Like you, I get many holiday gifts every year I don’t use — from clothes that don’t fit to food I don’t eat to soaps and bath accessories I don’t need. These products fill our landfills and clutter our closets. Worse yet, they are often quickly forgotten and don’t make an impact on our lives.

Here, then, are five strategies you can use to give meaningful gifts your recipients will love — and actually use! Read the rest of this entry »

This blog post is raw, unedited, and from my heart.

I’m at the Train the Trainer workshop in Los Angeles, CA. The goal of this 5-day workshop is to train you on how to speak in front of an audience…from specific ways of handling questions to actually getting up there on stage and speaking.

Tonight was “Outrageous Night”, where we had to dress up in costumes and perform a minute-and-a-half song in front of 100 people. We were not allowed to lip-synch or talk. Read the rest of this entry »

Is emulating the “big boys” really a key to success?One of the most common mistakes I see when people first start a business — and I see this one clearly because I did it myself — is to want to make themselves look more “corporate.”

Sometimes, corporate is good — it’s professional. For instance, I don’t recommend using those tear-out business cards with dotted-line edges. Can we put those back in the 1980s where they came from?

The mistake I most often see is not in business cards, though — it’s in the message of your business. There is a pervasive belief that the more “corporate” your website and emails look, the better.

I completely disagree, and here’s why. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll be back in a day or two with more thought-provoking blog posts. In the meantime, since it’s the weekend, I figured I’d share with you a few things I am working on and reading that wouldn’t necessarily fit in an entire blog post — including some fun I’m having! Read the rest of this entry »

In May 2007, at the I Can Do It conference, I had a defining moment that changed my life.

I had come to I Can Do It with my mother that year. I was driven to come to the conference because I had known since I was quite young that I was destined to become a writer. But I struggled to connect with any author at the conference. They were swoopy and syrupy and spiritual, and they had legions of adoring fans who mobbed them for autographs. I was practical, a straight shooter, and a technology freak who owned a web hosting company. I felt uncomfortable and out of place.

The conference had started on Thursday, and on Saturday night, I finally broke down in our hotel room. The tears flowed, and I explained to my mom that I had wanted a sign at this conference as to what I was supposed to do to become a writer, and I hadn’t seen it.

My mom said, “Don’t write this off yet. You have one more day here.” Read the rest of this entry »