I am, from the start a "READY GO" person so in the beginning days of my network marketing business I felt that the personal development component of a business, whether network marketing or other any other, was not a helpful use of time. I have done a 360º turn in what I am thinking now about the value of personal development. Let me explain why.

At first, I felt that far too many people "nested" in personal development and never did the business. I was just the opposite. I didn't do anything much in the direction of personal growth. As my organization grew, and grew very quickly, I discerned that not everyone has come along the same path of development. People, all of us have come to the business via different directions having come from various career backgrounds. Many of those career paths are not terribly rich in providing opportunity for a person to develop and grow. We all need to be growing in our journeys here on planet earth.

What I will tell you is that it does not build your business to stick your head in a book or tap your toes to the introduction music of the motivational tapes more an hour or two tops per day. This is NOT income producing activity. You need to be in income producing activity at least 80% of your work week time. I have no more than five suggestions in my "Leaders are Readers" section and then a few more in the "Supercharge and Take it to the Next Level" portion. I separate the two so new business coaches know they can get started quickly with a short list in terms of personal growth. On my short list is the following:

• Watch or read The Secret

• Add these important books to your library and make it a priority to read them...

o Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

o You Were Born Rich by Bob Proctor

o The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss

o The Power of the Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy

These are not in a particular order except one and two. Listening to The Secret will greatly assist people in an important mind-set - that of being in the state of attraction. Don't feel you need to be able to do this perfectly right away. It doesn't happen for most people that way. We are a work in progress so give yourself permission to do your work a little at a time. Whenever I find my mind going to a negative I take a deep breath and move myself to a positive state. So first is the mind-set of attraction. Next I want my new starts to spend time with Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich where they will immerse themselves and feel the importance of growing themselves personally. I love the journey he suggests on self-confidence early in the book. Do a team call on confidence and focus on the portion of his writings.

The 4 Hour Work Week is the freshest piece I have read in a long time. Readers will be highlighting and taking notes on the perspectives and checking the websites Tim Ferriss suggests. It will be a book to carry around with you as you grow your business and choose to develop a lifestyle only some people "dreamline". You Were Born Rich is just a timeless piece from a highly respected mentor to so many of us. Bob Proctor helped me understand that we are all born with abundance and what we do with that is up to us. The Power of the Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy will open a new world to you in the way you use your own mind!

The privilege we have before us with a network marketing business is what it allows us in relationships and the development of individuals. DON"T be a gerbil on one of those little tread wheels going round and round and never getting on down the road toward your financial goal. DO hold high the value of personal development. Plan to jog your way through the short list and walk on to whatever you choose to supercharge to the next level. Just make it as easy as possible in the start up to begin your journey of growth.

Brief Biography for Nancy Quinlisk

Nancy's current leadership positions are President and CEO and board member of two financial institutions where she helps chart strategic management directions. Nancy has served the YMCA as Chairman of her state Y's . The Youth Development Award is given in her name annually honoring her many contributions to the youth in her community. She has also served Neways Corporate as a member of their Distributor Support Team. She does consulting work, assisting financial and non-profit organizations in their forward planning. Nancy holds a Graduate Degree in Banking from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She and her husband, Warren, a retired manufacturer, are enjoying the bright new opportunity before them as they work together with various joint ventures.

Houston, Texas, famous for manufacturing oilfield equipment, is a world class Gamma city. Energy, the aeronautics industry, and its famous shipping channel are major contributors to its city’s economy. Starting a personal development coaching business in Houston can be a good idea, as you will be helping so many people find themselves and put them on the right track towards achievement and success.

Tips for Starting a Personal Development Coaching Business:

It is necessary to determine if you will be operating on your own or if you will be hiring the services of other certified and experienced coaches. Find out and analyze your competitors to get a clearer picture of the business and to correctly structure your services in such a way as develop a competitive edge as well as determine the duration of sessions and the rates per session.

It is always recommended to form a legal entity because it offers limited liability protection, so hire a lawyer and decide on an appropriate name, too. Make sure you get required licenses and permits as well as insurance coverage. Estimate start-up costs, arrange for the finances and draft a business plan with clearly defined goals. A good plan will also act as a performance assessment tool and a blueprint of all your day-to-day operations.

Decide on the kind of coaching you will be providing, face–to-face, via Internet and conferencing, or via telephone. Select the areas you will coach them in, such as spiritual coaching, parent coaching, business coaching, coaching them for promotions, sales and marketing coaching, accounting and bookkeeping coaching, and corporate coaching. Select an appropriate location and be sure that your establishment is located in a busy commercial area with easy access and ample parking space. Buy all necessary equipment, supplies, materials, Internet connections, and systems as per your needs. Invest in services and products that are designed to help new businesses succeed.

Hire suitably certified and genuinely motivated people with good listening skills, ability to aptly guide persons to achieve success, and who have experience with the techniques and principles of Neuro-Linguistic Programming to correctly guide the clients. Be sure to use all prescribed techniques to help their clients achieve what they seek.

Marketing and advertising your services is another area that must not be neglected. List your business in the Yellow Pages; advertise regularly in the newspapers and on the radio. Have a business website listing all your services, the rates you will charge, and if there are options such as classroom coaching or a much less personal telephone coaching. Be sure your site is easy to navigate and is keyword-optimized. You can also offer a free newsletter, which can generate leads for you to follow up on.

Marianne read the list: 'Susanne rides Moro, Daisy rides Boy, Renate rides Billy...' My thoughts started to wander, I would ride Diamond, and all my effort would be compensated at last. 'Charlotte rides Patsy...' I could not believe my ears. I looked in despair to Marianne, but she just carried on with the to-do list: 'White socks will have to be washed with water and a little bit of bleach, make sure your boots are polished....'

My eyes were filled with tears, I started walking away. Suddenly I felt a big hand on my shoulder, and the deep voice of Mr. Kingsley sounded far away: 'Where are you going to?' I didn't answer; I just looked up to him. The 70 year old horse trainer, who taught me to ride, who had always had so much patience with me, who tried to help me get rid of my inexplicable fear for horses and even more inexplicable urge to learn riding.

'I understand how you feel' he whispered. Minutes before, I had just suffered the biggest disappointment I could imagine. The owner of the riding stables was going to get married, and we, the kids were going to ride behind the carriage on all the riding school ponies. I had been assigned the task to groom Diamond, a big beautiful gray gelding, with long full manes and a long silvery tail. Today the list was announced who would ride which pony, and I was sure that I would ride Diamond. I knew that he was a handful to ride out, but I was sure that I could handle him, especially after having spent weeks grooming him until his coat was shiny as a mirror.

And now they made me ride Patsy... The little brown pony, maybe 12 hands high, gray on her face because of her age. Patsy with her dull brown hair, her matted tail, and the weird white patches on her neck and left hind leg. I had tried in vain to make her look shiny too because I felt pity for her, but her winter fur did not allow much brushing, and her tail was beyond hope. My mind was racing. I was going to look ridiculous. Why had I spend so many hours on the riding school, fighting my fear? I had never heard of personal development, and it just did not make any sense.

Mr. Kingsley looked at me, and wiped my tears from my cheek with his hand. 'Patsy will be so proud' he whispered. 'You don't understand' I gulped, but he talked again. 'I know how you feel' he said again, but I couldn't contain my anger and frustration. 'Why did they make me do all that work, for nothing? Why did I put so much effort in to learn riding, to try to overcome my fear, to groom Diamond....? I am going home, and I will never be back here.'

Mr. Kingsley just looked at me, probably wondering how he could explain this vital part of every single person's personal development plan to this little girl. His soft voice hit me like a knife: 'Why did I put so much effort in teaching you, if you quit at the first disappointment you suffer? Everything worthwhile has a phase in which you think about quitting. I call this "The Dip". Clever people don't even start on something new when they think they will not conquer the dip. Brave people start and struggle through the dip. Stupid people quit every time they hit a dip. Every one should have a plan, a personal development plan: What is it you want to reach and what are you willing to pay.'

I did ride Patsy, and I brushed, washed and rubbed her until she was shiny too. Because she was the smallest and the calmest pony, she and I were allowed to ride in front of the carriage, and my white dress as a bridesmaid matched beautifully with the pearly white laces in Patsy's manes and tail. I had never felt more proud when the waiting guests cheered at our sight.

Do you realise the power of having a personal development plan? It's like having your very own blueprint for success in your life – tailored to create your life exactly how you want it to be. If I could show you how to build your own personal development plan, would you be willing to devote 10 -15 minutes per day to nurture it and put it into practise?

Before we get started, let me ask you a question: "Why do successful people seem to find it easier to get what they want in life?" And why do some people get to the top of their careers and earn good money, while you continue to struggle to make a decent living?

The way I see it is this – the people who are able to achieve their goals and ambitions in life, with relative ease are much less inhibited, and are even totally un-inhibited.

These people still get nervous and anxious when in demanding situations that take them outside of their comfort zone, but they have learnt how to control those limiting and dysfunctional emotions and behaviours and even eliminate them completely from their lives.

Successful people have learned the behaviours they need to achieve their goals, and they practice them on very regular occasions. So much so, their old, limiting behaviours have all but been eliminated from their life, and their new empowering behaviours and now the norm.

If these people can learn how to not feel nervous and anxious in important situations, so can you.

If these people have learned how to remain calm and relaxed when they get into winning positions in sport, so can you.

If these people have learned how to stand in front of a room full of people, be relaxed, smile, and present their ideas, so can you.

And if these people have learned how to overcome their frustrations and inabilities to achieve their highest goals in life, so can you.

If you can dedicate 5 to 10 minutes each day to practising some simple NLP techniques, you can start to take control of your fears and frustrations and turn them into positive and empowering emotions.

Before you turn tail and run at the thought of learning some NLP techniques, or if you're not really sure what it is, in it's simplest form, Neuro Linguistic Programming is basically a method of helping you change the way you habitually react to any given situation. When you experience anxiety or frustration, you are simply reacting negatively to the situation that is causing those emotions. NLP teaches you how you can easily change your reactions to be positive and empowering.

To get started, there are two very simple exercises you need to learn and practice:

1. You need to become aware of all the situations and environments that make you feel nervous, anxious and inhibited. Carry a little notebook in your pocket so that you can make note of them whenever they occur.

In order to start tearing down the barriers that are standing in your way, you need to know exactly what those barriers are.

2. The second exercise is even easier – you simply need to write down how you would like to feel most of the time, and what feelings and behaviours you want to eliminate from your life.

When you want a perfect garden, have a lovely tree, plant perennial flowers, and / or have other gardening concerns about how to best prepare your garden, you should certainly know how to plan your garden. Find out how to do this, a method that guarantees your garden will best suit your needs as far as design, beauty, and / or harvest is concerned. There are many recommendations and tips that will make your gardening easier in general, your blooms or your landscaping more beautiful, and / or your garden (no matter what kind) the most efficient garden it can be.

If you are planning a vegetable garden, winter time is a good time to start planning. Design a garden, depending on how in-depth your project, you may want to start with a pencil and a sheet of graph paper. You will want to be sure to make the proper measurements of how deep to burry your seeds, what kinds of conditions different plants require, and how much space and quality soil you have to work with. Depending on the varieties of vegetables you choose, you can create the perfect conditions for a vegetable garden that will produce more vegetables and / or healthier garden vegetables for you.

Your planting space is very important. When it comes to gardening, always remember this phrase “the right plant in the right place” and you will have the most successful possible for your specific environmental conditions. The phrase above is practically a gardening mantra for the experienced gardener. Consider variables such as leaf cover (in other words: trees or other shade-providing foliage, as well as buildings or structures such as fences or shelters, for the same reason. Light is virtually always the most important factor to consider when you decide what to plant. The atmospheric conditions are also very important variables to consider: conditions such as humidity and temperature. Your particular plant will thrive in certain conditions with certain amounts of sunlight per day. Therefore, if you have a tall storage shelter right next to or nearby your shrubs, and your shrubs need direct sunlight for at least three hours a day, you do not have to worry as long as they receive the minimum amount of sunlight.

If your favorite flowers prefer a more humid climate than you have in the environment in which you live, you may want to plant them near a waterfall, garden pond or fountain. As a matter of fact, there is a simpler solution for you if you do not have a garden pond, reflecting pool or waterfall, all you need to do is to mist the plant and / or its flowers to keep it moist. This is true for maintaining a plant in less than perfect conditions, requiring additional moisture, virtually every time.

Because of the increase in modern technology, there are even pieces of gardening / landscaping equipment available to help you easily ascertain the conditions of your garden space. You will know almost exactly what you will need to create the perfect garden in the conditions or under which you live or that you can create so your garden can thrive. These aforementioned pieces of gardening equipment are sometimes very important if you need the extra help.

Creating the conditions you need is essential for your ultimate success for your gardening and / or landscaping overall. Here is an example of one such plant many people love to have in their yards and gardens: The Bradford flowering pear tree.

The new flowering pear tree (Pyrus calleryana) is a great tree, beautiful and fragrant, is a very typical tree to see lining the urban streets creating a little ally of surrounding comfort. If the pyrus calleryana is something you care for in your own yard, know that it is a small – space flowering tree. The tree is also, unfortunately, likely to be deformed and perhaps hazardous for you because it is narrow and grows more upright than other trees, and is therefore less likely to survive a storm. In conditions where heavy storms are very common, you are likely not to see any flowering pear trees thriving in delicate stream-like trails.

There are, of course, many other examples of both flowering plants as well as others that may be perfect for you gardening and / or landscaping needs. Explore your favorite plants and flowers, and discover the environmental condition they prefer, then design the perfect gardening or landscaping project. You can impress even yourself when your garden is set in the very best conditions for each and every plant to thrive.

Anne Clarke writes numerous articles for websites on gardening, parenting, fashion, and home decor. Her background includes teaching, gardening, and fashion. For more of her articles on gardening and outdoor supplies, please visit outbackpatio.com, supplier of high quality Garden Accents and Patio Accessories.

I heard lots of people asking almost the same question, perhaps with different paraphrasing and it goes like this. "How can I become wealthy and happy?" The most common answer will be "Work harder so that you can make more money!" Well, I will most probably probe further by asking "What do you work harder on?" I guess you will most probably say "Isn't that obvious? It should be on your job!" Well, it is true if you are contended with a life of mediocrity. If you want to live a life of richness and success, then you ought to learn to work harder on yourself than you do it on your job. That is when personal development makes its grand entrance to your life.

I must admit that working on personal development has been the most challenging task of my life because it is an indefinite process. Once you are in personal development education, it will stay with you lifelong and only stops on the day we die. There is nothing we can refute on. You see the importance of personal development education has on our entire life. That is why we see people die at the age of 21 but only get buried at the age of 65. These are the groups of person without going through proper personal development education.

A lot of people have goals and dreams of what they are going to get and they plan and strategise working towards their goals. In fact, we have failed to realise one thing which is the most important in personal development education. It is not about what we are getting but rather what we are becoming to is far more important. The reason being so is simple. When you become the person you want to be, getting what you want usually comes along with it. They compliment each other. Just like a successful businessman earns millions or billions in his business. The money come naturally when you become a successful businessman.

Why does every successful businessman make money? Have you heard of any successful business who does not make money? Does making money equate success to you? What do I mean by all these questions? In fact, I am highlighting the importance of personal development which has a knitted impact in finance management. Personal development encompasses a wide area and finance literacy and management is just a certain part of it. Without proper training in financial management, that explains why people who strike billions of dollars in lottery claimed they were not the least happy after which or declares bankrupt faster than anyone would have thought of. Therefore, personal development is where you should focus most in your life otherwise you might just have to contend with mediocrity.

Personal development is not only about financial literacy and management, it also encompasses relationship establisment, health, family, love, spiritual and many more. If you want to know the secret attitudes, techniques, methods and strategies that, when applied, will skyrocket your success in virtually every area of your life, you have to visit

There are so many personal growth products it can be difficult to choose what's best.

* Most, if not all, of them do work.
* Most, if not all, of them probably won't work for you unless you apply the techniques.
* Most, if not all, of them are easy to put into practice but tweaking and fine tuning them may take longer.
* Most, if not all, of them require some of your time - anything from a few minutes to an hour a day.
* Regularly. Not just once or twice.
* Most, if not all, of them work better if you've got someone else (a "buddy") to work with, giving each other encouragement and support.

Which kind of suggests pick a product you get on with and that requires the amount of regular time you can afford.

* Meditation/Centerpointe: 10 - 60 minutes a day plus maybe some kind of "induction" course.
* Subliminal videos: 8 - 20 minutes a day.
* Subliminal audios: 10 - 60 minutes a day.
* Tony Robbins: various durations plus probably an introduction day or more.
* Sedona: 1 - 8 hours of listening initially, then a few seconds to release each item as it comes up, when it comes up.
* New Psycho Cybernetics (Maxwell Maltz, updated by Dan Kennedy): a book to read initially then regular work on your self image.
* Effort Free Life System: 6 hours plus of CDs plus several short mental exercises a day

The biggest problem with any of these is the initial regular implementation. Once you've done something for 14 - 28 days, it's a habit. Most of the "it doesn't work" brigade can be found in the trail of bodies who haven't worked on the idea long enough for it to become a habit.

So, it's really a case of:

* Pick a method. Any method (I'm sounding like a magician there!)
* Study the method long enough to know what you need to do to start. Don't worry about perfection. Starting is much more important.
* Start practicing on a regular basis.
* Keep going on a regular basis. Once a week, twice a week, weekdays only, weekends only, daily, whatever. This is where the "buddy" comes in to gently nag you to keep going.
* Set a target if that's appropriate.
* Make that target realistic, so your brain will believe you. And work towards it on a regular basis so your brain starts to realize you're serious this time.
* Revise your target if appropriate. There's nothing wrong in deciding that the original direction you wanted to go in is no longer appropriate.
* Keep working on it.
* Keep going on a regular basis so it becomes habit. Something you always do, like cleaning your teeth.
* Don't switch and change between methods just because someone else is doing something different.
* Remember the saying "all roads lead to Rome". If you've picked a method you get on with and stuck with it, you'll almost certainly get there.

So, pick a method you get on with. Pick a regular time that's good for you and is unlikely to get shifted out of the way by the slightest excuse.

Then start.

After starting, keep going.

Tune out the naysayers. Get help from your "buddy" if available. In turn, help them back.

In a year's time, look back on this as the turning point in your life.

To help ensure success in life it is good for every one of us to have a personal Development Plan (PDP) to guide us along life’s road. Your Personal development is not a destination, you’ll never get ‘there’ wherever ‘there’ is. Your personal development is ongoing so as you accomplish or master one area of your life you will move onto the next level or expand that area.

Many people have a ‘mental block’ when it comes to addressing problems about themselves and there are those who are terrified about taking time and thinking about any such problem. These folks find it much, much easier to work on a project or to help someone else solve their own problems but won’t even consider addressing their own. For this reason and others it is important that we all have a PDP.

Based on your current situation and role, a PDP will help to prioritize the most important areas of your life, that you need to concentrate on and will point you in the right direction for further advice and training.

Identifying Areas that need development.
When constructing your PDP I suggest you begin by identifying the areas in your life that need attention. It can be challenging to identify areas of your life that need development, especially if you are not in tune with who you are, what you desire, what you have and don’t have. You have to be aware of where your life is now in terms of what’s working and what’s not, and also what you are ignoring totally. Just because you have tried in the past to develop certain areas of your life and failed, doesn’t mean you cannot be successful in the future, the timing may just be wrong.

For many of us our personal development goals are just not strong enough, they have no ‘humph’ in them, no great desire behind them so we keep changing them from day to day or year to year. I’m sure you know those people who on January 1st every year list out the things they want to achieve for that year, when they have not even tried to accomplish their goals for the previous year.

So to identify the areas in your life you need to develop, the first thing you need to do is to ask yourself “what are the areas in my life that are very important to me and to my well being and my existence.” these areas will be different for each of us, for me they are:
1. Physical health
2. Mental/emotional
3. Spiritual
4. Achievement/recreation
5. Financial
6. Relationships-romantic and family

Be careful not to get too hung up on names and what falls into what category, just write them down. This is really just to make it easier to decide on what you want to improve in your life and is by no means carved in stone.

What are your Personal Development goal for each Area
Once you have identified the important areas of your life, write down everything that you would like to improve for each area as it relates to your personal growth. In most cases your development goal is going to be about either building on your existing strengths or developing new skills and competencies. So under ‘Physical’ you can state how you would like your body to look, do you need to join a gym today, stop eating meat, exercise five times a week and so on. The key here is to write down anything and everything that comes into mind, whatever you can imagine write it down. You can include short-term goals –something you may want to achieve this week and also long-term goals –things you want to achieve in twenty to twenty-five years. Make the goals ones that you can get excited about.

Put a Timeline on each goal
Once you have listed the goals for each area of your personal development, you then have to take the time to put a time line on each goal. It’s not important right now to know how you are going to accomplish your goals. All you do right now is to write down a time frame within which you’ll want to operate. By deciding when you’ll achieve a goal providence comes to your aid in making them a reality. If one year is your time frame and you are committed to this then write down one year. If it’s five years then write down five years.

Begin with your one-year goal
You want to choose the one goal that you consider to be the most important in any of the areas you have identified, make it a goal that would give your great excitement and make you feel that your year was well spent if you were to accomplish it. Next write a paragraph or two stating why you are totally committed to achieving this goal within the year. Include why this is a must for you, what benefits will you gain by achieving it, what will you lose or miss if you didn’t achieve it. Whatever reasons you come up with ensure that they are strong enough to get you to follow through. If they are not, then come up with better and more empowering reasons or better goals.

Where are you now
Once you have determined what your one-year goal will be, begin by analyzing where you are starting from. This will become the “baseline” from where you measure your progress. A clear awareness of where you are now will help greatly in facilitating your development. If you find it hard to focus on this or to be honest with yourself, you can ask for feed back from someone who knows you well and can be objective. You can ask your friends, family, or even your work colleagues as they are all observing you and are affected by the things you do and will therefore have some views about your skills. Ask them questions like:
“What am I good at”,
“What am I great at”,
“What do you think I could be better at”
Make sure they are specific in what they are saying to you. If you do not want a long drawn out epistle from your friends you can limit them to two or three comments.

If you choose to ask someone else, pay careful attention to what they are saying as not everything you hear will be flattering to you and some comments will be useless to you. Note whatever is said keeping in mind that good feedback is always specific, clear and non-critical, so if someone says “you’re always doing crazy things’ this should not be take as feedback but criticism and you should total ignore it, it’s not worth your time.

Once you are done combine your thoughts and the feedback you get and make a list by writing down what you think were your strengths and weaknesses. You need to be honest with yourself here. Check to see if there are any patterns emerging from the comments.

The End Result
At this point what you do is to imagine what it would be like if you got up tomorrow morning and your problem was solved. Write down how you will feel, what you will be thinking and what it will be like. Make sure these statements are made in the affirmative and are positive. So instead of writing “I feel o.k. about the way I’m dressing now” you should write “I fell happy and confident about my clothes and how they look on me”

Action Plan
Next you need to identify what you need to do to take you to where you want to be. This is the time to think creatively about what you need to do. There is a wide range and a large number of resources out there, ready and waiting for you to use to take you in the right direction. There will be a mixture of self-study, formal training, informal training and “on the job” experiences. Only you will know what’s best for you, your budget and your lifestyle. So if your goal is to be physically fit then you will want to find out information on health and fitness. Your fist stop would be your doctor, and then maybe a trainer, then you need information on a gym that fits what you need. You get what I mean. After you have written down all the things you need to do, put them in some order so that you know what you will be doing first, and what’s next and so on. Break it down to its simplest task if possible. Take your time when doing your plan, and one important point is that it doesn’t have to be perfect, so do not try and make it so.

Your Reward
Though not necessary you may want to include a series of rewards as you make progress and achieve the smaller goals. You can make it as simple as a slice of your favourite cheesecake after you have been working out for six weeks. For some people no extra incentives are required, the improvement is reward enough but small rewards are a good idea still.

Review Your Plan
Once you have finished writing out you PDP it is always a good idea to review it. It’s a good idea to take a break away from your initial PDP of about five days to a week, then return to it and review it. When reviewing the plan you may also ask someone else to look it over and give their views. If there are any changes that you think are necessary make them.

Implement the Plan
Now that you have completed your PDP, it’s time to implement it. Start with the first task you must accomplish and keep going until all the tasks are finished. Each time you complete a task or do something you are not used to doing, do a kind of short review. What did you do well and what could you have done better.

Review Your Progress
By checking your progress you will be able to reflect on what is working and what is not, so you can adjust your actions or change course if you are not achieving what you want. You have to decide how often you check on your progress, it could be every week, every month or every six weeks.

When you develop your own personal development plan and follow through with action, it can be one of the most satisfying things you have ever done. It can even build your self-confidence and boost your self-esteem, as you will have a sense of surety about what you are about to do.

The key here is to take the whole process one step at a time. If you ever feel yourself getting overwhelmed, it could be a sign that you are taking on too much. Slow down and concentrate on one thing at a time. Now get going and enjoy the process.

Your feeling affect literally everything you do in life, and everything that happens in your life - especially your self confidence and self esteem. You create feelings and emotions about everything that your senses pick up, and you create an immediate and automatic reaction to everything that happens to you.

When you taste something really bad, you immediately feel revulsion and try to get rid of the horrible taste as quickly as possible. When you slip on a wet or icy pavement, you immediately feel panic as you lose your footing and fear you might fall.

In every situation you encounter, your feelings are immediately brought into play and then determine how you react to everything that happens to you. Let's quickly cover the different types and groups of feelings, because it's important to recognise them so you know how to deal with them and manage them in a positive way.

The first group we'll look at are commonly referred to in NLP and painful feelings. Imagine you're having a bath, you've been lead there relaxing for a while, and the water is getting a little cooler than you'd like, so you expertly twist the hot tap with your toes, but suddenly a rush of scalding hot water shoots out and burns your foot. You yell out in pain and immediately pull your foot away from the water. So we can see that painful feelings make you move away from the source of pain.

The first type of painful feelings is anxiety. Anxiety can be a very debilitating emotion, and is also non-specific. By that I mean that you can be feeling very anxious about something, but not really know exactly what is causing your anxiety symptoms. You're feeling apprehension, dread, uneasiness and distress, but not sure why.

Anxiety can be very severe - and can certainly be strong enough to wake you from a deep sleep or cause an anxiety or panic attack. It is usually caused by an accumulation of many smaller fears and worries that combine together to create overwhelming emotional stress. In stronger cases, it can cause you to be uncertain and incapable of positive action. In most cases it also has a negative impact on your self esteem and reduces or even wipes out your self confidence.

The second group of feeling we call pleasure feelings. Imagine you're going to meet someone you love very much, but haven't seen for some time. As soon as you meet, you feel compelled to rush over and hug them really hard. Doing this would make you feel extremely happy and joyful. These emotions cause us to feel pleasure and want to move towards them.

We are all programmed to seek out pleasurable experiences and situations, and to try to have more of them in our lives. This is why romance, holidays and even pleasure parks play such an important part in our lives. Pleasurable emotions and feeling that we can't get enough of include happiness, joy, laughter, love, friendship, fulfilment, winning, being loved and inner peace.

Time, is our most precious resource. How are we to make the most effective use of each twenty-four hour span? Most people give little thought to the actual value of their time, possibly not even during conventional working hours. Entrepreneurs know better. We cannot afford to haphazardly approach the workday. We must have a plan and execute it to the best of our ability, leveraging time to our greatest benefit.

Dave Navarro at Jonathan Phillips' Freelance Folder proposes a thought-provoking method of accurately valuing our time. "Your time is worth exactly this much:

Cash Money / Hours Worked = Your Rockin’ $DPH (Dollars Per Hour)

Now, in the last 30 days, how much did you earn? Stop reading, and think about this seriously. Don’t read any further until you do. How much cash crossed your hands (or how many orders came in) in the last month? Stop and think about it. Now that you have that number firmly in mind, it’s time to get brutally honest. How many hours did you spend in the last 30 days doing business tasks or business-ish tasks?

Translation:
Business tasks = stuff that actually drove your business forward Business-ish tasks = pointless stuff you did when you were supposed to be doing stuff to drive your business forward.

That’s right … those business-ish activities robbed you of the revenue generating goodness that you know and love. But you still gotta include them in the equation. And they bring that $DPH down, down, down."

Most self-employed people are acutely aware that their time investment must produce immediate income. Most generate income in proportion to the amount of hours spent working each day. Many other entrepreneurs however, are in the position of remaining gainfully employed as they pursue their entrepreneurial dreams part-time. This strategy is often a wise one, born of necessity, in the absence of venture capitol investors. It provides that safety-net of income and benefits for our family while we tend to our dream.

If we calculate the incoming-producing value of our time at $120 per hour, we must also further understand that idle, non-productive time is then costing us $120 per hour. This is opportunity cost. While not immediately recognizable, this cost can cripple a fledgling business if not properly managed.

All activity, however relevant to the business, does not directly produce income, yet remains important to the overall business operation. Such activities are best completed during non-prime-time hours, where selling and revenue generation must remain the priority otherwise. Designing advertisements, marketing materials and selling strategies, bookkeeping and other administrative functions fall within this category of necessary activities. It may make sense to consider outsourcing many of these tasks to others who will charge far less than $120 per hour for their services, yet deliver a top-notch solution for your needs, thus freeing you to generate more revenue with your precious, limited selling time.

There are many occasions where a personal phone call, sales call or a group sales presentation are necessary. For effective sales results under those circumstances, our conventional, personal efforts must focus on our best sales prospects during the most productive, prime part of the day. For most businesses, this the 8:00am until 6:00pm time slot. Our automated sales systems however, such as our web site, blog, advertising and various marketing channels are available 24/7/365 to a world-wide audience of prospective buyers. These systems often provide us many warm prospects for dealing with during prime time. Learn how to let your assets work for you.

Keeping tabs on your most productive selling hours, managing your time and other assets to your maximum advantage while minimizing idle, non-productive time is the formula for a successful business. Try watching less TV and invest that time in your business. Be certain to eat well, drink plenty of water, sleep well, scheduling both downtime and family time.