20 September 2012

Who's in Charge of Your Success?

A Financial Peace University class and a discussion with a friend last night sparked further discussion about locus of control.  Simply put, locus of control is a term which describes to what a person attributes their success or failure.  If someone has an external locus of control, then what happens to them comes from without.  These people believe fate, God, the environment, the government or some other entity are responsible for both their successes and their failures.  By contrast, those people with an internal locus of control believe that they themselves are ultimately responsible for their own successes and failures.  Dave Ramsey says that there are people who are reactive, and people who are proactive.  Proactive people happen to their own life (especially money, in his example).  Reactive people are those to whom life happens.

Successful people tend to have a higher degree of internal locus of control and embrace proactivity.  These are the people who happen to their money, their lives and their businesses.  These are the people who you won't hear whining about how bad the economy is for their business, but instead proclaiming how the bad economy is motivating them to try different approaches and ways of doing business.

Another hallmark of people with an internal locus of control is a feeling of empowerment.  When I feel in control, then I feel empowered to keep on doing whatever it is I am doing.  This, ultimately, leads to more success and a great feeling of being in control.

Who is responsible for your success personally and professionally?  What motivates you to seize control of your business and happen to it?
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17 September 2012

Ingredient Info - Tocopherol

Tocopherol; selbst erstellt; gemeinfrei Katego...
Tocopherol; selbst erstellt; gemeinfrei Kategorie:Bild:Strukturformel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I received an email from a customer the other day.  Her granddaughter and she are going to make lip glosses for her granddaughter's teachers and friends for Christmas.  She'd looked at my website and noticed I list "T-50" as an ingredient, and she wondered what that is and how she could find it.  This was my response.

T-50 (tocopherol-50) is a natural, broad-spectrum form of Vitamin E.  It's a very dark amber, viscous liquid.  It's also rather outrageously expensive right now, too, for some reason.  You can purchase tocopherol acetate easily from pharmacies, grocery stores, etc. where the vitamin supplements are.  They come in gel capsules; you've probably seen them before.

Tocopherol is an antioxidant, which means it slows down the oxidation of oils and butters.  Vitamin E, as it's more commonly known, has no preservative properties at all; it doesn't kill or prevent the growth of bacteria, mold or fungi.  It slows down the rate at which oils and butters will turn rancid, plus it's good for skin, but that's the extent of this fabulous additive.

I don't mind helping customers find out more about the ingredients I use in my products.  Is there a particular product about which you'd like to learn more?  
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06 September 2012

Great Text Message Convo

The Trouble With Tribbles
The Trouble With Tribbles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I'm an avid text messenger.  Sometimes, I'd really rather text than talk, because texting is just like short emails.  I can read my messages when I have a chance, reply when I can and the other person can reply when they have time.  In other words, texting cannot really disrupt my day like the poorly timed phone call can.  I bought a smart phone in April to replace my dunked flip phone (and a smart phone does allow me to do more business when I'm away from home), and the autocorrect on my phone comes up with some interesting alternatives.  Unfortunately, I am not able to take screen shots of my phone screen.  This is one of the great conversations that happened on Labor Day.

Me:  "I was just texting the word 'trouble' to someone, and my phone suggested 'Tribble' as an option.  Really?  It's in my phone's dictionary?  When would I reference that?"

Him:  "Tribble is a great word."

Me:  "It is a good word, and Tribbles are cute (and a lot of trouble), but outside of this totally inane conversation, when would I use it?  Screen is blurring from the tears of laughter."

Him:  "I got your tribble right here."

Me:  "No, I got nothing in response to that."

Him:  "LOL."

Me:  "You want the Tribble?  You can't handle the Tribble!"

Him:  "That's too funny."

Just a little snapshot of how silly things can get here, especially on holidays.  What are some of your best text message fails or conversations if you want to share them?
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03 September 2012

Starting New Habits

Cover of "Financial Peace: Restoring Fina...
Cover via Amazon
It all came together in a rather serendipitous way.  I'm helping a dear friend change his money management habits, and he is already doing very well. My husband and I needed to reclaim our own efforts at achieving financial peace, and I as CEO and Soap Goddess of Sara's Soaps 'n Such needed to ramp up my efforts with putting out my newsletter, writing my blog posts and making sure I was using my time on Facebook to the best advantage for my business.  That's a lot of change in a little bit of time!

Donna Maria, my friend and mentor, facilitated a conference call last week in which she outlines her "2x2x2" plan for communicating with customers.  At the same time, Dave Ramsey, who has written books, led seminars and has radio and TV shows about achieving financial peace, reminded me through my reading of The Total Money Makeover how financial peace can only happen through discipline, sacrifice, hard work and following his proven seven steps in order - and there's a reason they're called "baby steps."  Since these two thoughts were foremost in my head, I decided to merge the two ideas into making Donna Maria's guidance work for me.

First, a little background.  Dave wants everyone to become millionaires - or billionaires - and he says that if you want to be a millionaire, then you do what millionaires do.  These things are antithetical to what the majority of Americans do and these millionaires get to where they are in life by making sacrifices and doing smart things that most people would think are dumb.  (Those would be the broke people in this case.)  Baby steps... It's all about baby steps.

If I want to be successful in business, then I need to do those things that successful business people do, and one of those successful people is Donna Maria.  However, I know I will not achieve dM's success in the first month of practicing her social media principles.  So, I decided to attack this, too, in baby steps.  For a business woman who only posts to her Facebook page when she remembers, struggles mightily for a weekly blog topic (and eventually just gave up) and has let two months pass without publishing a newsletter, I knew that I would fail quickly if I tried to put dM's 2x2x2 plan into action the first week.

Last week, I attacked the Facebook challenge - two Facebook posts a day (except for weekends), one morning, one afternoon/evening.  That's easy enough, and I was able to make that happen for me.  This week, I'm adding on the two blog posts for the week to the daily recommended FB posts (and am happy to say I've written both posts today).  Next week, I'll add the newsletter back into my brand promotion.  This is going to help ensure I'm successful without getting frustrated.

Are you signed up to receive my newsletter?  The quick and easy form is here.  You can go over to FB and give me a like here.
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