Founder/President - Kathy Caprino
I’m thrilled that Forbes.com in partnership with 85 Broads published my piece today on “Mandating Women at the Leadership Table: Why the Time is Now.”
This issue is vitally important to American businesses and to both men and women. I’d be so grateful for your comments on the Forbes.com piece. PLEASE! Add your voice to the conversation. Let’s be heard!
Thanks so much for your contributions.
A significant number of my awesome coaching and consulting colleagues and friends across the country have shared with me in the past year that they’ve hired outside marketing help with disappointing (or disastrous) results. Despite finding “experts” who seem to have good reputations and produce solid results for others, my colleagues found that the marketing advice they received simply wasn’t effective or helpful.
Curious as to deeper reasons behind the lack of efficacy of this marketing help, I asked my friends some questions about it:
If the answer to any of these questions was “no,” it turns out that the marketing advice may have been “sound,” but it wasn’t RIGHT for them.
The process of finding the right marketing support provider is exactly the same as going about finding the right doctor, financial consultant, virtual assistant, or other support professional. It’s not enough that the individual has helped others, or has a “good reputation,” or seems successful. There are skillions of folks who fit that bill.
What does matter is that they are the right fit for you – that they are empowered supporters of you, and understand what you want, why you want it, and how you want to go about getting it. It’s about process here, not just about content.
Further, it’s critical that you like and trust your helper. If you follow the advice of someone you don’t like or respect, you subconsciously sabotage yourself and limit your success. You’re telling yourself that despite this person feeling “off” to you, they must know better than you, and that you don’t know enough. That core self-message undermines the entire outcome of what you’re trying to achieve – bringing about great, new aligned clients and customers whom you wish to serve.
How to Choose the Right Helper for You
Here are several key criteria that must be met in order for a marketing consultant or coach to be a good fit and to give you more than you pay for. If you want to be pleased with the outcome, and find enlivening marketing support that helps you achieve the outcomes you want in ways that are aligned with who you are, ask yourself:
Does the provider:
Finally, does it feel “right” and “good” to work with this individual? Does s/he empower you, or bring you down?
Spending money wisely is a hallmark of successful individuals and business owners. Please…think carefully before investing in outside support. Make sure that your service providers are capable of helping you be all you wish to be in the world. Feel free to say “no” when it’s not working. Bring up your concerns and ask for change or resolution. If you don’t get want you need, be prepared to walk away from the relationship when you sense that this partnership is not for you or for your highest good. Don’t wait to ask for what you know you need and want.
Are you spending money today in a support relationship that isn’t supportive? Might today be the day to say “no more?”
I saw a neat HARO (@helpareporter) query today asking for the top things folks love best about running their own small businesses. It felt SO good to think about this question, and to bring again to my heart and mind my gratitude for what Ellia Communications allows for me in my life.
Here’s my Top Ten list of what I love about running a small business:
1) Making a Difference: I can make a difference in a way that matters to me – I’m not constrained by others’ agendas
2) Leadership: I can lead and manage following my own vision, priorities, values and standards of integrity – not someone else’s
3) Creativity: I can create and deliver products and programs that are authentic, useful and need-based, and get them to market very quickly (no red tape)
4) Authenticity: There are zero politics in my world now – I work only with people, partners and organizations that are aligned with my mission and purpose
5) Control: I can say “NO” and “YES! “as I want and need to – I’m in control of my schedule, my endeavors, my professional life
6) Management: I can hire and collaborate with exactly the folks I want to be in association with– there are no other parties to cater to in my decisions
7) Freedom of Speech: I can speak freely (hallelujah!), use my own voice and share honest views and perspectives without worrying about repercussions
8) Balance: I achieve much greater work-life balance because I set my own priorities, which include time with my family
9) Clarity – I know who I am professionally and where I’m going, with much greater clarity and focus than I achieved when working for others or larger businesses
10) Passion, Power, Purpose – My own small business allows me to embrace everything that matters to me, and furthers me on my path of helping others reclaim their passion, power, and purpose.
Yes, I’ve made some big mistakes and there have been deep challenges. But I love Ellia Communications and am grateful for everything it makes possible for me.
What do you LOVE about running your small business? Let’s hear it!
This week, I had a fabulous conversation with Starla Sireno – Founder of www.Fearlessnessinc.com and the Fearless Women Entrepreneur Network – an empowering forum for women entrepreneurs in San Francisco and beyond, providing the knowledge and support women need to become fearless entrepreneurs.
Starla and I both found so much validation and confirmation in sharing our honest and frank views about the coaching business, entrepreneurship, women’s challenges in launching their ventures to great success, and the onslaught of false information that is damaging to thousands of women today.
I realized in speaking with Starla that I’ve officially had it with the thousands of false and empty promises I keep hearing from hundreds of coaching marketers and product developers for coaches, and organizations that train beginning coaches. Their talk is SO full of misleading guidance, that it’s time to speak out.
I’m sharing below what I know to be true about the coaching business, based on not only my personal experience, but also my honest and authentic conversations and connections with hundreds of coaches nationwide and in other countries.
*Note: The following information excludes reference to executive and business coaches who are paid by an organization, not by individuals. There are exceptions to the statements that follow, but not many, and only under special conditions:
What I know to be true about coaching:
1) “Coaching” per se doesn’t sell. People still don’t know what coaching is or what it delivers. To get new clients and continually fill a pipeline to make a good living, you must promote and market the substantial benefits and outcomes you deliver, not sell “coaching”
2) Your delivered outcomes must be highly compelling. The benefits and outcomes you deliver through coaching must be compelling and highly valuable in the eyes of your clients, not yours. For people to part with their money today, you must address a pain point that has to be resolved, or a benefit that is deeply coveted, in the client’s opinion.
3) Don’t count on workshops for your living. You won’t make any money running workshops, selling passive income products, or engaging in affiliate relationships if you don’t have a large enough community (in the multiple thousands) to sell to.
4) The strength of your brand matters. With the massive influx of data and information today, you need a compelling brand and powerful unique positioning, website and other marketing materials that work, to stand out and help you attract new clients and customers — unless you only want to work only through word-of-mouth.
5) You need a large platform or community in order to sell books. Creating books and e-books in general won’t make you money either – again unless you have thousands of potential customers within your reach. Books (and only well-developed ones that offer something of value) will, however, generate other benefits for you (credibility, recognition, exposure, a new affordable way to reach people, etc.).
6) Hundreds of coaches nationwide are not making it. The median annual salary for a life coach is $30,000 – and many more coaches make much less than that. If you want a bigger income, you must embrace a different business model that includes not just one-on-one coaching but also other high-quality and useful services, products and programs.
7) Publishers will be interested in your book only when you command significant attention. Publishers won’t consider publishing your book unless you have a sizable platform and community (in the many multiple thousands) and can command attention, through traditional or social media, or through others means.
8) Publicity doesn’t have the financial impact you think it does. National publicity is awesome to get, but it doesn’t necessarily move any important needle in your business financials – including in your revenue, clients, customers or speaking fees. Don’t chase publicity for publicity’s sake.
9) Paid speaking gigs don’t come easy. If you want to be a paid speaker, it takes a great deal of training, powerfully-crafted programs, credibility, in-depth experience, and hard-earned knowledge about how to engage, inform, and enliven an audience. All of that takes years. Don’t expect high fees (or fees at all) as a beginning speaker.
10) Coaching is NOT a quick and lucrative way out to your corporate job.
DON’T engage in a coaching practice if you think it’s an easy, profitable way to run from your corporate life. And please don’t launch a coaching or consulting practice (or other business) if you aren’t ready to focus on and continually attend to the business-building and marketing actions essential to creating a thriving business. If it’s contrary to your personality to go out and pursue business opportunities daily and promote your business with gusto and energy – then definitely think again.
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Coaching can be a very rewarding and exciting profession, but it takes time, energy, business and marketing know-how, sound investment, and an ongoing commitment to making it work. False promises about how easy it is to earn six figures, create compelling information products that sell, or attract clients who’ll flock to your door, are misleading at best, destructive at worst.
Some helpful TO-DO tips:
1) If you’re building a coaching practice, seek out reliable and highly respected coaching marketers and business-builders who understand the realities of the business and will share with you the core strategies they’ve used to overcome the inherent challenges.
2) Please be judicious in what you invest in outside help to develop your business. Don’t spend thousands of dollars on outside marketing help if there’s no way you can recoup that money within the year.
3) Find helpers who are strong role models whom you respect, and whose products and programs are of high quality.
4) Believe only the advice of people who want you to succeed as much as — if not more than – they want to fill their own pipelines.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks for real-life stories of successful coaches who have navigated powerfully through each of the above realities.
I’d love to hear from you. What else do coaching marketers and schools NOT tell you? Leave a comment!
Several years ago I conducted a yearlong research study with over 100 working women across the country about professional crises in women and how we can reclaim our lives to overcome them. I was astounded by the findings, and felt they were so universal and important for women, I wrote a book called Breakdown Breakthrough about these 12 crises, offering a three-step holistic model to break through these challenges once and for all.
Since the book came out in 2008, women from all over the country have written to me sharing sentiments such as, “You are writing to me, about me, and for me,” and “It’s as if you know exactly what I’m living and feeling!” My research shows that 9 out of 10 working women are experiencing at least one of these 12 “hidden” crises, and on average, women are experiencing three at the same time! And over half of these women don’t know what to do about it.
These 12 crises are not just tiny “bumps” in the road but full-out, serious challenges that are marked by chronic disempowered thinking and a serious lack of ability to move oneself forward in positive, powerful ways towards one’s goals and visions.
These 12 crises fall into four categories that represent how we relate to ourselves and the world.
These four levels depict the nature of our:
In general, each crisis is characterized by an “I can’t do this!” mantra, or some form of disempowered thinking, beliefs and actions. The crises include:
Entrepreneurial Women Face these Same Challenges
As I move forward with marketing consulting work for entrepreneurial women around the country, I’m finding that these same 12 crises are challenging women in their entrepreneurial ventures as well, and in the ways in which they view and run their businesses!
Entrepreneurial women are challenged on these same four levels:
Relationship With Themselves as Entrepreneurs
Key issue: “Do I have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, and am I “good” or “smart” enough to run this business?”
Relationship With Others
Key issue: “How can I forge a mutually-beneficial and supporting relationship with clients, customers, colleagues, and peers?”
Relationship With The World
Key issue: “Am I using my real gifts and talents in this business, and is my business providing a service to the world that I care about delivering, that others need and want?”
Relationship With the Higher Self
Key issue: “Does my business have a higher mission, vision and values that mean more to me than simply making money?”
If you’re an entrepreneurial woman and are challenged with any of the above issues in your life and work, please know that there is indeed help out there for you, and these are very common challenges that entrepreneurial women face. Also know that new thinking and actions can indeed shift you away from feeling disempowered and unable to tackle the issues at hand. You can do this, and you can do it well, loving your work and thriving in the process. But you have to take action, and a kind of action that is different from what you normally would engage in.
There are four key steps to overcoming these types of challenges:
1. Step Back – to gain a fresh, empowered perspective of your situation and what it is telling you about what needs to change
2. Let Go – of the thinking, actions, and behaviors that are keeping you stuck and holding you back
3. Say Yes! – to your compelling future visions of your business and of your success as an entrepreneurial woman.
4. Create It – create a S.M.A.R.T. plan with concrete, measurable goals and action steps – and find someone to help you become accountable – for moving on your way to achieving your visions of success and fulfillment.
Try this experiment! Pick up a copy of my book Breakdown Breakthrough and read it. (Commit to carving out a bit of time just for yourself over the holidays and read the chapters that really speak to you.) As you read the book and the powerful stories and advice presented by women who have transformed their lives and work, focus specifically on the concepts and information that elicit a feeing of “resistance” in you – ideas or words that make you say to yourself, “Oh, I really don’t want to look at that,” or “That’s not me!” Then take one, targeted action that will help you address the area you resist the most.
One of the most powerful concepts I learned in therapy training is, “What you resist, persists.” Watch closely what you resist, because resistance is a sign that you’re overly attached to one particular view or approach, and you’ve closed yourself off from openly exploring other avenues. I’ve found that the biggest breakthroughs, learning and growth come when we muster the courage to walk directly toward — and through — what we resist the most.
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Let me know how the experiment works! What is your deepest entrepreneurial struggle, and what did you learn when you mustered the courage to walk through your resistance to Say Yes! to yourself and your business.
Thank you for sharing, and wishing you many happy breakthroughs.
In working with hundreds of professional women these past several years, and launching my new Breakthrough Vision marketing and Prosperity Marketing Mindset programs, I’ve uncovered one key truth that was hidden to me in the past:
If your business model is flawed, no amount of great marketing will help you make the money you need and want.
Here’s a case study of what I mean, using my personal experience (I’m sharing here the real insider story about small business – something you’ll seldom hear from thousands of professed “experts,” many of whom aren’t making a living).
I launched a career coaching practice after long, hard research about what it takes to be successful, and earning the credentials, experiences and know-how to be respected and recognized in my field, and to rise above the competition.
I followed all the core marketing and business development strategies that one needs to achieve national recognition, and be considered an acclaimed “expert” as coach, author, and speaker.
Throughout this 9-year development process, I learned some hard-earned insights about myself as professional and about what it takes for me to be a successful entrepreneur, namely:
1) I LOVE helping women achieve breakthrough in their lives and work, relationships, and in themselves – to create life and work as they truly want it.
2) I LOVE to help a select group of women. Here are my personal criteria for folks I’ll work with as clients:
- Above the line thinkers (those who believe they are accountable, capable, responsible and ready to commit to reclaiming their lives)
- Ready and able to do the inner and out work of real change
- Able to invest time, money, energy in the process of life and career change
- Not expecting an easy fix or magic bullet
- Not viewing me as the answer to all their problems
- Able to make the financial investment of working with me, without it adding stress to their already stressed-out lives
3) I DON’T WANT to work (and to be paid) only on an hourly basis (even if my hourly wage is substantial, as a coach or consultant). I DO want to have several different avenues of generating revenue, including one-on-one work, group coaching, speaking engagements, marketing and business consulting, and successful passive-income coaching and marketing programs and streams — top programs and resources that help a wide global network of women, without my having to necessarily provide them with direct, in-person service. I’d like to make money while I sleep!
4) I’ve EMBRACED what it takes to identify exactly what I want to create, produce, and sell in terms of products and programs, and have a solid plan for building those
But You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
I was trucking along these past years building my coaching business, and everything I was doing felt and sounded “right,” until about six months ago, when I finally realized, “You don’t know what you don’t know!”
Here’s what I realized I hadn’t known, in developing my coaching business model:
The Big Flaw
There was a big flaw in my business model. The FLAWED part of my model is that, after years of serving as a career coach for women, I realized that my business is simply too limited in focus and too narrow in terms of the types of products and services I offered, to be financially successful at the level I wanted it to be.
My narrow service niche (career coaching for women) — which I deliberately and intentionally designed — has turned out to be too confining and limiting for me. Career coaching alone isn’t tapping into all the many marketing, business development, communications, and strategic planning skills, talents and experience that I’ve earned in my 20 years in the corporate arena. I had chucked out the idea of using those marketing and business development skills (or, more accurately, before now it hadn’t even occurred to me to utilize these skills as a consultant) because much of my corporate experience had been so emotionally unsatisfying for me that I threw the baby out with the bathwater! But doing so meant I was stopping myself from serving thousands more women whom I truly want to support, in ways I’m uniquely capable.
As a result, the financial and emotional success results of my business were limited for me as well.
Here are several core nuggets of learning from these past 10 years of shaping my new professional life and business:
1) Marketing won’t help you, when your business model is flawed
No matter how strong your marketing is – no matter how well planned or executed – if your business, services and focus are too narrow or only tap into a very limited group of clients/customers, then your rewards will be limited as well.
Scrutinize your business model intensively – look at the niche you serve and the products and services you offer – and make sure there’s sufficient breadth, depth, and reach to make the money you need to, each and every month.
2) Marketing also won’t help you in you don’t know how to run a business or manage money.
There are 5 “M’s” that are essential to running a successful business. They are:
Don’t skimp on mastering these “M’s” or getting outside help to do it. Running a business successfully is a large endeavor, and you can’t do it alone.
3) Determine ALL the talents you have that you want to use, and create a plan to utilize them all
For me, I’ve learned that there’s another vast and growing group — women entrepreneurs – whom I want to help and support, along with all the women in corporate America who are in urgent need of career transition assistance. I know now that I want to offer career growth support, as well as top-level strategic marketing, business planning and development, and financial guidance to help women entrepreneurs create their businesses to succeed and thrive, from the moment their business launches and onward. And it turns out I have the experience and skill to do it.
4) Make sure that the niche you want to serve is big enough, and has the ability to utilize, hire and pay you
Another truism in business – if you want to be profitable, you have to make money. This is NOT a volunteer endeavor, this is a business. So make sure that the target group you serve is big enough to support your business, and full of thousands of people whom you can reach, who are in the emotional, financial, and behavioral condition to utilize your products and services fully, and can pay for them easily, without strain.
5) Spend money on marketing your business only after you have clarity – After you’ve developed a sound business model, then and only then should you invest in marketing your business and branding. Don’t spend thousands of dollars on marketing before you know what you need to offer and provide.
6) Think bigger about yourself – Identifying a defined niche and serving it well is essential, but in doing that, don’t limit yourself to only one facet of yourself and your skills. Use all of your talents and skills, and expand to new dimensions that allow you to use ALL of who you are, for the greater good of your business, and for the world.
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There’s a great deal involved in creating a successful entrepreneurial venture, and crafting a long-term career that you love and that brings you success and fulfillment. But you can do it! Get help to master the 5 M’s of business, and build a strong model and foundation for your business, get help where you need it, and be open to learning what you don’t now know. Then, you’ll be well on your way.
Take a look at your business model – can you see where there might a tiny flaw or crack that’s holding back the success you long for? Share your comments here please!
In launching my new Breakthrough Vision Marketing division that offers women entrepreneurs, consultants, writers, and practitioners marketing support to achieve success in their ventures, I’ve discovered some telling statistics about the success entrepreneurial women have achieved thus far, and the challenges women continue to face in creating financial success in their endeavors.
Some key stats on women entrepreneurs:
About entrepreneurial ventures:
Are women different from men in entrepreneurial ventures? Research has shown there are differences in:
1) Attitude
2) Expectations for the business
3) Goals and Motivations (males more likely to start businesses to make money and achieve recognition; women emphasize balance with family)
4) Prior business experience
5) Risk tolerance (lower for women)
6) Active pursuit of ongoing business opportunities
7) Type of business formed (males are more likely to form more technologically-intensive businesses
The top challenges for women entrepreneurs are:
1) Financial Planning experience and focus
2) Thinking big enough to delegate, hire, and grow (giving up complete control and fearing what growth means)
3) Overcoming reluctance to self promote
Five Step Plan to a Successful Entrepreneurial Venture
In reviewing the research available on entrepreneurial success for women, and in thinking about the research I’ve conducted over the past six years on the 12 hidden crises working women face today, I believe there are 5 core areas that are vitally important for entrepreneurial women to master. If women (and men) ignore these areas in their businesses, failure is far more likely:
Focus on the 5 “M’s”
(Click here for a look at my recent interview on News 12 CT on the “5 M’s” for Women’s Entrepreneurial Success).
Step 1: MANAGEMENT - Know What’s Required to Manage Your Business Successfully
The terrific book The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber talks about three different roles that are essential in creating a successful business – Technician, Manager, and the Visionary. Often women who start their businesses do so because they have a love of the technical skill involved (baking, career coaching, software design, etc.) and they make the fatal assumption that having an understanding the technical aspects of the business is the same as knowing how to run the business. These are completely different skill sets, and you must extricate yourself from a sole focus on the technical service (being “in” the business””) and focus more “on” the business – what’s involved in building it to the level you want it.
Key tactic – Focus more time “on” the business than “in” the business. Develop a sound business plan with S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) goals and strategies that will help you get your business to the next level.
Step 2: MONEY – Get Empowered with Money, Financial Planning and Budgeting
Many women entrepreneurs start a business with little understanding of the financial investment required, the financial planning steps necessary to build success, or how long it will take to make a business profitable. The first key step is to gain complete control of your finances – first personally, then professionally – and plan how you will fund and grow your business. Get outside help in the form of an empowering financial consultant and accountant to advise you. Don’t try to do this alone – gain an outside perspective about your money, and funding of the business. In general, you need a reserve of money for two full years while you launch a business, as most likely you won’t see profits until after several years. Many people fail to plan for how long it takes for a business to be profitable.
Key tactic: Create a strong budget and financial plan for your business that you monitor and assess vigilantly, on a monthly basis, with key milestones. Find an empowered outside financial consultant and accountant who come highly recommend to you by other empowered and successful women entrepreneurs to help.
Step 3: MARKETING – Understand the New Rules of Marketing
The world has changed. Marketing is no longer about hawking your services or wares to a group of people who are unknown to you (cold calling, direct mail to unsolicited names, etc). It’s about building trust and credibility, and developing relationships through authentic connection and engagement, over time.
People do business today with people they know, like, and trust.
Key tactic: Create a multi-pronged marketing strategy that builds relationships, trust, and credibility over time with your potential customers and clients. Serve them in different ways and means that allow customers/clients to connect with you at various levels, price points, and engagement entry points. Then and only then will they buy or do business with you, when the time is right for them.
Step 3: Mastery – Master an understanding of what’s required to succeed in the various aspects of the business.
There are many different dimensions that must be mastered to run a successful entrepreneurial venture, including:
- Financial planning
- Accounting
- Systems
- Advertising/Marketing
- Research
- Product development
- Pricing
- Services/packages/products
- Human resources/staffing
- Sales
- Business Development
In areas in which you are unfamiliar or uncomfortable, you must reach out and get help or hire it.
Key tactic: Connect with resources that support women entrepreneurs, such as Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, SCORE, Small Business Administration, CT Women’s Business Development Center – there are scores of affordable sources of help in our area to assist you in building a strong foundation for your business. Don’t wait until it’s too late to get the help you need.
Step 5: MISSION: Find your passion and your calling in this work
It’s a hero’s journey to become a successful entrepreneur or solopreneur and have the staying power and energy to make it work over several years when the going is toughest. There has to be compelling mission behind your work and a calling to be of service, and to do it well — and make a profit in the process. This is not a volunteer endeavor – this is a business that you wish to become highly profitable and lucrative – so that you can have the largest impact possible. And you must know your core, competitive advantage – what makes your business different and how it stands out from the rest – and communicate that powerfully in all you do. If you’re not passionate about this work, think again about launching your business.
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Think about your mastery of the “5 M’s.” Are you focused on these areas? What areas do you feel most challenged in? You’re not alone – we all struggle with areas outside of our comfort zones.
Do you feel confident that you have the skills and expertise to take your business to the next level? If not, don’t wait to get the help you need and want. Knowing when we need help — and taking empowered action to get it — is the critical difference between achieving the success you want, and letting your potential slip through your fingers.
In the past year, I’ve spoken and worked directly with hundreds of women entrepreneurs, executives, consultants and small business owners who are, as I was at one time, in complete denial about their money situation. They know they’re not earning nearly enough or they’re spending too much, and money is slipping through their hands, but that’s as far as their recognition of the problem goes.
In short, their heads are deep in the sand about their money relationship. They’re working hard to ignore the obvious – the inevitable misery that will come unless they change directions, and fast.
How can you tell if you’re in denial about your money situation?
Here are 7 glaring signs that you’re in money trouble:
1. You can’t pay your monthly mortgage or your rent without tapping into savings, retirement, home equity loans or other funds.
2. You are using your credit cards each month to buy essentials such as food, clothes, and gas.
3. Your small business, consultancy or private practice is losing money each and every month, and despite your valiant efforts, nothing you do is changing that fact.
4. All the ways you’ve made money in the past don’t work now.
5. You don’t have a Plan B in the event your Plan A fails, and you don’t have the necessary benchmarks and signposts to tell you it’s time to change course.
6. You’re hanging on by a thread to your “Build it and They Will Come” mentality, but they’re not coming.
7. Someone you love and respect has been telling you over and over that you’re in denial and things must change, but you’ve ignored them or argued against them bitterly
Do any of the above sound like your situation? If so, PLEASE act now. Don’t wait another day. Your money situation simply will not improve unless you do things very differently, starting today.
What should you do differently?
I’ve just read a terrific book called Life! by Design (highly recommended) by Tom Ferry– a well-known success coach and motivational leader — and he outlines 6 steps to changing your life and “living by design” which I think apply perfectly to changing your money situation. These are steps I explore with all my clients as well.
These six vital steps are:
1. Wake up from your coma – be aware of the key areas in your life that need attention today
2. Make the choice to change your life
3. Create your life by Design
4. Do the things that bring you power
5. Practice visualizing yourself already there, in possession of what you want
6. Create structure and accountability by telling others around you about your plans and goals
I know from experience that in order for your money situation to change you must wake up to the severity of it, and commit to changing your situation by taking new empowered actions that will change your course. To do things differently, you need a new, fresh perspective that includes concrete, practical, and effective support, know-how, and help.
And yes, you can do this, despite the negative stories you’ve told yourself that you don’t have what it takes. I know you do have what it takes to revise your money situation — you wouldn’t be reading this information if you didn’t have access to the necessary resources, courage, faith and resolve to make this important life change. The energy of money is pervasive in our culture – there’s no escaping it. In this lifetime, you’re being called to empower yourself so that money will flow in your life, and support you as you flow with it.
The problem of money breakdown in women is so enormous today that I’ve committed myself to be an active part of the solution. I’m excited to share that I’m launching this Fall a new marketing and communications consultancy branch to my business Ellia Communications, designed to help women entrepreneurs, executives, consultants and private practitioners step up to their highest visions in their work by find the right marketing, communications, and business planning strategies to support their empowered goals. Stay tuned for more on that!
In the meantime, come for a specialized reading about your financial situation as it pertains to your career, small business or practice. Call me for a Private Career Consultation. I’ll help you see where you’re blocked around money, and support you to begin taking new steps that will release you from your financial traps. Also, check out my book Breakdown Breakthrough, Chapter 10: Escaping Financial Traps (or write me at kathy@elliacommunications.com for a free chapter download).
I’d love nothing better than to help you emerge from your financial woes so you can be all you wish to be in this life and in your work.
You’re ready for this new step, and so is your life!
When we’re facing what feel like insurmountable challenges in our work or life, it’s vitally important to go back to basics – to purify, shift what isn’t working, re-focus, and commit 3000% to what you care about achieving.
In running my own small business through extreme times of hardship and recession, and helping others get what they want in their careers, I’ve returned to basics myself, and reconnected with the three essential ingredients that lead to success. They’re powerful and they work.
Without these, you might find success but it’ll be a far bumpier ride with some agonizing detours. Here’s what’s needed to reinvent your life and career, and also to launch a new business endeavor successfully:
Intensive Focus
Someone recently asked me, “What are you – a coach, author, writer, blogger, speaker, workshop leader…what?!” The question was meant to remind me of my need to focus intently on the area that I most want to grow – for me, that’s my one-on-one coaching practice. Sure, we can do several important things at once. However, spreading ourselves too thin too often creates a dilution effect in our strength, time, and ability to build what we care about most. Figure out what you want most, and focus intensively with passion and power on that for several months, and watch what happens.
Generating Something from Nothing
In intensely challenging times like these, all around us we see despair, confusion and a lack of hope and energy. It’s contagious. We also see businesses drying up before our eyes. It’s scary indeed. But success comes from being your own source of positive energy, from finding a way to internally generate your own authentic enthusiasm, energy, and excitement about what you do, even when outside forces are pushing against you.
My young son came home last night and told me that his teacher asked the students this year to “be the change you want to see” (Gandhi’s beautiful request to the world). There’s such a keen nugget of truth in that for all of us – if we want success to come to us, we must first be success — embody and live the principles of the success you long for — and that will open the door to success. Energy attracts like energy.
Undying Commitment
To be successful in life and work, it takes commitment that doesn’t wane. It takes believing that you can create movement in your life and business, even when the waters are still and the 3D world is giving you evidence that you’re not going to make it to your destination.
But that doesn’t mean we should continue blindly, crashing into the rocks without modifying our course. It means that you know when you need help, and you ask for it before it’s too late. Commit yourself without doubt, without reservation, but do what’s required and be flexible. Realize that you have vulnerabilities and gaps in knowledge and ability, and work to fill them. Believe in yourself, get the outside help you need as soon as you need it, and keep growing and learning.
The fine line between success and failure is simply this – find a way to be success precisely when outside success is eluding you.
Question of the week: What do you do in times of turmoil to generate internal energy, enthusiasm, and light, just when the lights around you have gone out?
Wishing you many happy breakthroughs,
Kathy
After spending eight years reinventing myself from a corporate VP to an entrepreneur, women’s career and life coach, author, speaker and women’s work-life expert, I’ve made a good number of huge mistakes and missteps that have tripped me up, and at times, caused me to hang my head in my hands in despair. I don’t believe in regret, and I do think that each and every one of these lessons has made me stronger, more expansive, more connected to who I really am, and ultimately more confident in my abilities to direct my life with satisfaction and joy.
Here are what I’ve learned are the top five mistakes to avoid when in career transition and embarking on professional reinvention. I’ve lived through these mistakes myself, and am stronger for it…but you don’t have to!
Mistake #1:
Don’t have a “build it and they will come” mentality without utilizing powerful financial, professional, and business-building tactics and strategies
Don’t make the mistake of confusing wishful thinking with powerful strategies for moving forward. Certainly, faith and optimism are essential, but so are sound business and professional goals, plans and tactics, developed with deep know-how and expertise (your own or a great consulting partner), fueled by conscious intention and fierce commitment.
Mistake #2:
Don’t underestimate how long it will take you to build a successful new career
Leave your ego at the door when you’re evaluating how long full reinvention will take. Get advice from true experts in the field on the amount of time it will take to launch your new career, and make it very successful. It’s been said that becoming an expert in a field takes 10 years (I believe that’s true), and creating a self-sustaining small consulting practice often takes at least five years.
Mistake #3:
Don’t neglect having a Plan B, and moving to it when it’s time
In my book Breakdown, Breakthrough, I talk about what it takes to reinvent yourself. Often it requires that you simply refuse to let in (mentally, emotionally, or spiritually) the possibility that you will fail (see Chapter 11 about the amazing comedian Monique Marvez’s journey to hell and back). If you want something badly enough, most likely you’ll find a way to get it. However, if you have a family to support, and other critical financial and other obligations that you feel you must fulfill in life, then you need a Plan B that will get you through the tough financial times. Use Plan B to help you stay afloat while all along moving forward to your career dreams.
Mistake #4
Don’t wait too long to correct your course when you misstep or discover steps on your new path that are wrong for you
Set milestones (I will achieve this by this date, etc.), and review your progress frequently. If you’re way off course, you need to course-correct. Also, if where you’re going ends up feeling wrong, don’t keep going in the same direction. Don’t make yourself “wrong” for how you feel. Realize a change is necessary, and power up to make that change.
Mistake #5
Don’t forget: A fantastic life takes fantastic risks
There’s an enormous difference between a “job” and a “calling.” Neither is better or worse – it simply depends on what you want for your life, based on your values and priorities. If it’s a calling you wish to follow, know now that it will require everything you’ve got to give, and then some. Please don’t expect a fantastic life without understanding that you must risk a great deal to live your life on the cutting edge of experience.
Other lessons I’ve learned through my eight-year reinvention:
Wishing you a very happy reinvention!
