How Do You Start Your Day?

Some people need to use an alarm clock to start their day and if that's you, set your favorite song to wake up to and then see how many of these 7 steps you can incorporate into your life so as to have a happy, productive kind of day :)

1. Drink A Glass Of Water As Soon As You Wake Up

This re-hydrates your body, revs up your digestive system, and gets things flowing. You may notice positive changes like clearer skin and better digestion as well as clearer thinking. Bonus points if you add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice or a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar as this helps the body to get rid of toxins and speed up your metabolism.

2. Do Not Check Your Email Or Phone For At Least An Hour

Do you sleep with your cell phone next to you and grab for it first thing when you wake? This is not a good habit at all. If you choose to resist the temptation to check your email and Facebook feed until at least an hour after waking up, you'll find that your mind is more clear, focused and happy. Sometimes I wait 2 hours, all depending!

3. Think Of One Thing For Which You Have Gratitude

This sets the stage for positive thoughts and feelings throughout the day. If you come up with three, five things or even more, even better.

4. Step Outside And Take A Deep Breath

Fill your lungs with fresh air. Even if it’s cold outside. This only takes 10 seconds! It reminds you that you are alive and breathing. Take a moment to listen to the birds chirping, children laughing, or even just the leaves rustling in the wind.  "Smell the roses" as the saying goes.

5. Move Your Body

You don’t necessarily have to do an intense workout before breakfast, but moving your body even a little is a great way to get the blood flowing and shake the body into wake-up mode. Simply doing a few stretches is a great option. Or turn on your favorite song and dance like no one is watching. (I won't tell).

6. Take Time To Eat A Healthy Breakfast

Rather than reaching for a box of cereal, focus on getting real foods in your body. Eggs, soaked oats, and smoothies are all great options. (And they really don’t take that much time to prepare.) Try it out. My favorite is a well balanced protein drink to get the day started with energy!

7. Say Your Affirmations

Look into the mirror and say something positive to yourself. Some ideas:

• I radiate beauty, confidence and grace.
• Every cell in my body is healthy and vibrant.
• I feel great when I take care of myself.

So are you up for the challenge of incorporating these healthy habits? What about you? What helps you start the day off right? 

Source: Mind Body Green with a few additions from www.BossFree123.com.

Have you lived 75 years, or have you lived one year 75 times?

Have you lived 75 years, or have you lived one year 75 times?  This is a question I ran into while reading Wayne Dyer's "I Can See Clearly Now" a question that really should not be ignored and I have come to realize how lucky I am to have lived such a full life where rarely was it the same year twice.  Take a moment and ask yourself the same question:  Have I lived 75 years or have I lived one year 75 times?

Has your life become nothing more than a huge pile of repetition? Doing the same things over day in and day out and going nowhere fast?  Funny how that darn clock never stops for anyone or anything and then suddenly 75 years has gone by........will you be happy with how you've spent that time, following everyone else's wishes and demands just for the privilege of being employed and bringing home almost enough money for the end of the month?

It wasn't until my mid 40's that I came to realize that working for someone else would not be a pleasant experience for anyone involved, and not because I'm difficult to get along with but because more than anything, it was a time in my life where I really needed to expand, to be in charge where I call the shots, not some nincompoop that can barely manage creating a cup of coffee, never mind run a business.  My biggest inspiration in this realization is my husband who at roughly the same age just prior to my meeting him, also came to the same realization and had begun to be his own boss (and yes he still is even though I am here).

Charlie, my husband, is a heavy duty mechanic who is well respected and sought after where I live. Straight out of high school he was tops in his pre-apprenticeship course at our now University and always had top jobs with the top companies but just like all situations where you are working to benefit someone else, it has it's problems that we won't go into because really, if you've ever had a job then you already know the problems associated with having a J.O.B.   Watching him build his business, and then eventually through a series of events, helping him to build his business was a fantastic experience for me.  Yes he calls the shots, but I get my say and I get to exercise my leadership skills where needed, and most importantly to me, I get to be ME!

So coming back to my mid 40's, I'd been working solely with and for my husband for over 7 years and as things changed, my role became administrator where there is really very little to do on a daily basis and here I was, feeling like I could be doing so much more with myself, and my friends all thought I was nuts.  Why?  Because if I wanted to, I could just stay home and do the little bit it takes to help Charlie, and most women would kill for an easy life like that, but oh what a stale and boring life it would be for me.  I took up golfing, martial arts, got back into music as a lead singer again but despite all the fun and interesting things I was doing to fill my time, the burning question remained:  What will I do with the second half of my life?

One thing I absolutely love to do is observe other people's lives.  I'm not talking "Peeping Tom" or anything stalkerish like that (is that even a word?), just watching what people are doing with their lives at the moment, observing what's changed from a time before be it a day, a week, a month or a year or more.  Isn't it amazing how many people are out there going round and round and round again?  How many people do you know that have had the same job for all of their lives where maybe the only thing that's changed is where they work?  Or how about that guy that's always heart broken because he keeps dating the same woman over and over where the only thing's that changed is her name, her clothes, her face and maybe her job - but she's exactly the same as the last love of his life.  Why is that?  Do we not learn?  Or are we content to keep living the same year 75 times over?

Authentic Business Opportunities - What to look for

Today I'd like to focus on what we should look for in an authentic business opportunity as I get asked that question quite often.

We want to be able to represent the highest quality products available so that we don't have to compete on price or convenince.  In otherwords, we want products attached to our business that give very unique results that nobody else can offer so that people come back every month for years and years to shop from us.  We don't want "run of the mill" products that people can grab off the shelves of typical grocery stores if they run out of what they've been purchasing from us as that would defeat the purpose if our products were that competetive with typical brands.

(In the near future I'm going to do product comparisons on things like skin care, weight lose programs, green cleaners, etc etc....the things that will remain at the front of the trend for decades to come....and I'll talk about trends more as well but one thing at a time.)

Something else we need in order to have a successful business is repeat use of products because we need our clients or customers to come back month after month for as many years as possible.  If we're distributing products that are a 1shot sale....like a gaming system, jewelry, furniture and things like that, we'd need to continually increase our clientele or come up with new styles to be very competitive because people don't use up gaming systems, furniture or jewelry and need more in the next month or two. So we want something consumable, something that is part of the every day life.

We also need a huge growing market to supply.  Just to touch lightly on this...what creates trends is our baby boomers, who are a huge wave of people that don't want to get older and they really don't want to look older, so they're wanting products that will not only help them to look better and feel better, they also want to live longer.  Now with Generation X getting older, they too are wanting the same things so we need to be able to supply this growing market with what they want so that we don't become one of those "fly by night" businesses that are here today and gone tomorrow.

The last one that I'm going to mention today is that it's important to be able to represent products that are guaranteed by the manufacturer and I mean that in a literal sense.  Either the products give the results that you want or else you should be able to return the empty containers for a full refund.  This is going to protect both you and your clients.

I think for today I'll leave it at that, but should you feel you have questions or you'd like me to blog on something else regarding business opportunities and products, feel free to leave me a request.  If I can do it, I will!