Five Ways to Change Your Life

5 Tips for Success

Five Ways to Change Your Life

-Mark Banschick, M.D.

Everyone has a unique life story.

We learn from personal experience and take it wherever we go. Your dad had a business, and you go into the same business. Your mom had a subservient relationship with your dad and you tend to repeat the pattern in your relationships. Our history is a road map through life. The downside is that it sometimes keeps us stuck in old patterns that hold us back.  

You needn’t be stuck in the past.

Take the best from your upbringing by mindfully acknowledging your extraordinary individual strengths and nurture those. Some you got from your parents or teachers, others you developed yourself. Now, notice your most challenging moments as opportunities for growth and consider doing something new. A new behavior can raise anxiety; that’s normal. Clarify your strengths, challenges, and life goals. Overcome those that stifle you. Begin to design your best life. It's never too late to start creating the life you want. In the words of John Cage,

"Begin anywhere.”

1. On Top of the World!  Notice when you feel your best, most confident and prolific self. Fully absorb the gratifying feelings that happen in those moments. Look for opportunities to experience successes and accomplishment often. Spend a few minutes each day encoding positive feelings, sensory and cognitive information.  This can gradually improve and change your brain structure over time.
Daniel J. Siegel describes this neuroplasticity of the brain in his book, Interpersonal Neurobiology. By choosing to focus on positive experiences, you can manage and regulate your neural firings.  The more you take in the good, the more naturally your brain will spontaneously notice it unfolding around you. You can reap the benefits of positivity that otherwise may have been overlooked.  Or, from a slightly different angle, Rick Hanson also talks about this in his book, Buddha's Brain—The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom.

2. Scared and Alone.  Certain circumstances or challenges seem overwhelming. They take us outside our familiar comfort zone or back to a previous stressful time.  They can create insecurity and threaten our self esteem. Being faced with a seemingly impossible task can stop us in our tracks. Trigger and response, and you feel vulnerable. 
Here are a few ways to accept the challenge and assert your new empowered self! Take "baby steps" toward your goal and celebrate your progress every step of the way. This will reduce your fear gradually over time with each new successful experience. Jump right in! This is a method that typically results in finding out your worst fears didn't come true …and were likely exaggerated from the start.  
Notice your internal monologue about those intimidating situations. Challenge those automatic negative thoughts by rating their validity on a scale of 1–100. Chances are they are pretty irrational and invalid. Mindfully notice your body, breath, and surroundings. Breathe slowly. Deliberately shift your attention between your immediate bodily sensations and the surrounding stimuli.  In doing so, you can regulate physical reactions that feel like panic. Notice the inner child holding onto fear in moments of self doubt. What is he/she experiencing? Soothe him/her.

Use your wisdom to inform and calm that inner part of yourself.

3. Bring on the Love. Positive energy breeds positive energy. Laughter is contagious. Notice your company when you are feeling your best. The more time you spend with positive people in a supportive environment, the better you will feel. Positive relationships are one of the essential elements of well-being in Positive Psychology, according to Martin Seligman. Well-being has been determined to be even more fulfilling than happiness. It's comprised of positive emotion (pleasure, ecstasy, comfort, etc), engagement (in an activity or moment), positive relationships, meaning (belonging and serving something larger than yourself), and accomplishment. Spend time with those you love and cherish.

Participate in meaningful activities in which you are industrious.

4. Goodbye, Chaos! New studies in neuroscience show that we are capable of achieving much of what we want. The trick is to truly want it and believe you can do it! We're born with an amazing brain capable of learning and mastering more than we even understand. It's not because we can't achieve it, but because we don't fully tap into our brain's potential. Fears and anxieties might convince us that we can't do math or we aren't an artistic type. Brain studies demonstrate this to be untrue. 
Now more than ever, it's evident that practice DOES make perfect! Tony Buzan talks about this in his book, The Mind Map Book. The more time you spend repeating the same exercise or thought pattern or challenge, the better you will perform it over time. With practice, you are strengthening the neural pathways responsible for those thought and behavior patterns. So take a painting class or learn a new sport or language!

If you believe you can do it, you will.

5. Hello, Dreams and Aspirations!  Consider the dry wit of Mae West, “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”  Make the most of your life!  Imagine it as you want it to be. Notice what gives you energy. Get started on setting clear, achievable goals. If at first they seem too lofty, then break them down into smaller ones. Establish daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly targets. Remember that everything is a process. If it's worthwhile, it probably takes a lot of hard work and a steady dose of time.

Practice patience and flexibility with yourself while holding true to taking forward steps.

5 Tips For Small-Business Success -G.M. Filisko

5 Tips For Small-Business Success

-G.M. Filisko

In every economic downturn, corporations shed employees to shave costs. And in every economic downturn, many of those let-go employees make lemons out of lemonade by starting that small business they've always dreamed of operating, whether it involves doing what they were doing as an employee or trying something entirely different.

Like all small-business owners, newbies need to start off on the right foot by avoiding legal, tax and financial problems that too often trip up the freshly self-employed. Here are five tips for making your launch successful.

1. Create The Right Legal Structure

One of the first questions every small-busines owner must consider is whether to operate as a sole proprietorship or as a corporate entity. "You automatically start out as a sole proprietorship," says Certified Financial Planner David M. Williams, founding director of Business Enhancement Associates LLC in Cordova, Tenn.


Operating as a sole proprietor costs no money because you don't have to pay to create corporate documents and tax returns. Whether you should continue to operate as a sole proprietor, however, depends on your business and personal risk tolerance.


"We always strongly urge people to set up a corporation because it gives you some legal protection," says Don Mazzella, chief operating officer and publisher at Information Strategies Inc., a Ridgefield, N.J., provider of publications for small businesses. "You'd be suprised at the liability you can engender when you set yourself up as a business owner. People may come at you with litigation or try to dun you for bills. If nothing else, it protects your personal credit rating."


But Williams isn't convinced a corporate entity is necessary for everyone. "I wouldn't say you should run out and form a corporate entity until you know you can be in business for yourself," he says. "It's expensive, but it's also a waste in both time and money. Once you know you can be successful, if you're doing consulting work and are truly the sole proprietor of your company, staying a sole proprietorship is probably best. If there's more than one person with capital involved -- whether that's cash or sweat equity -- form an entity that spells out how much is owned, who is responsible for what, and whether taxes should be paid at the corporate or individual level."


Cost shouldn't be the driving factor in structuring your business. "Many online sources allow you to create a corporate entity for just a few hundred dollars," says Allen Bostrom, CPA, president and CEO of Universal Accounting Center in Salt Lake City, which trains accountants, tax preparers and bookkeepers. "You just put in your information, and they'll create templates." Just a few are Legalzoom.com, The Company Corp., SCORE and Incfile.com.

2. Pay Taxes -- If You Must

The way you structure your business will provide guidance as to how soon you need to begin paying taxes on your earnings. Though there can be twists, the general rule is that if you operate as a sole proprietorship, you don't need to begin immediately paying taxes. "Going by the letter of the law, if you make more than the de minimus amount of $400, you're supposed to file taxes quarterly," says Williams. "But there are no penalties if during the year you shift from being an employee to being self-employed and you don't make quarterly tax payments."


That's not true if you've formed a corporate entity. "Those entities must begin filing taxes on income as they earn it," says Williams. "If you as an entity make money, you have to report it quarterly."

3. Set Aside Self-Employment Taxes

When you're an employee, your employer withholds roughly 15.3 percent of your income to fund Social Security. You pay half out of your pocket, and your employer covers the other half. When you're self-employed, you shoulder the entire amount. You don't have to make quarterly payments to cover the tax, but you can avoid getting stung at tax time by setting aside funds to cover those taxes.

4. Think Hard About Whether Insurance Is Necessary

Few startups have extra capital to spend on insurance they don't really need. Can you save a buck by going without? "In general, you don't need insurance until you hire your first employee, and then you'll need a lot of insurance," says Mazzella. "If you're working out of your home and your only liability is someone tripping and falling during a visit or losing your office equipment in a fire, you can make sure your homeowners insurance covers that. If you're operating outside your home, you'll want a minimim of insurance on your office and assets."
What about liability insurance? That depends on your business. If you're a service provider who's unlikely to get sued no matter how poorly you perform, such as a proofreader or graphic designer, you probably don't need insurance. "We tell our bookkepers that every insurance agent will tell them they need errors and omissions insurance," says Mazzella. "But we've never heard of bookkeepers being sued unless they stole from the business or committed fraud, and no insurance will cover that."

If you sell products, you again have to evaluate your risk. "If you sell bottle corks, your liability would probably be limited to replacing bad bottle corks," says Williams. "If you mass-produce cherry jam, you have the liability caused by people getting sick on your jam or breaking their teeth on a cherry pit. You wouldn't want to self-insure that liability. You'd want product liabliity insurance."

5. Make Sure You Get Paid

What good is being your own boss if you don't get paid for your work? "Wherever possible, collect 10 (percent), 15 (percent) or 25 percent of your fee upfront," says Bostrom. "Your clients' reaction to that request will tell you a lot about whether they're capable of paying you."

Always use contracts, recommends Alan Siege, president and CEO of Small Business Management Consulting in Brooklyn, N.Y. "Specify clearly what the deliverables are and what and when people will pay you -- and make people acknowledge it. By having a contract, you're saying that you play for real and that you're someone whose business people need to take seriously."

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20 Tips -Kemmons Wilson

20 Tips for Success

-Kemmons Wilson

1. Work only a half a day; it makes no difference which half-it can be either the first 12 hours or the last 12 hours.

2. Work is the master key that opens the door to all opportunities.

3. Mental attitude plays a far more important role in a person's success or failure than mental capacity.

4. Remember that we all climb the ladder of success one-step at a time.

5. There are two ways to get to the top of the oak tree. One way is to sit on an acorn and wait; the other is to climb it.

6. Do not be afraid of taking a chance. Remember that a broken watch is exactly right at least twice every 24 hours.

7. The secret of happiness is not doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

8. Eliminate from your vocabulary the words, "I don't think I can" and substitute "I know I can".

9. In evaluating a career, put opportunity ahead of security.

10. Remember that success requires half luck and half brains.

11. A person has to take risks to achieve.

12. People who takes pains never to do more than they get paid for, never get paid for anything more than they do.

13. No job is too hard as long as you are smart enough to find someone else to do it for you.

14. Opportunity comes often. It knocks as often as you have an ear trained to heat it, an eye trained to see it, a hand trained to grasp it, and a head trained to use it.

15. You cannot procrastinate-in two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.

16. Sell your wristwatch and buy an alarm clock.

17. A successful person realizes his personal responsibility for self-motivation. He starts himself because he possesses the key to his own ignition switch.

18. Do not worry. You can't change the past, but you sure can ruin the present by worrying aver the future. Remember that half the things we worry about never happen, and the other half are going to happen anyway. So, why worry?

19. It is not how much you have but how much you enjoy that makes happiness.

20. Believe in God and obey the Ten Commandments.

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