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Go back to the place where you first started when you believed you could do anything and that doing it would change the world.  Somewhere in your soul that person still exists and still believes that you are meant to make a difference.  Remember what you know to be true, the things that you know even when the bottom is falling out, the confidence you have in your own ability to make the world work better than it does.  Stop thinking that only the biggest changes really matter and go back to believing that life is lived one day at a time and an improved world happens one person at a time.  It has been ages since you have jumped off the treadmill and considered why you were running in the first place, and realized that progress is made in the moments, not when you are busy getting somewhere, but when you give yourself permission to be still, so that you can absorb what is actually happening around you, so that you can see that flicker far ahead on the road that reminds you of the wonder that is waiting just over that next hill.  So take the next step but don’t be in a hurry to get there.  The journey is yours for the joy that it can give, and that means each step has to matter.

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We are surprised every time, but we still run into business people who are running scared from social media.  We are never sure if they are afraid of what they don’t know, or if they are afraid to admit they don’t know, or if they just can’t believe that technology can do what it actually does.  If you are in business and you are still trying to avoid the move to social media marketing you can plan to be left soundly in the dust over the next year.  Print advertising and promotional marketing are still important, but they should be used literally as a means to drive traffic to your social media platforms where your real marketing is done.  Think of your blog as the cog in the wheel around which everything else rotates.  This is where you tell your story, speak plainly to your audience, give your readers a chance to know your core beliefs and the quality of your product.  Your fan page, Facebook profile, twitter, linked in, are all meant to draw readers in, build relationships, and ultimately lead them to do business with you.  Social media marketing isn’t a mystery, it is an opportunity, one that could change your business and your life.

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When you think of classical music one of the names that immediately come to mind is Mozart.  Perhaps you don’t actually think about classical music, ever, yet you are familiar with the name of Mozart, because his is synonymous with music genius.  So why is it that this man, known for his brilliant contribution not only to music but culture through the ages, and who was even known in his day as a musician of the highest caliber, died a pauper, deeply in debt, to be buried in a potter’s field reserved for the least of society.  Because Mozart had the problem that so many business owners have.  We are very good, exceptional even, at our craft, but we are not good at business.  Mozart had a gift that was sought after by kings, but he had no sense of how to market himself, no concept of how to turn his music into an enterprise with which he could earn a living.  Mozart, like many of us, didn’t follow the first rule of profitability. That is to pursue your gift vigorously and engage the services of another to turn it into a business venture.  Believing that you have to do it all yourself will keep you from doing any of it for very long and marketing, being the most ambiguous part of your business, but also the most important, needs to be handled with care.  You’re a business owner, which means you’ve invested in your future.  Are you investing in a way will pay the best dividends?

Your business strategy is something you will develop over months, even years of experience and trial and error.  It can be written down on paper and measured in goals reached and money banked.  Your character isn’t quite as simple.  It also develops, depending on what you are feeding it, for it is not an idea or a brainstorm, or a tested program.  It starts as a seed that was planted long before you had anything to do with it, then every day that you choose to put another’s needs before your own, or to honestly state your opinion, what you believe, rather than what will make people like you – every time you choose to do what you know is right regardless of profit or popularity, especially when nobody is there to see you make the choice, your character sprouts and grows and becomes the thing you can rely on when others are in doubt.  It will carry you through the torrential downpours and lean bottom lines, because character is the thing that you will ride to the top when circumstances would sink you where you stand.  Strategy is what you will develop to make your business succeed.  Character is what you’ll discover if it doesn’t.