take a deep breath, focus your mind on where you are and what you want and start going there.

     Dump the upset baggage and go forward. Make today and tomorrow and the next day, and the next, EACH the special day that you deserve to have. Choose it! Use it! STOP with the excuses! Do it!

God Bless You and

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

EVERY DAY! 

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Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Patriotism Before Personal Ambition!

Coo-kook-a-choo,

Mrs. Robinson,

where has

Ronald Reagan gone . . .?

     Regardless of your politics, there’s no escaping true wisdom. Here are two quotes from one of America’s most inspirational leaders, words worthy of at least one minute of your think-time over this coming weekend: 

“Those who say that we’re in a time when there are no heroes just don’t know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond… There are entrepreneurs…who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity… Their patriotism is quiet but deep. Their values sustain our national life.”  1981

“The most fertile and rapidly growing sector of any economy is that part that exists right now only as a dream in someone’s head or an inspiration in his heart.”  1987

     If you are an entrepreneur, if you own or run a business, if you are invested in a business startup, if you are part of a family business . . . and you have not been speaking up about the national economic stimulus package that is about to put a chokehold on entrepreneurial pursuits, speak now!

     The “stimulus” plan, on top of the “bailouts” has yet to show one single penny directed to small business incentives to create jobs, not one cent! It sees your half-full glass as three-quarters empty!  

     The bottom line: NOW is the time to pick up your phone and call your senate and congressional representatives to tell them that the only way this nation’s economy can turn positive is with job creation programs and that virtually all job creation comes from small business. Send letters and emails.

     If you believe as most entrepreneurs do that you are on Earth to make a difference, to make your mark, then this is the best step forward in that direction you can possibly take right now.

     In the spirit of Ronald Reagan’s perceptions and comments, make your entrepreneurial patriotism and your business count for something important. Act now and recruit others to act with you to influence the only kind of economic change that’s truly meaningful. Insist on substantial stimulus funding for small business job creation incentives!

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