How to Gain Respect and Support for Yourself and Your Business
By: Olakunbi Korostensky

"He that respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce"
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

To gain respect from others, you have to respect yourself first. People will give you their undying respect as long as they recognize that you portray these 3 key attributes: trustworthiness, integrity and mindfulness. Because having these qualities demonstrates your level of consciousness and maturity.

When people respect you, it is easier to get their support. Getting people to give you continuous support, also requires you to apply yourself. Here are ways to help you make an impact on people whom you want respect and support from.

1.  Be exuberant and passionate about what you do and your life. People love those who exude vibrancy and passion about their life, particularly about what they do. Think of this: how stimulating do you find people who are forever talking about their "great ideas" and what they want to do and yet, never starting anything? Now that's a damper!

2.  Be unique and individualistic in your views and opinions. Are you unique and stand out with your own style and personality? If you are afraid to voice your opinion, and would rather fit in, I can assure you that it will be difficult to command respect from others. And without respect, no support. This doesn't mean that you have to constantly come up with new innovations. It simply implies that you don't suck up to people, just because you want validation. The best validation is to be true to yourself.

3.  Be a great listener. All great listeners are magnetic and charismatic. There is no charm that equals that of a good listener. Here is an experience I had in a restaurant with my husband not too long ago. I noticed that my husband was fascinated by a woman sitting a few tables away from us.

When I asked him what got him so fascinated about her. He replied that the woman was just fascinating to watch because she was listening so intently to her partner. Her eyes were on him, as she leaned forward, giving him her feedback, and at the same time not interrupting him. While she let him know that she was hearing him, she also held up her end of the conversation.

Then my husband said something remarkable: "She's the kind of woman I normally wouldn't pay attention to on the street, but while sitting there, listening and being interested the way she's doing now, makes her attractive."

True listening embodies careful attention, patience and honestly wanting to understand what the other person is saying. It also fosters good relationship.

4.  Be a life long student. Let people know that you're willing to learn from them and be genuine about it. Learning is growing, and growing is learning. You cannot learn all by yourself. To truly grow, you need others along the way. And when you show people your willingness and enthusiasm to learn from them, you'll be amazed how helpful and happy they will be to support you.

Be open and get to know people who are different from you. If you're interested in something, never be afraid to ask questions. You won't be ridiculed for showing real interest.

Do you know people who have stopped learning? Do you find them interesting to have around? Probably not!  So do yourself the favour of becoming an avid learner.

5.  Be authentic and reliable. Before you make a promise, make sure you can deliver. Keeping your word is very crucial to building trust and credibility. There's nothing more detrimental to your image, than having people believing in you and letting them down.

There are times you may genuinely try to fulfill your promise and it just doesn't work out. In that case, be honest about it and apologize. No one will hold that against you.

 6.  Be generous. A generous heart gives freely without having any expectactions. Don't try to buy people's loyalty or support. It will backfire on you!  You will reap more benefit and reward from giving truly from your heart, rather than being calculating. Even if you don't get something in return, the eternal laws of reciprocity will find a way to balance things out for you and give you your dues.

7.  Be direct and have boundaries. When you have something to say, just say it and let people know

where you stand. Letting people know what you want and don't want, liberates you and those around you.  Don't allow people to walk all over you. Let them know your boundaries.

For instance, to avoid lying about a proposition which may not interest you, an appropriate answer could be: "I'm sorry that doesn't work for me right now". This is a straightforward and truthful answer making it easy for you and for others to move on.

In conclusion, do you trust and respect yourself? If you don't, no one else will. This especially means be true to yourself and what you believe in. Just as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves".

By: Olakunbi Korostensky
Author Bio
Kunbi Korostensky, N.D., Psychotherapist and Certified Life Coach is specialised in supporting people in transition, turn the changes in their lives into invigorating joy and happiness. View her ebooklet Top 10 holistic Questions to Embrace Change and Grow at: www.embracingchanges.com/Books-and-Tools-to-facilitate-Changes.html  or email: kunbi@embracingchanges.com.

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How To Create A Business Based On Your Values 

 Your Inner Genius is the fullness and wholeness of you. We do not realize it but we tend to view the world and ourselves in a very fragmented manner. We are not used to seeing a full 360 degree perspective of our lives, talk less of our businesses.

Let me give you an example of daily fragmentation in your life. If I asked you an awkward question and said, "Who are you?" You would probably tell me your name. Upon further questioning, you would probably closely identify with what you do professionally. You might say, "I am a lawyer" or "I am a doctor" or "I am a corporate executive at such and such a company."

I practiced law for twenty years and I said it all the time: "I am a lawyer" and I still do say it often. But look at that term very closely. It means I am taking on the entire profession to describe myself. It would be more appropriate to say, "I practice law."

It is a simple way to describe yourself for the ease of communication and qualifying yourself. However, there is so much more to you than what you do. You are here on earth to create your own Unique Planetary Imprint. Another person with the same qualifications as you cannot do what you do. There is only one you and you have a distinctive purpose.

The way you discover what you are here on planet earth to do is by discovering those parts of yourself that you did not even know existed. From there, you create a business on what you value the most.

For you to be successful in business, you have to first understand who you are and what you are made of. As you understand, love and accept yourself, you will then be able to create a business from a place of strength rather than as a result of your weaknesses.

Let us go on a discovery journey of your Inner Genius. Your Inner Genius is the Intersection of five key components of you.

Your Left Brain:  All the knowledge and reasoning you have accumulated experientially and academically. This includes your organizational skills and  analytical skills. Many people create businesses solely from this part of their lives. However, the marketplace is changing. Many jobs are being outsourced so having a marketable skill is important but not enough.

Your Right Brain:  Your creative, imaginative and holistic side. It is absolutely necessary to tap into creativity to be able to survive and even thrive in today's marketplace. Apply your creativity to your goods and services and apply it to your marketing as well.

Your Emotional Heart: This is the center of your feelings. Your emotions are a guidance system. They are not who you are.  We tend to identify the sum total of who we are by our emotional expression. We say, "he is an angry man." However, anger is an indicative emotion: It merely tells us that we are pissed off about something.  Our negative emotions are there to let us know that whatever we have experienced is not positive and does not help us. However, many of us hold on to negative emotions and identify ourselves with those emotions. Our positive emotions are to us as sunlight is to plants and flowers. Our positive state is our natural setting. We are meant to be happy and to feel good. When we feel good, our bodies are healthier and others are happier around us.

Pay attention to what your emotions are telling you about other people's businesses. What sort of practices sit well with you? What do you see other businesses doing that you would like to do?

Gregg Braden, an author and scientist whose work focuses on bridging the gap between ancient traditions and modern technology, has written extensively on heart based prayers where the you pray and engage your emotions and envision the solution you want. As he explains, the heart has a much stronger electromagnetic field than the brain. The heart is 5000 times stronger magnetically than the brain and 500 times stronger than the brain electrically.

As a result, tapping into the positive emotions and enjoying them in a heart felt way helps your health and is more powerful for you than anything you may learn in your brain.

Listening to your emotions and factoring how you feel and how you want to feel in designing the life and business that you want is a powerful tool.

Your Somatic body:  This is your physical being and Chakra system.  Your Chakra system refers to a system of energy flow in your body.  Your body is intuitive. It speaks to you. You experience many feelings in your body but you may not be aware of them. The Chakra system is an Ancient Sanskrit tradition that addresses the flow of energy in the body. Each of the seven chakras speak to where emotions can lodge in your body energetically. As you understand the seven chakras, you will understand the wonderful hidden messages that your body is communicating to you.

This is not an in depth study of the Chakra system. However, regardless of your spiritual background, it is important to study the body and how it holds energy. Prolonged stress, fear and negative thinking have a negative impact on the corresponding Chakra. Allowing negative emotions to flow through the body and discharging them is important to your emotional  health. These negative energetic patterns will show up in your business if you do not take the time to check in with your Chakra system and clear the blocked energy.

To understand the Chakra system further, have you ever had a lump in your throat when you had something important to say? That lump in your throat is an indication of a block in your throat Chakra. What do you do about it? You express it. You may need to yell. You may need to cry. At the end of the day, you will need to speak your truth. When you have a blockage in your throat Chakra, it is your body's wisdom asking you to speak the truth of your whole being.

The seven Chakras and their corresponding values are listed below.

~ Root Chakra - The value of belonging.
~ Sacral Chakra - The value of pleasure and enjoying life with adequate boundaries.
~ Solar Plexus - The value of your personal power.
~ Heart Chakra - The value of love and of protecting your heart.
~ Throat Chakra - The value of communication and speaking your truth.
~ Third Eye Chakra - The value of intuition and perception of the world around you.
~ Crown Chakra - The value of your Spiritual Connection

As I studied the chakra system, I enjoyed finding out the different values within each energy center.  In addition, I discovered that those energy centers also spoke to business practices. As a business woman, this really intrigued me.  It also help me further express my values in my business. Make sure each of the values within the Chakra system are showing up in your business.

Your God Connection:  This is your spiritual and non-physical consciousness. This is sacred. Regardless of your religious background, we can agree to this mysterious connection that we all have with Source, Holy Spirit, Universe, The Divine, God, Divine Intelligence, Jesus and/or whatever Name you may choose. Inviting the sacred into your daily life and tapping into that Universal Intelligence has to be a part of your daily life to design the life that you want.  I encourage my clients to develop and delve into their faith and ask themselves these questions:

 ~ Is your connection life giving?
 ~ Is it life expanding?
 ~ Is it mysterious?
 ~ Is it loving?
 ~ Is it liberating?

As you realize that the Spiritual attribute is all these things, you realize you cannot live unconsciously any longer and that the attributes of Source Energy is what you want to show up in your life in a big way. This energy is what will give your business momentum and capacity in delivering goods and services to the marketplace. Embrace it.

Are you convinced of how amazing you are and how you can create an equally amazing business in the marketplace? Your feelings are a language that speak to you. They are important. Your creativity must express herself. Your intuition wants you to listen. Your energy centers are speaking to you now.  All this is very important so please pay good attention to those five areas of your life. As you do so, you create a powerful synergy within yourself.

Now that you are aware of these various components of you, be aware that together, they want to communicate with you and help you create a life that is filled with abundance and goodness and wonderful things. As you gain awareness of all these parts of you, and deliberately engage them, you will find your Inner Genius emerging as a thing of beauty, just like a butterfly emerges from a caterpillar.

As you meld your right brain and your left brain and seek whole brain strategies, check in often with your emotions, listen to your body speaking to you and factor in the Source component of your life, you will have amazing courage and abilities.  You will easily discover the abundance that abounds all around you and you will find your business prospering and growing.
by Iyabo Asani


This article is part of a 40 page report by Iyabo Asani on "How to Reinvent Yourself at Midlife and Maintain Your Sanity." If you would like a complimentary copy of the full report, please visit:  a< href="http://www.CoachIyabo.com/reinvent">HERE.

Iyabo Asani is a life and business coach. A former lawyer, she left the practice of law after twenty yeascovering the gifts and talents of their Inner Genius.

Articrs and now, she helps empower smart boomers create businesses and attract abundance by dile Source: http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/How-To-Create-A-Business-Based-On-Your-Values/189372

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First Things First



"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."
-Stephen Covey

Managing our time requires tough choices. That means that sometimes we may have to say NO to important activities in order to attend to even more important activities that will enable us to accomplish higher priorities.

When we embark on a journey and we aren't sure how to get there, we typically jot down travel directions. So why are we so resistant to jotting down personal or professional goals or choices that would provide a road map - or at least a compass -- for our lives?

I work with a lot of small business owners and professionals including coaches, consultants, doctors, lawyers, and CPAs. For those in the service industry, time IS money. To be profitable in their work, they must learn to limit their investment of time if there will be a limited return on that investment.

Of course, money is just one way to measure the returns. A "return on investment" of time may also yield an emotionally healthy and well-adjusted child, a deeply satisfying marriage, or a beautiful garden. The key is to get clear about what's most important to you, and then march forth!

Several years ago I was talking with someone at a business luncheon, and at the end of our conversation he wished me a happy March Forth. I considered this to be a bit odd at the time, but I didn't give it much more thought. A couple days later -- on March 4th -- I received a homemade card from him. The cover of the card contained a picture of a beautiful waterfall. The inside of the card read, "Thunderous and powerful, yet oh so beautiful! May your power within thunder out, as you march forth and realize all your dreams. Happy March Fourth ." It wasn't until I received his card that I caught the literary ploy.

Today, as I think about those words - march forth! - I also think about something my colleague, Harold Taylor, says: "Major projects will never be finished if they are never started. The key to getting things done is to get things started. Pick a date and time and stick to it."  In other words, march forth!

We offer a tool to help you take inventory of all the things on your procrastination list. Check out our RAM Dump at http://www.orgcoach.net/pdf/ram_dump.pdf , which will help you unload all of the sticky notes from your brain onto paper, and then provides four choices -- Do, Defer, Delegate, Dump -- for what to do with it all.

Once you are clear about what you want to DO, you may benefit from creating some structure to your workday to keep you  focused on what's most important. Take a look at my sample weekly template if you are looking at how to create some structure: http://www.orgcoach.net/weeklyschedule.html

Author and coach, Cheryl Richardson, shares a technique that has made an enormous difference in both the success of her company and the quality of her life. Here's the technique:


In the morning when you start your workday, begin with the following question: What action do I most want to avoid doing today?

Once you have an answer to that question, do these two things:

1. Identify the cause of your resistance. For example, does the task feel too tedious or difficult to complete? Is it related to a goal that no longer serves you? Or, are you simply afraid?

2. If you are convinced that a task is, in fact, important, take this action right away.


I've always subscribed to the idea of tackling the most important tasks first. Cheryl Richardson's approach has a slight twist to it. Instead of asking what is most important, she suggests that we ask ourselves what we most want to avoid. By looking at what you most want to avoid, it will challenge you to consider whether or not the items on your "to-do" list are truly designed to move you toward an important goal. It will also keep you focused on the actions you really need to take rather than all the "busy work" you may otherwise get caught up in when trying to avoid something that feels uncomfortable or risky. If you determine that the task is indeed important, by doing it first you accelerate your progress.

I'll share a real-life example of how this works. I know the president of a major company who is looking for a consultant. I have a friend who does the kind of consulting work this company is looking for. I told the president about her, and he expressed interest in talking with her. I contacted my friend and told her that the president of the company wanted to talk with her. She had never worked with a company this size, so she was very nervous about placing the call. Each time she thought about making the call, she felt nervous and excited at the same time. She recognized that this was a task she most wanted to avoid, and she also knew it was the one task that could be most significant in terms of moving her closer to her goal. (My friend recently bought a new car and is very motivated to attract more consulting work so she can make the car payments.)

Many of us procrastinate around the things that matter most because of the anxiety they cause. Using this method requires some vulnerability on your part. There will be, on occasion, times where you are disappointed with the outcome. But would you rather waste time doing things that don't matter, or are you willing to take a risk! Cheryl Richardson reminds us of this: "Since there's a good chance that you'll live through disappointment or rejection, why not face your fears head on? You have far more to gain than you 'think' you have to lose!"

Putting first things first, what's the next action you will take to help you march forth?

Author Bio
Wouldn't you love to stumble upon a secret library of ideas to help you de-clutter your life so you can focus on what's most important?  Kathy Paauw offers simple, yet powerful ideas, on how to manage your time, space, and thoughts for a more productive and fulfilling life.  Visit www.orgcoach.net


Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com
By: Kathy Paauw