Business Blog | Lilamitre-arte.com

This week during a coaching session, one of my clients shared her ongoing struggle with managing “breaks” throughout the day. Whenever she felt the need to get up from her desk and stretch her legs, she found herself in the kitchen.

As a result of this habit, she is now 20 pounds heavier, very uncomfortable and extremely unhappy with herself.

Unfortunately this phenomenon is all too common among entrepreneurs who transition from the outside work world to working from home.

Home business presents challenges not normally experienced while working in the corporate or “outside” world and managing breaks is a big one.

When you work outside of the home, a break might be spent by a water cooler, in a lunchroom, or outside on a bench chatting with a co-worker. When you do spend your break in the company lunchroom, you seldom find a fully stocked fridge and cupboards chock full of food at your disposal.

When you work from home, your break locations aren’t quite as extensive and because it’s very unlikely you would spend this time sitting in a bedroom or talking to yourself in the bathroom mirror, the kitchen is the most logical destination.

How you spend your breaks at home requires a little creativity and A LOT of discipline. By giving yourself options, setting limits, and creating healthy habits, it won’t take long for you to re-direct yourself when you find yourself drifting towards the kitchen.

Here are 7 simple options to get you started:

1. Grab your remote telephone, head outside for a lawn chair and call a friend. This not only addresses the “break” issue but also combats the feelings of isolation that often affect home-based business owners. The important thing to remember here is set limits for yourself. Institute a 15-minute break rule and enforce it, otherwise you can lose an entire afternoon.

2. Pick up your mail. Whether the mailbox is at the end of your driveway or just down the street, this is the perfect opportunity for you to stretch your legs and get some fresh air.

3. Play your favorite CD and listen to song that takes your mind completely off your work. Enjoy a cool class of juice or a tasty cup of tea while you immerse yourself in the music. If you’re feeling a little sluggish, pop a lively tune into your boom box and kick up your heels! There’s no better energy boost than a good boogie!

4. Take a walk around the block. Take your puppy with you and light two candles with one flame. Get to know your neighbors, keep your pet healthy, and enjoy the great outdoors.
Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (0)

Have you been thinking about leaving your job and starting a work at home enterprise? If you have mentioned your desire to anyone other than another entrepreneur you may have been discouraged. For many people it is hard to understand why anyone would want to leave “the safety and security” of a job and “risk their lively hood.” But if you have ever been hit by an entrepreneurial seizure there is something that happens which is unexplainable.

If you are willing to respond to this deep emotion you will never be happy living your life by a job description. You want more. A cubicle will feel like a prison and until you create something you can call your own you will feel like each day a part of you is making a deal with the devil.

For most people starting a business is a scary proposition. So how do you create an environment that pulls you towards success? What can you do to inspire yourself to take your life back and build wealth from home? Creating a purpose driven home based business is the winning combination that blends living your passion and profiting from it.

Here are 7 seven steps you can take towards a purpose driven work at home career:

1. You can create a vision and mission for your home based enterprise that inspires you. Life is too short. When you make the decision to leave the rat race you don’t want to create a business that’s simply another job. So why are you taking this journey? What do you want your business to look like?

For example, I am clear that my home based venture is as much about lifestyle as it is profit. When ever I work on my business I look at my mission that includes income developed through passive income and working no more than 25 hours a week.

Why? Because after 15+ years in Corporate America I learned that what are important to me are my personal relationships. I no longer wanted to trade my time for money. At the end of my life I don’t want to remember how many hours I worked for someone else or the sacrifices I made for a company. As a result, my vision is to create a lifestyle that allows me to enjoy life with the people I care about.

What is your vision for your business? Try to include all of your senses. What will it look like when you get there? How will you feel? Who will be there to celebrate with you? With you smell the breeze of the ocean water or the pungent fragrance of swaying honeysuckle? The more you connect with your vision the more you will be inspired.

2. Create your business based around something you are passionate about. There is something magical that happens when you are operating in something you love to do and are uniquely good at. Have you ever had a job you hated? How did you feel? You will never live a life of purpose doing something you don’t like. Discover your passion and give it all you’ve got.

For years I worked in jobs that I was good at but hated. However, when I struck out on my own I wanted to have a life I loved. I uncovered my unique talents and went to work. And what happened for me can happen for you.

When you start to live the life you were born to do the universe makes all of the resources available to you that you need to be successful. So what are you passionate about? What skills and talents do you have you can create a life and business around? Write down two or three skills have that would be utilized in your purpose driven business.

3. Make your business a business that is bigger than you. What would it feel like to know that your business was directly responsible for impacting the world in some way? How would you feel to know that when you passed on people from around the world would thank you for the part you played in creating something of value that was important to them?

At first, this line of thinking can be overwhelming. However, not when you start to think of what is at the core of any business. Your goal is to find a solution to your customers’ problems. And in exchange they are willing to pay you for it. To the extent that you get to know their hopes, desires, dreams and pains and you help to successfully maneuver the maze of life they will be forever grateful.
Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (0)

So you’ve decided to become financially independent! You’ve chosen to work at home. Congratulations! I’m sure this is a decision that can turn your life around and lead you to financial freedom.

But that is going to happen only if you’re careful enough to let it happen! There are a few things you should really look out for when deciding to work at home.

When you set out to give the work at home business thing a try, you’ll find out that this was just the easy part! The hard part is to discover which one is right for you.

With all these so called “opportunities” that flood the internet, you should be very careful in choosing a work at home business. To help you, I have put together a few simple rules :

Rule #1 : Try to avoid “get rich quick deals”

Now that’s a golden rule! Usually, when something sounds too good to be true then it probably is!

Oh, I know these sound appealing and of course you would like to get paid for doing nothing (so would the rest of us!). But don’t you think that if these people had the magic solution to making big money they would use it instead of trying to sell it to you for whatever price?

It’s sad to know that so many people end up feeling frustrated when they realize that they have wasted their time and hard earned money. There are no magic tricks! Commitment and hard work instead, can make you rich.

Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (0)

Network marketing, or “MLM” can be a great way to earn everything from a small additional income to a generous full time living.

However, many people join mlm type opportunities without really knowing what they are getting themselves in to. This is probably one of the biggest reasons for the fact that some people have very low thoughts about this type of business.

Mlm works if you do it right. Period. That said, here are seven really poor reasons for enrolling in a network marketing opportunity:

1) Earning “easy money”

I know – the mlm-companies are very good a promoting their business as a simple 1-2-3 process that anyone can do and become an instant millionaire. Especially online it has almost become a standard to use super long and totally over hyped sales letters.

This is the equivalent of claiming that anyone who can open a can of beans can be a master chef.

Don’t get me wrong, I do think most people CAN make it in mlm if they put their minds to it. But you must be prepared to learn many new things and you WILL have to work for it. Make no mistake about that!

2) Expecting that “spill over” will do all the work

Many mlm opportunities are built on what’s called a “forced matrix”. For example, in a 3×9 matrix, when you have sponsored your three first new members, the fourth will be placed under the first person you sponsored. This person has thus gained one person in HIS downline, without any effort on his part.

Now, some companies would have you believe that their top recruiters are so effective that the spill over from their marketing will automatically make you, who are joining at the very bottom right now, an instant success.

This is simply a pipe dream – it will never happen. Yes, you probably will get a few people spilled over into your downline, but nowhere near enough to guarantee your success. The sheer width of the matrix on your level, means that there is an enormous amount of representatives that will have to shear any amount of spill over.

And who says the top recruiters are as active as they once where anyway? Worst case scenario, they are now working on something else entirely, because their income in this particular opportunity is already secured.

3) Thinking that a product is so great it will sell itself

This is a classic mistake, because most mlm systems simply aren’t really about the product. This fact is difficult to swallow, I know.

As a greenhorn I remember joining this lottery syndicate-mlm, thinking that “everybody” would want better chances at winning the lottery – right? The disappointment was huge when I discovered the truth – some people even made fun of any attempt to mention this great new thing I had discovered.
Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (0)