Your Role in History as an Entrepreneur 

TWITTER FEED FROM SYRIA

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY

written and published by Peggy Salvatore

Remember the Arab Spring? What was that, anyway?   People protesting for freedom, I think. People

    throwing off the shackles of oppression —
as portrayed by the press. That was the official meme.

Like King George issuing an edict to America’s colonies, the official meme was received with a jaundiced eye by the people in the middle of the action and their Internet friends around the globe.

Let’s face it. People are playing video games with other people all around the world, all the time. And global business ties keep everyone in close proximity to every-one else via Skype or a short jet hop.

Like never before in the history of the world, people get to know each other (or at least a little ABOUT each other). And it gets harder each day for an official story to go unchallenged. So it was with the Arab Spring.

As tumult rocked the Middle East, video gamers texted each other across and between continents. They started Twitter feeds. People talked about what was going on.

This dynamic affects business. At the same time as global corporations are capable of spreading influence instantaneously, so is the small on- line entrepreneur. If knowledge is power, power is no longer hierarchi- cal. Power is flat. It is matrixed. It favors the nimble.

Global corporations may be SEO and Google search engine masters. But today’s Internet entrepreneur has a real shot at reaching customers in her/his space using various networking opportunities in his/her field — darting around, past, over and under the global giants.

The average Internet Joe can connect with other Internet Joe’s and Jane’s in small to medium sized businesses and make an excellent living working for individuals who need his expertise.

Like the video game friends texting real-time human concern during the Arab Spring, personal networks have a flexibility and humanity that allow them to reach people on a level that the major players cannot.

The Internet offers small service and product providers the same, if not better, opportunities for personal service and connection to many poten- tial customers around the world as those exercised by huge multi-national corporations.

Customers benefit from low cost, high quality and personal service using Internet Joe businesses operating in the new economy.

This democratization of knowledge and power has leveled the business playing field. It has also leveled the political playing field which is, if not the same thing, something very highly related and correlated.

Just as politics attempts to control who gets what, and who decides, the proliferation of information puts control into the hands of the aver- age Internet Joe. He is the customer and the provider as the flattened power matrix envelopes everyone with an Internet connection.

From this vantage point, new products and services are being develop-  ed in a way that is not just close to the customer, but are being develop- ed in conjunction WITH the customer!

And with Internet Joe now everywhere, all the time, the New Economy transcends borders, nations and politics.

C’mon back MONDAY 9/14 for Day 5 to find out
how this impacts commerce.

When you need some personal, one-on-one coaching beyond the Internet offerings, give us a call. (Direct line numbers on masthead above.) In the meantime, follow us HERE for FREE for the next 26 days to see what others think, and discover some of the surprise findings we have in store for you—new and proven “mental apps” to apply to your own entrepreneurial and business development!

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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
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Hal@Businessworks.US    Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Thank you for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Your Role in History as an Entrepreneur 

INTERNET ENTREPRENEURS

A FRONTIER MENTALITY

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

Building an online business in the new economy? So you’re a “frontier pioneer.” You’ve figuratively hitched your horse to your wagon and joined the wagon train.

Can you imagine yourself in 1840 America, heading west to the new frontier, searching for gold? Time and space have changed, but the challenges remain.

When I started my consulting career 20 years ago, I took a small pro- ject assignment at the University of Pennsylvania helping the develop- ment office build its first website. I took some html classes there as part of the job to write the website content. The Penn Development Depart- ment built the first donor recognition site in the world. In the world. The first.

• As part of the job, I had to investigate whether we could get digital rights to legendary opera singer Marion Anderson’s recording library. I discussed the intellectual property challenges of this endeavor with the Music Department of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, one of the places where these questions were first considered.
•  I talked with attorneys who were still working out how much of a copyrighted work we could republish online before violating the owners’ rights. Seriously. Lawyers were just beginning to entertain those ideas in the late 20th Century.
•  Then sometime around the end of that assignment, we got wind of some amazing new software that allowed me to build the website without inserting the html coding. I saw Windows for the first time. Since we were rounding the last bend of that project, I never actually benefited from these new technologies but we saw the changes coming.

The point is that, at times, I’ve watched the development of the Internet as more than just an innocent bystander. I’ve had some hands-on glimpses of where we started not that long ago. From that vantage point, and considering where we are today, I believe that—as the old song goes—“we’ve only just begun” to develop the new economy.

Are you here? Or are you there?

In the last few years we’ve hit an inflection point that is allowing the Internet to take the world economy in a new direction. People far more Internet savvy than I am are talking about this in much more sophisticated ways.

My purpose here is to encourage.

The online small business entrepreneur needs to go get her or his horse, hitch up, and join the wagon train. Getting into the Internet wagon train business space now is like buying gold at $390 an ounce… you think it can’t go any higher, but you’ll be wrong!

If you are weighing whether to offer your products and services online to a global marketplace from your own virtual storefront, consider it $390 an ounce gold.

Or step back one more historical notch

to where we began this DAY 2 article:

Close your eyes a minute, take a deep breath.
Can you “see” yourself panning for gold from
the back of your Conestoga wagon while your
happy horse camps out by the river?

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When you need some personal, one-on-one coaching beyond the Internet offerings, give us a call. (Direct line numbers on masthead above.) In the meantime, follow us HERE for FREE for the next 28 weekdays to see what others think, and discover some of the surprise findings we have in store for you—new and proven “mental apps” to apply to your own entrepreneurial and business development!

See you here tomorrow 9/10 for Day 3.

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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

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Hal@Businessworks.US      Peggy@Businessworks.US

Open Minds Open Doors

Thank you for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Your Role in History as an Entrepreneur

A FANTASTICAL JOURNEY

Adapted from the book 30 DAYS TO THE NEW ECONOMY

written and published by Peggy Salvatore

Watching the world from your computer? Isn’t it a fantastical place? Nimble entrepreneurs in the Internet economy are zigging while major corporations are zagging. Zigging is the new orange.

Anyone still zagging, who is stuck in the old paradigm, is feeling the dislocation and loss. Those who are still trying to restore large, lumber- ing, industrial manufacturing entities, or even trying to keep alive a monetary system based on physical representations of value, are going to feel like things are coming apart at the seams.

So, is the world economy coming apart at the seams?
Nah! It’s just shifting gears!

Customer experience is driving this new economy. Those who are zigging are responding to their potential markets in massively impress- ive ways… from a platform of inquisitiveness that is part of a burgeon- ing online conversation among techies, marketers, leadership gurus and innovators of all stripes. Learning is no longer “one-way.”

This is YOUR Time to Build

[See NOTE FROM PEGGY below]

Internet entrepreneurs are building the new economy with instant responses to real customers on the ground all around the world in real time. Many are brilliant and amazing. Some are even generous.

The “spontaneous combustion” of the New Economy is leaving many in its tracks who don’t know how to run a business. And problems must be solved instantaneously now.

But help IS available, lots of it, online—and much of it for free—including apps and resources that offer excellent education and great content. For the monthly price of access to a service provider, anyone can learn, have, do, or know just about anything or anyone, 24/7.

I used to wonder how that business model will survive. The dot.com bust at the turn of the 21st Century appeared to signal that online businesses could not be monetized. In retrospect, that was wrong. People figured out how to make online businesses profitable. Given motivation, inspired humans will find a way to make money doing anything. Ask PT Barnum.

For the last nine months, I have been studying the Internet economy and many of the entrepreneurs who are building it. My quest started in an attempt to figure out how they fit into a business plan. That began a fantastic journey. I discovered quite quickly that there is a phenomenal amount of highly valuable free information available in the form of extremely well-done training: Free Webinars; Free E-books; Free Podcasts; Free Every-imaginable-kind-of-thing-you-want-to-know!

I dedicated my pursuit to consuming as much information as possible. Online content has led me to a new crop of physical books and seminars as well. So, while it isn’t all virtual, the virtual environment is the glue that holds all the physical pieces together. And here are just some of the disciplines I’ve been exploring:

• Business Development and Entrepreneurship
• Internet Business Structure and Technology
• Personal and Professional Growth
• Markets, Marketing, and Management Leadership
• Blogging, Podcasting, Webinar and E-book development
• Motivational and Spiritual underpinnings of business success

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NOTE FROM PEGGY: WILL YOU PARTNER WITH HAL ALPIAR AND ME? This is just the first of 30 Days’ worth of prompting, provoking, igniting, and seeking YOUR input and ideas for Building the New Economy!

Please join the conversation in the comment section and tell us:

??  What’s YOUR contribution to the New Economy? (Talk about YOUR business pursuits!)

??  What do you think of “Corporate Entrepreneurship”© (Training/Coaching Corporate Executives to THINK like entrepreneurs)?

??  We want to know YOUR part in building a new, integrated, humane world… (On the Internet and through your own business).

??  And what’s YOUR sticking point? (What’s keeping you from where YOU want to go?)

When you need some personal, one-on-one coaching beyond the Internet offerings, give us a call. (Direct line numbers on masthead above.) In the meantime, follow us HERE for FREE for the next 29 days to see what others think, and discover some of the surprise findings we have in store for you—new and proven “mental apps” to apply to your own entrepreneurial and business development!

See you here tomorrow 9/9 for Day 2.

———-
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

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Hal@Businessworks.US   Peggy@Businessworks.US

“MATTER” Matters!

In just this past week, without even trying, and with minimal exposure to advertising, I’ve seen or heard the following:

• Black Lives Matter!
• Police Lives Matter!
• All Lives Matter!
• People Matter! (Sub shop chain)
• Dog Food Matters! (Pet store chain)
• Your Gums Matter! (Plaque removal products)
• Protect What Matters! (Life insurance company)
• Kids Matter! (Goat farm sign)
• Your Package Matters! (Delivery service)
• We’re There When It Matters! (cellphone service)

And surely Firefighters Matter and EMTs Matter and Doctors and Nurses Matter. And what about animals and fish and birds and trees and plants and oceans and mountains? Can there be any doubt that Children Matter? Or Pets? How about Grandparents? Teachers? Scholars? Boy Scouts? Girl Scouts? Athletes? And then there’s Hollywood people and Politicians? (Wellllll, the jury is still out on those two).

What about Artists, Writers, and Musicians?  And Tan people? Pink people? Albino people? Yellow people? Green people? Polka-dotted people? Purple people? Handicapped people? Poor people? Rich people? Sad people? Happy people? Developmentally-disabled people? Babies?

Where does it end? Or does it?

Will “Matter(s)” be this generation’s buzzword version of “Where’s The Beef?”

Are scientists now gathering from around the world to launch their new “happening” slogan?

MATTER MATTERS!

Do we really want to go back thousands of years and pronounce that Cavemen Matter?

And there is no doubt whatsoever that ENTREPRENEURS MATTER . . . because—without them and their creations—the rest of global society would have very little to point to by way of missions accomplished.

Instead of simply choosing to accept the bottom line– that if you are a human being, a creature or planet creation, YOU matter(!)— it seems we have been instead choosing to lose trust and confidence in ourselves and buy into the implied exceptionalism of which lives matter, with the implication that no others do!

Unfortunately, stampedes are rarely stopped before innocents are trampled. But at some point each of us needs to simply stand tall, look in the mirror, and proclaim to ourselves:

I  MATTER.

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Tune in here starting Tuesday, the day after Labor Day, to read and contribute comments to short DAILY excerpts from Peggy Salvatore’s new book, 30 DAYS TO A NEW ECONOMY for 30 weekdays in a row! Free. No strings attached. Why?
Because YOU Matter!

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

Entrepreneur Programs

Do Not Make Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship can be taught. And those who are entrepreneurs can be made more productive. But the truth is that those not born with entrepreneurial instincts and attitudes can only learn what the tools and ingredients are –and maybe even how to use some of them– yet never become entrepreneurs.

Not everyone, after all, can consistently look at problems and count them as opportunities. Thomas Edison saw his 10,000 attempts to invent the lightbulb as 9,999 ways to learn from, that led him to the last.

Just as tools and ingredients do not bake cakes, neither do they make entrepreneurs. What happens to the cake if you put the egg in at the wrong time? What happens to a well-informed entrepreneurship student who’s afraid to take reasonable risks?

Can risk-taking be taught? Maybe. But when the moment of truth arrives, will a top student who fully understands reasonable risk-taking, but lacks entrepreneurial instincts, actually take the risk she or he needs to take to achieve success?

Entrepreneurial instincts practically dictate resistance toward and distrust for authority figures. Does this preclude meaningful instruction? Who can teach entrepreneurship except an entrepreneur?

And how many entrepreneurs are driven by the entrepreneurial-essential fire-in-the-belly desire to put themselves in the middle of a complex politically-stratified organization that relies on academic authority channels to exist, when they themselves could instead be developing the next great medical treatment or mobile app, or self-tying shoelace?

Entrepreneurs are driven by making their ideas work, not by others’ ideas, not by money, not by organizational achievement. Though there undoubtedly must be some exception somewhere, my lifetime of entrepreneurial pursuits and independent coaching (to instill entrepreneurial values in organizations), has yet to uncover even one.

An entrepreneur is an entrepreneur is an entrepreneur. [That’s sort of like: “if it quacks like a duck . . .”] Learning as much as one possibly can about entrepreneurial-thinking-and-doing will, without doubt, strengthen one’s business and career odds for success — on a campus, in a corporation, or in small businesses run by entrepreneur-savvy people. And, yes, even in government captivity.

Realities:

• Don’t expect such efforts to crank out legions of entrepreneurs
• Many succeed beyond their dreams without even an inkling of entrepreneurial values
• Almost every business and career can benefit by infusions of entrepreneurial energy and style

Like teaching those few-and-far-between truly brilliant musicians that they have what it takes, entrepreneurship teaching and training efforts can provide much-needed wakeup calls! Programs grounded in entrepreneurial traits, characteristics, behaviors, and action-orientation do indeed succeed. They raise consciousness for students and corporate executives who have what it takes, but who never quite cultivated the awareness levels needed to put it all together for themselves.

Deliverables include: increased innovation, productivity (less wasted time, energy, resources and money), and sales; increased customer and market awareness and responsiveness; sharper and quicker decision making; accelerated market testing; rapidly expanded networking and referral bases; enhanced communication skills; and a stronger across-the-board sense of teamwork, self-fulfillment, and self-motivation.

The ultimate entrepreneurship determinant is REALITY

. . . existing as much of the time as possible in the

“here-and-now” present moment. 

Are you?

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

When it’s time to eat grass,

get out of the mud and weeds!

You’ve been bustin’ butt to get where you are, and you can’t even find the tunnel, never mind light at the end of it! That’s the nice way to say you’re feeling spent and discouraged. But the truth is — guess what?– you are CHOOSING to feel spent and discouraged! “Spent” and “discouraged” are behaviors, right? And since all humans are born with free will (although some undoubtedly approach dubiousness), humans (yes, even entrepreneurs) all CHOOSE their behaviors.

So now you think you’re going to get lectured? Don’t choose to think that. Choose instead to enlighten yourself. The choice is just as easy, and it’s light-years  more productive. We make choices every minute of every day — from when to wake up to when to go to sleep, and everything in between. HA! And you thought it was just a matter of eggs or cereal for breakfast . . . or whether to sneer, snort, scowl or smile at someone else who chose to be bitchy.

Nope. No lecture here. Just shared awareness based on being an entrepreneur, and working with 2020 entrepreneurs. The bottom line is that the vast majority of entrepreneurs I’ve experienced haven’t a clue about the right time to make their move out of the weeds and into the sunshine-filled pasture, where healthy grazing beats hanging around in mud and weeds infested with mosquitoes. And I won’t even mention the malaria word here. OMG! So many choices!

So, seriously, where does your business live? When will you choose to move it? Where? How?

Our choices are conscious or unconscious. Sometimes the consequences pop up years later. Goal-setting can spare us a lot of “choice” surprises! Are your goals legitimate? They meet all five essential criteria? They are specific, realistic, flexible, due-dated, and in writing? If they are not all five, you don’t have goals; you have a meaningless, nonproductive wishlist. Why would you choose fantasy when choosing (meaningful, productive) reality is just as easy?

Choosing when and how to get your business out of the mud and weeds is not a matter of betting the farm. Entrepreneurs take only reasonable risks. It is a matter of what I call “Opportunity Vigilance.” When you keep focused on making your idea work and on taking advantage of opportunities that represent growth, you are choosing to put yourself and your business in a position of readiness to head for the sunshine-filled pasture where work becomes fun again.

Unless, of course, you’re a FAKE Entrepreneur?

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

Business Owners and Managers . . .

     WISH YOU COULD BE . . .

?????????????????????

STOP WISHING that you knew what was being said when something goes wrong. Instead, start asking the right questions to find out what you really need to know.

But don’t ask “WHY?” – that only breeds excuses. WHY were you late again? My alarm clock broke. I got a flat tire. My dog was sick. I had to help a neighbor. My mother-in-law showed up for breakfast. I had a really late night last night, and . . . Well, ya’see, I belong to this carpool, and . . .

Instead, ask “HOW?” Find out the process that is or was involved. And don’t settle for a “WHY” answer that many people offer even when they are asked “HOW?”

Staying with the same “late for work” scenario, try asking the late person: HOW can you prevent being late again? Can you give me three steps you’ll take immediately that will keep you from being late again? Please write them on a piece of paper and drop it off here before you head home today.

You’ll be amazed at the results that come with handing in that piece of paper.

If necessary, explain that you want to understand the steps involved, not the reasons for taking them. You can never make something better unless you find out how it got that way to start with . . . you need to know exactly what the specific steps were. Problems aren’t solved by addressing blame or generalities. They’re solved by studying what took place.

WHY doesn’t matter. Knowing WHY won’t help you fix things. Are you wishing you were a fly on the wall so you could have someone or some circumstance to blame, OR being able to know enough to be able to fix the problem?

Can you see how the first of these two options is anchored and invested in fanning the fires of your own self-importance? The second prompts the violator to solve her or his own problem. Do you want to make things work better . . . or feel like a hot-shot?

Well, okay, some people thrive on being management firefighters who prefer to flex their problem-solving muscles by finding fault with others instead of helping others solve their own problems. So, if that’s the case, just keep asking WHY? Oh, and just keep wishing . . . you might win a trip to fantasyland!

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

SHARK TANK: Entertainment

(But NOT Entrepreneurship)

It’s entertaining. It’s helped popularize the word entrepreneur and expose the hind flanks of what entrepreneurial pursuits are all about.  But TV’s “Shark Tank” is an entertainment product of pure fantasy. It bares almost no resemblance to the day-to-day real-world inhabited by zillions of struggling ideologists trying to piece their brainstorm ideas together with some magical business glue, and create success.

There’s really nothing “wrong” with the show or its (rather engaging) celebrity sharks. And “Shark Tank” is often amusing, provocative, comical, and at times even heart-rendering, but real entrepreneurs need to dismiss the show’s odds for funding success as akin to winning the lottery. And the occasional investment “loser” who ends up a winner –just from being on the show and gaining favorable PR exposure– is highly unusual.

Yes, there are some big-time “winners” plucked from the many thousands of applicants and auditions. But for the vast majority of contenders, time and energy expenditures alone can cost a fortune in opportunity losses.

So take Shark Tank for what it is: A source of amusement at seeing SO many people work SO hard to get to the point of not having the answers to questions they knew they’d be asked before they ever even set foot on the stage. If anything, the show is a rude awakening for those who think they can simply stroll into a bank, finance company or venture capital firm, talk about how great their ideas are, and leave with bulging wallets.

First of all, it is with rare exception that a business startup (or even a successful ongoing venture) cannot be more successful by focusing on making the creator’s idea work, instead of on seeking funding support. Ask anyone you know who’s made it, and they are likely to tell you that when they made their idea work, money simply came to them from out of nowhere – customer sales and investment offers. If your idea is great, money will find you!

Remember, ANY one can have a creative idea. It’s the ability to be innovative and internally driven to take that idea and run with it–all the way through to completion–that makes entrepreneurs and entrepreneurially-minded product and service developers stand uniquely apart from all other business careers and lifestyles.

Entrepreneurs are not just saying, “Hey! Look at this!” They are saying: this is how this works, this is what it costs. This is the market. This is how we can sell it. This is the profit margin. This is the next step, etc. etc. Unlike the fake version, Entrepreneurs, REAL entrepreneurs, don’t sit on an idea, or analyze it to death, or form a month’s- or year-long study committee. They just do it! Then they adjust it. Then they do it again. Then they adjust it again. Then they do it again and adjust it again, and keep going . . . until it works!

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Hal@Businessworks.US               931.854.0474

OPEN  MINDS  OPEN  DOORS

Many thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!

Thank You to FEARLESS, the musical [www.fearlessthemusical.com] for the last three words and some of the clout of this post!

While some political leaders may doubt that FEARLESS Strategic Planning (FSP) is what the U.S. Government needs to be doing more of right now, it is certainly what every professional salesperson needs to be focused on at least once a week—and more likely, every morning!

FSP is partly back to that old adage for success that we can only ever get to where we’re going when we have a map or, as present day technology dictates, a GPS or mobile map app. But the difference is in the name. It must be a FEARLESS map and we must follow it fearlessly.

Sales professionals have a tendency toward squeamishness, avoidance, nay-saying, and self-doubt when they head off into what constitutes new or uncultivated territory . . . or when they need to circle around and come back to the doorstep they once left feeling inadequate, defeated or threatened.

The solution to these mental roadblocks is to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, take a deep breath, smile like you mean it, and get back on the horse that threw you (or whose clomping, stomping, snorting, glaring, and big teeth have kept you jittering at a cautious distance).

First off, no customer or prospect knows more about you, or your product or service or concept . . . than you! Secondly, anyone (or group) putting out defensive arm-folding or “I think I know more than you” pyramiding of fingers, is simply afraid of making a bad buying decision, so take these as signals that your job is to help them feel more secure about where you’re leading them. Back out of your pitch long enough to break down some of these resistant postures. Tasteful humor helps.

Thirdly, and most important: you got to where you are because you have a gift for knowing the right things to say in any sales situation. Rely on that. Trust yourself. Reach inside and appreciate what the real you is all about. Then, put it to work. Being FEARLESS means being authentic.

When you plan your weekly and daily strategies, plan them with a positive attitude and an air of authenticity. When you dig into your areas of strength and build energy and genuineness (vs. boredom and phoniness) into your words and actions, you are being authentic . . . FEARLESS!

How to get to that point? Work at it. Stop giving up on yourself. Cultivate everything you can think of that builds and rebuilds your sense of determination, gumption, fire. Never stop learning. Every problem is an opportunity. Strategize from your mind, but act and speak fearlessly from your heart!

Every day you begin with FEARLESS Strategic Planning will bring you increased health and happiness and success. Your words and behaviors are always your choice. Choose to be FEARLESS. Choose to make it easy!

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Hal@Businessworks.US          931.854.0474

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and make today a GREAT day for someone!