I have had an invitation to paint with Donna Hawkins for years. Having never painted a stroke in my life other than a few rooms in my house and a back fence that still doesnt forgive me I always appreciated and admired art. Yet – I was always too busy to make that date. And when I finally made a few dates, something always came up to prevent me from going – something more important to do or some event or situation stopping me.

An eclipse over the June full moon was predicted for the day I finally arrived at Donna’s studio. Emotional, exhausted and carrying a veritable library of work and life stories that were weighing heavily on me, I dragged myself out of my car and starting blubbering the minute Donna opened the door. I was so emotional that day perhaps sensing it was a good day to express myself!!

The Artist Within workshop actually began OUTSIDE of the studio as Donna calmly and quietly, using a variety of tools, facilitated me into a starting point. I had no idea what to expect and like a general going in battle, I would usually send my Control Freak troops in to secure the perimeter, establish a structure and get a system up and running to commence. However Donna asked me to take a leap of faith in her process so the General, Miss Control Freak and several of my story army were asked politely to sit outside in the sun away from the studio.

I entered as my own blank canvas.

In childbirth, you go through pain on every level and then suddenly a baby looks up at you and it’s like they’ve been there your whole life. You cannot imagine what life was like without them. The most incredible part of the Artist Within workshop is the experience of witnessing the birth of a painting which now seems like such a part of you. A miracle of your own creation stares you in the face and you wonder why you questioned yourself about so much of your life when “Look what you created!” when you finally let go and just let your heart do what it wanted.

As a CEO, I have programmed myself to operate exclusively in logic so the beginning of the workshop where my heart had the reigns was intoxicating and freeing. I was mesmerized by the experience of just adding whatever colour I wanted without having to conform to any sort of benchmark. When it came time to add form to my canvas, my logic kicked back in and I became frozen in a sea of panic. How could I possibly ruin this colour by making a decision that would change its form? How could I choose? What if it wasn’t perfect? I have no skill. I have no training. I can’t do this – it will not meet standards or expectations.

Without Donna’s masterful facilitation and guidance there is no way I would have finished that painting. I would have left it as colour without form and then labeled the experience as “me having no artistic ability” and further evidence that I should stick to what I know. In my head, the painting morphed through images of a peacock, angels dancing over the ocean, a broken heart, fire and an opening bud until with Donna’s encouragement I turned the canvas on its side and a self portrait of beauty finally emerged.

Experiencing the pain of facing my giant fear of failing – my dragon – then pushing through to the other side of it while creating something of beauty in the process was one of the most valuable lessons I have ever experienced. I saw myself as greater than the current “How” I was. I saw how taking a leap of faith in myself and trusting my heart wasn’t as hard as I first imagined. I saw the potential (outside of my logical structure) for creation in the blank canvas that is my life and suddenly felt great excitement at that prospect. I saw how all the challenges that my business experienced with its human resource, customers, suppliers and alliance partners were all rooted in that same perception of fear that I experienced when faced with taking myself out of my so called comfort zone and jumping into the deep end of my heart. Sinking or swimming merged into the one experience. Neither was good or bad. Both were simply another experience. Instead of focusing on what I didn’t know, I listened to my heart and created a possibility and then a work of art. For someone who cannot even colour in between the lines, this artistic expression was such a liberating experience.

Why?

I focused on a creation instead of a solution and directed my gaze from a whole new angle.

A solution based enterprise is limited to the problem and as such has a limited shelf life. For any business to continue to offer creative opportunities to clients, they need a team of people willing to turn the canvas on its head and see something new. These are the people that you trust to serve your customers – the very reason for you to have a business in the first place.

What will the canvas of your business look like?

Parts of me crash onto rocks and foam into a trickle of white water.
Expanses of me float calm blue and tranquil holding an ocean together creating a horizon painted deep turquoise.
I surge ebb and flow magnetically attracted to the shore forever curling forward racing myself to the edges of me.
I flood in I dry back out in a never ending tick tock of gravity and waves.
Both deep and shallow I am capable of sustaining and nourishing.
But I can also destroy under and above the seams of this heaving water.
There is a beat to me – a pulse that never stops.
My form is not finite.
There is not one moment when I stop and say “Ah yes this is how I am.”
Depending on the angle you look at me from I am motionless or steady or whipped and rocky.
This colour of my beauty is breathtaking.
How can I be this blue?
Like a mirror I shimmer in the moonlight.
My depths will never be reached or explored fully.
I have the ability to work with the wind join hands in combat and dance or destroy as quickly as I create.
I am the depository of all rivers, streams, creeks and lakes.
You pour your waste into me and I filter it with sand, salt and the sun.
The wind and the waves regenerate what I break down.
And the cycle continues.

This is my story.

I believe that there is an underlying order for everything. Some people may call this “God” or “Universe” or “Higher Self” or the number 42. I cannot give you a definitive identification of this order – for me it is a Grand Organised Design – the mother of all systems.

For me, logic would dictate that each dynamic is conserved throughout space and time. For me, I believe that every trait, archetype, personality, colour, texture, shape or style is always present – they add the colour to our experience. Each experience contains every possible ingredient according to how we view it. Instead of good or bad, they are simply experiences.

The fundamentals of my life – the children born through me, the mirrors I attracted through relationships, culture and networks, the challenges of enterprise, business and career and the physical universe of my body, home, finances and possessions are reflections of the light of all around me. Each fundamental is one note sung in a variety of harmonies in a song that one enormous choir is singing. There are times when one of these mirrors introduces me to a new sound – a new style – a different pulse – another key – a whole new musical experience. Bottom line – there is an underlying order – a system in all of this.

By virtue of my history – my “story”, I have attracted the opportunity to manifest many systems into my life. We all do. And for me, this provides us with an incredible array of skills to use for whatever we want in our lives – relationships, business, financial freedom, education, health, public influence, personal power.
For me, the source of all our power is in the “story”.

One version of my story – I grew up with an alcoholic father and a drama queen mother. Our house was dirty and messy and out of control. From the age of 10 I became the caretaker, the housekeeper, the parent and the manager. My father is a computer programmer who pioneered much in the field of business system analysis in Australia. My mother is a front line manager who managed several businesses throughout her career in Community and Charity organisations. However at home there was no order, no system and plenty of chaos. This was the perfect environment for the breeding of a “Nicki”.

I married at a very young age. I married twice. According to my skewed perspective at the time, both husbands were messy and out of control in most areas of their lives. I birthed four children. I ran several businesses: Live Bands, Vocal Groups, Shows, Wedding Planning, Recording Projects, Catering, Agency, Software Development and Song Writing. The partners I attracted into these enterprises expressed chaos in the areas that I did not and together we found some sort of balance.

My introduction to The Demartini Method ® woke me up to the perfection in all the frustration I thought were so important. Without my so called messy story, without a long succession of “voids” – things that I perceived were missing in my life – I would not have been given the opportunity for my development as a business systems professional. My parents, children, husbands and business partners all trained me in a boot camp all their very own.

In November 2003, I was stuck in a small village in the Himalayas for one week. I was suffering from Altitude Sickness and was unable to proceed onto Base Camp, as the group insurance could not cover me. Therefore I remained in this small village with the locals, several heads of yaks and a Tibetan Doctor for company. Boredom set in rapidly and I became obsessed with counting the things around me to maintain my sanity. I counted all my possessions then I began to count my heartbeats, measure my steps, time my movements and find patterns in my breaths. As I ventured out around the village, I began to do all of these things simultaneously in conjunction with the weather, time, trees, rivers and the hum of the earth. I could actually hear and feel it 5000 feet above the clouds. Counting and recognising a pattern in everything around me seems rather insane I know. Yet the experience was almost religious in its fervour.

It was while sitting on the tarmac in the fog waiting for the plane to take off back to Kathmandu that I looked out the window at the majestic Himalayas towering over the airport and saw in an instant how working with the beat, current and vibrations around us, seasons and cycles – sequences of a type, will create a specific dimension of events. The management of all of this creates a system – a framework for us to use as our bottom line – our foundation for enterprise – for anything in our lives. Nature is one hell of a free seminar on system design and management.

My grandmother’s favourite saying was A Place for Everything and Everything in its place. There is a system for everything. EVERYTHING. No exceptions. She was absolutely correct! Once we recognise that a system exists in everything creating order and balance and a whole series of resulting relationships then we have the means to master our lives by our awareness of the universal laws that govern all systems.

When I visited Stonehenge in June 2006, I felt incredibly connected to the Earth and whatever Grand Organised Design that this Universe is. Now I COULD go all new age on you and say that I was delivered a special message about Time, the Seasons, the Planetary movements, Moon Phases, Solar Activity, Tides, Universal and Natural Laws and how they all worked together in a synergy connecting my body and my consciousness to that of humanity, the earth and the cosmos – blah blah blah. But seriously – I’d only be making it up! As a child, I recall a movie or book or someone of significance refer to Stonehenge as having power in some magical mystical way. And if I could possibly GO there – to Stonehenge, somehow that power will have an effect on me.

Stop laughing – I – along with many – ok – all humans – hold a belief of an external power source one way or another and at one time or another.

My “story” if you like is that I believe that we can live in alignment between all areas of life, all spheres and all planes of consciousness if we understand the principles of systems. In real words, my “story” is that if I control everything in my life systematically, I get “more out of it.

Within each of these sciences exist thousands of systems. Each system is a collection of real or abstract moving parts, which comprise one whole with each and every element interacting or relating to another one. Each system has its purpose. There is a job to do within a specific time frame. Time governs every interaction and relationship. In every science, there is a rhythm, a flow and a pulse, which occur in sequence and create a dimension of events. Our spheres of consciousness operate within each science, field of study and each corresponding system.

The first law of expansion is order. For something to grow, it needs system. Cut open an orange and examine the symmetry of a tree or a beehive. There is discipline. It’s called organization. Working in system in rhythm leads to the alchemy of abundance.

My mission or rather belief and story is that the application of systems within the universal order and rhythm in every area of life creates wealth. And in my paradigm, this is true.

System (from the Latin (systēma), and this from the Greek σύστημα (sustēma)) is an assemblage of objects or entities either real or abstract, comprising a whole with each and every component or element interacting or related to another one. Any object which has no relationship with any other element of the system is not a component of that system.

To better understand how systems work just look in the mirror. The human body is like a complex organization that has an important job to get done on a tight deadline. In order to get everything done perfectly and on time, it has to use a system. Actually, the human body uses many systems that work side by side. Some of the body’s systems are directly connected to the heart, while others are not. Of course, the heart is like the president of the organization. Even if it is not directly involved in the system, it still plays a part. Obviously, if the heart isn’t working, nothing else is working either. Interesting that LOVE is associated with the HEART and if the HEART isn’t working the human body system will crash. Without LOVE the universal system doesn’t perform to maximum potential.

All of the systems within the body interact with one another to keep an organism healthy. Although each system has specific functions, they are all interconnected and dependent on one another. The nervous system controls various organs of the body directly. The brain also receives information from many organs of the body and adjusts signals to these organs to maintain proper functioning.

Therefore for me, in my “story”, the study of all Logos is the key to the evolution of business and all life situations. Like our bodies, everything depends on relationships, feedback, deadlines, tracking, audits and reviews. Numbers are the collection and filtering tools and a system is the manager keeping it all together.

Sacred Geometry explains how all these systems interrelate between Cosmos, Earth and Human. Eg Spiral Fractals, 432, 5 divisions of nature, trinity, nine and twelve. The Zodiac defines the apparent movement of the sun throughout the year into twelve signs each of 30-degree arcs. The rays from these planets pour down onto the earth. The cross of matter (as identified by Empedocles as the four Roots of all things; earth, fire, water and air) is centred upon the earth. As Astrology seeks to mediate and translate the planetary positions and movements in all aspects, houses and transitions, so my vision includes the amalgamation of all elements into systems for every requirement.

There is a vibration in the use of numbers. It is no accident that business exists in the accountability of all financial and operational numbers. Throughout the ages, certain numbers have figured in belief systems. The twelve signs of the Zodiac symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve theses in the Divine Commandments for Alchemists, and the twelve gates of passage in the Opus Magnum. Four is another significant number in esoteric traditions. The Aristotelian Prima Materia notes four qualities. There are four phases in Alchemy, four degrees of fire, and Hippocrates’ theory of the four humours to the microcosm and the four directions of Hermeneutics.

There are five grades of substance (Physical, Emotional, Mental, Intuitional and Spiritual) having certain qualities. These five grades of substance form the five planes of evolution (Earth, Astral, Manasic, Buddhic and Atmic) and compose the five vibratory spheres (Spinal Base, Solar Plexus, Head, Heart and Throat). These five planes each have a quality, of which the five physical senses (Smell, Taste, Sight, Touch and Sound) are the correspondence.

According to the theory of correspondences, each person is a microcosm in which all the divine powers of the cosmos are present in the various organs and parts of the body. If these powers are in harmony with each other, the person will be healthy and live in harmony with the macrocosm in which the same divine order prevails.

These are theories and myths and concepts and beliefs and philosophies that make sense to me. This “story” of mine is how I am and how I have developed so many programs, systems and processes that so many clients use to add value and wealth into their lives. To another person, this may be a site filled with such ridiculous thoughts that it is considered to be outrageous comedy. My father has labelled it a “pile of rubbish”. My uncle has labelled it as “life changing.” I’m chuckling to myself about how much energy I have expended in my childhood worrying about the opinions of others when it’s simply just one story in a library catalogue of billions.

So what is YOUR story?
How does it serve YOUR purpose, mission, vision and goals in life?
How does it earn income?
How does it add value to your life?

Write it down and start your own Values Metrics.

When I was 10, my brother and I would walk to and from school each day, up the hill and over to the main road, left around the corner until we arrived at a tiny little Catholic school. Half way up our street, on the corner opposite the entrance to the sporting fields was a small broken down cottage surrounded by overgrown shrubs and trees. It was rumoured that a wicked witch lived inside and my brother would insist on crossing the street or running very quickly past as we approached it each morning and afternoon as he was sure she would catch him.

For me, however, I was fascinated. I was captivated and often tried to sneak a peak past the giant weeds and unloved hedges to see if I could catch a better glimpse. A quiet unassuming old lady lived in the cottage – I imagined her to be at least 100 years old and with her, lived hundreds of cats. In truth, she was probably only about 65 with maybe 20 cats in tow however that house captured my imagination for the whole of my tenth year.

It seemed that she lived alone and was daily taunted by the children in the neighbourhood. Consequently, she appeared to be rather grumpy and would often hose children if they lingered too close to her front gate. My best friend, Carolyn, told a tale of a boy from grade five who had visited the old lady and promptly disappeared – never to be seen again. “She eats children” she would whisper, “and feeds the leftover bits like ears and noses to her cats.”

The concept of a grumpy Hansel eating witch living up the street from our house loomed large in my imagination however this didn’t stop my fascination with her and those hundreds of cats and every chance I could, I tried to take a closer look at this strange little corner of our neighbourhood.

One Saturday morning I awoke to the sound of my little brother sobbing. Apparently, our very curious cat, Socks, had chased a cockatoo up the street and instead of returning, made a detour and went into the old cat lady’s yard. My brother was sure she was planning a late Socks brunch until I reminded him that it was only children that she ate – cats were perfectly safe.

Determined to rescue our cat, we gathered up enough courage to walk up the hill to the corner opposite the entrance to the sporting fields and knock on the door of the broken down cottage. Opening the gate onto the thick clumps of overgrown hibiscus bushes that had taken over the front garden, the sound of the creaking scraping metal scared my brother so much that he ran away and left me alone in the unkempt garden of the crazy cat witch.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Socks who immediately raced over to purr and rub against my legs. Once I bent down to pick him up, cats came out to greet me from every corner of the garden. Tabbies, Persians, Siamese, kittens, tomcats – all colours, shapes and sizes – all coming to check out this strange bewildered human trespassing in their domain. It was a cacophony of mews and purrs that met my ears as I sat down on the footpath to pat, stroke and cuddle this rather large and odd collection of cats. Momentarily forgetting where I was I talked to them asking questions (as if to expect a response), kind heartily pulling on their tails and had a glorious time communicating with my new feline friends.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up directly into the face of the witch! “So this little black one is yours dear? He comes and visits me often – what’s his name?” How disappointing – this witch didn’t have a crackly voice at all, it dripped with honey, her face was soft and she smelled of lavender.

That day, I listened as a wise old woman introduced me to every single cat by name and personality, recounted their stories, told of those she had lost and of those she could not bare to give away. There was no mention of her history or family, no anger or grumpiness – nor could I find a cage to keep naughty little boys in or a large pot for boiling children. I watched as she gently and lovingly fed and cared for her cats and noted with sadness, even at the tender age of ten, that not many people saw the beauty or grace in her service to these cats. All they saw was her difference, her willingness to walk to beat of her own heart and her eccentric lifestyle. After all, the Catholic Church associated cats with witchcraft and Satan and while working hard to build their new brand and establishing Christianity as the only religion, they hunted and killed cats over a 1000 year killing spree. (Of course, in their absence the Black Death then had space to flourish. The Catholic Church in their wisdom had destroyed the cats required to kill the mice and rats carrying the plague – but that’s a whole other story .)

Looking back as an adult with three cats of my own, there is a part of me a little terrified that I will someday somehow become the crazy cat witch living alone in a broken down cottage with hundreds of cat and eating school children.  However, there is also a part of me that remembers how much joy and comfort these cats gave to this beautiful little old lady. What balance did 20 odd cats give to her? What were they surrogating in her life? What value were they adding?

Why cats? What is it about a cat that provides so much consolation and companionship? The close relationship between cats and humans dating back to ancient times of the Egyptians to the Norse, to the Orient and the Celts collectively appears to represent some sort of threshold guardianship for the Otherworld. The humble feline – protector and soothsayer, secretive, mysterious, crafty and clever, linked with shamanism and magic, has long associations with superstitions – anything from a black cat crossing your path to which way it washes its face! They definitely demand a certain respect. The Muslim prophet Mohammed is said to have found a cat sleeping on his robe, so he cut a hole in his robe rather than disturb the sleeping cat. After all, in every household cat there is an element of “Don’t screw with me!” as – let’s be honest – we do tend to tip toe around these superior beings in case we upset them.

So as we run around cramming every second of our lives with activity and busy ness, exhausting ourselves with a never ending list of “have tos” , our cats simply yawn, stretch, roll over and go back to sleep. What are they expressing on our behalf? Are they another dimensional us in a lazy haughty self focused form? As their usefulness centuries ago was dependant on chasing away mice, is their purpose today to reflect and remind us of those forgotten day dreams and somehow entrain our bodies to relax, slow down and just chill?

Being loved by a cat is quite a privilege, perhaps their greatest gift to us is their incredible ability to self love?

Appreciating Your Business Story was published in Edition 20 of the Inner Self Magazine. www.innerself.com.au

Very successful, wealthy, high profile advertising guru and, up until this point, extremely fit and
healthy, my client, let’s call him Jack, found himself in an emergency ward at 2am one morning last
week suffering chest pains. What events took this energetic self made man to this potentially life
threatening situation?

Back in September 2009, Jack’s small five man agency landed ten major publicity campaigns
scheduled for April and May delivery. Jack was busy dealing with normal day to day business and
the contracts were put to one side until January. Jack had been in this business for a decade and
could service these campaigns with his eyes closed. Talented with a natural instinct for marketing,
Jack was a creative animal who never bothered with business planning. That was for suits and bean
counters – not for a true artiste like Jack!

It wasn’t until one midnight after a month of consecutive 18 hour days, when his office manager was
diagnosed with cancer and departed on extended sick leave, his sales manager resigned and his
assistant left for her honeymoon that Jack looked at his exploding IN BOX and gasped.

Now at this point, he could have easily called an employment agency to organize temporary staff.
However he did not. You see, Jack trained people himself and held no value for training manuals or
work procedures. That took him away from doing what he loved best. This team had been with him
since day one – quite a record in the advertising industry. Loyal and reliable, they love working with
Jack and created their own working system while on the job. Jack believed in trusting people to
create their own best practice. He taught by example and repetitive instruction, was a great boss,
fun, flexible and very supportive. Now with three people gone and major deadlines looming, Jack
had no time to create training manuals for temporary staff to come in and assist. He wasn’t even
sure what his staff did in detail. He had relied on his office manager, now uncontactable in a private
cancer hospice, to run the show so he could get on with business.

So Jack did what he knew best. He worked harder and longer doing whatever it took to deliver these
campaigns. He also put more pressure on his graphic artist to pitch in and help. She could answer
telephones but as Jack had no system, no manuals or procedures outlined for her to follow, she
needed constant assistance. Increasingly frustrated with his graphic artist, angry with himself and
way behind with his campaign delivery, Jack suppressed his emotions with sugar and caffeine so he
could keep going by day taking four panadol each night so he could sleep.

Jack was so blinded by his personal “story” that he did not appreciate his current circumstances and
therefore fuel himself and his business with their value.

Every personal development guru delivers a similar message – gratitude. The common denominator
is to appreciate your life as it is regardless of anything else that is going on. Dr John F Demartini says:
“What you appreciate grows.” He is talking about counting your blessings. So when your wife leaves
you, the kids are sick and your small business looks like Jack’s, it’s kinda hard to feel grateful when
you’re in the middle of it isn’t it?

So Jack’s body gave him some time out to look at his “story” and consider its value in his business
and ultimately his life.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

What better way to appreciate your dream than producing a business plan that manages everything
you need to keep your business alive in every situation – good times and in bad.

Humanity has traded since prehistoric times. As an exchange of product or service in a transaction
between a buyer and a seller, what early man bartered 21st century man charges in currency. The
amount of charge is measured by our calculation of what it takes to deliver the product or service. In
Jack’s story, he was being paid one cow in exchange for four months ploughing in a field.

An annually reviewed business plan could have helped Jack to evaluate his resources, plan his client
proposals and projects and charge accordingly. Jack’s recent painful business experience clearly
demonstrates what is important to him. Jack’s need to do what he loves plus the driving force of
proving his worth to his father (one of Jack’s stories) effectively minimized his business risk
management strategy limiting his business sustainability.

When you mean business and you know what you value, appreciate the “story” that drives the
decisions you make in business (and in life) and match these with your business vision and goals; you
appreciate what you have – you count your blessings and add value to your life and to your business.

Author Bio:
Nichola Burton International Consultant for Branding, Business Planning, Personal Development, Human Behaviour Systems
PO Box 86, Sumner Park Qld 4074 Telephone: 07 3124 4051 +61414975201
www.nicholaburton.com.au Email: nicki@pushworth.com
Copyright 2010 ©

Hello 2010 was published in Edition 19 January 2010 in the Inner Self Magazine. www.innerself.com.au

Some perceive that this first decade of the 21st century is quite the Hollywood blockbuster.
Surviving the Y2K bug, we faced 911, Bali Bombings, Tsunami’s, Wars, Climate Change
and a Global Financial Crisis that changed the face of our geopolitical landscape. Others
perceive this first decade as a science fiction classic with technology advancing faster
than our perception of time.
In the stories of the first decade of the 20th century, families sat around the radio
together each night to listen to the news of the world, we met our friends at the local
Nickelodeon for the Saturday matinee, listened to Scott Joplin on the hand cranked
victrola, ordered from a Sears Roebuck catalogue, grew our own vegies, navigated by
the stars, shopped at the local five and dime store and managed business with the newly
invented typewriter. Fast forward to 2009, and we live in virtual on line realities where
technology has infiltrated our language as we daily Google, Skype and Facebook each
other while managing the business of our lives on our IPHONE, shop on E BAY, buy
groceries and exchange money on line, watch movies on You Tube and navigate our way
with the faithful GPS.
Nothing has changed. Our stories are still the same. We simply seek to connect in other
ways.
Those Hollywood blockbuster events that we survived in this first decade created
insecurity in the old models of economy and in many ways transformed traditional
paradigms of employment. In turn this has stimulated a booming global on line industry
with millions of enterprises offering products to service needs and voids that the modern
world brings with it. Previously limited to shelf space and shop frontage, 21st century
businesses can now easily register a domain, set up a website, access free networking or
blogging sites, create on line shops with PayPal to be in business with the click of a few
buttons and all from the comfort of your own home!
The struggle to market, brand and promote product or service, is a common symptom of
global business in every industry. I work with theatre directors, producers, public
speakers, artists, musicians, government departments, community associations, retailers
and health care professionals and regardless of size, structure, product and expression;
they all share the same frustration. What is my value? What is the value of a customer
and how can I attract and then service one?
My grandmother, born in the first decade of the 20th century, lived by the motto “waste
not want not”. As children we were fascinated by the magical colours of her legendary
button jar. Carefully dismantling clothing, everything was catalogued and saved for
future use. One child’s outgrown shirt would be unpicked and resewn into another’s
dress, one brother’s jacket would be altered into his sister’s pyjamas until scraps of
materials tired and worn out would be woven and quilted into floor mats and pot holders.
On the smell of an oily rag, that woman kept her children well dressed and her home
beautiful yet functional and running like clockwork. She was the ultimate in effective
resource management!
In 2010, many business mottos are the same – “waste not want not”. Regardless of the
century, no matter who you are, what you have done, where you live or any of the
stories you identify yourself with, you have things you like and dislike about yourself and
your life. In seeking to connect, you have already collected a magical button jar filled to
the brim with stories – behavioural patterns, beliefs, values and ways of doing things. As
technology provides a platform and resource for us to add value to our daily lives, the
stories we collect provide a platform and well of resources for us to add value to our
businesses.
One client I was working with shared his shame at the impending divorce of his fourth wife – a partner in his engineering business. This was not a new story. Over a 30 year period, this man had built and dismantled four businesses. He despised his pattern of moving into personal and business relationships so quickly (his average was 12 months) yet for me, this ability was impressive. A master salesman in relationships, he could identify value, capitalise quickly, build a new structure and maximise potential while servicing clients and maintaining a business. Once he appreciated the value of this behaviour pattern without judgement, he converted it into a business marketing strategy tripling his sales within 6 months. The only action required was to appreciate his stories, catalogue, unravel and reorganise them into new areas.
Nothing had changed. He simply became a more effective resource manager.

So hello 2010, regardless of what may come, value your collection of magical buttons
and see what you can use to add value to the business of your life!

Author Bio:
Nichola Burton International Consultant for Branding, Business Planning, Personal Development, Human Behaviour Systems
PO Box 86, Sumner Park Qld 4074 Telephone: 07 3124 4051 +61414975201
www.nicholaburton.com.au Email: nicki@pushworth.com
Copyright 2010 ©

I was at a day spa last week. It was early in the morning and I was the only customer so far. The owner was working with me and became was very distracted by his staff who were chatting and giggling and playing in the absence of customers.

I asked him if he had a plan for no customers and he angrily replied: “Of course not. I expect customers all the time. Why would I plan for none?” I explained to him that holding an image in his head of 100% capacity custom is a great big infatuation and fantasy. All of us in business subscribe to the same fantasy at times so he is definitely not alone. I mean, without a whopping big fantasy for inspiration, none of us would be in business in the first place right?

However, with a clear plan and simple easy steps to take and follow, that dream can be converted to a viable set of business goals that can be achieved and managed.

In business, as in life, there is an ebb and flow and seasons and cycles. There WILL be times when the phone will NOT ring and the shop WILL be empty. There will be times when equipment will break down or power or internet will be unavailable. There will be times when your team all get sick or worse still – YOU do.

John F Kennedy said: “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”

Create a schedule of activities for your staff for down time.

• This may be a time to clean out the store cupboard, desks, and staff kitchen or conference room.
• Catch up on filing; conduct an inventory for office stores or office files.
• Refresh Staff Training.
• Get on the phone and start marketing.
• Commence work on project development
• Get some research done for the proposals that you want to make to new customers

This list can be endless. Start with all the round tuits. You know – all those annoying little jobs that you never get around to. Start with them. Plan the time to sit down and make a long list of every possible activity that could be done when there are no customers.

That is the first step.

The next step is to ensure you have resources already set up for the staff to use in these activities.

• Ensure your Training Manuals are up to date and that you have one team member fully trained and able to take the rest of the team through the information.
• Have a marketing script ready to go with product and service lists, client activation database list and a campaign approach always on hand.
• Create a filing, storage and inventory map so that your staff know where everything needs to go.
• Establish a cleaning list and make sure you have all the equipment and cleaning detergents ready to go.

Someone has to be prepared for this in advance and that someone may be the office or store manager or the owner of the small business. This can be easily delegated and checked as part of your regular routine.

I know, when you are busy and stressed and exhausted, the last thing you want to do is MORE work.

Think of this as like making a commitment to yourself for a health and fitness regime. You recognise the need to feel a little healthier so you decide to join the gym and cut carbs and increase protein. As part of your new regime, you KNOW that you will fall off the wagon so you identify the possible circumstances when you are taken outside of your regular routine (going out to dinner, working late, travelling, sickness etc) and you consider and include the management of these circumstances into your health and fitness plan. So that when you get invited to cousin Julie’s wedding, you have a plan to stay on track.

Well, planning ahead in your business is exactly the same. By valuing your business enough to plan in advance, you can value your cost of staff by ensuring that they are productive regardless of the circumstance.

Planning for no customers becomes a critical aspect of your business planning activity.

Author Bio:
Nichola Burton International Consultant for Branding, Business Planning, Personal Development, Human Behaviour Systems
PO Box 86, Sumner Park Qld 4074 Telephone: 07 3124 4051 +61414975201
www.nicholaburton.com.au Email: nicki@pushworth.com
Copyright 2010 ©

Which holiday is more profitable – Easter or Xmas?

Gift Giving inspires marketing for a good 2 months prior yet with 4 days off in a row; an Easter vacation would certainly be a big seller. Everything in life is mercantile and these two holidays certainly can be quite the marketing wet dream for business depending on the appreciation of your creative entrepreneurship.

Which holiday costs the most?

For business, in Australia, April is a month of short weeks yet it is like an administrative graveyard from mid December until end January – although both constitute a substantial cost, we plan our operations around it and integrate it into expected business behaviour. Typically there is an ongoing public debate about staffing shopping times to balance the enterprise opportunity.

Doh – notice my first observations are expressed in business terms? Ha – three guesses what I love doing the most!!!
What about family or the various belief structures that value the “story” behind the holidays? What is it worth to take those four days over Easter and be with family and friends – take a break from work and just chill out and relax for a while? Bunning’s experiences quite a spike in sales as DIY purchases go through the roof while we garden and paint and renovate. My Greek in laws end their fast with quite the Sunday feast while my boys aspire to be the champion egg smasher year after year. With an appreciation but not a belief in the stories behind both the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic systems, I must admit that truly love attending Easter services in both churches to participate in and observe the ancient traditions.

So what is the value of a holiday or holy day to any of us?

When I look back, our family have never celebrated Easter to the same degree as Xmas. As a family who doesn’t like chocolate or sweets, Easter was more of a time to capitalise on the four day long weekend. We either performed at as many gigs as possible, or donned the Easter costumes braving shopping centres all over South East Qld as Chickens, Bunnies or Eggs. We’ve managed Festivals or run Seminars – renovated the house, caught up on office work OR taken a little holiday. In Oz, it is simply divine weather for Easter and indeed this is our travel industry high season – try driving to the Gold Coast on Easter Thursday afternoon?

Conspiracy Theorists postulate that business is conspiring to remove the religion from Easter and Xmas by turning them into major commercial activities and removing trading restrictions so that “poor” employees have no option but to work over the holiday.

What if the story behind these holidays was originally written for commercial mercantile reasons in the first place and organised religion was the easiest and most effective way to spam and sell the holiday to as many people as possible? If we conducted a profit and loss analysis of the Easter and Xmas holidays throughout the ages, I greatly suspect that the profit and loss would balance equally as it does today in the 21st century.

But isn’t it fun watching those old Charlton Heston Easter movies OR Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”, toasting hot cross buns, hiding chocolate eggs in the geraniums, cooking the Easter Roast Lamb, smashing red boiled eggs and vacating your life for four days?

Christos Anesti!
Buona Pasqua!
Happy Easter Everyone!

There is too much stuff in this house – 16 years of four children, various guests, pets, businesses and endless activity. It just had to go – I needed to truly release SO much of this “stuff” – this was a clearing of Hollywood proportions. The skip was filled to the brim and so we hired a Ute loaded it up and drove to the DUMP.

The Dump – as a kid, going to the dump was THE exciting adventure of the weekend. There was no such thing as a skip – to us that was the nickname that the Greeks and Italians had for us Aussies who watched Skippy the Bush Kangaroo after school each day. This was the time in my childhood when firecracker nights were still legal and Dad could burn anything in the incinerator in the back yard without applying to the council in triplicate. Whatever was too big and hard to burn, Dad would load up into the Volkswagen. My brother and I would pile in stuffing our bodies in amongst old bikes with knees up to our chins surrounded by various broken bits and pieces of our household’s life that my father could pry from my mother’s stubborn fingers.

The closest dump was located in the next suburb with tiny dirt roads carved through mountains of settling landfill winding around various stages of rubbish processing. Today it is a very trendy upmarket suburb sporting parks and house proud residences. But back then, going to the dump, for me, a budding Archaeologist, this was akin to a religious experience. After all, these were piles of prehistoric treasures just waiting to be discovered and my imagination would run wild digging up jars containing sacred scrolls and all the answers to the universe.

We would drive into craters of dirt, park beside other dumpers and watch as some people sifted through the already dumped “stuff” seeking that “one person’s trash is another’s treasure” find. We would all pile out of the car and grab the various refuse items and literally just throw willy nilly out onto the ground. The smell was something that has etched itself onto my memory forever – a combination of old, dirt, sickness and death – simply ferrel. There were crows, magpies and seagulls everywhere – all capitalising on whatever opportunity they spotted and wasting nothing. Looking back now, it was dangerous and quite a health and safety hazard. That is something we never thought of back then. However as a six year old, dodging the seagulls swooping while chucking crap from the VW – it was great fun!

Today, the Dump is called a Transfer Station. Transferring your trash OUT of your household and into a station where it can be recycled restored and resold as someone else’s treasure is a federal enterprise and managed by a strict accountability system.

So today, driving into neat lawned grounds we were met by a weighing station and given a ticket with specific path and bay instructions. Impeccable landscaped gardens greet us around each corner and after seven curbs we turn into a large shed with an enormous deep hole in the middle where bulldozers and large shiny yellow squishing machines transform ordinary rubbish into flat neat little packages. The dump smell is diluted to 100th of my memory and the whole place was – well – clean and tidy. I felt significantly underdressed and respectively hopped out of the car, mindful of all the safety instructions as per the hundreds of signs around me and carefully placed the rubbish into the designated area. It felt like we were at Ikea – the Ikea where items are returned and transferred after a decade or two.

I watched the abundance of our city being transferred to this neat clean little facility and wondered about our relationship with “stuff” and where appreciation would factor into our waste management practices. What a great example of the universal balance – here at the Dump. Sunday mornings may find many people at Harvey Norman or Far Pavilions buying new furniture. Sunday afternoons may find many people at the Transfer Station relieving themselves of the old furniture they no longer want. In one end and out the other – just like living organisms expelling toxins and waste.

Waste management is big business and is the human control of the collection, treatment and disposal of different wastes. Approximately 3000 tonnes of solid waste are generated each day in the south-east corner of Queensland alone. Most of this waste is sent to landfill. But what if we applied the law of the 5 ‘R’s before we made our next purchase? Recycle, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Restore – this is what REAL appreciation is all about! How could we upgrade our relationship with “stuff” with appreciation and reduce our waste?

The word Waste comes from the Anglo Frankish “waster” meaning to spoil and ruin – squander, spend or consume uselessly, the opposite of save, appreciate and value.

Decluttering is a wonderful thing. Clearing out creates space on an energetic level. However what if we regularly conducted an inventory of every single thing that we owned and held in our house, office or life? What if we valued our “stuff”? What if we converted decluttering to our very own internal transfer station? Seeing the incredible abundance in our lives, what could appreciate into wealth then?