“Just as surely as building a powerful brand is the key to differentiating a product in the marketplace and thus building a successful business, so creating a strong personal brand is the key to differentiating yourself from your competitors, thereby ensuring your own success as well as that of your business.
“Your personal brand determines how people respond to you, whether they listen to you, buy from you, how much they buy, what they are willing to pay, and so on.”
changing career, finding new vocation, products for entrepreneurs, career development products, small business products, characteristics of entrepreneurs, psychology of entrepreneurs
Jonathan Mead and Steve Pavlina write about the kinds of attitudes, mindsets and self-limiting beliefs toward work – and our abilities – that may keep us from even attempting an entrepreneurial dream.
Mead writes:
“So many people don’t do what they love for a living, because they think they don’t deserve it. It’s more important for them to sacrifice and deliver value to others, than it is to value themselves.
“That’s the typical puritanical mindset. Work for others’ benefit, get a paycheck (to make it seem like you really got something out of it), then suck it up. This is how this paradigm works:
“Work to deliver someone else value, while doing something that we don’t enjoy (self-sacrifice).
“Get a paycheck, and then trick ourselves into believing that the paycheck is enough to make up for the fact that we don’t care much for what we do.
Recently, Valerie Young, Dreamer in Residence at ChangingCourse.com joined Yanik Silver and Maverick Business Adventures on an extreme business trip complete with cliff hanging, rock climbing and white water rafting.
Maverick Business Adventures is an exclusive club for successful entrepreneurs. They organize networking adventures where members go on some amazing adventures while sharing their vast accumulated knowledge and resources with each other, but also give back to their community by helping potentially at risk kids become successful too.
An added bonus of being part of the Maverick group is the opportunity to talk and learn from fellow entrepreneurs. On a recent trip to Aspen, Valerie Young took this opportunity to ask some of these extremely successful individuals to offer their advice for changing course.
You’ll hear first hand from successful entreprenuers like like Terry Wygal from FireYourBossIn90DaysOrLess.com, Katheryn Tully who founded FinancialTimes.com, Tim Warren of AdventureBizSuccess.com and TravelBusinessSuccess.com, Carrie Wilkerson of Barefoot-Executive.com, and many more share their best nuggets of advice with you.
Go to Changing Course to get your free report on how you can make a career change that lets you work from home or wherever you like.
Kendall SummerHawk is a Professional Certified Coach, and “an expert in business coaching, branding, and marketing for self-employment success.”
She emphasizes how important it is to connect our core values and authentic personality with any marketing approaches, particularly for such a personal business as coaching.
“Each of us has a bigger ‘WHY’ that motivates us to do what we do,” she notes. “But when you speak or write about client results, do you tie in those results to your bigger why? If not, you’re missing out on helping your listener or reader link practical results with an authentic, compelling emotion.
“For example, my bigger ‘why’ is because I want people to love who they are and what they do. That’s my Soul’s Divine Purpose™. I link that to the marketing message of ‘putting more money in your purse.’”
In another article, she asks, “What part of your personality do you most often try to hide?
“Quirky sense of humor? Maybe your love of risky sports like hang-gliding over mountain peaks, or you’re known for being bold and ahead of the pack. Or perhaps you secretly channel spirit guides but fear your corporate clients finding out.
“Whatever personality trait you possess that got you in trouble when you were a kid in school is probably precisely the one that needs to show up as a key branding component in your marketing.”
>> Get her programs for Consultants, Speakers, Coaches, and Small Business Owners, including the CD series “How to Charge What You’re Worth and Get It!” at kendallsummerhawk.com.
products for entrepreneurs, career development products, small business products, marketing for entrepreneurs
In this video, Laura West of the Center for Joyful Business “shares with solo entrpreneurs and small business owners one of her marketing and mindset success strategies to shift your energy to support your business.”
In her article 7 Money Mindset Shifts, she describes more ideas to support peak personal performance in business, including the concept of the “Money Mindset Shift #1 – Everything is a Spiritual Exchange” :
“This can be a huge powerful shift for you and your business,” she writes. “I know as a joyful business owner you already have a business based on your core values of what’s important to you. This takes this belief and resulting action to a deeper place.
“Look at everything as a spiritual exchange of energy. In this article, there is energy coming through the words and my intention, and the energy with which it was written.
“This is true for you everywhere…with each client communication, each business card you receive, each teleclass or keynote program you give – you are giving out energy and it is being received whether the recipient is aware of the energy exchange consciously or just underneath.
In another of her articles, Systems = Freedom!, she explains how “Creating Systems Gives You Valuable Creative Time.”
“One of the most common complaints I hear from clients is they don’t have enough time to write the article, the book or the create their new information product.
“When you create systems for those things you do over and over again, you free up time which you can use for getting those creative projects done.”
She adds, “You want to be doing work that keeps your energy flowing!”
She also details how Systems Give You More Time for “Focus and Flow” : “As a busy mom-preneur who does most of my work from the bus pickup time to the bus dropoff time… this morning time is invaluable to me in helping me get so much done in a few short hours.”
Laura Howard West is a certified professional coach, writer, speaker and the President and Chief Creative Officer of The Center for Joyful Business.
business self improvement, peak personal performance, products for entrepreneurs, career development products, small business products, psychology of entrepreneurs
Pamela Slim is a coach and author of Escape from Cubicle Nation.
In her Guest post The Excuses People Use To Stay at a Job she talks about some of the inner, emotional aspects of following our entrepreneurial urges:
“Trying to wait until you have enough courage to start your business is fighting the way your brain is wired. One of the deepest layers of the human brain is a neural structure that evolved in early vertebrates.
“It is wrapped around the cortex of your brain and blasts signals on a regular basis intended to keep you fed and out of danger.
“This ‘lizard brain’ will scream at you all day when you are considering doing something new like starting a business :
* “You don’t have enough experience for anyone to take you seriously as a consultant!”
* “If you leave your stable job to go out on your own, you will live in a van down by the river!”
* “You have no idea what you are doing and when you show your ideas in public for the first time, people will mock and criticize you!”
“Instead of trying to suppress these lizard fears, learn from them.”
changing career, finding new vocation, products for entrepreneurs, career development products, small business products, characteristics of entrepreneurs, psychology of entrepreneurs
“Just as surely as building a powerful brand is the key to differentiating a product in the marketplace and thus building a successful business, so creating a strong personal brand is the key to differentiating yourself from your competitors, thereby ensuring your own success as well as that of your business.
“So many people don’t do what they love for a living, because they think they don’t deserve it. It’s more important for them to sacrifice and deliver value to others, than it is to value themselves.
Kendall SummerHawk is a Professional Certified Coach, and “an expert in business coaching, branding, and marketing for self-employment success.”
Pamela Slim is a coach and author of Escape from Cubicle Nation.
