So...What's Next?!?

Counting my Blessings

This has been a hard month for me. Actually the past two months have not gone so well. Some cash flow I was counting on, and already "spent" was put on the back burner. I took on a project as a pilot program to learn from it, which drained some of the hours that should have been spent on additional business development. To top it all off I made some really BAD choices the past couple of weeks which cost me at least $1,000 - which is a lot of money to me right now.

Alright, so I can go negative and dwell in the fear of what's next and part of me does seem to lean that way on occasion. But there is another part of me that keeps feeling good about all kinds of things. That is keeping me optimistic.

1. I was able to fulfill my promise to my older son to take him to NYC and it was definitely a memorable experience.
2. I was able to get the Wii for my younger son, the only gift he asked for from Santa Claus
3. Most of my bills are paid up to date.
4. My husband and I still have income coming in.
4. Although I am not going to fulfill the tradition of movie/game pizza night tonight by renting or buying something new, the reality is we have LOTS of movies and games already and can still have a fun-filled night.
5. We are all healthy!
6. I almost hit my quota for Jan and have been re-building the momentum needed to hit my quota for the rest of the year.
7. Both my boys are doing well in school and are happy and healthy and well adjusted.
8. We have food in the house.
9. SoCon09 looks like it is going to be another great event.
10. Overall - a lot of good things are happening related to the business and family and right now I am only experiencing a minor setback. One that I have experienced and overcome many times before.

It is easy to zone in on the fear when things go wrong, especially when it is financial. And money is important, we need it to have things like food, shelter, and so forth. But I am not at a point of losing everything, I am experiencing a set back. I need to focus on all the blessings I do have and leverage them to get back on top.

Finally, I am looking at some of the things that happened recently as a learning experience. The pain that I feel needs to turn into a behavior modification. If I learn and change some of my behaviors, the end will justify the means.

The Money Journey

Many people have money on the mind lately. I know people who are very close to me who went from having more money than they ever thought they would have to wondering how they were going to pay their bills from month to month.

We all have our money journeys and they are all as unique as we are as a person. For me money was not very important. I have abused, neglected, and rebelled against money. I made it and spent it and wasted it.

In college I took economics classes, finance classes and accounting classes and did well in each of them, but never really knew how to apply what I learned.

After hitting a few brick walls I finally began to "look within."

There are three books that I highly recommend to anyone who is taking a closer look at their financial situation.

The first one is The Energy of Money. This is like a workbook to understand your own personal money blueprint. It will take you through your own history with money, your hidden beliefs, and habits. It was a great book that opened my eyes to why I treated money the way I did even when I intellectually knew better.

From there I began seeking financial advice to get our household in proper order. Everywhere I went I received advice that was just simplistic and not in anyway aligned with what I wanted. It was very frustrating.

The next enlightening book I read was Rich Dad, Poor Dad the subtitle is very true - what the rich teach their kids about money that the poor and middle class do not. It was all the insights and advice that I had been seeking from financial advisers, but what I had been getting was the standard poor and middle class advice. I realized that I have the intellectual ability to take charge of my own finances in the way I wanted to, but I still have bad habits.

So the next book was one I found on a blog called It's Not About the Money which goes back to looking within and finding balance in who you are and which financial decisions match your personality.

I was listening to commentary about the idea of bailing out the automakers and someone made the point that throwing money at the situation does not solve the core problems. I know that is true on a very micro level. I have literally had accountants tell me I simply need to make more money, but I knew that wasn't it. It is not about the numbers on the balance sheet, it is about what is at the core.

The same is true in business. It is about the spirit, the innovation, and the momentum that ultimately affect the balance sheet. Otherwise, as we have already seen on a macro level - money will be abused, neglected, and rebelled against.

I Will Thrive!!!

I am not seeking a way to "survive" through this economic transition. Personally I see the events that are occurring in this world right now as an opportunity to thrive.

At this time my husband and I are not expecting to be affected much by the shifts that are happening in the economy. He is with a good company working on a large project that is not tied to current financial turbulence. I strongly feel that this is the time more people will be looking at technology to run business more efficiently and to serve their market more effectively. I feel I am in a good position and I am working to be in a better position to provide a service that will meet the organization's social software needs.

Here is what I am not going to do, and I highly recommend others to stop doing.

I am not going to fall into the mindset that the world is falling down all around us.

I am hearing it from people everyday talking about how bad it is going to be, wondering how we will get through this and basically expecting things to continue to get bad. I am doing great - in fact last year I experienced 200% growth this year I have experienced 150% growth, which is only because I am trying to figure out how to manage the number of opportunities in my pipeline and effectively handle the growth. When I mention this to people who are zoned in on the bad news they tend to respond with an answer that suggest it is only a matter of time. These are people who have quickly given up.

I am not going to hold on to status quo.

Every single day I am evaluating what is working, what is not working, what is changing and how I need to change. Every single day! I know things are going to get bad, and I know people are going to handle the situation in various different ways. I am going to focus on aligning myself with people who are agile and ready to move right through this phase in history and who plan to be successful on the other side. Those who want to hold me or others or themselves down are going to have to do so without me around.

I have actually witnessed consultants engage their clients in a conversation about how the world is "ending."

Here is the thing people. When I am approached by someone who feels the world is falling down, my reaction is to run from that person. I see these people as embracing the dark cloud. People who prefer to complain than to find solutions or to adjust to the situation and identify the opportunities in the dark cloud. If I am a client of such a person I would immediately lose faith in them.

This means NO doom and gloom words.

What I going to do more of includes:
Enhancing my quality of work and the value that my clients receive when they work with me. Making every experience a positive experience.

I met with my trainer this morning and I asked him how he thought the shifts in the economy was going to affect his industry. He said not at all! He explained that the value his service offers, which is healthy bodies and healthy minds, is more important to his clients than their fancy cars or others luxury items that they spend money on. He told me his clients have already assured him that they will give up other expenses long before they give up their workouts.

So that is the trick people. Be more valuable than the other options that people have to spend their resources on. Yes our resources are limited. People will be more critical of the choices they are making to spend what they have. You have to be the best, most resourceful, most pleasurable and most effective option that your clients have.

The Money Journey

Starting my own business with the desire to grow it has forced me to focus on the money side of things. This has been an interesting part of the journey that I have yet to blog about but have had many discussions about with some key influencers in my life.

Let's start with where I am coming from. I have mentioned before I was not raised in a family that had a lot of money. However it is not that simple. My dad was a man who believed in the impossible. He raised himself up from a made for tv tragic life story. He dropped out of school in the 8th grade because no one could afford to provide him with the basics, like shoes. He went into the Airforce, then worked at a gas station, then worked as a janitor for Indiana Bell, taught himself about cable repair, and moved on up through the ranks of the phone company, completing his GED and even taking a few college courses.

My mom came from a different background. She was raised by her grandmother, who was from a family that had many various businesses in Louisville, KY. They were not extremely wealthy, but they definitely did well for themselves. They were never real happy about my mom marrying my dad.

Growing up, we did without a lot of the time, but we had a lot at other times. Christmas was always huge with gifts that spread throughout the living room and dining room. We went on a good number of vacations, and at one point my dad fixed the house up to the point it was the nicest house in the neighborhood, complete with a hot tub, huge BBQ pit, and the first satellite dish in the neighborhood.

Basically the lesson I took from the financial roller coaster that my dad kept us on is whatever you want you can get, as long as you want it bad enough. So when it was time for my husband and I to finish college, no financial hardship was going to hold us back. When it was time to launch this company, I was not about to consider whether or not we could manage it financially, we were just going to do it.

So my attitude about money is that it is just something that you ocassionally need to do or get things that require money, and when you need it you find a way to get it. That is how I grew up. I never did learn to manage it or nurture it, just use it.

Throughout this journey I have had the opportunity to hear other people's impression of money and how it colors their life. I have heard people tell me that money defines how much a person values themselves. That seems kinda sad to me. For me money can come and go all day long, it never defines who I am. I have seen people decide how smart a person is based on their bank account, well, my dad was really smart, but never had anything in his bank account. Overall I have been amazed about how many different ways money affects people.

But for me, I have to realize that to get to the next level I need to change my own perspective about money. It's a funny thing, it has nothing to do with balance sheets, I can do accounting in my sleep - which is a good thing since it puts me to sleep, but my attitude about it affects my decisions about it, as well as the other decisions that I will have to make throughout this journey. I also have to start understanding other people's personal attitude about money, because it will affect how they do business and conduct other affairs in their life.

I am still amazed how much power people allow money to have over their lives. I am choosing to change so that I can expand the opportunities in front of me, but I promise that unlike other people I have seen in this world, I will never become a slave to my bank account.