Who needs a mentor? Why spend the money on a mentor? Should you engage a mentor?

These questions are often asked by people who get into business, and when money is not flowing in as fast as one would like, it seems the money must always be spent elsewhere.

Today’s times are showing rapid change - in the economy, markets, careers, customers, employees.

In order to risk becoming obsolete or worse yet, going out of business, it is important that we keep up with the times.

Many of us seem to not only keep our head above water, but indeed prosper, with the help of a mentor, or someone to continually guide us along the pathway to success.

Yet, who can you trust?

If you want to pay exorbitant fees, you could probably call people such as your accountant or attorney who start charging the moment they pick up the phone (and they do not guarantee their advice). What about your employees who tell you what they want you to hear instead of what you need to hear. So who can you trust?

Think about it.

Athletes have mentors, actors have mentors and business leaders have mentors, technology professionals have mentors. In fact, the list could go on and on.

Here are a few reasons why you might want to consider engaging a mentor:

1. The structure of mentorship provides automatic accountability

Knowing that you must answer to someone, you seem to attend to any pending matters by the approaching connection time. If asked about things that were promised to be acted on, it is always good to have the right answer. Procrastination is solved as you work your way through your ‘to-do’ list each day. The mentoring relationship in a way has built-in accountability.

2. Questions are asked of you that you may never ask yourself

Sometimes you may put off answering some questions just because you are not accountable to anyone other than yourself. By postponing asking the hard questions you are not solving any problem, you are just avoiding the short-term pain. Your mentor may not be so ‘nice’ to you. He or she has no problem asking those hard questions and actually prompting you to start doing something about those questions. You will discover more about yourself than you ever realised before.

3. You can learn to reflect

A mentor has no other agenda except to help get the most out of you. So you never have to be concerned about any other side-effects as you discuss your life and work issues. That in itself will let you open up and reflect on things at a level that you have never seen before.

4. Discover the “real” problem and get help to solve it

As we go about our days, we often keep messing with symptoms rather than attacking the real problems. Discussions with a mentor about a particular issue can actually end up solving the “real” problem. Solving the “real” problem will in turn solve the symptomatic problems that you first set out to solve.

5. You may escape from “short-term thinking”

Being in business today, and needing to stay on top of the world of the internet, you have no option but to be “current net compliant” to ensure you are in the race. This means that you have to be running just to stay where you are. While this is great for short-term success, you can’t ignore your long-term goals. Your mentor will help you balance the time you spend between short-term and long-term goals.

6. Get a “responsible” alternate perspective

You may have other avenues where you can get alternate perspectives on a particular topic or issue. However, when a mentor provides an alternate perspective, there is a dose of responsibility that comes packaged with it. In other words, your mentor has a higher stake in the outcome than your peers and friends do.

7. Get into the “thinking” habit

Typically we spend our days multi-tasking, and doing our thinking whilst on the go or performing other tasks. Spending time with your mentor opens up the creative part of you and allows you to ‘think’.
This is such an important role as we often don’t allow ourselves time to just think.

8. Prepare to welcome new possibilities

Your mentor will look at how you can capitalise on your strengths. Rarely can you claim to be aware of all your strengths. Even if you do, you may not be making the most of them. A mentor can work with you to ensure that you are spending most of your time in the areas of your strengths and also take care of other things (where you are not that good) by putting a suitable structure in place.

9. Learn to be in balance

Mahatma Gandhi said, “One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.” While you may know this, being in the technology world, chances are that you may be neglecting several other parts of your life. With your mentor’s help, you can be assured of living a more balanced life.

10. Get help to distinguish yourself in the marketplace

Unless you distinguish yourself, you will be part of the commodity crowd. Not doing anything about it will only erode your value in the marketplace. Distinguishing yourself is a journey and not a destination. What is special today may no longer be special tomorrow. Your mentor can act as a catalyst here to help you rise above the commodity crowd quickly.

If you are smart and disciplined, with or without a mentor you may succeed. Why not increase your odds by engaging with a mentor?

By Danette Hibberd

Successfully Dealing With Goals

Goals – for some of us we moan and groan, for others we experience delight! We’ve all been told that we must list our goals. That’s easy. Write them down and feel committed. That was yesterday. But it’s now a new day.

So you’ve made that list of goals – again. Once more you’ve written down your hopes and dreams. So what? You’ve done it a hundred times before, and what good did it do you? Now what?

Setting goals is like placing your order at a restaurant. Not achieving those goals means you’re still sitting there waiting (whether patiently or otherwise) or you’ve gotten up and walked out of the restaurant before your order could be delivered.

The restaurant analogy ends here, however, because there are conscious, proactive steps you can take to speed up the delivery of those things you ordered; you have the power to postpone it and refuse it. You likewise have the power to aid in its attainment.

Here are several methods to successfully dealing with goals :

• Take any one of your goals and ask yourself why you want it? Write down the answer. Then ask yourself why you want that? Continue this way until you feel you’ve come to a fundamental desire that you simply cannot break down further. A desire for a new car may be backed by a desire for status which may be backed by a desire to be loved which can be attained in a slew of other ways than just a car. Desire, in this instance, to be loved.

Then, in a creative reversal of this deconstructive method, ask yourself what it would look like if you were loved (or put more succinctly – what it will look like when you are loved). What will you have, feel, and experience when you have that love you want? Do you have any of those things already? If so, you’re already there, receiving your order, and all that’s left is to continue receiving. If not, no matter, it’s now on its way.

• Each day, pick one of your goals and take one simple action towards its achievement. Too often we become paralysed into inaction by the apparent “size” of our goals, really a resistance to the stark contrast between our goals and our current condition. So break it down into bite-sized chunks, one bite at a time. You need only emanate the energy of alignment with the attainment of your desires to receive it. By wanting it, you have already called it to you. You don’t have to work your tail off to get it. You just have to give it conscious daily attention concentrated through the performance of a simple and realisable act.

• Enroll other people in your goals. It can be frightening at first to be so vulnerable as to share your desires with another person, but it’s equally potent in its effects. People who love you will always love to put their energy towards your happiness and fulfillment, even if that energy comes in no other form than as “moral support”. In many cases, your goals align perfectly with another’s goals and suddenly you both have found a partner in fulfillment. In extreme cases (more frequent than you may think) a circumstance you couldn’t possibly have imagined will “coincidentally” touch another person’s life that they could put towards your goal’s attainment if they had only known they could have helped. People love to help each other. Give them a chance. Share you goals. Tell other people what you want and let them help you have it.

Another thing you can do in successfully dealing with goals is to make sure to regularly revisit your list of goals, review them, update them. You may find some goals from your past that you no longer desire today. You may replace old goals with new ones and refine persistent goals. You may even be pleasantly surprised to discover some goals have been achieved since the last time you glanced at your list, and you hadn’t even realised it!

With this process, you will be successfully dealing with goals.

By Danette Hibberd

Posted by Danette Hibberd

Last week I brought you a message from Lynn Pierce, the Success Architect on

4 Core Blueprints to Reclaim your Life, Awaken Your Soul and Your Business.

Lynn talked about the quick fix people are looking for as opposed to taking responsibility for creating your life.

I love the way Lynn clearly shows us how we can really begin to discover our Life’s Purpose and urges us to begin taking action today reclaim our life and live our life’s purpose.

In part 1 of this series we talked about the quick fix people are looking for as opposed to taking responsibility for creating your life.

And Lynn asked you…

So where do you start if you are ready to take responsibility for your life and create your future?

This week -

Introspection and Discovery of Purpose

There are 4 core areas, or what I call core blueprints, that require your attention if you want to have a life that is in flow with your true passion and purpose. When you’ve created all 4 of your blueprints and you have all 4 of these areas functioning at a level that satisfies you, then your life will be more peaceful and effortless than you have ever imagined it could really be…

No magic bullet required!

In the next 4 weeks we will discuss each of these areas:

*Introspection and Discovery of Purpose
*Blueprinting the Life of Your Dreams
*Sales/Marketing/Communication Skills
*Mentoring for Your Life and Your Business

First I’d like to have you go back and look at how you reacted to the assignment I gave you at the end of part 1. You remember, the four lines I asked you to read out loud and then look at what your reaction told you about yourself.

I’m making the assumption that you’ve at least taken one simple action towards creating your life by doing this. So how did that go for you?

What came up?

Your body reacts to your thoughts and feelings, situations real or imagined,all the time but most of the time we aren’t aware of it, or you’ll look for a pill or a drink to cover the reaction.

Why do you think people refer to your ‘gut’ reaction?

When your stomach gets butterflies or starts swirling do you reach for an antacid or do you go inside and ask yourself what’s really happening here?

Because now, in part two of this series, we’re talking about Introspection and Discovering Your Purpose.

Introspection does not require hours of meditation or trekking to Tibet. You can start very simply by just listening to what your body is telling you.

For example:
When you notice your body having a reaction, take a minute and see what was just happening that you are reacting to. Was it a phone call, an email, a conversation, or seeing something you don’t want to do coming up next on your calendar?

Or was it a daydream, a thought of fear or doubt that isn’t even real?

First you have to know what is driving your life now before you can make a shift that will move you in the direction you want to go. Why randomly make changes in your life if you don’t know where you’re actually at or what your truly want?

It’s like shooting arrows at a target while someone is spinning you around instead of planting your body, taking a proper stance and aiming at your target. That would be silly, wouldn’t it? And yet you’re basically doing the same thing every day if you haven’t created your first blueprint of Introspection and Discovery of Purpose.

So how do you get started figuring out what your purpose is?

These are criteria that I use to qualify every opportunity that comes up in my life. I believe they will serve you as well as they have served my clients in the last several years.

7 Criteria for Recognizing Your Passion and Purpose

1. Doing it makes you feel good about yourself
2. You would do it for free
3. You loose all track of time when you do it
4. You love to talk about it to everyone
5. You are happy to teach others
6. If this were how you spent all your time, it would be a good thing.
7. It makes you want to get out of bed in the morning

If you are truly living your purpose and doing what you are meant to do in this life, you will easily be able to say yes to all 7 of these criteria. And just as importantly, you will be able to confidently say no to any opportunity that doesn’t rate a resounding yes. And I mean all 7, every time.

If you say yes to 6, but 1 of these criteria is a no or a maybe for you, then say no to whatever it is. It’s not worth your time and effort to do anything that isn’t a perfect fit for you. You don’t want to be coming from a place of lack and grabbing on to something that isn’t meant for you.

I can hear all the “yes, but..” now. It doesn’t matter how good the opportunity would make you look or how much money it could bring or what your friends will say if you don’t do it. Just say no. Your life will start working on such a higher level as soon as you really embrace this concept of saying no to the good to say yes to the great.

That’s the first step to creating your life and creating the first blueprint.

You must have a place that you confidently stand in your life. Your own personal line in the sand. And only you know what that is. I can’t give it to you and neither can anyone else.

Another good tool I would suggest you use is creating your own personal manifesto. If you haven’t done that, you can go to http://LynnPierce.com and sign up for this ezine, and you’ll get an email with a special report on how to create your personal manifesto as my gift to you. I take you step by step
through how to create it and how to use it. It’s a powerful tool.

To be living your blueprint of introspection and purpose you have to be in a place of abundance in terms of confidently saying no to an opportunity that may be a good one to have the space available in your life to welcome a great one.

Does that make sense?

Too often whether it’s a relationship, a job, or a dream; you’re limiting your own ability to live your purpose by fearfully holding on to things in your life that, upon introspection, you would realize are not serving you at the highest level.

The law of attraction is not the only Universal law. One that has always been a very important one in my life is the law of creating a vacuum. Nothing new and great can come into your life unless a space has been created for it to occupy.

If all the available space in your life is filled with things that are less than perfect for you, there is no room for anything better to show up.

So you can use the law of attraction and sit and wait, or you can beg and plead, or you can stand on your head, but you will not get your desired end result.

Until you let go and know that the Universe will bring into your life exactly what you need to fulfill your purpose, you’ll have no space available for it come into your life.

Have you ever been in a bad relationship and wished for a better person to come into your life, but you wouldn’t break up with the first person because you were afraid you’d be alone?

How did that work out for you? Eventually, if you suffer enough and the pain becomes great enough you’ll make the leap and leave. Then, lo and behold, someone else shows up.

That’s the way it works in every area of your life. You can always take the slow and painful route and wait to be so miserable that you make a change out of desperation or you can choose now to actively listen to your body when you have a ‘gut reaction’ and begin to create blueprint #1: Introspection and Discovery of Purpose using the tools you’ve learned here.

Next week we’ll move on to my favorite part, Blueprinting the Life of Your Dreams.

So get to work right now on discovering your purpose and creating your personal manifesto so you’ll be standing in a place of knowing who you are, where you’re starting from and where you want to go so we can begin to create that life for you next week!

************************
Lynn Pierce, the Success Architect, has taught people how to combine business and personal development to reach the pinnacle of success and live the life of their dreams for over 25 years.
Lynn Pierce, The Success Architect
Author, “Breakthrough to Success; 19 Keys to Mastering Every
Area of Your Life”
www.YourBreakthroughToSuccess.com

I trust you are enjoying learning the 4 Core Blueprints to Reclaim your Life, Awaken Your Soul and Your Business. Keep an eye out for next weeks issue.

Posted by Danette Hibberd

Knowledge is fabulous, but ACTION is a ‘must’

By Danette Hibberd

“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there”
-Robert Kiyosaki

How does this statement resonate with you?

For me, I would like to share my thoughts.

We can spend thousands of dollars improving ourselves, attending seminars, reading self help or personal development books, listening to cd’s, watching dvd’s, doing courses, buying e-books, and so much more. The list and the dollars spent can seem endless. And after all, we sometimes feel, “where is all this getting me, or why aren’t I moving forward, or this is a load of rubbish as I am not living the dream life I want?”

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Well, I would like to emphasise that education is so very, very important if we want to achieve success. I don’t mean university degrees or education at tertiary levels, but education that expands our knowledge of life and the business niche we choose to be in.

Let’s take a look at the Three Keys to Success

1. Opportunity
2. Knowledge
3. Taking Action

Most of us can see an opportunity when it presents itself to us, and the majority of us have taken the time and expense to improve our knowledge, but sadly many people miss the mark on number 3 - Taking Action.

People have received some great advice from watching the movie “The Secret” - mainly putting out your intention or having the thoughts that we hope will lead us to success. But where most of us miss the mark is putting off taking the necessary action.

Putting out our dreams and desires to the universe - doesn’t necessarily bring those things to us automatically. It’s not something that is just a given.

Instead, there is a level of action that we must take in order to bring those things to us. Yes, there is some work involved.

Finding the knowledge that will take you to the next level is one thing, but putting that knowledge into action is paramount.

How many of you reading this article have spent money on seminars, tools, resources - to further your education and knowledge to improve your life or your business?

That’s great, but are you taking the Action that goes along with the education? It is this step that will really make a difference.

Here at FabulousBeyondFortyClub, we provide you with so much education and knowledge from people who have been there and done it. We gladly share our successes with you and support you but it is up to you to take the necessary Action. You can’t just sit back and expect things to fall in your lap.

Take the knowledge, apply it every day to help yourself move forward.
Response will come to you in amazing ways.

So, my challenge to you is this -

Write down three goals that you wish to achieve before you go to bed tonight. Yes, they may be small, but things that you have perhaps been procrastinating about, or putting off for one reason or other.

Done that? Great - now - begin taking ACTION on making these three things happen for you. I promise you will feel so much better as you have made progress.

Well done.

Take the necessary ACTION to create the life you love - the life you deserve.

Remember,

Knowledge is fabulous, but ACTION is a ‘MUST’.

By Danette Hibberd

Reclaim Your Life and Your Business.

Todays message of the
“4 Core Blueprints to Reclaim your Life, Awaken Your Soul and Your Business” come from Lynn Pierce, the Success Architect. Lynn combines business and personal development to reach the pinnacle of success and life the life of your dreams.

Fabulous Beyond Forty has the same core values and our mission is to give you the information, tools and resources to create and life the life you desire - the life you deserve.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This has been going on forever, since advertising began, but I swear it’s getting worse. Everywhere I look I see people advertising quick fixes for almost anything you need, business or personal.

For instance, I’m shocked at the list of horrible side effects people are willing to endure to get a quick fix for one thing or another from a pill they can pop instead of changing a habit.

The simple fact is there is no magic bullet, but there are some core principlesthat if implemented fully into your life will make you feel like you do have that magic bullet.

It’s become a part of our society to treat the symptoms and never even take the time to uncover the cause, much less take responsibility for it or do anything constructive to change it.

In a real sense it’s true of weight problems, health issues, issues in personal relationships, addictions, money issues, lifestyle issues and certainly with business.

In business the quick fix is king. Why do you think the get rich quick pitch is perennially one of the biggest money makers for marketers, followed closely by the next tricked out tool that will, of course, make you rich right now?

I’m sure if you’ve been in business for any length of time you’ve heard someone say, “Sell them what they want, not what they need.”

Even seemingly intelligent people who know the quick fix isn’t going to happen will still buy it just in case this one is the real deal. I know I’ve done it. It’s human nature to not want to miss out on the next big thing.

But when you look inside yourself and take a deep breath and get centered and listen to your inner voice, you know none of it is true. The truth is, it all begins and ends with you.

So where do you start if you are ready to take responsibility for your life and create your future?

There are 4 core areas, or what I call core blueprints, that require your attention if you want to have a life that is in flow with your true passion and purpose. When you’ve created all 4 of your blueprints and you have all 4 of these areas functioning at a level that satisfies you, then your life will be more peaceful and effortless than you have ever imagined it could really be…

No magic bullet required!

In the next 4 weeks we will go in depth on each of these areas:

*Introspection and Discovery of Purpose
*Blueprinting the Life of Your Dreams
*Sales/Marketing/Communication Skills
*Mentoring for Your Life and Your Business

Right now I’d like you to read each one of those 4 lines out loud and notice the feeling in your body when you say the words.

Do you tense up?
Does your stomach tighten?
Do your shoulders drop?
Do you take a relaxed breath?

How does your body instinctively react to the words when you read them out loud? And yes, it does make a difference to say it out loud.

What thoughts pop into your mind?
What kind of pictures show up in your head?

These are all indications of where you instinctively feel good about where you’re at and where you know you need some help. If you pay close attention to your reaction you’ll also feel how much resistance you have to doing anything about your current situation in respect to that area of your life.

Isn’t it amazing how much information you can find out about yourself from verbalizing and then just being aware of your reaction?

Listen to what you really need and move toward those things first.

Next week we’ll go into Introspection and Discover of Purpose.

Until then, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Just comment on this post on my blog.

If you would like personal mentoring, send me an email detailing what you would like help with. As your mentor I hold a bigger vision for you than you hold for yourself. When you have faith and a team that believes in you,it gives you courage. When you don’t have to do it all yourself, all things are possible for you. Commit today to go for your dream 100%.

Lynn Pierce, the Success Architect, has taught people how to combine business and personal development to reach the pinnacle of success and live the life of their dreams for over 25 years. In addition, she is also the founder of one of the most exciting annual events for women entrepreneurs,
“Women’s Business Empowerment Summit”. Now she shares her keys to success and life mastery with you. You can get the first five lessons of “Change One Thing, Change Your Life: A Personal Transformation System”
at http://www.yourbreakthroughtosuccess.com

Fabulous Beyond Forty Club will bring you the next issue to keep you up to date with Lynn’s amazing success in “Reclaim Your Life” and live the life you love.

Posted by Danette Hibberd

By Danette Hibberd

Can you cross the “Success Line”?

We often hear people strive for success but don’t quite make it. They give up before they reach their goal.

Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the centre of the page and call the line “Success”. We know that about 90% of people today are on the left hand side of the line. These people often stop about a centimetre or two before reaching the line because they either can’t stretch themselves to get out of their comfort zone, or simply quit. How sad this is.

For those of you who have read “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, let me remind you of the story of Mr Darby. He was a part of the gold rush fever and one day discovered the shining ore. He borrowed money from relatives and friends, bought the necessary machinery to bring the ore to the surface, but after only digging up 3 car loads of the ore, the mine went ‘dry’. HE QUIT. He sold his machinery to a junk man for a couple of hundred dollars and took many years to pay back his loans.

The junk man however was smart. He called in a mining engineer and returned to the site to have it checked out. The engineer advised that Mr Darby had not been familiar with the fault lines of ore, and he reckoned that the gold would only be three feet from where the digging had been halted.

And you know what? That is exactly where the gold was found. JUST THREE FEET from where Mr Darby had stopped digging.

The junk man took in millions of dollars of ore from that mine - simply because he sought expert counsel.

This story gives us not one, but two lessons to enable us to cross the success line.

1. Think long and hard - failure is only temporary - DON’T QUIT
2. Seek advice from an expert - there is always someone who knows more than you

I hope many of you have the courage not to quit, and the humbleness of seeking advice when you get stuck.

We all want to cross our “Success Line” so always remember how Mr Darby QUIT unnecessarily.

By Danette Hibberd

What is NLP?

Neuro Linguisitc Programming is a combination of techniques enabling you to go within yourself as well as going inside those around you.

Using NLP, one can discover how to communicate more effectively and even gain so much more control of yourself. In a nutshell, the techniques and process of Neuro Linguistic programming will enable you to easily understand how you think, how you communicate and how you process emotions.

Using the power of the subconscious mind, limiting beliefs, limiting decisions, negative emotions, phobias and the like can all be easily traced and released. Getting past these limitations allow you to move forward with ease.

Learn more information on the benefits of NLP.