The Goldmine in your Backyard!

Today I discovered a goldmine, full of riches and wealth beyond my wildest dreams and imagination. Would you believe I found this Goldmine in my immediate vicinity, and I have discovered that you too probably have the same goldmine lurking within reach.

Also I had been looking at this goldmine for ages but have never seen it. So I do not want you to have to wait as long as I did to uncover this wealth. I am talking about a wealth of information and support, ideas and challenges, motivation and inspiration, accountability and strength, this is something we all have within our reach if we just open our eyes and find it.

This discovery started with this Facebook comment I posted only 1 week ago -

Question: I need to change how I am doing something to get better results, but perplexed as to best next move, suggestions???

 Wow what an extraordinary turn of events followed, I discover that people out there actually had the answers and cared enough to share them with me. So I wanted to tap into this and see if it could become something I would use in the long term growth and development of my business. I set a date and sent the invitations to a "Brainstorming" session, at my home (which is also my office). I sent the invites to those who had responded to my initial post, as well as others who's business's, attitudes, successes, challenges and ideas have always been something I have admired and watched, 29 in all in Christchurch were on the list.

I ordered in lunch, set up the living/board room and waited.  

In they came Jay, Jody, Stuart, Anne, Cate, Ann-Maree, Phillippa, Margit and Paula. The brains trust, made up of varied skills, experience, professions all with one common theme: to help me answer that question. Not just a brains-trust but a GOLDMINE.

We set up the paper and the easel and got to work, they questioned, poked, challenged, rewarded, shared and gave....gave of themselves and their knowledge. What an experience, one that every person in business should do. It was wonderful to get the feedback and reflections of my business from those I know and trust. Also eye opening to see the perceptions of others as to what I do and do not do, and how much there is I can be doing.

As a result I have a brain full of ideas, challenges, actions and inspirations to take my business to the next level:

This is what I have learnt:

MY PASSION IS SPEAKING - I am happiest when I am presenting to a crowd and sharing knowledge that can transform my audience.

SALES AND RECRUITING ARE NOT MY STRONG POINTS - There are people out there who love doing the things that I don't, they can be sought out and contracted.

I AM AMAZING AND I UNDERSELL MYSELF AND MY SUCCESS - rarely do I talk about being an Author, Entrepreneur, Awards Finalist, regular TV and radio guest. I do not promote my celebrity and success enough, I need a pedestal and to be proud of my achievements. 

This is what I am going to be doing:

* More sharing of knowledge and inspiration through social media, blog, Magazines, TV, Newsletters, Interviews and other forms of Media.

* Find and empower the right person/people to do the work I dislike, but is essential to my business.

* Complete the Professional Organiser Training program I am writing so I can empower and army of Productivity Specialists to work with Corporate and Residential clients.

* Begin speaking regularly again. Letting Businesses (Large and Small) know I am here and what I can offer them to increase their efficiency and productivity in the workplace. 

* Support and strengthen my current Totally Organised Direct Sales Consultants, so they too become raving fans of our brand and products as it rewards them in great ways and they love being part of our Company.

* Not be afraid to reach for the stars and take on the big challenges.

That is quiet a spectacular list and I am incredibly grateful to the fantastic brains trust that all help build this list, and who I know will be holding me accountable for what I do in my business from here moving forwards.

NOW MY CHALLENGE TO YOU:

Find your own goldmine, it is out there all you need to do is look, ask and action. Make it happen, put it out there and you will be amazed at the wealth that you get from your own goldmine.

To my fantastic goldmine: I challenge each of you to do what I did today and open yourself up the the possibilities that come with the incredible wealth of talent you have hidden in your life. I am happy to be a small nugget in the goldmine of anyone that takes on the challenge.

Are you a Morning Person?

Each of us has a unique time of day that serves us well and another time that does not serve us well at all. I know this because, I know for sure that I NOT a morning person. Never have been and have no intention to change that. This despite the best efforts of my family over the years.

So why is this important I hear you ask? The reason is for you to be able to perform at your optimum levels and achieve more in your day it is important to know when you are at your most alert and when you are at your least active (shall we say). By becoming aware of out best and worst times of day we can then make this time work for us. It seems to be a waste to spend your least attentive time doing your most difficult tasks. However many of us tend to do that without really thinking about it.

My challenge to you is to identify when you are at your peak performance during the day and when you have an energy slump. Once you have done this then you can begin to effectively use your time to handle difficult tasks at your most attentive time and easy stuff when you are low in energy. 

What got me thinking about this was today's 5.20am start to take my daughter and a friend to rowing practice. My husband who is a morning person gets great pleasure, I am sure, to see me roll out of bed and drive across town to then return to bed at 6.15am promptly fall back to sleep. You see he is the morning person in our home, so thinks it amusing that I groan and moan and then go back to bed. However alternately if I ask him to do something at 10pm I would get much the same response as I give him in the morning, you see I am a night owl.

There is no right or wrong as to whether you are a morning person or not, but can you retrain a night owl? Not at 42 years of age I say, you know "old dogs...."!!! However our daughter who is so so in the morning has trained herself to be a morning person through necessity and always wakes with a smile. Our 2nd child is a natural Morning person and has bounced out of bed at the crack of dawn since a young age with a beaming smile as well. However number three takes after me and it takes nothing short of a earthquake and crowbar to get him moving in the morning. Yet we all live harmoniously under the same roof, and do our best work at different times of day.

So find your best time and use it, and forgive those who's best time may be the opposite of yours.

My, How time flies!!!

Wow, I am amazed at how slack I have been in the blogging department of late, apologies to my regular readers for my

tardiness. It has been an incredibly rewarding, busy, tiring and fabulous couple of weeks. 

Please indulge me while I share. We always often forget to celebrate our success and I am going to do that here.

Over the past few weeks my publisher "Longacre Press" here in NZ have lined up some wonderful media appearance 

for me to promote my first book "The Accidental Organiser". 

They have been:

* "Campbell Live" - TV3

* Radio National - Kim Hill Program

* Newstalk ZB with Ali Jones

* Newstalk ZB Tauranga.

* KIWI FM - Breakfast with Whammo

* Newstalk ZB Wellington

* Plains FM - Canterbury

* CTV - Good Living Program

* "Otago Daily Times" feature

* "The Press" - At Home section (coming up)

* TVNZ - TVOne - "Good Morning" interview with Brendan Pongia

I think that is all of them, it has been a whirlwind of interviews and meeting people and travel. All really exciting

and hopefully going some way to selling millions of copies of "The Accidental Organiser".

It has taken some great scheduling in the family department to do this. As we are also in the midst of a major

renovation at home. My boys are squished into one small room while we have demolished their old bedroom, 

to make room for a new purpose built library/study and bedroom. We have also celebrate two Birthday's in our 

family, mine and Ben's 9th. So all in all a busy time. However not once did any of this become overwhelming. 

HOW? I hear you ask.

Organisation, communication and cooperation has been the key. So remember if you have busy and 

challenging times ahead take a leaf out of my book and thing "ORGANISE, COMMUNICATE & COOPERATE".

Remember if you have not got your copy of "The Accidental Organiser" yet, CLICK HERE or buy at your local NZ bookseller.

What to do when it seems to much?

We all have days when life just seems to be steamrollering along and we cannot keep up. These are the days when we blow a fuse or lose our cool with those closest to us.
It does not matter how Organised you are, it is important to remember that we are all human and it can get too hard when you feel like there is too much to do and you cannot do it all on your own.
So what are some coping strategies for times such as these in our lives.
* Walk away - sometimes you need to just drop everything and take yourself away from the situation that is about to push you over the edge. Try and walk away before you get pushed over the edge, not after. (or you may say or so something you regret)
* Do not expect perfection - It is important not to put your own expectations onto others. They will have different expectations to yours and they may not understand why you are losing your cool or getting frustrated.
* Lead by example - Walk the talk and be a leader by showing those around you what you would appreciate.
* Acknowledge & reward - When you see things getting done and people pitching in and sharing tasks etc take the time to acknowledge this and maybe introduce a reward system.
* Use a roster system to get chores done - Kids are old enough from about the age of 3 to be given set chores/tasks around the house. Start simply and remember acknowledge and reward.
* Consequences - Along with reward need to come consequences. If assigned chores/tasks are not done have a penalty system in place.
* Simple rules - Imagine if people put tings away when they had finished with them, shut things after opening and cleaned up messes they made without leaving it all laying around with the expectation someone else will do it. Make these the simple rules in your home - Put it away, shut it, clean it up if you own it, did it or made it it is your responsibility to attend to clearing it up.
* Never ever ask someone to do something you would not do yourself.

I hope these are helpful to anyone out there who has trouble trying to stay organised and simplified by feel like everyone around you is doing there best to make it impossible.

When things go Blahhhhhh

Hope your week started better than mine. my Computer is in the computer hospital It seems I may have "killed" my hard drive. Working away last night and I get the dreaded "unmountable boot volume" message. Which the fab guys at PC Anytime (www.pcanytime.co.nz) tell me may not be a good thing. As for my data well only time will tell. The said machine was delivered and put onto data recovery (PC Life support, I assume), this morning. I have not heard yet of the prognosis, so hopefully no news is good news....Thank goodness for laptops as that is what I am using at present.
As for backing up data, well it turns out you never seem to back up the stuff you really need, so maybe "Totally Organised" will be doing alot of catch up work as even though I do back up, I have missed a few important things. Fortunately my book was done on my laptop, so is still intact and almost ready to be published, phew.
To add to this small dilemma, our drains blocked at home as well, the sewer no less. So I have had the plumbers out and sorting that situation today.
So for all of you who think a Professional organisers life runs smoothly, I can assure you it does not, these small things are sent to challenge us and test our systems.
Also it always means that tomorrow will be a better day, hooray....