James is an author, podcaster and small business owner. Listen to how he'd so some things different and which things worked just right!!.

This week I got the privilege of sitting down with Josue "Cap" Cano. Cap is a traveler and weightlifting coach that grew up in Oxnard, CA and not lives in the Bay Area.

This week’s interview is with Elisabeth Paniagua of EP Consulting Services. Elisabeth is a wife, mother, Homeschooler and business owner. EP Consulting Services specializes in grant writing and legislative planning. To quote her website:

E.P. Consulting Services is a women-owned consulting firm located in beautiful Ventura County, California. With its foundation in strong ethics and values, E.P. Consulting Services was founded with a commitment to provide the highest level of customer service to each client by meeting their individual project needs in a variety of areas.

In the interview Elisabeth explains how she started the company and shares some tips that will help others thinking about starting their own company.

Visit Elisabeth’s company site (https://www.epconsultingservices.com/) to find out more about her company.

When we’re growing up we look up to our older relatives. Weather it's an older brother or uncle, we follow them around and copy what they do. We do this because we think it's cool and we have nothing better to do. Most of the stuff we see them do is new to us. The only way we learn how to do these things is to copy them.

They say that imitation is the ultimate form of flattery. Growing up your older brother didn’t appreciate that yet. You can use this method to learn something new or make a positive change in your life. We all have people we admire now as adults. People who have the life or skills that we want. Why not copy them?

Make a list of all the people that inspire you. You can have different categories of people. Business, health, life, list them all. Pick the most influential people from each category and research them. Look up how they grew up, where they went to school, the things they did before you knew who they were. Once you have your research done, you can make an outline of how they got to where they are. This is now your roadmap. Try and copy whatever they did.

This method removes all doubt from the equation. Most of the time we don’t start something new because we don’t know where or how to start. This first step paralyses us. Following an outline based off of what others have done will help you start down the right path.

Lots of people go through life with regrets. People on their deathbed tell stories of all the things they should have done. You don’t want to be one of these people. You want to get to your last days knowing that you lived your life to its fullest. The common thread of all the people who have unfulfilled dreams is that they never took action.

People are more afraid of failure. The thought of failure is greater than the feelings that success will bring. People get hung up on what the final product will be and how perfect it needs to be and never take the first step. It doesn’t matter how perfect something will be if you never get started on it.

Dreams never become reality until you do something about them...anything.

The makers of the Great Wall of China didn’t just plop the wall on place. They made a plan, gathered materials, organized labor. But at the end of the day they had to lay the first brick. Otherwise all the planning and organization would have gone to waste.

You have to think to yourself “what’s the worst that can happen?”. If you take one step, regardless how small, you’ll be closer to your goals. Anyone can recover from one step if things go wrong. And if nothing goes wrong after the first step, you can take another one. The most important step is the first one. After that, all the other will fall into place.

What you want to do is get to the end of you life and say that you build your Great Wall. You never know how great you can be unless you take the first step down that path. Everyone has something deep down inside that when they release it, makes people around them greater. Don’t deprive the world of your greatness, take your fist step and show everyone what you were meant to do.

Being safe is dangerous. Oxymoron, I know. Most people are afraid of success. They tell themselves that they are happy with what they have. They tell themselves that they have no desire to be rich. They convince themselves that they don’t want to be successful. What they’re really afraid of is failure. They are not able to think big enough to motivate themselves to take steps toward success.

Have you ever seen that scene in a movie when someone is going crazy and the only way to they can be brought back to reality is with a slap across the face? This is very uncomfortable to say the least but it's the only way to bring someone out of their downward spiral.

Sometimes doing something that is outside your comfort zone is what you need to come out of the routine you’re in. If you ride a bike around a dirt track long enough you’ll make a big divot in the track and the only way to get out of it is to make a hard right.

When people need a jolt to get out of a rut, they sometimes go to an extreme and jump out of a plane or bungee jump. But you can do other things to get out of your comfort zone that doesn't nullify your life insurance.

You could change your appearance. Having a new look can help you make a new persona. Maybe being someone different can help you do things the old you wouldn’t do.

You could join a speech club or improv group. This makes you get up in front of a lot of strangers which is a big fear for a lot of people. Facing your fears is one of the most uncomfortable things you could do.

You could go on an extreme vacation. White water rafting or a guided hike/climb up a big mountain will increase your courage so you can use it for other things in your life.

Whatever you choose it has to be something that you wouldn’t normally do. Something that hits you like a slap in the face.

We all have lots to do. It’s sometimes overwhelming to keep track of all the things we have going on. Work, school, family, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t have a full plate. How do you keep track of it all? A simple to do list will keep you on track. What I use is a plain old legal pad. I get up in the morning and write down all the things I have to do that day. I then start picking them off one by one. I try and get as many as I can done before the end of the day. Whatever is left over I then move to the next day. This might seem a bit simple and unorganized, but it keeps me on task. I found a few other methods that I’d like to share.

The staff of a restaurant operate in what looks like organized chaos. Everybody runs around the place like they’re going to run into one another at any time. Hostess, manager, bartender, they all have their job. If you went to a restaurant with a bar but no bartender, you’d die of dehydration before you get your Bloody Mary. That’s because the bartender has a set of skills that fills a role. Non any employee can fill that role. Even if one of them went to school, they might not have the temperament to be a bartender. Having a full bar requires a bartender that is good at his/her job.

If you think of yourself as a restaurant, you have many stations to fill. Chef, busboy, waiter, all these positions need to be filled with the right people. And as the owner, it’s your responsibility to do so. Also part of your duties as a manager is bring up areas that have deficiencies. You have to look at all your stations and let people go or fill positions ASAP.

If you want to get better at something you need to set yourself up to do so. Most people quit new things because they don't have the skills or knowledge to make it over the learning curve.