Do It In The Dark

1. Identify your passion: The first step is to identify what you are passionate about. It could be anything from cooking to designing clothes to offering fitness classes.
2. Research your market: Once you have identified your passion, research your market to determine if there is a demand for your product or service.
3. Create a business plan: Develop a business plan that outlines your vision, mission, and objectives. Your plan should also include a marketing strategy, financial projections, and a detailed analysis of your competition.
4. Build a brand: Build a brand that reflects your passion and values. This includes creating a name, logo, and website that showcases your business.
5. Network and promote: Network with others in your industry and promote your business through social media, advertising, and events.

Examples of successful small businesses built on passion:

1. Warby Parker: A company that was built on the founders' passion for affordable and stylish eyewear.
2. Toms: A shoe company that was founded on the idea of giving back to those in need. For every pair of shoes purchased, Toms donates a pair to a child in need.
3. Airbnb: A company that was founded on the passion for travel and connecting people around the world.

Listicles about great small business ideas:

1. Online coaching and consulting services
2. Handmade jewelry and accessories
3. Personalized gift baskets and subscription boxes
4. Meal prep and delivery services
5. Social media management and marketing
6. Fitness classes and personal training
7. Pet grooming and daycare services
8. Event planning and coordination
9. Interior design and home staging services
10. Cleaning and organization services

What is Business:

Business can be defined as an organization or an enterprise engaged in commercial, industrial, or professional activities with the aim of earning profits or achieving a set of predetermined objectives. It involves the production, sale, or exchange of goods or services to satisfy the needs and wants of customers while making a profit. Business can take various forms such as sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, or cooperative. It involves activities such as marketing, finance, accounting, production, and management, and requires careful planning, organization, and execution to achieve success.

Quiz: What is the oldest business in America…..?

The Shirley Plantation is the oldest company in America. It began operating almost 400 years ago, in 1638. The Shirley Plantation is the oldest family-owned business in the United States and the oldest active plantation in Virginia. It was recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

Business and psychology can work together in a variety of ways. Here are a few examples:

1. Hiring and recruitment: Psychology can help businesses identify the personality traits and skills that are necessary for success in a particular job. For example, using psychometric assessments can help employers determine if a candidate is a good fit for a role, and it can help to reduce turnover by identifying people who are likely to stay with the company long-term.
2. Employee training and development: Psychology can help businesses design effective training programs that are tailored to individual learning styles and preferences. For example, using learning styles assessments can help identify how employees best absorb information, and training programs can be designed to cater to these preferences.
3. Organizational behavior: Psychology can help businesses understand how people behave in groups and how to create a positive workplace culture. For example, understanding motivation theory can help managers create a work environment that encourages employees to work hard and be productive.
4. Marketing and consumer behavior: Psychology can help businesses understand why people buy certain products and how to design marketing campaigns that resonate with their target audience. For example, understanding cognitive biases can help marketers design campaigns that appeal to consumers' emotions and lead to increased sales.

Overall, by leveraging the principles of psychology, businesses can create more effective and productive workplaces, attract and retain top talent, and design products and services that better meet the needs of their customers.

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. It encompasses a broad range of topics, including perception, cognition, emotion, motivation, personality, development, social behavior, and abnormal behavior. The basic principles of psychology include:

1. Empiricism: Psychology is an empirical science that relies on objective observation and measurement of behavior and mental processes.
2. Behaviorism: Behaviorism is a psychological approach that emphasizes the role of environmental factors in shaping behavior. It suggests that behavior is learned through the interaction between a person's environment and their behavior.
3. Cognitive Psychology: Cognitive psychology is an approach that emphasizes the role of mental processes, such as perception, memory, and problem-solving, in behavior.
4. Psychodynamic Psychology: Psychodynamic psychology is an approach that emphasizes the role of unconscious thoughts and feelings in behavior. It suggests that behavior is influenced by unconscious conflicts and desires.
5. Humanistic Psychology: Humanistic psychology is an approach that emphasizes the role of individual experience and personal growth in behavior. It suggests that people have an innate drive to reach their full potential.
6. Developmental Psychology: Developmental psychology is the study of how people change and develop over time. It encompasses physical, cognitive, social, and emotional changes across the lifespan.
7. Social Psychology: Social psychology is the study of how people interact with each other. It includes topics such as social influence, group dynamics, and interpersonal relationships.
8. Abnormal Psychology: Abnormal psychology is the study of psychological disorders, such as anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and personality disorders. It involves the study of the causes, symptoms, and treatment of these disorders.

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Fail Big!!

Three of the Biggest Business failures and bounce backs in history!

1. Bill Gates ( Traf of Data) Have you ever driven over one of those weird black cables that stretch across the road and measure traffic by counting tire bumps? Bill Gates and a few of his friends did, which is why he founded Traf-O-Data…

1. Steve Jobs (Apple 1 & Apple Lisa) Do you remember the Apple I or Apple Lisa? If not, you’re not alone. These were two products Apple produced that crashed and burned. Unfortunately for Steve Jobs, these were products that he pushed for and cost Apple millions of dollars in development, money it failed to recoup. This pattern of costly production decisions led to Jobs being ousted from Apple in the mid-eighties.
2. Jeff Bez (Amazon early years) Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made some mind-blowing mistakes while getting the company off the ground and even more after its successful launch. Here are just a few of them:

1. When Amazon first launched, people could leverage a glitch that allowed them to buy a negative number of books and receive a credit from the company.

1. When the company began selling toys and books, Bezos insisted on changing the business model so the company could purchase and store millions of dollars in toys. More than 100 million toys were purchased and warehoused in anticipation of the Christmas season. After the holiday, 50 million toys were left. Amazon gave most of the toys away because of insufficient warehouse storage space.

Failure is inevitable in business and life. While no one likes to fail, doing so doesn’t have to jeopardize your future successes. Here are some tips for dealing with your failures when they arise:

• Reframe your failures as short-term setbacks and learn from them. Rather than viewing your failures as a sign to give up, reframe them as short-term setbacks to help you learn from your mistakes. When you understand where you went wrong, you can develop creative solutions to ensure you do things differently when confronted with the same problem in the future.
• Think strategically to step out of your comfort zone. Once you’ve dusted yourself off from stumbling, think strategically and take calculated risks to plan your next move. Weigh your options carefully and make decisions with a clear, calm mind. Lean on your support system and ask for their unbiased opinion. To grow and gain new experiences, both personally and professionally, you’ll need to move past your fear of failure and take some calculated risks. 
• Seek out the advice of a mentor. Everyone needs encouragement when they’ve encountered unexpected problems and challenges. Mentors have the advantage of hindsight and can impart the wisdom they gleaned from their mistakes. In addition to sharing their advice, the right mentor can also help you make important connections to elevate your business and spur professional growth. 
• Maintain a positive mindset to persevere past your failures. Rather than letting your failures drag you down, focus on learning from your mistakes, and believe you have the skills and knowledge to succeed in the future. In addition to the entrepreneurs featured here, there are plenty more who failed on their way to success. If they can find success after their failures, you can as well.

References:

Successful Entrepreneurs Who Were Rejected First | business.com

Top 6 Reasons New Businesses Fail (investopedia.com)

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ONE THING AT A TIME…

1. Being busy is not always effective.
2. Busy people work hard. Productive people work hard and smart.

Efficiency = Doing the tiny steps of a larger task quickly

Effectiveness = Finding the most optimal way to do something, perhaps even removing the need to do the task itself

1. Busy people get drowned in the details. Productive people keep their eyes on the macro and micro of the task.

Project Manager (leadership) is the best example of explaining this 

                      method of task completion and delegation. A project manager is someone                        

who identifies what the entire project needs to be completed. They also understand that they can’t spend all of their time doing “all of the tasks” themselves. A project manager will review, assign and follow up until completion of the main task, thus addressing both the macro and micro of the situation.  

1. Busy people say yes to everything. Productive people say/no choicefully 
2. Busy people are oftentimes too busy completing “YES” tasks. Meaning someone has asked you to do something and instead of you simply saying no, you’ve acquiesced and now you're stuck doing something that has nothing to do with your business goals.
3. You have to be strong enough to say yes when it is mutually beneficial or no when there is no value-add return for your business.

1. Story Time: (The time I had 4 STREAMS OF INCOME)... But I had to   decide which things to let go of because although I was busy, I was not being productive. 4 Streams of income (Just started my first hospice company) up and running making money but not enough to quit. (Adjunct Instructor of Psychology online) still teaching online courses for two different schools. (Consulting for startup hospice companies) and lastly, still working as a (Hospice Marketer for a large hospice company). 

1. How to do one thing at a time: “Listen to a piece of music several times. Note what you missed. Note the specific places where your mind wandered. Listen to the music again, as a whole piece, after several times of zeroing in on specific parts.Carve out the time to be still every day. Sit. Take a lazy walk. Sit. Don't expect immediate results, but trust that this stillness will seep more and more into mind and into busyness; it will steady and calm you”.(psychologytoday.com 2023).

BE INTENTIONAL

“What does it mean to evaluate your reality clearly? That means gaining a deep understanding of your external environment – your immediate surroundings, your social circle, your career, and anything else of relevance. That also means your own internal environment – your patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving”(psychologytoday.com,2023)

Social Digestion : Your Social interaction should:

1. EDUCATIONAL- if your not learning your declining
2. SPIRITUAL- if your not feeding your energy/vibration you become stagnant
3. THOUGHT PROVOKING News worthy- Are you reading things that make you think? Make you have opinion? Are you abreast of current events?
4. ENTERTAINING- Social Medial entertainment is good, because laughter is good for the soul… You can’t spend your time watching things that negatively impact your energy!!

You Words Matter: Story time (Talk about the building of Autumn View Hospice)

Finish What You Started:

1. Pushing through
2. Cutting away the emotional attachment

What Type of Leader Are You?

There’s nothing worse than you being a leader of people and you can’t or your not willing help them-Lavell Hewitt

7 Styles of Leadership: which one are YOU?

1. Transactional leadership
2. Transformational leadership
3. Servant leadership
4. Democratic leadership
5. Autocratic leadership
6. Bureaucratic leadership
7. Laissez-Faire leadership

For more information about each leadership style please visit the author’s website below:

Which of these 7 different styles of leadership is right for your business? - MicroMentor

10 Ways To Become A Better Leader…

1. Engage In Honest and Open Communication

One of the most important elements of effective leadership is creating an open line of communication with your team members. Sanjay Patoliya, the founder and director of Teclogiq, said that your own honesty and transparency should serve as an example for your team members.

1. Connect with your Team

Leading a group of people requires a mutual sense of trust and understanding between the leader and their team members. To achieve this, leaders should learn to connect.

1. Encourage Personal and Professional Growth

Keri Ohlrich, the CEO of HR consulting company Abbracci Group, said that leaders should set aside a budget, if only a small one, to dedicate to the growth of their employees.

For more information about each of the 10 aspects of Leadership please visit the author’s article below:

How to Be a Good Leader - businessnewsdaily.com

When It’s Time to Unplug

From Society

What are you unplugging from? Sometimes you have to unplug to find yourself!!!

• society’s expectations
• schedules and demands
• over commitment to tasks and people that don’t matter
• overconsumption and materialism
• the habit of competing, comparing, criticizing
• a life of should
• a traditional path that does not make you feel alive (traditional is okay IF it is your mojo).

1. How do you recharge? (The importance of recharging)
2. I build things, (wood working)
3. I listen to music (all genres) 
4. I meditate/Pray for Clarity 

1. 3 Things You could do
2. Travel
3. Spend time by yourself
4. Feed Your Passion

Focus less on what you want to do and achieve and more on how you want to feel. Pursue those things that make you feel that way. Any opportunity or demand that enters your life that does not make you feel that way, you have permission to say no. Say no more the jammed up plugged in lifestyle, and yes more to deeper connections to yourself, to mother nature and to those you love. Leave your best tips in the comments below. Remember it doesn’t always relate to unplugging from electrical devices. And also leave any questions or topic ideas you may want us to write about which aligns with living an unplugged life.

The Psychology of Me…

Environment- 

 Identity vs. Role Confusion (adolescence)

The critical issue for the adolescent is the development of a consistent identity or sense of self. The positive outcome involves the ability to answer the questions: “Who am I? What will I become? In contemporary society, this stage often extends well into young adulthood as a person typically experiments with many behaviors, roles, and identities before achieving a lasting and satisfying one.

Nature vs Nurture-

Michael Eric Dyson and Everett DysonI am not suggesting that the mere difference in shade has led to his brutal circumstances and my rise. I am arguing, however, that the persistence of colorism -- a sometimes subtle hierarchy of social standing historically dictated in part by darkness or lightness of one's skin, measuring the proximity to, or distance from, the vaunted white ideal -- affected how he was viewed as a developing youth, impacting the view of what gifts he might possess while shaping the presence or absence of social opportunities open to him.

It is true that many darker skinned blacks prosper, and that lighter skinned blacks suffer. But their relative successes and failures are often unconsciously molded in a crucible of race that assigns higher value to the physical features and cultural traits that reflect those of the dominant society.

Your position in the family-

The Position in the family plays a vital role in how you are viewed by your parents and siblings. Many people can attest to feeling like their parents or family members had “favorites” among siblings. Many can also attest that not being favored led them to do some very questionable things in and outside of family dynamics. Looking at my situation my mom had me when she was 18 years old, and then five years later had my brother. The positions of both he and I would be cemented for life in the eyes of my mom now a single mother raising two sons on her own.

Maturity & Self-Awareness-

Having a true understanding of my position in the family as the oldest son, came with great responsibilities that I didn’t always understand growing up, but that I now utilize in Business as an entrepreneur and business owner. 

The 3 Reasons Why We Lie

1. We lie to cover up having to confess for past lies/decisions
2. We lie due to not living up to Social Comparisons (ie: Stating one's lifestyle is something isn’t truly is not)
3. We lie to say We are protecting other people

“We lie because it is the perceived best option in that current moment, most times it is a temporary survival tactic” (Not in the sense of life and death but simply surviving that moment)....

This episode we talk about getting out of your own way to become successful in life. Take this journey with us as we dissect best practices for building your business, fighting your inner fears, and following your gut.