Be Who You Are - Success Series

Raquel Bosustow, Entrepreneur & Author
Download the audio version here - great gems from Raquel that you wont want to miss out on!

Raquel Bosustow left a six figure corporate career in the travel industry in 2001 to start a catering business with NO experience. All she had was a dream and determination to succeed. Through her determination, Raquel built this business into a huge success with 30 staff. Due to this success she sold this business within 4 years. From there, she bought an Organics Fruit & Vegies home delivery business called Organics Only and has increased her turnover in this business by 500% in 2 years. In this time, she has also written and published her first book (released in Oct 2009) called Miracle Beginnings and created a new business that is aligned to her book and supports Mums who have had Premature Babies. Raquel is also the mother of 3 incredible kids all under 7 and she loves to cook, drink champagne, have baths, hang with girlfriends, shop and date her husband! These are her thoughts around what success means for her.

1. What do you consider success to be?
Freedom of Choice

2. Often people measure success by how much money one has, what do you

think of this statement?
Success can be measured by money, but I feel it can also be measured by achievement of

goals.

3. How do you measure your success?
I measure success by living the life I want to lead, working the hours I want to work,

doing what I love and being paid for it. Being able to give back and being proud of myself.

4. How many times did you feel like giving up before you finally made it?

Not as often as what I thought - I was just too determined to prove the onlookers wrong to

ever really think about giving up.

5. Do you have support people around you that really believed in you? How

important do you feel this is?
My husband is my biggest supporter, as are my closest girlfriends. I cleaned out all the

dream takers a long time ago.

6. How do you keep yourself motivated and inspired when things may not be

going so great?
I just keep on visualising what I really want to happen. I remind myself of how far I have

come and am grateful for what I have achieved. I keep planning ahead and keep it simple.

7. How do you maintain work life balance and switch off from your business?

This is a tricky one, especially when you love what you do. I have recently introduced a 'no

work day' on a Tuesdays which means no emails, no computer, no phone calls - its killing

me!!

8. If you lost it all and had to start again from scratch, what would you do

differently?
Nothing. I am happy with my entire journey thus far.

9. Would you like to share any 'worst' decision you have made along the way and

what you learnt from these?
Not trusting my gut instinct as much as I have learnt to.

10. What 2-3 things could you share that you think makes the fundamental difference between good and absolute success?
1. Get Focus - like a woman on a mission
2. Get Determined - Nothing will get in your way, build strong shoulders and charge

through.
3. Get Clarity - Know exactly what you want and go get it

As always I would love to hear your comments and thoughts on this article and what you see as your definition of success.

Is your dream BIG enough?

I answered the phone this week to a client who was having a stressful time. 'I don't have enough time to get everything done. When did this become so hard? I didn't sign up for this? I wanted to work for myself, I wanted to be able to do as I please?'

So why can't we do as we please? Isn't starting your own business about doing something for yourself, about realising your dreams, about creating what you want and on your terms? Often we can get caught up on: 'What it is suppose to look like? What others expect us/it to look like?' Why not step back and reground yourself on what you actually want from your dream business? For me, my dream business is about freedom - freedom to travel, freedom to spend time with my family, freedom to indulge in my desires, freedom to challenge myself.

Ask yourself:

To me, success means:

My dream business, allows me to do:

Because of my dream business, I feel:

By taking the time to answer these questions, my hope is that you will (a) have a better understanding of what you purpose is or (b) reconnect with your purpose and ground it further.

Please leave your comments or thoughts around what success means to you.

Creating the Dream Business

When working with my clients, a common thread that runs through each persons business is that somewhere along the way their business has takeover who they are and what they thought having their own business would be like.

Even for myself this has happened and now I am taking the steps to realign what my business looks like to me. To reconnect with why I have my own business. I am going to build the dream business! Bold statement I know but stay with me and lets see how this goes.

In creating your dream business be clear on what success looks like to you. For me success = freedom. The freedom to do as I want, the freedom to spend more time with my family, the freedom to allow DH more time with us girls, the freedom to travel and work from anywhere in the world, the freedom to contribute to our family finances.

So SUCCESS = FREEDOM and this is what I am basing my Dream Business around.

Let the journey begin and don't forget to check in everynow and then to follow the journey.

To your bold success
Deb

Ps., Ask yourself: What does success mean to you? Leave your comments. Let's build a great list.

To Pitch or To Build

Okay I am just going to say this - networking events can either be wonderful energetic experiences or soul sapping encounters. Luckily each event I have been too over the past few months have been the first. After having this conversation with John (okay names have been changed to protect the innocent J), it made me realise that I had been attending these current events with a completely different intention then what I did years ago.

Below are 3 steps that you can use to make the most of your networking events.

1. Set your intention - so before you walk into an event, be very clear on what you want from this event. For me, my intention is to 'build and create relationships' and I know that by focusing on this intention I don't allow any soul sapping to occur.

2. Be who you are - don't try to be someone else, people will spot this a mile off. Allow your own greatness to shine through and the magic will happen. If you need to be 'on' than its time to move on! Find another person to speak with, someone who you can connect with as you.

3. Once you've connected, then you can educate - Take the time to find out about the individual on a personal & professional level. As the relationship develops and you find out more about what they do, their issues, ideas or activities, then educate them on what you do that solves their problems. Real connections create a reason to continue the relationship beyond the first meeting.

I'd love to hear any of your tips on how to go from "pitching" to building relationships. I'm sure we can all benefit from the nuggets of how you connect with new people. Please post your comments below.

3 Common Mistakes when setting plans

As 2009 draws to a close, think about scheduling a block of time to plan for your Best Year Yet ~ 2010.

To help you with this process, I wanted to share with you 3 mistakes we can make when setting our plans:

1. Focusing on what you don't want, rather than what you do want.
Often when facilitating this planning process for clients, I hear a lot about what clients don't want (eg., I don't want to work longer hours? I don't want to make less than $100,000 etc.) rather than what they do want. It's time to see it differently and talk about what you want. So begin by making a list of everything that you want for your business and yourself.

2. Keeping your plans and goals in your mind rather than writing them down.
*Research indicates that by writing down your goals, you will have greater success of achieving them than if you were to keep them in your mind. The other part of this process is to make sure you have a tracking system in place to track how you are going with your goals. You don't want to write them down and then place them in a draw only to be seen at the end of 2010.

3. Relying on others to help you achieve your goals.
At the end of the day you are responsible for your own actions, for your own achievements. There is no way to make someone else do something. So take time to ask yourself; "How do I need to be to have my best year yet? What do I need to do now to have my best year yet?"

Call to action:
Put some time in your diary before the end of the year, put pen to paper and begin the planning process for 2010. Not sure of what you need to do, not sure on how to go about this process why not give me a call to book in a session to assist you in this process.

*Locke EA and Latham GP (2002) Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation American Psychologist, Vol 57, No 9, 705-717

(c) DebPilgrim 2009
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Deb Pilgrim is the Entrepreneurs' Business Mentor. Deb's FREE weekly Biz Booster Newsletter provides entrepreneurs with how to tips that will increase your profits, grow your business whilst gaining more time for yourself. To learn more about this how-to newsletter visit http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=J5D6_&m=J6vflc78U7O9Te&b=pK0BilbOrrOmcUBTSNr._w to sign up for your FREE copy.