Changing horses in the middle of the stream

Changing Horses in the Middle of a Stream: How do you define success? Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.   Changing Horses in the Middle of a Stream: How do you define success? Been thinking about what constitutes success. How do you define it? Is it about payment? Power? Access? Influence? Probably a bit of it all. Personally I think that I have undervalued the importance of influence and over valued the power of money in the past. Last week I dropped off my youngest child for her freshman year at Syracuse University (Go Orange!). This is about 3000 miles east of where we live on the planet—an awfully long way away. But I trust that she will be successful as an emerging adult and that I will be successful as an empty-nester. And I know that we will have bumpy moments as well as smooth ones as we both go through this transition. And it got me to thinking about what is next for me: what would I find of value in the next phase of my life, how do I define my next success? Of course getting paid to do what I love is always appreciated. Thinking, talking, dreaming strategy and problem solving is what I do best and being able to do it for groups of business owners and independent sales agents makes my heart sing. I love helping people seeing their problems in new ways—hearing them tell me how much my presentations made them approach their business differently: renewed, re-motivated, reinvented! This will continue. But there will be more to my definition of my success going forward. Yes to the money, but also, yes to the importance of influence. Yesterday I read Nilofer Merchant’s Yes & Know  post and I loved her assignment: “Find one person you value for doing the work they are doing, and recognize them. This could be your husband for dealing with back to school mayhem, or your wife for handling the finances with calm. Maybe that co-worker who remembers that “we” is bigger than “me” and consistently does the right thing even without getting “all” the credit. Or find that person/writer/thinker who inspires your thinking.” I have many people to credit who inspire my thinking recently. Thank you to Alan Russell for telling me about Nilfor and her insightful posts. Also thanks to Jennifer Finney Boylan and to Nancy Cantor for recently inspiring me to think differently about me as a parent and an empty-nester with their articles and presentations. So I challenge each of you to let those people who inspire you to think differently to know that they did so. Recognize them, publically or privately. Either way, let them know how they and/or their work influenced you. Please take a moment to name them and how they inspired you in the comment section below. Would love to see who is inspiring you. Yours,  Heidi BK Sloss Marketing Strategist & Follow-Up Expert www.heidisloss.com 650-248-1545   Friend on Facebook Follow on Twitter Forward to a friend   Heidi’s next Bay Area event: The Silicon Valley Capital Club’s Business Growth Council Distinguished Speaker Event Wednesday, September 17th 6 pm to 7:30 pm Register at: 408-971-9300 First 50 registered attendees receive a  copy of Heidi Sloss’ critically acclaimed book, Fortune is in the Follow-Up® thanks to The Digitial 360 Agency, A Mystic Media Group Company.                                                         Complimentary to attend, BUT advanced registration is required. Limited to 100 attendees. In today’s confusing environment, business owners are being told conflicting advice from everyone. But not all the latest and greatest marketing tools are right for every business. Learn what you need to know without driving yourself nuts! “Running a business does not have to be complicated and making money is possible IF you have a strong foundation in business fundamentals: Or what I call my 5 POWER Strategies.” These 5 powerful strategies are often neglected or get lost as busy business owners allow themselves to get spread too thin. Implementing these strategies will make the difference between being overwhelmed versus profitable. Based on Information from her best- selling book, Fortune is in the Follow-Up®, this presentation will teach you the 5 powerful strategies you need to take your business to the next level of success —even in a crappy economy!  Follow on Twitter  Friend on Facebook  Forward this email Copyright © 2012 Mail Chimp, All rights reserved Our mailing address is: 5100 El Camino Real, Los Altos, CA 94022 650-248-1545   Unsubscribe by clicking here