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Love What You Do: The Life Coach
Listen to an interview with Andrea Jacques featured on the After Jet Podcast. Below, see a rough, abridged transcription: David Reiling: …today we join my guest, Andrea Jacques, who participated in After Jet conferences as a career coach. We talk about work-life balance, handling stress, and figuring out what a fulfilling job — and therefore life — actually means. My name is Andrea Jacques and I am the founder... -
Where a Smart Entrepreneur Spends Money
As an entrepreneur, how do you know when is it best to spend, and when is it best to save? How do you know how much to invest and in which types of services? Unfortunately there’s no easy answer, no golden rule for when and how to spend money on your business. Some things can and should be bootstrapped for a few hundred bucks. But be aware: this is nearly always... -
Startup Entrepreneurs Risk Overspending
Many of the deadly sins we examine in this series are intimately linked. That’s what makes them so dangerous: they feed off each other and multiply to eat away at the foundations of your fledgling business. We introduce extravagance here because the previously mentioned sin, impatience, and the upcoming one, arrogance, fuel extravagant spending. Would-be entrepreneurs in a hurry to reap the rewards are much more likely to overspend... -
Smart Entrepreneurs Don’t Fixate on Frugality
Smart entrepreneurs know how dangerous it can be to overspend in the early years of your business. There are times, however, when you need to spend money to do things right. These are usually the times when spending enough money in the beginning means saving a lot down the road. Fear is the underlying driver of being too frugal. When you are uncertain whether you are making the right decision,... -
Conscious Entrepreneurs Balance Impatience and Perfectionism
We’ve covered some of the weaknesses and strengths of both impatience and perfectionism in past posts, but being a conscious entrepreneur requires finding the right balance between these two extremes. Here are a few strategies for walking the noble path to success: If you tend to be an impatient entrepreneur, consider taking the following steps to course-correct: Write a business plan and refer to it on a regular basis. Update... -
Dogfooding is Key to Entrepreneurial Success
Perfectionism is a character trait that regularly stalls entrepreneurial success. No matter how great your idea, how much planning and research you do, and how smart you are growing a business from startup to success is fraught with trial and error. In their attempt to avoid mistakes, perfectionist entrepreneurs try to put off the trial part of this equation until they can ensure success. This mindset is counterproductive. Ask any... -
How to Remove Stress by Sticking to Priorities
You know that setting priorities is important for success in both business and life. If you are like me, however, sticking to them can cause stress. Why? The very nature of priorities requires choosing some things over others. This past year, I realized that there are actually two different levels that this choice occurs at, and that the secret to reducing stress lies in ensuring you have made the... -
Red Socks and Tattoos: 2 New Ways to Think About Stress
This past month, I’ve encountered two powerful metaphors that have helped me think about the choices I make in life and at work: red socks and tattoos. Let’s start with the socks. Red socks (or really any red item) in your laundry can stain all of your light clothes pink. It doesn’t matter if you have a dozen offending items or just one, the outcome is the same –... -
4 Ways to Fuel Energy and Well-being at Work
Our last post about staying genki (a Japanese word for energized and enthusiastic) at work focused on physiological strategies for enhancing your well-being. This post focuses on some less tangible strategies to ramp up your energy and enthusiasm in life and work. Identify and Plug Energy Leaks Have you ever experienced that tight feeling in your chest or gut when you do something that doesn’t feel quite right? Maybe you went along... -
Why Perfectionist Entrepreneurs Fail to Thrive
Impatient entrepreneurs may fall on their face due to lack of planning or research, but perfectionist entrepreneurs often don’t even get off the starting blocks. Diving headlong into perceived opportunities with reckless abandon results in a lot of emptied bank accounts and bruised egos, but waiting for the stars to align (and your Master’s degree and your kids to grow up and your hair to grow longer) can be equally dangerous. Why?...