A New beginning!

This man changed my life, not only my Business but my Attitude.

A New Year often reminds us that we are doing waaaay too much. The most important thing to do when you have hit the burnout wall is to focus on self-care. If you’ve been working on chasing and building your dreams, you probably have had tunnel vision for quite some time and left your self-care far behind you. My top 2 Remedies are:

1. PLAY – I just returned from 4 days laughing 24/7 with 4 GrandKids ages 5 – 18!
2. AEROBIC Exercise – for me it’s running on the beach and seaside hilly trails. It really doesn’t matter what type of aerobic exercise you do – just keep trying until you find the one you ENJOY!

We asked “What is the best way to make sure your social media content stays on-brand, no matter which social media site you’re currently posting on?”

Here’s what Young Entrepreneur Council community members advise:

Assign 1 Person to Handle Social Media
Having one person handle all of your social media is the best way to make it consistent. It’s much harder to fit the pieces together later through copy or edits.

Use the Same Version of Your Logo on All Your Profile Pictures
We have logos for a reason — to make our brand recognizable anywhere, anytime. So even if someone scrolls right past your post, your business is still getting exposure every time you post.

Schedule Posts in Advance
Many social Media sites allow you to Schedule Posts so you can easily post on a regular basis. If you are just posting on the fly, it can result in a mix of content that drifts off into other lanes.

Keep Every Post Brand-Focused
Know what your brand stands for and include that in every post. Think about that before you post anything, including sharing content from others like users. Always include some context that ties it back to your brand. 

My Suggestion: ALWAYS use an Image
Google your topic and you’ll easily find a free one. Also do some research to see what size is best for each platform. Sara Ohara, WordPress Websites and Training

Thanks for your Wisdom Small Business Trends

The first time I realized that technology has a downside was in 2015. Like almost everybody else, I had a smartphone and thought it was improving my productivity.

By that time, I was already using a smartphone for several years. In the beginning, I only used my device when I needed it—to make calls, send messages, navigate with Google Maps, check the weather forecast, and answer emails when I was on the road.

But gradually, I went from “using my phone when I need it” to “using my phone all the time.”

And that, my friend, is dangerous. Why?

Well, if you don’t watch it, your phone will control you, instead of the other way around. Remember that the purpose of a smartphone, or technology in general, is to SERVE us — not to control our lives.

How do I know technology is using me? And it’s no longer the other way around?

Let me ask you a few questions:

• • Do you grab your phone first thing in the morning?
  • Do you “check” your social media apps multiple times a day?
  • Do you sometimes think, “WHAT? Did I really spend 2 hours on Instagram?” (replace Instagram with your app/site of choice; YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, and so forth)
  • Do you use your phone on the toilet?
  • Do you listen to podcasts all day long?
  • Do you get bored when you’re alone?

If you answered “yes” to any one of those questions, you’re getting used by technology way more than you think. And yes, that does sound disgusting. Nobody wants to be used.

But shouldn’t technology make us more productive?

Yes, it still makes us more productive. Even with its downsides, technology has made the world a better place. I’m not going to argue with that. But like all good things, there is a point of diminishing returns.

The point of diminishing returns is when technology starts to take over our lives. At that point, you’re no longer in control. And that’s when it has a negative impact on your life.

Everybody knows that drinking too much will turn you into an alcoholic. But nobody says the same thing about using technology.

It’s not helpful to check your phone 200 times a day. You’re not being productive when you’re watching random YouTube videos for 3 hours a day. And so forth.

I’m getting tired of being used by technology. How do I stop it?

Increasingly more people are aware of the problems that technology causes. At some point, we all get tired of being connected 24 hours a day. Our brains can’t handle that kind of pressure.

I recently read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I also interviewed him on my podcast about removing digital distractions from our lives. If you want to change your behavior, it’s better to change your whole lifestyle at once. He writes:

“In my experience, gradually changing your habits one at a time doesn’t work well — the engineered attraction of the attention economy, combined with the friction of convenience, will diminish your inertia until you backslide toward where you started. I recommend instead a rapid transformation—something that occurs in a short period of time and is executed with enough conviction that the results are likely to stick. I call the particular rapid process I have in mind the digital declutter.”

I’ve experienced the same. When you make small changes, it’s easy to fall back to your old behavior. In the past, I’ve done something similar to Cal Newport’s digital declutter process.

And after reading his book, I did the same thing again. I got rid of ALL distracting technology and apps. I also stopped consuming content, except for reading books. One of the things that I regularly do is to block distracting sites on my computer when I work.

I use an app called SelfControl for Mac (FocusMe is the Windows alternative). But I only turned the app on when I was doing focused work like writing. But during the digital declutter, I turned on the app the whole day.

Within days, I felt more focused. The goal of the digital declutter process is to rebuild your digital life from scratch. And after three weeks, I felt more in control of my digital behavior again.

Digital declutter makes us more aware

Nobody is saying you should remove technology from your life forever. See this as starting with a clean slate. I regularly ask myself: What technology actually improves my life?

Let’s be honest. You can learn a lot from listening to podcasts. The same is true for many YouTube videos. Plus, having email on your phone makes life a lot easier when you’re traveling since you don’t have to bring a laptop.

That’s why I still use technology—and appreciate that it’s here. The thing is that every time I go to such a digital declutter process, I’m more aware of how I USE technology.

The truth is that we’re all adapting to modern day life. And because everything moves so fast, WE need to move fast as well. But if we don’t take the time to process everything and ask ourselves “What’s the purpose of this piece of technology?” We risk getting lost in a digital world that can eat you up alive.

So before you pop out your phone to move on to the next article, podcast, video, or social network, ask yourself: What’s the use?

Think more about the WHY behind everything. That’s the only way we can live a purposeful life.

Thanks Darius Foroux for your Wisdom

Eating a salad at your desk may not be the most memorable kind of lunch, but at least you can get some work done. In France, that’s forbidden.

The French labor code prohibits workers from eating lunch in the workplace. The solo work lunch is also shunned in a culture that prizes a change of pace — and scenery — during the midday meal.

But the French lunch break wasn’t always about bistros, leisurely meals and 90 minutes of amiable conversation. Many workers originally rejected the idea of leaving the workplace at all.

So what did it take for the French to finally take a break?

It turns out that the French lunch break was born in the 1890’s during a public health crisis and was nearly killed in another. Read more HERE.

These days, it’s a standard sight to see workplaces shut their doors and bistros and restaurants swell with lunchtime patrons. The separation between work and lunch is almost sacrosanct.

Ninety minutes, free-flowing conversation, perhaps a glass of wine — by the time the COVID-19 pandemic reached France, the familiar rhythms of the French lunch break had long been established.

Martin Bruegel insists “People are just simply happier when they take some downtime during the workday,” he says. “It’s good for their well-being.” The lunch break is not just good for individuals or the companies they work for. It’s good for society.

Bruegel says “People who eat together are able to talk about issues, and they can work out tensions or different opinions. They create a culture in which having different points of view is possible.”

Although COVID stopped the French from taking lunch breaks for a while most are going back to the daily ritual of a shared meal, carving out a space that they get to make their own, even as they do it together.

Whether or not you realize it turns out that talking to yourself is actually a quality of highly successful people.

In the book “Think and Grow Rich,” Napoleon Hill, who spent 25 years studying the qualities of highly successful people, talks about how having faith in yourself is one of the most powerful of all the major positive emotions a person can develop.

But, the question is, how do you develop faith if you don’t yet have it?

Well, it’s simple. You develop faith through self talk by using affirmations.

Hill says, “Repetition of affirmations to your subconscious mind is the only known method of voluntary development of the emotion of faith.”

Hill goes on to say, “It is a well-known fact that one comes to believe whatever one repeats to one’s self, whether the statement be true or false.”

This is why repeating affirmations to yourself are one of the most effective tools for quickly becoming the person you need to be to achieve everything you want in your life.

It’s no coincidence that successful individuals like Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Suze Orman, Muhammad Ali, Tony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey, and many more, have all used affirmations as a tool to help them on their journey to success.

Remember, we believe what we tell ourselves. So, if you don’t consciously design your daily affirmations to be more positive, then you will fail to develop the mindset that you need to take any area of your life to the next level.

How you talk to yourself on a daily basis will have a dramatic influence on your level of success in every area of your life, whether it’s happiness, health, finance, love, confidence, etc.

Thanks for your Wisdom Vincent Carlos

When we look at the habits and mindsets of people who always seem to be generating new ideas, who are consistently productive, and who produce at rates to which most of us could only aspire, we notice a few things in particular. Namely, these people are open to receiving new ideas, and to having theirs rejected. They don’t treat a “block” like the end of a career, and they don’t fear the idea of “running dry.”
In fact, it seems that they focus on what they can create and change, not what could potentially derail or stymie them. Here’s a rundown of the most important things highly prolific people do not FEAR:

1. Trying again.

The main thing that defines highly prolific people from those who only create occasionally is that they have a long-term goal in their minds. They are not afraid to try again, and their objective is to keep going, not to create one thing and let their credibility rest on it. Rather than accept defeat, they learn how to pivot, and what to reinvent.

2. Taking a Break

Highly prolific people understand that when you’re tired, overworked, and fresh out of ideas, that is not the time to try harder, it is the time to reset. If you don’t want to create, then don’t create. When you disengage and focus on other areas of your life that need attention, you will naturally come back to your work when the time is right – this time, refreshed and back in the flow.

3. Their ideas being not well received.

Being disagreed with is not the end of the world. Neither is being disliked, criticized or judged. In fact, the more adamantly you fear these things, the more you will prevent yourself from even trying in the first place. That’s why highly prolific people don’t rush to defend every single idea they come up with. They use other people’s reactions as litmus test: not as a judgment on their worth, but as feedback for what to create next.

4. Challenging the status quo.

Innovators don’t try to perfect what exists, they try to create what doesn’t yet. Overriding the status quo can often come with its fair share of resistance, envy and doubt, all of which is a natural, human response to the unknown. However, highly prolific people try to create what people don’t realize they want rather than perfect what they already have.

5. Being open to other people’s ideas.

Creative people are rarely ever lone wolves, though they can often appear that way. They may have come up with the original idea, but it takes a team of people brainstorming, developing and executing to see something fully into fruition. That’s why prolific people don’t insist that their ideas are the only ideas. They remain receptive to other people’s perspectives, especially those they may not have considered prior.

6. Being perfect all of the time.

If you are going to nit pick every single detail of your work, you will be wrapped up in the minutiae of it for the rest of your life. Perfectionism can be helpful to a small degree, but trying to make everything exactly as you envisioned it all of the time usually only holds you back. Highly prolific people don’t worry about everything being perfect as much as they worry about continuing to create even when it isn’t.

7. Not getting it right the first time.

Creativity is not about getting everything right the first time you do it (that’s the ego’s desire to appear talented or competent) it’s about not being afraid to keep trying again, even in the face of repeated failure.

8. Working overtime when something is starting to ‘flow’.

Highly prolific people are not afraid of breaking their routine, working over time and generally exerting the majority of their energy into something they can see is starting to flow. That’s how they take an idea to a concept to a project that gets off the ground.

9. Pivoting when something isn’t working.

Highly prolific people don’t get too attached to one creative idea over another. The fact is that when something isn’t working, you need to be able to let it go and try again. Don’t let sinking cost fallacy take over your brain and keep you working on something that isn’t going to go anywhere regardless.

10. Running out of ideas.

There are so many things to create, and an infinite number of ways to recreate and reinvent them. This fear comes from the idea that creativity is a non-renewable resource. In reality, creativity is a muscle: the more you use it, the better it gets .

11. A creative drought.

“Creative’s block” (a broader term for what’s often known as writer’s block) is, for the lack of more eloquent language, complete nonsense. It only occurs when we don’t know what we’re trying to do, or that we’re reaching and trying too hard. Creator’s block is not a sign that you are untalented or require more drive, it’s just your body and mind saying it’s time for a reset. It’s how you tell yourself that what you’re working on needs to be reimagined. It isn’t here to derail you, it’s a messenger to assist you.

Thanks for your Wisdom Brianna Wiest

According to a study done by Microsoft, we lose interest in just eight seconds. That means our attention span is less than that of a goldfish’s!

The battle for our mind is very real. Never before in history have we had so many different vehicles vying for our attention. Disney+, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok are just some of the heavy hitters out there and unfortunately for us, they are all very good at what they do.

The good news is we can fight back.

1. A Good Night’s Rest

Researchers have found that we need between seven and eight hours a night to operate at peak performance.

A good night’s sleep allows our body to reset itself; reducing stress and alleviating muscle wear. Our ability to focus increases and we are able to reduce our mistakes.

Solution: It isn’t rocket science – schedule your sleep as you would a meeting with an important client. It’s that important.

2. Dust Off Your Jogging Shoes

We have become a sedentary society spending an average of ten hours a day seated. Our body suffers as a result. To counter the effects sitting has on our body we need to move. It doesn’t have to be jogging, but we do need to get our blood pumping.

Most people fail when it comes to exercise because they try to do too much, too fast and simply give up. Play the long game.

Solution: Start with just five minutes of exercise a day. Everyone can find five minutes. Once the habit sticks, it’s easy enough to increase it to ten or twenty, but without the habit, your chance of success is low.

3. Nature is Your Friend

When it comes to natural ways to improve focus, nature is a winner. Too many of us go through our day simply moving from one screen to another.

Put your smartphone away, and get outside. Even just a short walk for 15 to 20 minutes can boost your concentration. Got a writer’s block? Same thing, get outside and simply enjoy nature. A short walk around the neighborhood or wandering through a park will do wonders to get your creative juices flowing. If you’re near a beach or river, even better.

Solution: Spend more time in nature. Here what happens to your brain when you walk in nature.

4. Tai Chi

Tai Chi is an ancient form of focusing the mind that includes body movement often described as “medication in motion.” This low-impact, slow-motion exercise challenges you to focus on your breathing and circular movements in which the muscles are never tensed.

Solution: If you’ve always wanted to give martial arts a try but want a lighter version, Tai Chi could be for you.

5. Meditation

We live in a world of noise. Meditation allows us to clear our minds.

Meditation isn’t for everyone. Maybe try yoga instead. In many ways yoga and meditation are intertwined. They both rely heavily on breathing exercises so if you have trouble sitting still, yoga is a better option for you.

Solution: Try adding a healthy dose of yoga or meditations activities to your daily life.

6. Improve Your Diet

Too many of us fail to invest the time to create a healthy diet conducive to our focus and productivity.

The key to living well is simply a more well-balanced diet. The breakdown of my seven lunches and seven dinners each week is usually 40% chicken, 30% fish, and 30% meat. And every meal comes with a variety of vegetables and fruit. Lastly, and most importantly, I rarely eat till I’m full.

Solution: You don’t need to go vegan; a well-balanced diet can work wonders to improve your focus.

Bottom Line

We just need to fight back! The 6 ways above will help you increase your focus naturally and boost productivity.

Thanks Adrian Shepherd for your Wisdom

You can find out more HERE

But once again, you get nothing. There may as well be no-one reading it.

So what’s the problem? It could be that your writing isn’t as strong as it needs to be. But there’s also a very good chance the problem isn’t your writing.

It’s your formatting.

Over the years I’ve reviewed dozens of different blog posts, and most of them were fairly well written. But some were really let down by poor post formatting: the post just didn’t look good.

If you’re not convinced that formatting matters, compare this screenshot…

… to this one.

These are two versions of the same Post. They both have exactly the same text. But I know which one I’d rather read.

Your readers are busy. They’re distracted. They want an easy, engaging read – not a daunting wall of text.

So what’s stopping you from getting the formatting right? Maybe one of these sounds like you:

• You haven’t really thought about it before. You’re a writer, not a designer, and it never occurred to you to bother with formatting.
• You’ve got a vague idea that formatting matters, but you’re not really sure how to go about doing it. What if you make your post look worse rather than better?
• You haven’t figured out how to use the formatting features built into WordPress.

I’m going to take you through four key formatting features you can use straight away to make your posts more readable. And don’t worry. I’m definitely a words person and even I can manage these.

#1: Short Paragraphs

Plenty of white space helps make your post readable. White space is all the stuff around the words. If you have short paragraphs (or lists, which we’ll come to later), you’ll already have extra space where your words can breathe.

There’s no absolute rule on how long is too long for a paragraph. But if it goes over four or five lines, you may want to consider splitting it.

#2: Subheadings

I like to think of subheadings as signposts that help orient readers within my post. Almost any post can be broken up into subsections, and each one should have a clear (and hopefully enticing) subheading.

While it helps readers who are skimming for information, it’s also useful for readers who are reading your entire post. Subheadings prevent them from feeling lost or confused along the way.

I like to use ALL CAPS for my subheadings, but you might prefer to capitalize only the first word of the subheading. Just make sure you’re consistent.

Before

After

#3: Bold Text

Bold text is a great way to call attention to a key point or important sentence. But it’s easy to overuse, and I suggest bolding only one or two sentences per subsection (depending how long your subsections are).

Some bloggers use colored text instead of bold text. This can work if it fits with your branding, but it can also look a bit amateurish and distracting.

Tip: Try to avoid bolding only one or two words – it can make your text look choppy. I also tend to bold only the first sentence of a paragraph. Having a bold sentence in the middle or at the end of a paragraph can also look a bit odd.

#4: Lists, and Using Bullet Points

See my Post about lists HERE

Thanks for your Wisdom Ali Luke