Guest Post: What My Darkest Times Have in Common

In my book Your Belief Quotient, chapter four is about Creating Connectedness, with ourselves, with others, with our God.  Bill Baren is a coach who describes the importance of connection in a post borrowed from his lastest newsletter.

What My Darkest Times Have in Common

by Bill Baren

As human beings we tend to compare. We compare other people’s highlight reels with our own backstage happenings. We often can’t help it…

The reality is always more complex than it looks.

When I think of my life, I have had my share of failures. I’ve had struggles. And I’ve had times when I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. It’s definitely not my highlight reel.

Yet when I sat down this week to think about what these darker times had in common for me, I was able to boil down my failures and struggles into three little words:

Lack of Connection

Whenever I’ve lost the connection to what I am doing
Whenever I’ve lost the connection to the people I am doing it with
Whenever I’ve lost the connection to the people I am doing it for

Whenever that happened – I failed, I struggled and/or I got depressed.

As a heart-based entrepreneur, connection is vital to your success. And if you’re not creating a connected business, if you’re feeling alone and isolated, it is more likely than not that you are struggling.

That’s why so many business owners are disenchanted with just marketing on-line, which often doesn’t easily lend itself to creating a community and isn’t conducive to creating the human connection we crave.

What many of the business owners I speak to are finding is that when they carve out a place for themselves as the go-to resource in their own community and when they do more business locally, they tend to lift the veil of isolation and bring in a sense of belonging and connection
into their lives.

So I invite you to create a daily practice of connecting to who you are and what you do. And I urge you to open up your marketing and your business models to being more connected and a lot less isolated.

It will pay off for you with joy and financial success, too.
Bill Baren Coaching
http://www.masterofenrollment.com/

 

Do You Have “REACH”?

Every time you make a genuine connection with someone, you create REACH.  It doesn’t matter if it is in your personal or professional life – you have  established a relationship with some degree of influence.  Imagine you are getting ready to launch a new product or service.  You    know you need help with this project, so you REACH out to a few of your key contacts and enlist their support.  The strength of your connection and influence determines the length of your REACH.

Why REACH is so important should be obvious.  Marketing has shifted in the last few years.  Relationship marketing is one of the strongest trends ever to hit the business world, and it isn’t going away any time soon.  People prefer to do business with someone they know, like and trust.  When you have REACH, you are that trusted business.  Your marketing messages get read and people believe your products are good because you say they are.  REACH creates sales with loyal customers.

In other arenas, REACH is just as important.  As a leader in your home, church, company or community, you need REACH.  Author John Maxwell says that leadership is influence.  According to Maxwell, “People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.”

How do you create REACH?  Consider the people who have REACH with you.  What are the qualities that attract your loyalty?  Integrity, authenticity, consistency, follow through, dependability are probably on your list.  Take a look at what you deliver and honestly assess what traits might be limiting your REACH.  What you put attention on will grow stronger.  Focus on being that man or woman that has REACH.