Do your part for the planet!

Sell your local products 

and services worldwide.

~~~~~~        

Now we know for a fact (in spite of Mr. Gore’s ranting and raving), that there simply is no such thing as manmade global warming (which has clearly proven to be a figment of the man’s imagination), it’s probably time to turn up the planet’s heat with our businesses.

There’s no need to defend that global warming discrediting statement, by the way, just ask any credible scientist instead of the pseudo ones Mr. Gore carries in his pocket.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is no greater opportunity to market your goods and services outside the neighborhood, town, county, state, or region that you’ve been limiting yourself to . . . than now . . . with the Internet (Oh, and thank you again, Mr. Gore; where oh where would we ever be had you not invented it?).

Why “now”? Because, as my mother used to say, there’s no time like the present. How to do it? Like what are the steps?

Step number one is to cast aside the political creeps behind creeping Socialism (November 6, 2012). 

Step number two is to extract the small-mindedness from your brain that’s been locked in there, afraid to let you step outside your business comfort zone.

With inexpensive –often free— media options to exercise (from emails and texting to Twitter, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn), you will gain by exploring (or expanding your mastery of, if you’re already dabbling) the market opportunities for what you sell. Now is the time to Action Plan your way into marketing your offerings worldwide.

Exactly where are those opportunities for you and your business? Odds are you know what they are and where they are, but you’ve simply not been willing or motivated enough to consider their pursuit. Be willing. Be motivated. Make that choice for yourself.

Stop thinking you need to be limiting local services and products you sell to the neighborhood or town that supports you.

If you truly care about your neighbors, help stimulate your local economy with global money!

Illegal aliens have been doing it for years. They work in the U.S., typically tolerating inhumane living conditions in order to wire maximum amounts of American dollar wages earned to their desperate families in countries whose governments intentionally keep their people in poverty.

How about bringing other country’s money into your town? How about working to help change the opression of other countries’ governments to make them do a better job so that their people won’t want or need to come to the U.S. for their families to survive? Isn’t that a better, more permanent solution? 

Does it mean cracking down on illegal border entries and drug lords and war weapon distribution channels?

Absolutely, but isn’t that a smarter, better thing for our grandchildren than to continue with the Socialism “share the wealth” mentality that strips away America’s freedom that small business job creation built, and that America’s servicemen and women have preserved?

I’m talking about the freedom that we have all earned and enjoyed, that strengthens core family values and that serves to undermine the terrorist acts, threats, and organizations that rise from the rubble of America’s economic weaknesses. 

It all comes back to the economy. And job creation. And America’s 30 million small businesses.

With government support in the minus zone, there can be only ingenuity, innovation, self-reliance,  guts, and gumption. Are you up to it, or ready to go down without trying?

There are no limits except

those in your mind.

And those limits are a choice.

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

What Makes You Think

You Can Wing It?

 Farmers, carpenters, doctors, lawyers, firefighters, pilots, seamstresses, stylists, realtors, even Cub Scouts do it.

So what makes you think that you can wing it? Now I’m not talking any hundred-page document with 37 pull-out spreadsheets and an annotated bibliography featuring a gazillion itemized resources. Who cares? I’m talking about an Entrepreneurial Action Plan.

Yes a plan of any kind needs a goal.

And that goal has to be realistic and specific and flexible and due-dated. If it’s not all four of those criteria, it’s not a goal, it’s a wish. Wishing may work in Disneyland, but business success comes from taking action. Taking action without a goal-based action plan is like trying to control a rudderless ship in a storm.

Your Entrepreneurial Action Plan

Like any good news release, your Action Plan must answer the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? And be realistic, specific, flexible and due-dated. It’s always a worthy endeavor to include a Mission Statement and a Vision Statement at the beginning of your plan to set the stage.

A quick market assessment, a marketing plan, a management approach and/or team lineup, an operational outline and a financial plan and projections — that all answer the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? (and that are realistic, specific, flexible, and due-dated) will do the trick.    

                                                                                                          

Is this over-simplified?

No. It’s actually very simple. An Entrepreneurial Action Plan is simple and quick to execute. It is not a formal business plan. Many of the same ingredients are in both, but business plans are primarily done for the purpose of raising investor or lender money. Action Plans are to get things going, and build momentum; they are not fancy.

An Entrepreneurial Action Plan can be scribbled on the back of a large envelope.

It is definitely not for the feint-hearted crossed-t-dotted-i perfectionists or analysis-paralysis corporate types. The best results come from those who chunk up their plans and adjust them frequently. This doesn’t take thousands of hours or a rocket science degree. Oh, and what a great amnd illuminating collection the saved scribbles make.

BUT your Action Plan does need to capture.

It needs to capture the five “W” questions and one “H” question above, and it does need to target goals that are realistic, specific, flexible, and due-dated. Otherwise, you are captaining a rudderless ship in a storm, and are bound to have schools of lawyers circling you, closing in for the kill.

Yes, put it in your pocket, not a spiral-bound or 3-ring binder.

It’s a working document for the day, week, or month. I do daily scribbled Action Plans for each blog post. I do weekly versions for my writing/consulting/marketing business. In the end, it’s all about why you are an entrepreneur in the first place . . . to make your idea work by exercising the freedom to continually adjust it.

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Hal@Businessworks.US

 Open Minds Open Doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone

Welcome, and thank you

for joining me on this

personal milestone of

  1,000 posts at this site.

Before I take you on my quick-read path of lessons learned, which I unabashedly believe includes something of value for everyone, let me offer up my heartfelt appreciation for the first 400 visits I had in April of 2008 when I started, and the millions of visitors who followed over the last 3+ years.

~~~~~~~~~~

Please continue your visits, comments, and free RSS Feed subscriptions.

And please note that this blog will now publish new

posts 5 days a week, every Sunday through Thursday.

But the Search Window is always open, and content is always relevant.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you

for your confidence,

trust and loyal support.

Special thanks to Kathy — the wind beneath my wings for 25 years, and to the wonderful dogs we’ve been blessed with, who surrounded my feet as I posted each night — our Black Cocker (“Tuckerton“) who left us last year at 6 years old and our Golden Retriever (“Barnegat“) who lived six months longer than him; she was 13 . . . and our new one-year-old-this-week Cavachon (“Breezy“).

For the endless stream of writing encouragement and feedback (regardless of agreement or disagreement with my representations, and there’s been plenty of both!), please indulge me long enough to use this space for special thanks to my: son, Christopher; daughter Haley; oldest granddaughter, Talley; brother-in-law Tim; mother-in-law, Marian; brother, Rick. And: my Aunt Dorothy and sister-in-law Claire; Melanie Adair, Angela Current, Doyle Slayton, Jonena Realth, Dr. Ian Fries, George Kanuck, Kevin Bousquet, Meredith Bell, Jeff Banning, Danielle-Dixon-Moyle, Peter Leeds, Jim Haines, Dr. Jeffrey Alpern, Michael Infusino, Ken and Sara Kraft, Bruce Burchell, Andrew Jackson; Jim Oliviero, Ken Poppele, Andy Larrimore, Laura Pritchett, Jeff Shactman, Barrie Proctor, Brian Smith, Dennis Forney, my friends, neighbors, Twitter and LinkedIn followers, former students, past and present clients, three special friends lost this past year: Butch Taras, Paul Harp and Ernst Dannemann, and my 150 softball league buddies in Delaware and New Jersey, and their families.

Thank you also to the young men and women of America’s military service whose devotion and courage make the freedom possible that allows me to choose to write, and to be able to write freely.

. . . and thank you, God!

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is some of what I learned that you may find helpful to be reminded of . . . to think about . . . to try, apply, expand, adjust, enjoy, and to just pick up and run with:

1)  Never assume that no one (or that no one who matters) is “out there.”

When you write and post something on the Internet, someone, somewhere, is always reading what you write . . . every thing you write! So make it count.

2)  Be gracious with your insults.

Criticize the behavior –words and actions– not the person! When you feel you must take someone’s behavior to task, take it to task, but try to “sleep on” what you write before you click Publish.

3)  Take lots of deep breaths. 

More frequent deep breathing will channel stress productively, to stay in control, to be focused on the “here-and-now” present as much as possible, to ensure that you respond instead of react. Remember, if you don’t react, you can never over-react!

4)  Be kinder than necessary

 EVERYone you meet and re-meet every day is fighting some kind of battle.

5)  “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

(Thank you Mark Twain) 

6)  “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter–’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”  

(Thank you again Mark Twain)

7)  “Time waits for no one. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.”

 (Thank you B. Olatunji)

8)  Ask yourself the following 4 questions:

 Why?  Why Not?  Why Not Me?  Why Not Now? A few times a day is not a bad idea.

9)  Accept the fact that the news media no longer “reports” anything.

Literally every story breaks down into some stress-filled level of disguised political opinion. If you think that’s exaggeration, try testing your willpower to not watch or listen to or read any news or news-related presentations of any kind for just one week, then see and feel the results. You will be happier, healthier, less-stressed, more productive, and making a bigger difference in the world, especially if you combine this effort with #3 above. (3 weeks of it, by the way, will literally transform your life!)

10)  “To Thine Own Self Be True!”  

                                         (Authenticity + Passion = Success)

(Thank you, Shakespeare)

   11)  “There is a time for everything under heaven.”

(Thank you, God)

   12)  “Open Minds Open Doors.”

(Thank you United Technologies)

   13)  “The journey to discovery consists not in having new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

(Thank you Proust)

    14)  “The only thing that’s permanent is change.”

(Thank you Greek philosopher Hericlitus, 2500 years ago)

    15)  “Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”

(Thank you Alfred Souza)

    16)  Great blog posts only happen because of great blog followers.

If you like what I write, thank your self because I write it only for you, and only with your input. I am grateful for your every visit.

Have a wonderful week ahead, filled with everything you want.

Best regards – Hal

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 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone

With America’s ship

sinking, and “Captain”

 Obama busy arranging

 deck chairs, is YOUR

business credit rating

on its tippy-toes?

Would it matter? What would you (or are going to) do about it? What’s in your best interests? Your family’s best interests? Your customer’s and employee’s best interests? Is that concrete or quicksand beneath your feet? What are your personal circumstances that cornerstone (and that undermine) your business?

To what extent should you care about other’s opinions and evaluations? If your answer to that question is that it depends on whose opinions and whose evaluations, can you identify those “influentials” and jot down their names on scrap paper? Can you rank them 1-10 in terms of importance?

Can that list serve as a priority action plan target for you? 

What’s your best guess about how long ’til you can bolster or reverse your current business situation? Do you think this is another “that depends” answer? If so, what exactly does it depend on? Do you truly believe that, or are you just making convenient excuses? 

Is it worth it to answer all these questions? (It is if you’re a real entrepreneur!) Are you a real entrepreneur who has cut out your own path in the world? Or are you a make-believe entrepreneur who’s simply been in the right place at the right time to inherit someone else’s (parents? grandparent’s?) dream? Or are you making that dream reality?

Are you shifting back and forth through the gears, or coasting along in cruise control? How committed are you to your SELF and your ideas and your business . . . really?

What if anything do you need to do right now to shore up your small business or professional practice enterprise to withstand the increasing fragility of marketplace, industry, and national government credit rating downgrades? What do you need in order to get these steps started? How will you get there? 

Are you really paying enough attention to sales? Are your sales efforts as productive as you want them to be? How can you boost these efforts? Are you focusing all your resources on growing sales or on growing debt? Have you considered that your business will never make money by turning off light switches?

Can you increase revenues by courting existing and past customers more often and more attentively? Are you putting too much energy, and time, and money into trying to open new markets and gain a new customer base? Do you know that such efforts are probably ten times less effective than focusing on past and present business?

Are you tired of answering these questions? Did they make you think?

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone

Today’s News Report . . .

“Economists are now

calculating the odds

that the economy will

  slide back into

another recession”

What? “Another” recession? What happened to the first one? Everybody I know in my business and personal life thinks the first one that was ignited by Mr. Obama never went away! In fact everyone I ask thinks it’s just gotten worse, and is now on track to compete with The Great Depression of the 1930s.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, please, political and media people (assuming a difference), stop pulling our chain! Do you think for one heartbeat  –that because the White House pretends the recession has passed, it’s over and done, and that now we may be looking at a 2nd one–  that such nonsense could be anything but a lie to manipulate voter opinion?

First of all, who on Earth thinks we might “slide back into another recession” besides braindead economists who busy themselves “calculating odds” instead of telling Mr. Obama and the other spendthrifts (like Harry, Joe, Nancy, Chuck and Barney…even sounds like a bad cartoon) that we are still in the same recession that we’ve been in?

…and that the only way out of this mess is to embrace small business instead of continuing to terrorize it. Small business, every economist knows, is the only source of new job creation. Tell the White House to do what should have been done for 3 years: Extend tax-cut incentives to small business to encourage new jobs! Period. 

In truth, that same recession has now escalated into The Great Obama Depression, the likes of which we haven’t experienced since the 193os. The whole debt ceiling fiasco has solved nothing. It’s simply opened floodgates to even higher taxes and yet even more increased spending. Don’t doubt it. We the people have been had!

Just as FDR’s policies unnecessarily prolonged The Great Depression another 5 years, Mr. Obama’s agenda is clearly hellbent on worsening and unnecessarily prolonging The Great Obama Depression — making it a dependency-creating political tool. Jobs? Who cares? Everything’s FREE. Of course I’ll vote for the gift-horse and get more! 

What makes it just or moral for the government to decide who gets what? Share-the-wealth Socialism does not work. Never has. Never will. Check your history books.

This runaway tax and spend trainwreck of an Administration doesn’t care that real people with real small businesses are struggling, that real unemployed people and their real families are suffering, that America is starting to look like a nation of bumbling incompetents in our own citizens’ eyes and the eyes of many other nations.

You own or manage a small business or professional practice. So you know the only way to end it all is to end it all: on November 6, 2012. And that means starting NOW, not next week. Mr. Obama –in the midst of every conceivable kind of national calamity– has been busy: he’s already held an all-time-record 37 fund-raising events!

So, yes, our work is cut out for us, but there are 30 MILLION of us . . . 30 MILLION small business owners in America who know what hard work is all about. Is it worth the futures of your children and grandchildren and great- grandchildren for you to put off getting actively involved for even another day? Is it?

The decision you make now to move your business forward and to influence others to support candidates who support small business will bring results on November 6, 2012, that will affect this, plus your next two generations of your family.

It’s really this simple:

More government interference in our lives, or less?

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone

How can you ever get where

you’re going if you don’t 

know where you’ve been?

You’ve heard me a zillion times about the importance of focusing on the “here-and-now” present moment if you seek success in any form — and it’s a particularly embracable idea if you’re a leader, a small business or professional practice owner or manager, an entrepreneur, a parent, teacher, in military or community service, or unemployed.

I’ve belabored the point that dwelling on or in the past, and worrying about the future, are mentally, emotionally, and physically unhealthy places to be. They are fantasyland locations and are at the core of neurosis.

 BUT when you can make use of the past or future from a present-moment mindset, so that you control past and future thoughts . . .

You Win! Don’t believe it? Follow this:

• Think for a minute, from your present-moment level of awareness, about where you’ve been in life (not  on a map, but where your thought patterns, performance levels, relationships, and business experiences have been). When you think about those things, what value do you give them in the here-and-now? 

• Are these experiences that led you to where you are? So reaching back into them, which ones yield you the greatest value in the present? Which can most dramatically, most effectively, launch you into the future? Where exactly do you want to go in life? What in your past can most help you get there?

• What roadblocks have you chosen to put between past learning experiences and future plans? What are the 3 most important steps you can take right now to start getting over or around those roadblocks? What excuses are you choosing to use to keep yourself from taking the most important of those 3 steps?

• Take some deep breaths and mentally stand back from yourself, in a vacuum, without feeling past guilt or future worry, and describe you as you imagine yourself to be 10 years from today, August 3, 2021. What would you tell you to do NOW to get yourself on a more productive, happier, healthier, more rewarding path?

• Go ahead, tell yourself –maybe in a mirror? Take some more deep breaths. Imagine, see yourself as the person you most want to become. Try to visualize your physical appearance (clothes, jewelry, skin, hair, teeth, brightness of eyes) and your attitude (how you walk, talk, carry yourself).

• You have the ability to choose now, today, tonight, this hour, this minute to start on the path that will take you where you want to be. And this moment in time will be your past when you achieve that new goal for yourself. Will you look back to it then and commend your decision to move forward or wallow in self-misery for not choosing?

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.     God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone

Are you on drugs?

Is someone in your family?

Someone who

works with you?

The stress of owning and/or running a business is enough to make almost anyone crazy. It’s also almost enough –and occasionally more than enough– to prompt entrepreneurs, family members, and employees to resort to drugs. Do you ever feel like sometimes the whole world is on drugs?

Just swipe your eyes over some pharmaceutical and alcoholic beverage industry numbers. Scary stuff.

Factor in all the illegal Mexican drug cartel trainloads. Add illegal outputs from Colombia and Brazil and Turkey and Scandinavia and the Orient and thousands of other supply chains around the world. Scarier yet. (Hey, look at the people running our country. Now that’s scary.) Wheee! Drugs all around. And it’s not even Woodstock!

The trouble is that talk like that draws snickers from many, and it’s just not funny. Individual lives, entire families and businesses, whole nations have been wasted and destroyed by drug and alcohol dependency problems that literally drag them out of being in touch with the present here-and-now, into past and future fantasyland.

There are very few things in life more destructive than drug and alcohol dependency –even cancer– because in addition to also being degerative, drug and alcohol addiction that’s not brought on by parental genes and/or birth conditions (e.g. “crack babies”), is a disease that is often the result of (usually unconscious) self-destruct choices.

_________________________ 

If addiction is a struggle of yours, you’re obviously smart enough to be doing something about it, or you wouldn’t be reading this. If it’s someone else’s struggle that you are somehow engaged with, be careful, first of all, that you don’t get sucked into the whirlpool, because it is not a forgiving experience.

Everyone who’s battled addiction (their own or someone else’s) knows that it’s difficult if not completely impossible to be “under the influence” and to own, operate, or manage a business of any kind without “outside” professional help to monitor and guide a structured program of rehabilitation. But shop carefully.

There are a zillion helpful individuals, groups and organizations out there ready to pounce on a tollfree call of crisis and desperation. Unfortunately though –unlike a latex glove– one size doesn’t fit all, and it seems that most of these well-intentioned helpers are, in the end, very limited in what many affected people will allow them to achieve.

Many who say they want help, really don’t want help; they want only to say that they want help! Like trying to stop decay once it starts, addiction carries an ever-increasing degree of both business and social irresponsibility. This quickly disintegrates into a growing sense of apathy for everything except the next drink, the next fix. 

__________________________

In trying to teach me to swim, my father who was a great swimmer, threw me off a motor boat a mile out into the ocean. I failed to learn anything but fear; he had to hire a swimming instructor. I spent many years as a group counselor and stress management trainer, but couldn’t help some of those most in need who were closest to me.

It’s hard to shake off emotional connections when pragmatism and self-discipline are called for.

The bottom line is that if you or someone close needs help with an addiction problem, you/she/he has to be coherent and genuinely dedicated enough to want help, and to go out and find it, and to follow the path. No one else can push anyone into a resource situation that doesn’t fit or feel right, and expect some overnight miracle.

Addiction is a mental, emotional, and physical disease. Just as it takes time to “catch it,” it also takes time to work it out of your system and get rid of it. And some never do. Regardless of caregiver credentials, pedigrees, or intentions, others truly cannot help those who are not willing and eager and able to help themselves.

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.   God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Okay, Politicos, 

now we have

a debt ceiling…

but guess what?

… there’s no FLOOR!

 Is there anyone left in America besides politicians and some really dumb, leftwing extremists who think that having a compromise solution to the debt ceiling crisis will suddenly and miraculously eliminate the economic quicksand beneath our feet?

SOLVING THE ECONOMY IS A BUSINESS PROBLEM THAT HAS BUSINESS (not social-reform) SOLUTIONS.

The economy is not a political football for manipulating votes. It is not a feel-good or politically-correct issue. It is not going to be resolved through compromise. It is not a this or that side of the aisle affair. It is ready to explode on every side of every aisle. And in your wallet! 

I have never been a “sky is falling” Chicken Little alarmist in my life, about ANYthing, but now? Well, it’s become increasingly harder to ignore the warnings. We have reached a point in our nation’s economic history where we need to stop fantasizing and start facing reality.

At least one leading economy guru is warning that 2012 can begin to bring 50% unemployment, a 90% drop in the stock market, and 3 successive years of 100% annual inflation. This is not a “loose lips” guy. The voice belongs to Robert Wiedemer. Dow Jones calls his work a “bible.” Standard & Poor says his “track-record…demands attention.”

Yeah, well, so what? you might say because you’re an entrepreneur and you don’t own any big deal stock market stock anyway, and your business has made it this far so you know you won’t be unemployed. Besides look at the talent pool you’ll have to draw from. Okay. Maybe. But how about the good odds of getting to $28 a gallon for gas?

You fill up your 18.5 gallon gastank sedan

at the pump… Cha-ching! Okay, let’s see,

that’ll be $560… uh, cash or credit card?

No, huh? Do the math.

And hope you don’t own anything bigger than a mid-size sedan.

The point here is that Mr. Obama inherited a mole hill and has made it into a mountain. In the process, he has done everything humanly possible to avoid solving this business problem economy with business solutions. The Congress hasn’t done a whole lot better but at least they’re trying to cut spending and taxes. That’s a beginning.

As small business owners and operators, we need to accept that the range of the survival options continues to shrink, we must rise to the occasion, face reality, and –in the same entrepreneurial spirit that launched our businesses– begin to fend for ourselves.

This government is 100% unreliable, 100% incompetent, and 100% committed to the destruction of our free enterprise system. We can’t change the fact that we’ve been stupid in the voter booths, or that we’ve failed to play more active roles in influencing others. But we can choose to change that right now. Right this minute.

And the more of us who are willing to step out of our hectic lifestyles to help others see the oppression that’s driving record unemployment and record inflation, that threatens to continue undermining and ultimately destroy the cornerstones of our business and family existences, the better our chances of averting impending disaster.   

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 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.   God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

35 years ago,

a doctor told me my back 

was so bad, I’d never

walk again. 

  _____________________________

I bought a horse

and a jet ski!

(and my back has been better ever since!) 

Stubbornness or determination? Probably both. [And Thank God, I walk just fine.]

Stubbornness and determination represent attitudes that would get corporate muckity-mucks fired, but they’re not such terrible traits to have as an entrepreneur. Ive’ heard a lot of definitions of entrepreneurship over my years of teaching, consulting and doing it, but none sum it up as succinctly as stubbornness and determination’

We always hear that entrepreneurs have to have “fire in the belly” to pursue their ideas and make them work.

That they continue to move forward when everything around them is moving backward.

That they see the light at the end of the tunnel that others can’t even find the entrance to, or once they’re in it, slam their gearshifts into reverse.

Yet we also know that entrepreneurs historically take only reasonable risks. So the point of distinction occurs a few hundred feet into the tunnel when the light from the entrance is just about to dissolve away.

It is that moment in time that separates the courageous pursuit of free enterprise from the gutless wonders of government agency security and handout-dependent careers, and from corporate analysis paralysis treadmill careers. Entrepreneurs plod fearlessly forward as others turn and run. Sound like a military invasion? Well, isn’t it?

The enemy of entrepreneurs is lethargy and complacency. You remember that pair from your C-Span Current Affairs course? They are the two culprits that have gripped our economy since the present White House occupants took control. They are what must be overthrown if America is ever to survive and thrive again as a nation. 

The only difference in fighting this war of entrepreneurial enlightenment (vs. other, older ones) is that small business owners can no longer charge forward with their heads down. This time, we’re up against liberal fanatics who are not simply putting up roadblocks; they are actively fighting in the name of progressiveness to stop progress!

Go figure.

America’s present Administration refuses to stop short of literally pulverizing small business.

Over-taxing, over-regulating, over-burdening the very entity in society that has been solely responsible for new job creation, for economic stimulation, for boosting America’s reputation and strength worldwide . . . to what end? 

It’s not a puzzle; it’s a plan.

There are 30 million small business owners  in the United States. We have no ability to “certa bonum certamen” (fight the good fight) on our own, acting as individual small businesses. We all need to accept that the strength in numbers we are capable of can accomplish more than individual efforts.

We must vote AND prompt votes for any candidate who appreciates and respects small business owners and operators, our nation’s military people . . . and stubbornness and determination. November 6, 2012. Be there. 

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 Open minds open doors

 Thanks for visiting.   God bless you. 

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

So, right about now,

you’re swimming in

tears, beer, or red wine,

 and trying to leave last 

 week in a cloud of dust?

Does it sometimes feel like you can’t even find the tunnel, never mind the light at the end of it? The promise of yesterday is simply not happening tomorrow? The positive, hopeful feelings you had for your business last Monday simply dissolved away on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday? And here you are: in a weakened weekend. 

Take heart, dear business owner, manager, entrepreneur. It’s really not the end of the world. It’s actually the beginning of a new awareness and a new opportunity that didn’t exist all week last week. The special occasion I refer to is your great awakening! Look in the mirror. Take a deep breath. Snap your fingers. and–viola!–be a new you!

Yes, it IS that simple. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. That’s a choice. Stop feeling defeated. That’s a choice. Stop beating yourself up. That’s a choice. Stop making excuses. That’s a choice. Don’t give up on yourself, or your people, or your business. That’s a choice. Choose instead to do what you know you’re capable of. That’s a choice.

When work overwhelms you, get rid of the “over” and zero in on what’s real and what’s right smack in front of your face as opposed to what you’ve been imagining. You’re reading this so you’re probably not in jail and you probably haven’t boarded up the windows yet. You’ve just a few bloody knuckles and are perhaps feeling nauseous.

What is the basic premise, idea, belief, conviction, desire with which you started your business? Is it still there? Does it still dominate your brain? Have you a mission and vision statement worked out that serve as the underpinning of your every daily performance, or have you lost sight of those ideals as economic stress set in?

RSVP your regrets to the media circus debt ceiling party and take a stroll through your own wallet. It’s renewal time!

It’s time to step back BEFORE you step up. Look around and take inventory and sort out priorities and renew your commitment to yourself and your family and your employees and customers. It makes no sense to get up to bat if you don’t know the inning, the score, the pitcher, your capabilities, and if you even have the right bat to swing. 

How do you know when it’s renewal time? When the week behind you feels like a failure. When you’ve struck out with the bases loaded, you need to not bang your head on the dugout bench. You need to look in the mirror. Take a deep breath. Snap your fingers. and–viola!–be a new you! Because you CAN and you need only to C H O O S E  it. 

DON’T choose for others to drag you down or under. Only you control your brain, and only you have the power to rise up above the rubble and make this next week a record-breaker that will lead you into the sunrise. Just a bunch of fantasy talk? No. Actually, it’s a bunch of reality. The question is how ready are you to put reality to work? Now? 

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116 

 Open minds open doors

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