Stephanie Staples shared with us in our Grand Potential podcast interview her story, ways to use an awareness scale to move the dial, and how to use the Kaizen Principles for continuous change to find the small habits that can significant make a different in our lives and energy. She even shared some great ideas with Susan on how to improve her sleep. Stephanie Staples, a reWired nurse is a multi-titled author with eclectic qualifications that combine learnings from her background in healthcare, journalism, fitness and communications – Steph has some unique insights and tools to share that will positively impact your work and home life.

Kaizen is a Japanese term referring to continuous on-going improvement. Kaizen comes from two Japanese words kai (change) and zen (good) and is a philosophy that advocates for continuous self-improvement in all aspects of life. The Kaizen principle, when applied to business, helps for creating a good work environment that is continuously modelled for the good of the organization or business and members. How can you apply Kaizen in your life and within your business? There are always opportunities to get better and being on the lookout on how to get better will always be beneficial in the long run.

Friday June 4th was insightful, inspirational and ignited us all for the possibilities of what could be if we are clear on our purpose, willing to get uncomfortable, learn from our past and take care of ourselves in the here and now, especially at the start of every day.

It was truly an EXTRAVAGANZA !! Don’t believe me? Read on for the recap and see for yourself …

“When you’re clear on your purpose, that becomes your north star.”
– Joel Zimelstern

“When you look to help others, everyone benefits.” – David Wagstaff

Who is it you can reach out to this week and offer your insight, help or inspiration to? People by nature are always looking for ways to connect with others.

On Friday David Wagstaff of “eprenz” spoke to us about going out of our way to reach out and connect with other business owners without expecting anything in return. If we are willing to go above and beyond for no reason other than kindness  the return back to us will eventually happen naturally. People want to make that connection in reverse when they feel they have been seen and heard. What is it that you can bring to the table that ignites the flame of connection?

The term emotional intelligence (EQ) was made famous by two scientists Peter Salovey and John D Meyer in the 1980’s which they define as “a set of skills hypothesized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and in others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the use of feelings to motivate, plan, and achieve in one’s life”. While often overlooked, EQ is one of the most powerful soft skills anyone running a business can master. Emotionally intelligent people have the ability to monitor their own and others feelings, discriminate against them and use that information to guide their thinking and actions. In business, emotional intelligence comes into play in all aspects from being a leader that relates to their employees, to having emotionally intelligent employees handling clients and finally in understanding your clients better, to serve their needs better.

Join Susan and Carolyn for an interview May 26 3:30 pm PDT at the Spiral Dynamics Coaches Summit. This summit is free for everyone! If you are a coach or interested in learning more about a multitude of business topics, we welcome you. Our talk is on networking and we’d love to have you join us! We are going to share our philosophy on the Network Effect and The Grand Connection Six Essential Principles of Networking that create successful collaborations, supportive and profitable referral partners, and meaningful joint ventures.

On May 24th – 26th, the Spiral Dynamics® Coaches’ Summit is featuring some of the world’s best speakers, coaches and educators on “How to Rock ALL Aspects of Coaching”. Natasha Todorovic, the founder of this summit, was a panel speaker at our April 9 Grand Connection and shared a wealth of knowledge for our community. You can watch her talk in our facebook group.

“ONCE YOU NAME IT YOU CAN TAME IT!”

Our emotions matter and how we manage them affects our communication style, concentration and decision making both in our personal and professional lives. Carolyn Stern, teacher at Capilano College, creator of “The EI Experience” and this month’s speaker, taught us what it means to connect, communicate and thrive effectively through our emotional intelligence.

Believing in your people and connecting to them on a deeper level through respect and appreciation is what emotional intelligence is all about. Our guest Carolyn Stern accidently learned this concept back when she was teaching a class of youth that were headed down the wrong path in life and really needed someone to believe in them.

After a semester of business building and giving them every responsibility she could they walked away with more than $10,000 in sales and a group of kids who went from feeling worthless to believing they could do anything.

This past 13 months has been trying and we’ve had no choice but to pivot right along with it. Through it all, connections and relationships are what has made the difference in our ability to manage uncertainty.

After such an inspiring event we are so ready to get out there and make some new, deeper, more meaningful connections. Thanks to our three joint venture partners, Katrina Sawa of Jumpstart Your Biz, Kimberley Crowe of Entrepreneurs Rocketfuel and Bryan Daly of EPIC! Business Connections, we have a few more tools for making this happen!

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1: Trello is free
The core features of Trello are free. You can pay for an upgraded version if you need but many features are available free to improve your productivity.

2: It keeps you organized and focused
Trello uses boards and each board consists of headed lists. Each project is organized by a board, and each board can have a list. Tasks can have their own card which can be moved to a done list or be archived.

3: You can make checklists
Repeatable checklists are easy to make for your subtasks.

WHAT AN EVENT!!! Two incredible hours spent soaking up expertise from our three world class leadership speakers.

“Certainty is the mind’s way of adapting and freezing our belief and action in time.” ~Natasha Todorovic-Cowan

1: Email Causes Mood Swings
Email, like an addiction, can cause a big change in your moods. When you check your email you are sometimes rewarded with exciting information, responses to your own emails, or new information. All of these things cause excitement.  But when you send emails and are waiting for responses, we can become grumpy and unfocused. By setting up boundaries with our emails we can control these feelings, and get out of the email “addiction”.

2: Email Causes Open Loops
Open loops are commitments to yourself or others that pull your attention away from where it should be.  You can think of them as the nagging thoughts that you have on your brain, that you haven’t yet dealt with.  How does email cause this?  By using your email inbox as an “in-tray”, many emails are left unread, or unfinished.  Seeing all these messages can cause stress and anxiety every time you must be in your email. Through our Master Class we will be looking at how to process emails to reduce open loops, and reduce your anxiety surrounding email.

Friday’s event was jam packed full of information. Connections were made and new opportunities for collaborations were born.

This month we have been learning new ways to automate our business so we can scale, grow and maximize our results. Thanks to our Joint Venture Partners, our tool box is now overflowing with options that will help get and keep us on track to our success.

In this interview Blaney generously shares with Carolyn and Susan her secrets to managing so many events with systems and tools. This is a must listen to podcast for anyone wanting to fast track organizing their business. Show notes to come!

About Blaney Teal:

Blaney Teal is a proud mother of two and successful, modern-day “Mompreneur” from Baltimore, MD. She has impacted the lives of countless entrepreneurs and business owners with her vibrant, energetic, and magnetic personality. With over 25 years in the entrepreneurial space, Blaney loves sharing her business tips and experiences with everyone she meets.

Blaney started her first business at the age of seven and has never looked back. Her passion for helping entrepreneurs and business owners grow their business is apparent from the 1st time you meet her.

“Systems are for people who care about winning repeatedly.” – James Clear

We all want to find ways to make our business processes more efficient.
It’s time to get organized on your marketing, operations, and business development activities to impact our bottom line and generate greater results.
Repeatable processes and systems are essential to growing your business.
It’s all about creating automated business systems in order to scale, grow and maximize our results. Thanks to Michela Quilici we learned more than a few helpful steps that will get us started on our journey to success…

“Business by design means we get exactly what it is we want.” – Michela Quilici

“What can you do to WOW, your customers?” Terra Bohlmann

With Terra, we learned the importance of creating a customer experience system and how it can help us move forward in our business with less overwhelm…

#1. Buying Decisions – Reduce your refunds with no-buyer’s regret.
#2. Save Time – With automation and outsourcing of repeatable action items.
#3. Referral Program – Make it so, happy buyers want to create referral business for you.
#4. Be The Expert – Quickly bring massive value to your clients with your expertise.
#5. Feedback – See where improvement is needed by allowing clients to share their input.