Chop Wood, Carry Water

by Elle Ray | Feb 7, 2017 | Small Business Advice

A Woman’s Path to Self-Fulfillment and Success

Yes, it’s all very Zen:

• Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water
• After enlightenment: chop wood and carry water

I just came in from two hours of chopping wood. It’s good exercise: mindless, physical work. While I didn’t carry any water — because it’s winter outside, I did carry plenty of chopped wood. And as happens when my hands are busy, but my mind is not, I got to thinking about business and how the search for self-fulfillment and success in business is interchangeably linked with my personal goals of spiritual enlightenment, self-fulfillment and success.

Listening for Clues

My spiritual practice encourages me to listen to the world around me. When you stop thinking about yourself, your mind tends to wander in other directions. So, like I do in my spiritual practice, when I stop thinking about myself, I listen for clues as to what other people need. I always get answers.

When it comes to business, though, I too often forget to take the same road to self-fulfillment and success. It’s almost as if I don’t think business is a worthy recipient of my higher nature. But exactly the opposite is true.

Getting Out of My Own Way

When I listen for the needs of others in business, the answers may indeed often lead to the next client and more income. But it’s the practice of getting out of the way that seems to produce the outcome. I get answers when I think about what you need rather than what I need.

Whenever I have my head stuck in dark places (like up my butt), I never can see the light — only more stinky gloom and doom. When I worry about myself and my needs and desires, I cannot be open to the universe’s cries for help.

Start-Up Blues

You may be going through similar doubts if you’re an entrepreneur. As a start-up, it’s easy to find tons of issues to worry about:

• What if I can’t pay my bills?
• What if no one calls?
• What if I make a mistake?
• What if I fail?

Sometimes, the very answers are buried deep within the what-if questions:

• What if I get so busy I don’t have time to pay my bills?
• What if too many clients call, and I can’t give them all my best?
• What if I create something beautiful?
• What if I succeed?

Sounds So Familiar

This kind of existential thinking then takes me to the core. It all sounds so familiar, yet sometimes so far out of reach. I ask: “How can I profess to believe that there is a higher power setting all things right in ways that I can never understand and still worry about my business?” Is that not the very essence of hypocrisy?

If I believe that everything’s going to be all right in my personal life, then those same practices that bring me self-fulfillment and success when I’m not working should translate very well in all my business affairs. And they do!

And some of the very basic principles that have turned my sorry excuse for a human being into a pretty darn good citizen of the world work quite well in every aspect of business. Those core values I use in my own life can serve as the core and brand of my business as well, bringing with them the same level of self-fulfillment and success. Some of those include:

• Gratitude
• Generosity
• Love
• Forgiveness
• Patience
• Commitment
• Honesty
• Integrity

So just for today, I believe I’ll continue to chop wood and carry water. I’ll work hard. Give an honest day’s work. Strive for excellence in every split log and every lit blog.

It works if you work it!

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

Less Is More

by Guest Blogger | Jan 11, 2017 | Small Business Advice

4 Steps for Decoding the Productivity Myth

As business owners, we’re all impatient.

In our always-on, agile, tech-obsessed society, we want what we want and we want it yesterday. We depend on fatter pipelines, fuller funnels and more prospects. And the only way to meet the rising demand is to work longer hours, without breaks, and stay connected at all times. That’s the productivity myth.

Email Has Become Ubiquitous

Every time we hear the chirp of our smartphone singing in a new email, we jump to respond. We check it in bed, at the dinner table, in the park with the kids and on family vacations. A 2012 study by the Center for Creative Leadership found 60 percent of smartphone-using professionals were connected to the office for an average of 72 hours a week.

We’ve become narcissistic drones, we’re told, lacking the will power to look away from the soft glow of our iPhone 7s. We’re desperate to stay at the center of attention and frantic to remain reachable at all times.

While it’s a productivity myth, it’s also absolutely true that many of us can probably lay off the social media frenzy and not miss a beat. No one needs to know what you had for lunch, second lunch, dinner, snack or your 2 AM fridge-raid. But it’s becoming overtly clear the workplace demands propel a huge portion of the anxiety-induced phone-glancing. But social media isn’t what this is about. It’s an email obsession.

4 Steps to Slow Down & Maintain Productivity

When we slow down, we’re labeled slackers. We’re led to believe we’re doomed to get less done. We slow down, but the world races forward, leaving us in the dust. But staying in the perpetual “on” position is completely contrary to everything we know about what makes it possible for humans to perform at their highest level. And that busts the productivity myth.

1. The science of a slowdown
   The human body is hardwired to pulse — moving naturally through periods of higher and lower alertness. Nathaniel Kleitman, the sleep researcher who figured out the basic rest-activity cycle more than 50 years ago, said we move progressively through five stages of sleep each night, each lasting around 90 minutes. But did you know he also found our bodies operate by those same 90-minute rhythms during the day — and not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally?
    
   Our bodies send us physiological signs when we need a break — like fidgetiness, hunger, drowsiness and loss of focus. But in general, we tend to hush them. Instead, we find artificial ways to pump up our energy: caffeine, sugary snacks and even our body’s own stress hormones, like adrenalin, noradrenalin and cortisol.
    
2. The cycle of success
   The modern model for success is broken. The idea of hunkering down for hours in front of a computer screen, plugging away all day, answering emails immediately, even late into the night, and working until you drop isn’t helping you get more done. That’s the real productivity myth. What are you giving up by working so continuously? Are you able to think as clearly and creatively? Do you produce the same quality of work in the tenth or twelfth hour of a work day as you do in the second or fourth?
    
   Our bodies are designed to cycle. The patterns of organic labor are meant to shape our email productivity. Burned-out, neurotic employees who can’t unplug are neither productive nor creative. We need “off” time to produce a better “on” time. “On” is impossible without “off.”
    
3. Sprint and rest
   The paradox isn’t in the sprint, but rather in the rest. While it seems almost counterintuitive, the secret to sustainable greatness in email productivity is incorporating rests into your work day. Make that your new productivity myth.
    
   Work in sprints — highly focused for short periods of time, with breaks built in — instead of being partially focused for longer periods of time. Slow down. Think about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it to produce higher quality results.
    
   We all know your inbox is the mortal enemy to email productivity, but use it to increase your productivity. Work in 90-minute sprints, punctuated by 10- to 15-minute rests in your inbox. But insist on predictable time off, as well — evenings and weekend periods where you’re out of bounds.
    
4. Set boundaries
   Set firm boundaries to avoid allowing your email to become a sprinting rest. Email is incredibly addictive, and when you’re in it, it’s possible to get sucked into it for the rest of the day. Just as you should for your sprints, create a hard stop in your schedule for your rests.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

7 New Year’s Resolutions for 2017

by Elle Ray | Jan 3, 2017 | Small Business Advice

Smart Resolutions for Small Business Owners

Not everyone makes New Year’s resolutions. In fact, according to Statistic Brain, a German think tank, only about 45 percent of Americans even bother to come up with new goals for the coming year. And when they do, not more than 10 percent keep them for longer than just a couple weeks. It’s actually proving to be a losing proposition.

And that very well may be why the tradition that began more than 4,000 years ago has lost its luster. Back in Babylonian times, everyone was encouraged to make promises at the beginning of the new year. Mostly, they had to do with paying the bills they owed and returning borrowed stuff. But when they made those resolutions to the gods, by god, they knew they’d better keep them — or risk getting stuck with a poor crop that year.

Set the Stage

Whether or not you count on your god (or higher power) to bring you good fortune or punish you if you break your word, you still can set the stage to come out of the whole resolution business as a solid winner. It may take a little more thought and foresight to make realistic resolutions. But the process very well may be worth the effort.

Those same German brainiacs report that the people who make specific, well thought-out New Year’s resolutions are 10 times more likely to succeed in the new year. Those who don’t make any resolutions and those who spout only wishful fancies and call them resolutions are just spinning their wheels.

Get Real

A New Year’s resolution really is just another word for setting goals. And any halfway decent entrepreneur knows that goal-setting is tantamount to success. The trick now is to choose wisely rather than make predictions that are doomed to fail. Start your year with some New Year’s resolutions that you have a very good chance of achieving.

The primary focus of New Year’s resolutions — or any goals, for that matter — should be positive. Instead of setting your sights on losing weight, for example, it’s much kinder and more encouraging to want to get healthy. And that just may be the best place to start anyway:

1. Get healthy. Good health doesn’t have to mean that you fit into any societal image of body perfection. But it does infer that you’ve reduced stress in your life, since stress is one of the major causes of disease and sickness in this country. Choose one new habit to institute this year in honor of your good health. Consider little things like: turning off your cell phone for one hour a day, meditating for 10 minutes each day or drinking one less beer a week.
    
2. Give compliments. Amazing things can happen in your life when you aren’t thinking only about yourself. Not only do you make the world a happier place, but you also store up plenty of good karma to improve your own life.
    
3. Share your talents. There’s a reason that you’re achieving success in your business and in your life. You’ve got talent. Invoke the power of payback and either give away an hour of your time every month to someone in need or take on at least one pro-bono client this year. This resolution falls into the same metaphysical category as giving compliments.
    
4. Read your own website. It’s amazing how many small business owners get so busy that they don’t even look at their own websites. But even if your website person did a great job on your site, you need to keep it updated and current. Read through it at least every other month. Make necessary and appropriate changes. You may save a sale or earn a new client if you do.
    
5. Clean house. Just as a cluttered office can lead to lost production time, so too can a lazy underachiever. Let the deadweight go and hire people who are hungry and want to make money for themselves and for you. This could also fall in the “get healthy” column of New Year’s resolutions, as you’ll discover how much your stress levels drop off after your poor employees leave.
    
6. Mix business with pleasure. Never leave home without your business cards. And jump into conversations with updates on your business when at parties or other social events. You’ll be surprised how many people you know need your services or have talents you could use.
    
7. Spend money. It’s true that you’ve got to spend money to make money, so let 2017 be the year that you loosen the purse strings a little more and hire a contractor to do some of your admin work or bring on a team of awesome writers to maintain your blog (hint, hint). As your revenues grow, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without them.

These New Year’s resolutions aren’t difficult to achieve, and they just make sense. Come back to the tradition of making resolutions. Even if you boil it down to just one, make it count. And make it real. Not only will you reap the benefits of each positive change, but you’ll feel better about yourself for trying — and succeeding! Best of luck for a rewarding, prosperous 2017.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.