Reinvent Yourself in 21 Days

Can a mop and a dust cloth bring happiness and luck?

Back in August, I picked up a book written by Mr. Mitsuhiro Masuda (in Japanese) who advocates the power of cleaning and decluttering.  He maintains that we can be happier and luckier by cleaning up our place of living.  I was a brand-new entrepreneur at that time, meaning my business was starting to attract some clients but not enough to be in full operation, so I had time and was willing to try anything to improve the situation.

Now, I know grabbing a dust cloth and reorganizing the bookshelf is as boring as it gets in personal development. But we intuitively know our environment affects our mood. When we are in a poorly-lit, cluttered room where we can’t find what we need and what we see doesn’t resonate with who we are, we feel messy, sad, frustrated, and out of place.  How can we feel bright, efficient, well-organized and be in the natural flow of energy?  Clean up!

Many people are big on decorating their place.  That is fine.  But cleaning needs to happen before decorating.  Before creating your new YOU, you need to let go of your old YOU. Physically taking care of your environment by cleaning and decluttering can stimulate letting go of your mental clutter that has been holding you in the old pattern.

The 21 Day Outside In Personal Development Program

The book came with the 21 day action plan.  It’s a good plan, but very women-oriented, so I have modified it to be helpful for everyone.  You work in one area for three days, totaling seven areas of your place of living.
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Decision Making For The 21st Century

Traditional decision making processes and models are falling behind the fast pace of this new century, both for individuals and organizations.  Many of us are aware of this situation, but are feeling lost without a new approach to make good reliable decisions fast. In this article I will introduce you to a new approach to decision making; all you need is an open mind and a little practice.

A History of Decision Making

Before we go further, let’s review how you or your parents / grandparents made decisions.  This is admittedly a big blanket statement, but I think you will get the idea:

19^th century: You typically didn’t make decisions yourself.  Someone else who was more educated and/or had more authority, such as political or religious leaders, made the decisions and you just followed.  Individual thinking and decision making were discouraged for the cause of the groups.

20^th century: Mass education made it possible for many of us to think for ourselves and make decisions.  While there were many decision making techniques, most were based on logic taught at schools and other educational organizations.

21^st century: We start noticing the problems of traditional reasoning methods and decision making techniques based on such logic.

There are two major methods of reasoning: induction and deduction.  Induction involves gathering data to come up with the conclusion, or really just the possibility of the conclusion.  While no amount of data is enough to ensure the conclusion, we typically spend time gathering lots of data when we try to use inductive reasoning.  So it takes time.  In this fast paced world, it’s quite likely that the situation has changed already by the time we make decision based on induction.

Deduction doesn’t rely of gathered premises but it relies on logical premises.  In short, it assumes certain premises to be true in order for it to work.  But the advance of science is now questioning even basic ideas such as linear time.
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How Spirituality Helps New Entrepreneurs

Some people consider worldly success, such as success in entrepreneurship, to be incompatible with spirituality.  “It’s a dog eats dog world.” they’d say, “If you want to succeed, you do whatever (dirty things) you must do. Then you dress up and go to church on Sundays.  If you want to embrace spirituality full time, stay in the convent, or at least stay in the clean low-paying job.”

I disagree.  In this article, I want to show you how spirituality can help new entrepreneurs in two major challenges they face in starting their own business.

For the purpose of this article, I am defining spirituality as our awareness of higher purpose and power.  That invisible something that transcends us as individuals.  I am not affiliated with any organized religions.

Spirituality offers sustainable motivation

I find it quite dangerous that so many people want to become their own boss because they hate their current jobs.  They want to escape from what they hate, be it the boring job itself or the demanding boss or the work environment.  I don’t say this is no good for moral reasons.  If you don’t like something or someone, then it is so, it’s not good or bad.  I find it dangerous because the escape mentality doesn’t offer any sustainable motivations.
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What We Can Learn From Successful Entrepreneurs

What challenges do we really face when we start our own small businesses, and how can we overcome them? What does it take to make the leap of faith? And what are the rewards of being entrepreneurs?

I have been interviewing successful entrepreneurs for my blog, Yes to Me. So far, I have posted ten articles for this series, interviewing thirteen entrepreneurs (three posts feature a pair of entrepreneurs). These are small business owners who have built profitable businesses that resonate with who they are. Most are bloggers, or at least have web presence, but their businesses vary greatly, from internet marketing to pet insurance company. They include men, women, young, older.

Are there common traits among these entrepreneurs? I think so. This article reviews their answers to two of my standard questions and explores the theme among them so that we can learn from the mistakes and victories they have so gracefully shared with us.

What were the biggest challenges when you were starting as new entrepreneurs?

Lack of money, lack of sales / marketing expertise and self-doubt are the top three challenges they site, followed by lack of business plans, management issues regarding the employees and business partners, time management and multi tasking, and more.

Depending on the business, the capital it takes differs, but even for a one-person operation, money is a challenge. Some of my interview guests mentioned what it was like to bootstrap, and I’m guessing even the ones who didn’t mention it probably went through similar challenges.

The issue of money gets aggravated by the lack of sales and marketing expertise. Many new entrepreneur have the technical skills of their trade but not the sales skill to bring their products and services in front of their target customers in an effective way. They struggle to define their target clients (Stephen) and to find the right pricing (Susanna). They may not have many contacts to network (Monica). Harry says, “We had the skills and the business knowledge we needed, but we knew very little of bringing this to the virtual world.”
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