Listen to the noises. Can you hear it? The locusts are singing this morning while I am listening to them loudly in trees. The squirrel spotted me in the hammock swing and dashed quickly off the deck railing and the wind is blowing, the blinds are swinging as the wind blows because the storm is going to be passing through this afternoon from a storm. The dew is sitting on my keyboard as I move it from the coolness inside to the outdoor humidity and the clouds are covering the sky with a boldness and filled with the rain that will pour out of them later today. This vacation I woke up every morn ..read more

Toastmasters does make you different. Behind the scenes, there is a team of club members who are focused on making a difference in their personal and professional lives. Each member who joins Toastmasters ,even for a short season, becomes a different person and learns how Toastmasters is truly customized to a personal need. Some members gain more confidence in public speaking whereas another member may develop stronger presentation skills. In fact, we have had a Toastmaster who set a personal goal of completing 10 speeches that she put on her bucket list. Once she fulfilled her bucket list go ..read more

How much do you make an hour? Is that your worth? I hope not, but reality is, that is how an employer defines your worth and sometimes it equates to pennies. The performance evaluation often generates a small raise that is not very significant, but does generate income. Believe me, I am not complaining, because I appreciate the raise and enjoy receiving outstanding performance reviews by giving more than my best in all I do. Ride this blog with me and you'll get to see why I am bringing up your worth and organics in the same story. This morning, I was mulling over my next blog topic and thinki ..read more

Sometimes you have to take the plunge and do something different. Covid-19 has been hard for small businesses, large businesses, employees and humans. My heart hurts for the friends that have lost their job because of a pandemic, but this may be the nudge to become their own boss and create the business that they have been dreaming about for years, but were afraid to step out of their own comfort zone. Because of these hard decisions on what's next for people, I have partnered with Germanna Community College Center for Workforce and Community Education in their Business & Professional Deve ..read more

Remember door knocking for your direct sales business? I do and I was almost 16 years old when I decided to become an Avon representative. I remember my fear as I went to the country trailer park and knocked on my first door as the Avon lady. It was terrifying because I didn't know who I would encounter and there were no mobile phones in the good ol' days. Looking back, I was a networking, building relationships, getting to know my customer and what they liked and didn't like. We sat down on the rugged furniture and selected samples and sprayed perfumes and browsed the products that are now fo ..read more

Do you have symptoms that are mysteriously showing up since March? Can’t figure out what’s wrong? Something doesn’t feel right? Tired, overstimulated, sluggish, joint pain, stiffness, irritability, lethargic, moody, itchy, swelling, bloating and the list can go on. The body is not designed to ingest alcohol topically multiple times a day. Think about the effects of ingesting alcoholic beverages long term when you are addicted to alcohol and how it affects your organs, mind and how it ages you from the inside out. Topically putting alcohol on your hands has somewhat of the same effect. Hear me ..read more

Did you ever have something that you wanted to shout to the world, but was at a loss for getting it out there quickly? Social media was not generating the engagement you wanted or calling every contact on your list was not feasible because of the high number. Email was a way to help shout it out, but the ignore rate was more than you would like it to be. What was your solution? For many small businesses, they have learned how to create an affiliate program to promote their service or product and it is a super-fast way to gain traction quickly to hundreds of email addresses that you may never ..read more

The COVID-19 Pandemic has affected everyone in some way including my family. In May our fifth grandchild was born and it is August and we have not met him. My heart breaks because this little boy has never met his paternal grandparents and fear is driving that decision. You see, because we live by faith, does not mean everyone lives by faith. Some are living in fear and fear is what is driving this decision by one of our children. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the fear because my 81 year old mother in law lives there too, but on her birthday, the neighbors stopped by to visit outside. A ..read more

Hi this is A-lay-na from A.D.S. Coaching & Mentoring. I wanted to follow up with you or I am calling about …. Typical introduction to a conversation for most people in business. Sometimes you forget about the niceties and want to get straight to the point, but the intent is the same to have a conversation. I know I don’t have a common name, but it has three vowels and three consonants and one follows the other and it is often mispronounced. Usually, I will let it slide, but today, I had a little pinprick about it because it revealed that the person I have been speaking to over the past fe ..read more

Congratulations to all of the business owners who have stepped into the year charging and changing. Since, this is your year of change and you should begin to experience many new emotions that come with change. Some will be minimal and there will be others that will monumental, but the greatest changes will be the ones that you will learn from. A great milestone you may experience is actually writing yourself a paycheck. No matter what the amount, there is a feeling of accomplishment and it brings emotions of freedom and you feel rich. Than life changes and the hardest are the ones you cannot ..read more