The Power of the Pivot In Both Business & In Life

The Power of the Pivot In Both Business & In Life

It is two months after the initial quarantine across much of the US and I am still hearing from business owners who are waiting on the sidelines to see when it will be time for them to restart their businesses. Although according to the medical experts, it can be at the earliest 12-18 months before there is any normalcy found as it relates to the need to no longer social distance.

If we are fortunate enough globally to have a vaccine, the earliest it could be delivered to the masses in America is estimated at least 12 to 18 months from now. So what is a business owner of a company to do who has completely dried up financially during this corona season?
 

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There is only one thing to do and that is to pivot. What do you mean by that you ask? You must now select another way to create revenue in your current business until this season is over. This does not mean that you will never be able to go back to your primary revenue streams of the past. What it does mean is that you are not going to wait until that moment comes again to start bringing in income. Because right now, we have a new, semi-permanent normal to contend with.

Even during regular times, when things were “normal,” companies were forced to pivot and re-create themselves. The ones that didn’t soon passed away.

Examples of these are Toys “R” Us®, Blockbusters®, Sears® and the list goes on. Why is pivoting, reinventing and adjusting required? Because life is ever-changing. Businesses are ever-changing. Your customer is ever-changing. The world and society are ever-changing. And if you do not change with them, you will soon have nothing to change at all. Because before you know it, your business will be done.

This is not unlike our regular lives. Our lives are constantly changing. We are constantly evolving. And when we do, we have to change the things that are no longer working for us and find the new things that produce the results and breeds the new elements we want to call forth in our lives.
 

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Business is the same. We have to find new ways to attract potential clients and customers. We have to find new problems to solve. We have to evolve with technology, society and time. And if we don’t, we will be left on the sidelines while evolution passes us by.


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The Top 3 Reasons Why Travel Should Be an Essential Part of Your Life – Part 1

The Top 3 Reasons Why Travel Should Be an Essential Part of Your Life – Part 1

Traveling is good for the soul. It allows you to get out of your own world, your own space and your own head. It grants you the opportunity to see what’s possible in your own life by viewing what is possible in others.

Depending on where you travel, you can experience a world that doesn’t even remotely look similar to yours. One that can inspire a new level of living. A new level of being.

These are the top 3 reasons why travel should be an essential part of your life:

1. It Will Expand Your Mind

Traveling allows you to see how other people live, other people’s experiences and other people’s perspectives.

When you leave your environment and go to a new one, it allows you to see things differently in a way you weren’t able to see before. You can experience different cultures, lifestyles and ways of living. You can experience different religions, cultures and mindsets.
 

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Whenever I travel, I am excited to see and experience what I have yet to learn. An environment totally and completely foreign to the one I know.

For some, this can be fearful – to be removed from their comfort zone. But I believe that it allows you to see if your comfort zone is really not worth leaving. Perhaps for you it is, but you will never truly know unless you see and learn another way, which will allow you to test the one you have and measure it up with the one you choose to live.
 

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For others, it’s like the air that allows us to thrive. I have friends who literally work just to travel. They come home, back to the US, to work really hard for three months in preparation for them to travel to some far away place for a month or two at a time. The beautiful thing is that we live in a world that allows us to do this fairly freely.

A plane ride away can change everything that you thought you once knew and open you up to a new higher way of being.

Continue to Part 2.


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The Top 3 Things I Did to Mend a Broken Heart and Increase the Joy and Happiness in My Daily Life – Part 3

The Top 3 Things I Did to Mend a Broken Heart and Increase the Joy and Happiness in My Daily Life – Part 3

This is a continuation of Part 2.

#3 Choose One of the Things that Bring You a Great Amount of Joy and Do It Regularly

Many of you have seen this play out in my life in recent years. After having several years of significant traumas, I decided to physically and manually input something that brings great joy to me in my life. And for me that is travel.
 

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Now, many people think if that’s the case, I should be joyous all the time, because I am always traveling. But what the vast majority of people don’t understand is that when I’m traveling, I am completely traveling for work. So, I cannot enjoy a place in the same manner working as I would if I didn’t have to work. It is often the case as well that when I’m traveling for work, I am going to the same places repeatedly.

Therefore, I decided a couple of years ago to force myself to go on vacations. After not taking a vacation for nearly 13 years, I decided that I was going to go on vacation every 30 days. It didn’t have to be far nor an exotic place, but it had to be work-free and enjoyable for me. What that time did was grant me freedom and removed a great deal of stress that had been accumulating over the years in my life. It allowed me to slow down an ever so busy schedule and just focus on me and the things that bring me happiness and joy.

This one input into my life gifted me an amazing opportunity to de-stress and refuel so I could be ready to run on a little bit further in my life.
 

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Your joy and happiness are your responsibility to find. On this life journey, we will all experience an abundance of things and many can and will bring you great pain, unhappiness, and uncertainty.

It is each of our responsibility to do whatever is necessary to find and obtain joy, happiness and peace in our daily lives. You cannot fully give it to anyone else if you don’t first give it to yourself. Go get it. Go find it. Go be it. The world awaits a happier more joyous you and all of the fruits the new you will bear.

My outfit is by Sole Much More Boutique.


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The Top 3 Things I Did to Mend a Broken Heart and Increase the Joy and Happiness in My Daily Life – Part 2

The Top 3 Things I Did to Mend a Broken Heart and Increase the Joy and Happiness in My Daily Life – Part 2

This is a continuation of Part 1.

#2 Learn the Power of No and Connect it to What Brings You Joy

I have never had a problem saying no. It has never been something that has been difficult for me. But what I’ve learned to do with that word in recent years is to use it in a way to help to reduce some of the stress and obligations in my life.
 
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I am constantly and consistently overwhelmed with things to do. There are lots of things I would love to do, but there is just not enough time in the day for me to do them. So years ago, I decided to only say yes to the things that make me feel good and no to everything else. If there’s any question about whether I would enjoy doing it or want to do it, I simply say no. I have learned to lead with no. If I later decide to do it, once I see that I have my priorities done, then I will. But I don’t set it up in a way that requires me to do it, because that puts way too much pressure and stress on me to get it done.

I cannot tell you the level of joy I have received in practicing this. I simply start with a no. Then, once I have time to review what’s possible in relation to all of the other things I have to do, and/or want to do, I can decide to change my mind and do it. But I no longer have the stress or pressure to feel as if I have to do everything. This one principal in and of itself has created tremendous amounts of joy and happiness on a daily basis for me in my life.
 

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I also do this with the things that I buy. If I don’t love it, I don’t buy it. With a very small exception in the event that I absolutely need something for work, if I don’t love it, it is definitely a no. I have never been one to do a tremendous amount of shopping, but when I do, this is now a principle I live by. And what that does is create a tremendous amount of joy in what I do have and eliminates what I don’t need and/or want.

If you eliminate all of the things that don’t feed you, you’ll have more time to put into all of the things that do.

Continue to Part 3.

My dress is by Byron Lars Beauty Mark.


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The Top 3 Things I Did to Mend a Broken Heart and Increase the Joy and Happiness in My Daily Life – Part 1

The Top 3 Things I Did to Mend a Broken Heart and Increase the Joy and Happiness in My Daily Life – Part 1

Often times in anyone’s life there are many things that occur which prevent us from being all that we could be to ourselves. Those things can range from taking care of others, rearing your children and just dealing with all of life’s circumstances as a whole. But what I know for sure is that if you don’t move yourself into the position of number one, you will never be able to completely find the eternal joy and happiness that you desire and deserve in your life.
 

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It happens without us knowing. You don’t wake up one morning and say, “Hey, I’m going to put myself at the bottom of the pile.” It is much more unconscious than that. It just slowly sneaks up on you. And before you know it, you are at the very bottom of the list and your entire life begins to reflect that new positioning.

Here are the top three things I did to mend my broken heart and to increase the level of joy and happiness in my day-to-day living after dealing with years of losing loved ones, coping with the permanent injury of a child, being responsible for others and the myriad of other challenges we all face that come along with simply living.

#1 Make Yourself Your Priority

Now, when I say to make yourself your priority, I don’t mean that in a selfish way. You can still be responsible for others and help take care of others, but what you can’t do is ignore and diminish your own needs in the process. What’s important to do is to daily, weekly, biweekly or even monthly, look at the things you need to do or have in place in your own life to be happy. What are the elements that bring you joy? Then make those items a priority. Regularly and consistently.

Sometimes those things can be as simple as giving yourself time in the day to just focus on the things that feed you. That was a very big one for me. Other times, it could be something that requires a bit more like getting regular massages, a therapy session, or a weekly night out with yourself or with a friend. But, whatever it is, decide that you are going to have it. Protect it. Preserve it. Decide that you’re worth it. Decide there is no way you will not give it to yourself and do it.
 

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For me, one of those things is as simple as giving myself my mornings. I know for a fact that when I do – I am better. I am physically better. I am mentally better. I am emotionally better. I am spiritually better. To not do so would be a tremendous loss for me.

So many people depend on me for many different things in their lives – like their business needs, legal needs and/or personal needs. If I did not gift this time to myself daily, I would be weighed down with everyone else’s stuff without ever feeling filled. It’s like preparing to travel across the country without having gas in your tank. You know you have to expend energy and fuel to make it to your destination, but if you don’t have it, you cannot give it. My mornings provide me my gas to make it through the days so I can give more and be more throughout the day for those that need me to show up fully whole in a particular way.

My mornings are cleared for me. In my scheduler, they are completely protected. There is no meeting important enough to schedule during that time. There’s no client issue critical enough for me to forgo that focus. There’s no place I have to get to so important that I must go during those hours. The only things that matter during that divinely designated time are my thoughts, my wellness, my daily exercise and myself.

Continue to Part 2.

My dress is by Byron Lars Beauty Mark.


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The Top 5 Reasons Why Fear Can Block You From Your Greatest Dreams In Business and In Life – Part 2

The Top 5 Reasons Why Fear Can Block You From Your Greatest Dreams In Business and In Life – Part 2

This is a continuation of Part 1.

4. It Can Make You Settle for Mediocracy

You know deep down you don’t want to settle. Everything in your body, mind and spirit tells you that you should not be satisfied with being mediocre, but you look at those around you and there is more mediocrity than not. So, you make yourself believe that being mediocre is good enough for you as well.

I have a client who is currently struggling with this. She is allowing fear to block her from reaching what she knows is greater for her. From saying she’s not qualified, doesn’t have enough experience (over 20 years), doesn’t know enough (holds a masters degree in the field) and just overall isn’t good enough.

She has put up blocks in all directions to prevent her from doing what’s necessary to move herself forward in her business, which would help to move her forward in her life. She was ready to succumb to just staying in mediocrity. But I refuse to grant her permission to live on that side of town.
 

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5. It Will Have You Choose What Is Easy Rather Than What is Best For You

How do I know so much about this? Because I’ve had to overcome a great deal of fear in my own life. Fear that was keeping me stuck and unable to move forward. A fear that was preventing me from living the divinely designed life that was awaiting me on the other side of it. I’ve had to face fears and trauma around writing, school, people and animals among other things. When I think back on it now, after overcoming so much of it, the memory is as if I was fearful of almost everything!

What a blessing it is to be free from most of these ailments. I refused to surrender my future to fear. And every time you allow fear to win, you are sacrificing the greatness of your future for the smallness of your fear.

Imagine if I allowed my fears to win. I would not have been able to help the thousands of people I have through the work I do. I wouldn’t be able to live with the freeness I do in my life today. And ultimately, I would not be able to live my best and highest life.
 

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I know what it means to have fears rule your life and what’s required to eliminate them by regular and consistent actions. When I get stuck, I just think of those whose lives and businesses have been changed through me truly showing up in the fullness of who I am in the world. A me without fear. And I am then strengthened to be able to push through again.

We can often do more for others than we are even willing to do for ourselves. So, if you need to think of your children, family, loved ones, legacy, whatever it takes for you to move, use it to push you through.

The world is awaiting you. And so am I, once you make it to the other side of your fear.
 

monique-manigault-overcome-fear
 

My dress is by Byron Lars Beauty Mark.


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