Dream Big!

I attended an amazing business coaching workshop yesterday with Coach Kyle from ActionCoach. I spent the day with 30 other people that own their own business. It was a chance to work "on" our business rather than "in" our business, like we usually do. The timing couldn't have been more perfect for me! The last 6 weeks have been a huge blur of marketplaces and packing up orders and running to the showroom and doing everything I could to make sure the holiday season was successful.

I've never really thought of my business as a real business before yesterday. It has always been something I loved to do that I started out of passion, hoping that one day (sooner, rather than later, I hoped) would be financially rewarding. It has been 2.5 years since I started Giving Gifts and truthfully there are many days where I am ready to give up. I never imagined it would be this hard to work for myself! Late nights aren't the exception, but the norm, days away from my family are frequent and the feeling of doubt and disappointment is constant. What has kept me going is the fact that I LOVE the products I sell, I really do believe that we can "buy the change we want to see from the world!" I get immense satisfaction when customers love Giving Gifts as much as I do. But more than anything else, I like a good challenge and I'm determined to try everything I can in order to succeed. It is hard to give up on a dream and that is what giving up on Giving Gifts would be... 

Yesterday's workshop was exactly what I needed. A wake-up call to push the "Reset Button" and start doing things properly. It is time to start tracking the time I put into my business! It is time to start analyzing the number of sales I need to be successful! It is time to reach out and get help and try to make changes so that this business of mine really runs like a business, not like the time-consuming volunteer effort it has been for the past 2.5 years! 

Giving Gifts has had some amazing successes! I've donated over $2000 to local and international children's charities. I've ordered more than $1500 worth of books that are being donated to charity. I have the best testimonials from the best customers. Even Coach Kyle bought a pack of Boom Boom Cards for every person at the business club meeting yesterday! I got a pack too and I definitely intend to do mine. (I'll write blog posts about them.) Still with all the successes, it is hard to think of Giving Gifts as every being truly successful. After yesterday, I am more hopeful for sure and more prepared than ever! I have an action plan for the next 3 months and I've written out 15 SMART goals - (SMART is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results Driven and Time Bound) and I plan to accomplish them!

As part of the workshop, we had a 3 hour lesson from Michael Losier, the author of the Law of Attraction. Michael taught us that everyone sends out positive and negative vibes and therefore attracts positive and negative vibes. You can only send out one vibe at a time and if you want to be successful in business and in life, you'd better make those vibes positive! By nature, I am a critical and doubtful person, but my goal is to try to remove that doubt and be positive in my thoughts and actions so that I can attract and allow more positivity into my life. (That sentence does not sound like me at all! But I'm going to work on it!) I am certain that it works with kids - the more you focus on the positive, the more you'll see of the positive - so I am expecting it to work in business too. Michael signed my book "Dream Big" It is funny because I have a dream for Giving Gifts, the dream to have a real store one day. Not an online store, not a showroom, but a real store where people can come and shop and hear the stories directly from me. That dream is a little far away right now, and that's fine. For now, the more important dream is to run a successful business that not only gives back to the world and to my community but also to my family and to me!

Lisa Loves! Giving Gifts! (And Dreaming Big and Small!)