ILearningGlobal

Well, believe it or not, I have added a business to my life.

This is an amazing business and feeds into my ever on-going quest for knowledge and learning. I am reading at least 3 books, listening to audio books or downloads, and love taking webinars or teleseminars. First, it feeds me and second, it feeds my clients through the knowledge and skills that I gain by educating myself.

ILearningGlobal is so awesome and is the future of learning.  They bring the best of personal development speakers to you in the comfort of your office, home, PC, laptop and in your own time.  The founders are developing a learning library to give you access to the best in business training, tax strategies, personal development and more.

Some of the presenters are Bob Proctor (The Secret), Brian Tracy, Sandy Botkin and more.

I encourage you to check it out and make learning a priority in your life and business. It is also a great way for earning some passive income.

Outlook Tasks Tip

I use David Allen’s Getting Things Done add-in for Outlook to help me keep on track. It really helps, plus the customer service is amazing!

I schedule calls with Chief Marketing Officers a couple of times a year for a client’s CMO Roundtable. I create a task with their names & emails in the body of the task to track progress of scheduling them – I refer to this as herding wild cats.

Now, all the names are in a tidy distribution list. The question – how do I get the names over into the body of the task without having to retype them? Easy – and this may be common knowledge for a lot of you.

Have the task open – with GTD, I assign an Action, Project, and Subproject. Then follow the steps:

Insert

Item – this brings up a dialog box where you choose:

Contacts

Locate the Distribution List

Select the Distribution List -

Then you can select Text Only or Attachment

I use the Text Only option and Presto! It automatically inserts the names and emails into the body of the email.

Delegate, delegate, delegate…..

Is your plate too full? And, no, I am not talking about your food intake.

Are you juggling projects, tasks, chores, and not doing them well? Or, not getting to do the things you really want to do? Are you working more than 8 hours in a day? Is that work coming home with you? Have you not seen your children since they were two years old and now they are going off to college? Hmmm, meant you skipped the golden teenage years……this could be a good thing…..

“We are not all capable of everything.” Virgil, Poet

As an entrepreneur, a virtual assistant, a mom or dad or just a normal person do you find yourself trying to do it all and excusing it away?

“It’s easier for me to do it than to explain.”

“I can do it faster.”

“I don’t trust anyone else to do it.”

These answers are the $1,000,000 answer to the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire (R) ” game’s question:

“Who died stressed, angry, unfulfilled, and probably a tad touched in the head?”

Delegation, although it can be hard, is a good thing. You can use the following acronynm – WIIFM when learning to delegate. WIIFM = What’s In It For Me? These are some ideas about what delegating can do for you:

• Frees up lots of time for other activities
• Just might develop some followers
• Improve your bottom line
• Improves your work flow
• Develops trust between managers, employees, VAs, family members

Still not sure about what to delegate or remove from your overflowing plate? Try:

• Releasing functions or tasks you hate or tolerate
• Work that will provide experience or new skills to another person
• Spread the wealth so that the number of people who can perform critical assignments are increased (You know, the proverbial – “If you got hit by a bus” syndrome)
• Projects that provide opportunities to use, reinforce or encourage people’s creative talents
• Providing an opportunity for kids and individuals to fail

As for this last one – an opportunity to fail. Why would you want to offer an opportunity to fail? Because! How can people grow? Accept failure? Accept disappointment? Learn how to do it better next time? Develop critical thinking skills? But, the best of all – I truly believe that failing is a crucial element to developing self esteem in this world of overdone political correctness. But that is a post for another time.

Challenge: What are you willing to delegate this week?

Coming from a world of abundance

In July, I decided that I had become stuck in a rut. Complacent. Boring. Vanilla pudding.

Since then, I have signed up for tele-seminars on everything that sounded challenging and interesting. I have also committed myself to an intensive class with Stacy at AssistU on interviewing strongly. This will so challenge me to expand my comfort level. But, I know that I will have great support from my AU friends and colleaques.

In this vein, I am focusing on coming from a world of abundance and the world is my oyster. Okay, I hate oysters, but the pearls are nice. I talked with a potential client and knew that it would not be a good fit for me. Yes, I could make it fit. Rather like those size 0 pants. Well, not really. Maybe size 6 pants. However, believing that my practice is available ONLY to those ideal clients, I said, “Given what you have shared with me…” and referred him to other sites. Now, I could use the money. But, it was not a fit, could never be a good fit and was not fair to the pc or me.

Do you come from the abundance world or do you grasp at every client that comes along? I am learning that I am *The Brilliant One” and that not every can work with me.I saw Simon at the IAAP International Convention in New Orleans this July. What an amazing person!

How about you? Do you work with everyone or do you have an ideal client list?

Working Environment & Cleaning Up Incompletes

I have just come back from the IAAP International Convention – energized, tired, excited, and wanting to do more!

I have started a class with Stacy Brice on Interviewing Strongly, continuing my study group on Jack Canfield’s “The Success Principles,” and taking as many teleseminars as I can around my client work.

In “The Success Principles” we are looking at chapter 28 Clean Up Your Messes and Your Incompletes. I am convinced that in order to move successfully through Stacy’s class, I must clean up messes and incompletes. How ironic!

I know I have discussed this before, so it must be a real issue with me. My husband and I have talked about unfinished projects around the house (he is the King Of Start and Leave), as well as reducing things we have. It is so much more refreshing and relaxing when there is less around to clutter the house and mind.

So, here is my question: What will give you unlimited freedom or strength with regards to your working environment or home?

For me – less clutter in the office will give me a sense of organization and power. Also, control. And for a person who always denies being a control freak, that is excellent!

Plus, my LuAnne has asked if I can attend the Jack Canfield and Jim Bunch event in San Diego in September. So, here’s hoping that cleaning clutter will land a plane ticket in my hands!

WOW! Ever made a mistake? Here is a great post..

I hate making mistakes. It seems to take forever to get past them.

Peter Shankman just Twittered this post by Julie Wainwright. If you don’t know Peter, he is the great Social Media CEO Adventurist who started HARO.

IAAP and Virtual Assistance

I just returned from the 2008 IAAP International Convention in New Orleans. WOW! What a trip. It had some bad and good, as all things do.

The best part was when members found out I was a VA, I got a lot of questions. We had some good conversations about the industry and what it takes to be a VA.

I hope we get some applications for AssistU and some really great qualified admins move from the hamster wheel to a business owner!