This week's podcast is entitled "The Adventures of Not Worrying". I started this week with some bad news.  Literally, the rug was pulled right from under me, and all that I have been working for over these past many months was in jeopardy of coming to a grinding halt.  I was in jeopardy of literally becoming penniless within a matter of days, as opposed to a few weeks, which was my reality until this past Sunday morning, and I was in despair.  I allowed myself to be run ragged with despair and worry for 24 hours, because after bad news, I think it just takes some time to process the information, and deal with it emotionally in whatever manner works best for you.  For me, this 24 hour period of “down time” is how I deal. On Monday, I said there’s nothing I can do about what’s going to happen, since I’m virtually powerless to changing the decision that was made against me, so I decided to move on, and get to dealing with the new set of problems and tasks set before me.  Essentially, I found myself worry-free, because after that 24 hour period of lamenting, I found any additional worry to be a waste of my time. By Tuesday, in less than 72 hours from having my world turned upside down, everything had turned around!  And it’s funny, because as of today, I don’t have one more dollar than I did on Sunday, but there’s tons of promise for good days ahead! So this week’s lesson that I learned: Don’t worry (or at least not that much).  I feel like kicking myself for the times that I’ve wasted fretting!  I can be honest and say, I probably will worry again, because it’s human nature, but this recent experience has taught me not to worry too much.  So, this week’s triumph is realizing that my perseverance is starting to pay off! And this week’s struggles is not getting ahead of myself and “counting my chickens before they’ve hatched”. At this point, I can say I’ve had some really positive talks and I’m convinced that the fruition of these talks will lead to immense success! What about you? Got any stories you’d like to share about worrying, or triumphing over those basic fears of worry and fret that we’re all prone too? Please feel free to leave comments below or give me your feedback directly, either by email “podcasts @ exclusivemultiplicity.com”, or by finding me on Facebook, Twitter (@KindraCotton), or LinkedIn.  You can also contact me via Skype at my name Kindra.Cotton, and you can now call me on my Google Voice line at: (201) 870-0234.  If you leave a message on my Google Voicemail line, please be sure to mention which podcast you listened to.   Click media player below to listen to this podcast.    If the player above isn't displaying, or working properly, you can also download the podcast from iTunes for free (it may take a few days for it to appear at this link, but you can subscribe directly to the podcast feed via iTunes if you want to always get new podcast episodes when they're first uploaded)! Come back next week, and have a Blessed Day! Kindra

Here’s a brief overview of What I’m Reading:   Currently, I’m reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.  I remember having to read this, along with Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” in undergrad and I honestly don’t remember a thing from either book.  My memory recalls fervently reading each of these texts before an exam, and then quickly forgetting anything I’d learn.   So this time, as I read “How to Win Friends…”, it’s almost as if I never read it before.  I first started by checking out it’s Wikipedia Entry, but nothing about that helped job my memory, so I ended up getting the audiobook from my local library.  As I’ve travelled from place to place this past weekend, I’ve had ample time to listen to the text, and I’m finding it to be quite informative.   I’m sure this book is considered to be “a classic”, and it definitely has some information that I think many of us are glossing over in this day and age of “social media”, where everyone’s interested in “transparency” and “open-ness” to the point where they’ve forgotten some of the basic tenets of civility, respect, and friendliness towards their fellow man. I think this book is providing a great “refresher course” on being amicable, of course, I’m not quite at the “how to influence people” part yet, but I’m eager to get to that, so that I can see how it compares with Robert Greene’s “48 Laws of Power”. So, that’s What I’m Reading.  If you ever happen to read this book, let me know what you think.   Have a Blessed Day! Kindra   Please feel free to leave comments below or give me your feedback directly, either by email “podcasts @ exclusivemultiplicity.com”, or by finding me on Facebook, Twitter (@KindraCotton), or LinkedIn.  You can also contact me via Skype at my name Kindra.Cotton, and you can now call me on my Google Voice line at: (201) 870-0234.  If you leave a message on my Google Voicemail line, please be sure to mention which podcast you listened to.   Click media player below to listen to this podcast.   If the player above isn't displaying, or working properly, you can also download the podcast from iTunes for free (it may take a few days for it to appear at this link, but you can subscribe directly to the podcast feed via iTunes if you want to always get new podcast episodes when they're first uploaded)!

Today's podcast is entitled "The Adventures of Good Days" in reference to a conversation I was having with someone where they said "Everyone's entitled to a bad day". That got me to thinking: While everyone is ENTITLED to a bad day, that doesn’t mean everyone has one.  A long time ago, I determined that I wouldn’t ever have a “bad day”.  Sure, some days are tougher to get through than others, but I wouldn’t call them “bad”.    Maybe it’s because I get overly reflective after having another birthday, but I think of any day alive and breathing above ground as a “Good Day”.  I had my fair share of birthday wishes and good natured ribbing about getting older, and it occurred to me: Be happy that you’re allowed to live another day and get older, because getting older is a privilege that is denied to many!  Yes, I tend to get more philosophical as I get older, but that’s just because I’m getting better each day! LOL. I’m happy to report that I had a great birthday weekend, and the month of March appears to be ending on a high note for me, so I’m excited!  I’ve been reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People” lately, and that along with a few other books I’ve been perusing like “Think and Grow Rich” and “The 48 Laws of Power” really appear to be shaping my philosophy on life, wealth building, and just plain “being”.  My struggles are I’m still trying to make it in this world, because just being “alive” isn’t quite enough for me, and my triumphs are that I’m still winning (though not Charlie Sheen-style. LOL).   Please feel free to leave comments below or give me your feedback directly, either by email “podcasts @ exclusivemultiplicity.com”, or by finding me on Facebook, Twitter (@KindraCotton), or LinkedIn.  You can also contact me via Skype at my name Kindra.Cotton, and you can now call me on my Google Voice line at: (201) 870-0234.  If you leave a message on my Google Voicemail line, please be sure to mention which podcast you listened to.   Click media player below to listen to this podcast.    If the player above isn't displaying, or working properly, you can also download the podcast from iTunes for free (it may take a few days for it to appear at this link, but you can subscribe directly to the podcast feed via iTunes if you want to always get new podcast episodes when they're first uploaded)!   Come back next week, and have a Blessed Day! Kindra

Today's podcast is entitled "The Adventures of Celebration" in honor of my personal week-long celebration of my birthday this weekend.  One day, my goal is for Aretha Franklin, Elton John, and I to celebrate OUR BIRTHDAY together and sing "Happy Birthday" in unison (it could happen). Please feel free to leave comments below or give me your feedback directly, either by email “podcasts @ exclusivemultiplicity.com”, or by finding me on Facebook, Twitter (@KindraCotton), or LinkedIn.  You can also contact me via Skype at my name Kindra.Cotton, and you can now call me on my Google Voice line at: (201) 870-0234.  If you leave a message on my Google Voicemail line, please be sure to mention which podcast you listened to. Click media player below to listen to this podcast.  If the player above isn't displaying, or working properly, you can also download the podcast from iTunes for free (it may take a few days for it to appear at this link, but you can subscribe directly to the podcast feed via iTunes if you want to always get new podcast episodes when they're first uploaded)! Come back next week, and have a Blessed Day! Kindra

This week's podcast episode is entitled "The Adventures of Selling Out". A few weeks ago, I got an offer to “sell my company”, but the offer wasn’t for money, nor was it even to buy an equity stake in a firm that I could help grow as a capable business professional.  It was more so someone who saw (what they thought) was an opportunity to use my current state of “misfortune” for the sake of their own profitability. Now, to be clear, I certainly believe that I have a skill set that can be merged with the right entity to form a powerhouse organization to take the social media and small business worlds by storm, but it’s not a skill set that can be acquired for pennies on the dollar, or in this case no pennies on the dollar.  I walk away from the “opportunity” with a stronger sense of confidence in my abilities, knowing that I am on the right path and going in the right direction, and eventually, that all my hard work, and continued striving will soon pay off. But this whole thing got me to thinking about the notion of “selling out”.  Someone recently told me that the right way to start a business is to design it with the end in mind, and that end, if my goal was to build a successful business, was to create something that someone else would want to buy a few years down the line.  Clearly good advice for any serial entrepreneur to follow, so I had to think “what am I (or any particular business entity that I’m involved in) worth, and more importantly, what am I willing to “sell” or “sell out” in order to get what I want out of life?”. There was a time when I used to say that “I didn’t have a price”, meaning that my integrity and reputation couldn’t be bought.  Now that I’m older, having faithfully held on to my principles and integrity, I can now see how it has been a liability in certain circumstances, especially in scenarios where I could have profited, if only I was willing to lie or deceive (even for a short while) to achieve some “greater good”.  Additionally, having gotten to my “bottom dollar” point, I now see some things based through “the eyes of poverty” that weren’t quite as clear to me when I had on those rose colored middle class glasses. That doesn’t mean that I’ve now set a price on my integrity and principles, but it does mean I’m not so naïve as to not put a price on what it would cost for me to waiver or altogether chuck the values I hold most dear.  I recently watched “The Inside Job” which is the Academy Award winning documentary about the recent Wall Street meltdown and recession that many of us are still suffering within, despite everyone talking about a “better economy”.  What made me see the film, aside from the fact that I LOVE documentaries, is that I happened to turn to the Oscars broadcast this year, right when the creators were receiving their award, and they mentioned that no one person responsible for the meltdown had been criminally prosecuted or even investigated.   This was interesting, though not surprising to me, because I don’t think that anything substantive will ever be done to those that caused all the problems on Wall Street, because many of them are still in the same positions as they were before, even if they’ve moved on to other organizations.  They’re still pulling the strings that guide the way that money ebbs and flows between rich people, all at the expense of the poorer ones, and until they BECOME one of the poor ones (which is very unlikely) they won’t ever act in their best interest. As I watched the documentary, I thought about all the “corporate bigwigs” who sat back and created this overly complicated, yet ridiculously simplistic scheme to earn millions while defrauding the uneducated and uninformed, and I WISH I could be shocked and/or appalled.  Yeah, what they did was terrible, but it seems to me so many people, even today, aren’t aware of it (or really don’t care) that it’s almost like a “victimless crime”. Yes, everyo