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This Accidental Pren-her story was sent to me by my wonderful business manager, Carolyn Freeman. I liked it so much, I just had to post it for all to read.
This is a Reader's Digest story about Sheri Schmelzer and her crocs.
Read it an let me know what you think of her story. Are you as moved and inspired as Carolyn and I?
Upon first blush, this book may seem like an odd choice for me to
review. It isn't about business . . . though it's all about how to do
business. It's main character is not a woman entrepreneur . . . yet
each girl and woman in this book is an entrepreneur to her core.
My friend and colleague Angela Giffin first introduced me to A Hat Ful of Sky when I was complaining one day that there weren't any decent books around about heroines. You know, the honest-to-goodness kind of heroine who slays her own dragons, thank you.
How can you not love a book that starts out with, "Witches deal with things."
Enter Tiffany Aching. The main character in Terry Pratchett's satirical Discworld series of fantasy novels: The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith. Armed with an iron frying pan, an army of tiny, blue, rowdy Nac Mac Feegles, and with the Chalk (her home land) in her bones, she rescues the young son of a local Baron from the Queen of the Elves, stares death in the face, and melts winter . . . most convincingly!
I read all three books in a little less than two weeks and can't wait for the next book in the series to come out. I highly recommend this book to young entrepreneurs, women business owners, and anyone who know the value of looking within for wisdom and knowing.Your search for a strong, vibrant, intelligent heroine is over. Enter Tiffany Aching.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of our young heroine?
Susan L. Reid
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Today . . . I am thinking about how long it take for start-ups to make a profit. Just about every client I've ever worked with asks me some version of this question. Most recently, one of our readers submitted a question asking, "How can I get from start-up to profit in less that one year?"
The traditional answer is: you probably won't see sustainable profit for five years.
The optimistic answer is: it takes between 2-3 years to see sustained growth profit.
For most accidental pren-hers starting up a business, the answer lies somewhere in between. And the following three points are important to keep in mind:
In March, the Washington Post addressed this issue in, Not Making a Profit in Your Start-Up? You're Not Alone by analyzing newly released data from the Kauffman Foundation. Several years ago, Entrepreneur Magazine put forth their business startup timeline and wrote an informative five-part series that is well worth the read. Charting Your Business Timeline offers accidental entrepreneurs both a general overview of the the life of a new business and helpful tools to ensure its success.
Entrepreneur Magazine's Guide to Business Timeline
Where are you in your business timeline? Did it take you longer or shorter to create a sustainable profit than you originally thought? What were some of your keys to making that happen? Leave a comment and let us know!
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Known by many names, it has been called the voice within, the inner
knower, God Self, Soul, God Within, and Spirit, to name a few. When I
was younger, I used to call it “my still small voice.” Then, when I was
in my 30s, “the voice within.” In my 40s, it became “my inner knower,”
and now it is “my Inner Samurai.”
I began calling it my Inner Samurai when I realized how strong, vast, and powerful my inner voice is. Inner because the voice is deep within my being (to distinguish it from the voice inside my head) and Samurai because of how strong and powerful it is. Inner Samurais can move mountains, leap over tall buildings in a single bound, and stop charging wildebeests in their tracks. One of my clients calls her Inner Samurai her Inner Super Woman. I like that!
No matter what you call it, everyone has an inner voice. It is that part of you that is the repository of all your life experiences and all your hopes and dreams. Alchemized over the years from lead into pure gold, your Inner Samurai is your greatest source of strength and knowing. It is the seat of your wisdom. It is also the place of your extraordinary uniqueness.
The interesting thing about your Inner Samurai is that it speaks to you. Well, maybe not speaks. “Pulses” is a better word. Your Inner Samurai has a gentle, yet very recognizable, way of communicating with you. I like to call it “pulsing.” When you go inward and ask your Inner Samurai a question, you will feel a “pulse” answering you. This pulse will have one of two distinct qualities. It will feel like either a “yes” or a “no.”
Can you distingush the difference between the voice inside your head and the voice within? What do you call your inner voice?
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
An Accidental Pren-her is a woman who finds herself starting up a
business, perhaps for the very first time. She probably has had no, or
very little experience starting up a business, though she may have
exhibited early entrepreneurial leanings as a child. It is most likely
that she has a dream — something she has been thinking about for a very
long time — although she has taken no significant action to foster that
dream’s development.
The “accidental” part comes in because most women, when facing starting up a business for the very first time, say that they never anticipated doing so. They may have been happily working in corporate, academic, or other traditional work places for most of their adult lives until something happened. What happened? Some kind of activating event — something big enough that it required them to view life differently from that point on.
For some, they were downsized. For others, they lost their job by getting laid off or fired. Still others decided they wanted more out of life than working for a paycheck, so they quit. Sometimes the activating event was getting married, becoming a mother, or children growing up and leaving home. The loss of a parent or other loved one caused some women to rethink life. Other activating events include divorce, near fatal accidents, recovery from a serious illness, and, as was the case for me, spiritual awakenings.
Whatever the activating event, all Accidental Pren-hers share a common theme. They know that something unexpected has happened to them and that this event is now shaping who they are and what they do.
Are you an Accidental Pren-her? What unexpected event is currently shaping your life?
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Upon first blush, this book may seem like an odd choice for me to
review. It isn't about business . . . though it's all about how to do
business. It's main character is not a woman entrepreneur . . . yet
each girl and woman in this book is an entrepreneur to her core.
My friend and colleague Angela Giffin first introduced me to A Hat Ful of Sky when I was complaining one day that there weren't any decent books around about heroines. You know, the honest-to-goodness kind of heroine who slays her own dragons, thank you.
How can you not love a book that starts out with, "Witches deal with things."
Enter Tiffany Aching. The main character in Terry Pratchett's satirical Discworld series of fantasy novels: The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith. Armed with an iron frying pan, an army of tiny, blue, rowdy Nac Mac Feegles, and with the Chalk (her home land) in her bones, she rescues the young son of a local Baron from the Queen of the Elves, stares death in the face, and melts winter . . . most convincingly!
I read all three books in a little less than two weeks and can't wait for the next book in the series to come out. I highly recommend this book to young entrepreneurs, women business owners, and anyone who know the value of looking within for wisdom and knowing.Your search for a strong, vibrant, intelligent heroine is over. Enter Tiffany Aching.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of our young heroine?
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Today . . . I am over at Zen Habits reading a guest post by Chris Guillebeau on Three Truths to Help You Create a Life of Gratitude. Chris is a writer, world traveler, social entrepreneur, and lifelong learner.
I immediately resonated with his article and thought you would too. As an entrepreneurial woman focused on creating a business from the inside out, I found Chris' definition of gratitude to be spot on and thought you would, too: "I think gratitude relates to a full life spent in awareness of all the good things that surround us."
I also thought you would enjoy his characteristics of a grateful life:
A life of gratitude is composed of three parts that combine to make a whole.
1. A sense of purpose in our lives
2. An appreciation for the lives of those around us
3. A willingness to take action to show the gratitude we feel
I also thought you would enjoy taking the Zen Habits of Gratefulness Challenge and passing that challenge along to other entrepreneurial women. Pass it on and let me know how the gratefulness challenge is going in your life.
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Maria Shriver's latest book, Just Who Will You Be? is full of wisdom and advice along the journey to self discovery. Today's Inner Samurai quotation is taken from page 84. Here she says,
What matters most to me now is what I expect of myself. What matters most to me now is that I know myself -- what my heart feels, what my inner voice is telling me.
Have you read her book? What do you think about this quotation. Agree? Disagree? Let me know!
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Today's special guest on The Accidental Pren-her Show, Stories of the
Unexpected is Accidental Pren-her Jill Caren of I Love Photo Gifts.
This quick-fire, 10-minute interview talks about how she turned her personal challenge into a beautiful solution. It all started when Jill was out shopping for her daughter's first baby book. That’s not so special, you may be thinking. After all, every mother does that.
Well, the thing that made this so special is Jill’s situation. You see, there are only three people in Jill’s family. Besides her daughter and her husband, there is no one else: no brothers, sisters, parents, or grandparents. This is what got her started down the entrepreneurial path.
When it came time to go out and get that first baby book for my daughter, I found all the baby books were completely irrelevant to our unique family situation, being that we have none. It’s just the three of us, so it was very difficult. I didn’t want to give my daughter a book that was going to have all these empty pages in it and, honestly, the books really were not my style. So I created my own digitally. I incorporated pictures, I incorporated letters, I incorporated all the cards we got when she was born, and I had it bound into a hardbound book at a local bindery. It kind of took off from there.
Listen to how Jill went from first year baby book to her fast growing, high-end photo gifts business.
You can download her interview and listen to it from your computer or ipod, or read it in full below.
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Continue reading "Interview with Accidental Pren-her Jill Caren" »
I read Maria Shriver's latest book, Just Who Will You Be? in less than an hour. It is a candid, heartfelt, inspiration book for seekers of any age. The core of the book is the speech she gave at her nephew's high school graduation ceremony. It's different because it asks the question who will you be, not what will you be when you grow up? Maria says:
I've learned that asking ourselves not just what we want to be, but who we want to be is important at any stage of our lives, not just when we are starting out in the world. That's because in a way, we're starting out fresh in the world every single day.
Maria's message is that what you do in your life isn't what matters. It's who you are. And Maria shares her own journey from dutiful daughter, wife, journalist, to finding her own identity.
Like many Accidental Pren-hers, Maria struggles with finding her own identity. And it's this struggle that I find most inspiring. She shares openly and candidly her struggle to go within and find out who she is beyond the Kennedy, Shriver, Schwarzenegger identity. What she discovers in the last 20 pages of this book is what makes reading her book so valuable.
Read it and see for yourself. Then pass the book along to someone special on your reading list.
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Today . . . I am reflecting back on Hillary Clinton's exit speech.
No agony of defeat for her, that's for sure!
Instead, what we saw was a gracious, confident, strong woman who doesn't take no for failure.
Here are the top 10 things I learned from her speech. These are things that every entrepreneurial woman should keep in mind when the going gets tough:
What was the highlight of Senator Clinton's exit speech for you? Add to the list. Tell me what inspired you the most.
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Have you ever really thought about what intuition is?
What is intuition to you?
Is it an instinctive knowing? An impression? A hunch or a suspicion?
Or, is it more of an absolute knowing.
No matter how you describe intuition, we all have it. We are all intuitive. We have all had intuitive experiences — the kinds of experience when we suddenly get an insight or information about something without clear reason. Sometimes we refer to it as a gut feeling. Other times, a different kind of knowing.
One thing I’ve come to know is that intuition is something quite different from the reasoning process of the mind. In fact, intuition seems to bypass the mind, completely, to access a direct knowing without rational thought interference.
I call it our Inner Samurai. Inner meaning within us all and Samurai meaning strength. Together, our Inner Samurai points the way, guides us from within, and is the real deal.
How important is your intuition? Do you depend on your intuition to guide and you all the time, some of the time, or not at all? ? How do you know when you're following your intuition, and not something else?
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Becoming an Accidental Pren-her™ can be a big shock to your system, in
oh-so-many-ways. One of those ways is isolation. The Washington Post
reported in an article their findings, Social Isolation Growing in U.S.
If it hadn't been for the Ah-Ha Sisterhood, I may not have stuck it out, returning, instead, to the comfort of academia. This is my story--my tribute to them and the place they hold in my heart. Though, too, I know that this is a story all of us share.
THE AH-HA SISTERHOOD
The Ah-Ha Sisterhood was the brainchild of my dear friend, Jina Daigle.
Jina is, by nature, one of those people who just have a knack for
connecting people. Jina had become a sole preneur two years before I
did. From my perspective, she was an experienced sole preneur. She had
her act together, knew what she was doing, and was a tremendous wealth
of support and experience. The trouble was, she lived 1,000 miles away.
As the way of all things great, Jina was also friends with two other people who were also in various stages of Accidental Pren-hership. Linda Franklin of Franklin Resource Solutions, had quit her job a year after Jina did and was just deciding what she wanted to do with her life. Karen Rawson knew she would be leaving her corporate job in about six month’s time and was preparing for that transition, and there was me who had just recently resigned from academia. All three of us were bombarding Jina with questions, advice, and support.
One day, Jina had the brilliant idea of getting us all together at her house in Dallas to attend a Small Business start-up workshop being put on by Coach U. So we all three drove and flew in to stay with her and attend the workshop together. It was so much fun, let me tell you! We sat together at the workshop, passing ideas back and forth among each other, brainstorming possibilities, and laughed, laughed, laughed. We ate together, slept together, and talked late into the night. At the end of our time together, we had formed the Ah-Ha Sisterhood.
Partly inspired by the movie, Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood and partly enthused by the "ah-ha" moments that each of us were having in our start-up process, the name stuck. Though were lived in different states, we knew we had something special going on and vowed to find some way to continue our group. Enter the beauty of teleconferencing. Armed with an access number and bridge line, each month, then bi-weekly, then every week, the Ah-Ha Sisterhood met to talk. Together we inspired, supported, brainstormed, and problem-solved for each other. Sometimes we met individually. Though most of the time, we preferred to meet together--to share the social interaction that occurs when like-minded women come together.
Although the Ah-Ha Sisterhood no longer meets, the special bond of friendship that developed because of our collective need for community still stands. Neither time nor space could ever erode the fire we all went through together. Moreover, we continue to be there for each other, whenever the need arises.
Without Jina, Linda, and Karen, it is likely I would have made a very common mistake among new small business owners; I would have bailed too soon--before I had really given this sole preneur thing a fair shot. The Ah-Ha Sisterhood saved me from myself.
Thank you, ladies of Ah-Ha!
Do you have a story to tell of sisterhood and support? Let us hear from you.
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
I get the IMC Daily Tips for Consultants. Do you? Anyone can sign up for them; you don't need to be a consultant. You don't even need to belong to the Institute of Management Consultants to get them. They are free . . . and savvy businesswomen love free!
In this daily tip, they answer the question about how to attract more business to you if you aren't already famous. That is, if you haven't already written a book, aren't widely known as a speaker, or researcher in your industry.
A big question for women entrepreneurs is how to become known, or more known. Here's what IMC had to say:
Familiarity creates comfort and at least one of the components of trust. We are comfortable with things we recognize, including taking advice from people we know. How likely are you to consider a movie review from a stranger compared to one from someone you know? Celebrity endorsements are effective because the people doing the endorsements are familiar to us, even if we really don't "know" them.
So, if we aren't a celebrity, how do we create the comfort that will make it likely that prospects will welcome our calls? Furthermore, what do we need to do to turn the corner and actually get them to seek us out?
We don't have to be really famous to get attention. In the absence of a full blown media campaign, though, we do need to identify that one thing that allows us to just be "slightly famous"? How do we define that one niche of our work for which we could be known? How do we translate that, without a complex marketing plan, into a presence in our target industry? How can we use cause marketing to differentiate ourselves from others? How do we actually create brand loyalty, not just awareness?
Using his journalism skills, results of his research and experience creating brands for his solo practitioner clients, Steve Van Yoder has captured the straightforward elements of bringing clients to you in Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort. The concepts are relatively simple - not necessarily effortless. Unlike lots of books on creating marketing gravity for your practice, Get Slightly Famous lays out a focused process for better defining your unique value and attracting media, attention and business.
I have not read Steve's book. Have you? If so, what did you think of his approach to getting slightly famous? Did it work for you?
The original Accidental Pren-her™Author of Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success
Today . . . I am reading the industry statistics on customer reviews/ratings.
Recent studies show that most online buyers read customer reviews before making a purchase.
What does that mean for the entrepreneurial businesswoman with an Internet business? It means you'd better have some way of collecting testimonials, reviews and/or ratings about your products and services if you want to increase sales.
Holly Buchanan of FutureNow blogged about Why Testimonials Do (and Don't) Work. Her list of traits that make a testimonial strong is worth reading.
Chris Garrett over at CopyBlogger has 5 Tips for Knockout Testimonials that is also compelling.
So how about you? What has been your experience with testimonials, ratings, and customer reviews. Do customer reviews influence your buying decisions? They do mine.
Victorian painter, Richard Dadd is one of the most interesting painters of the 19th century.
Depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects, Orientalist scenes, and enigmatic genre scenes, rendered with obsessively minuscule detail are hallmarks of his style.
Most of the works for which he is best known were created while
he was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. He painted his best known work, The Fairy Fellow's Master Stroke (as seen to the right) in a mental hospital where he was declared insane after murdering his father. It took him 9 years to complete.
There is a fine line between creativity and madness, don't you agree?
Several years ago, I attended a Creativity and Madness Conference in Santa Fe, NM with my dad. My father went as a clinical psychologist, interested in knowing about the inner workings of the mind, and I went a professor of music, interested in understanding more about the creative spark.
What we both found out is that one person's genius is another's psychosis.
From your Inner Samurai's perspective, the question isn't whether you are creative or mad, it's what you do with your creativity or madness that counts.
How many times have you known what was right for you yet made
another choice - one that was wrong for you? How many times have you
gone against your inner knowing? How many times have you heard yourself
say, 'I knew I should have gone that way, done that thing, or spoken my
truth?' Some would call that madness.
On the flip side, how many times have you stuck with something that you knew was right, despite all evidence to the contrary? Would that be madness? Would it make a difference if you succeeded? Then, would people applaud your for your vision, tenacity, and inventiveness?
What would happen if you failed?
What do you think? Was Richard Dadd psychotically mad or was he a creative genius. If you had just spent nine years painting a picture of fairies in an insane asylum, what would people consider you? I'm interested to read your thoughts.
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