C-Suite Network™

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Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness Management Technology

Craig Weiss Shares How His Company Will Allow Us To Control Our Dreams

As part of my nationally syndicated radio show, Take the Lead, I interview top leaders and successful individuals who share their success stories.  I recently had the chance to interview Craig Weiss, Founder and CEO of Aladdin Dreamer, a technology company that is designing a wearable that allows people to control their dreams. He originally practiced patent law. Prior to Aladdin Dreamer, Craig oversaw NJOY, Inc. the world’s largest independent electronic cigarette and vaping company as President and later as CEO.

To hear the entire interview, you can go to the podcast version, which includes an interview with David Mead, who co-wrote Find Your Why with Simon Sinek and Peter Docker: http://www.podcastgarden.com/episode/david-mead-and-craig-weiss_118355 or you can see the video interview with Craig Weiss on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3c7OpVTZg&t=1613s

The following are highlights of what Craig discussed in our interview.

  • How Aladdin Dream will allow customers to control their dreams
  • His experience in the vaping industry and how he was lambasted
  • How receiving a law degree impacted his success
  • His startup company and how he is raising funds
  • Serial entrepreneurship issues
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Management Marketing Personal Development

The Decision Process IS the Product!

Your decisions are the result of the decision-making process you employ to make them.  Let me illustrate using a story.

When my kids were growing up, we had a family tradition of going out dinner every Sunday night. My wife and I were both great cooks. While it was easy to eat well at home, the dedicated — OK, captive — family time in a restaurant setting was great for connecting with each other, and started the coming week on a great footing.

For the first few years of this tradition, the process of picking a restaurant went like this: as we were driving out of the church parking lot, discussions – actually a low-intensity argument – would start. Options were proposed and rejected by one or more family members in what seemed like an hours-long process of consensus-building. The product of this process: about 95% of the time, we ended up at Chili’s. That was the only option that could survive that process/ discussion gauntlet relatively unscathed. We all knew we were in a rut, but every time we tried to propose options, the process we used directed us back to the same place. Our “variety” became “table or booth?”. Chili’s is a great place, which is why it made the cut so consistently, but…sheesh.

Same Program, Same People, Wildly Different Results

Then somebody had the great idea to change the process. Each week, one of us got their turn to pick the restaurant for the family. The oldest, in high school at the time, introduced us one week to the Mexican dive hangout he learned about from friends. Our kids were introduced to sushi, Greek, Thai, seafood and more – and loved every single one. My youngest developed a love for the culinary arts – I’m positive in part, due to his wide exposure. I can’t remember a single flop; we almost always walked out of a family meal happy about a new experience. We repeated a few of the big hits (usually at the request of somebody other than the original “chooser”), but the variety and quality of the choices when way up. Importantly, every single one of us agreed that they loved the new results better every. single. week.

Here’s the lesson: the people – the Buying Influences — involved in this decision didn’t change: same personalities, same preferences, same budget, same geographic constraints, same everything. Yet, we achieved far different, far better results.

If you are a Sales Professional:

How groups choose drives what they choose. Consumers choose different decision processes or heuristics. You can guide them to use different heuristics within reason.  They’ll easily choose from a short list of processes they’ve used in the past, for instance. Groups of people organize decisions in certain ways, and often default to the same process they used most recently even if the results were less-than-ideal.

Complex selling is a consensus sale among a group of humans making a group decision… much like my family’s restaurant selection decision. High-performing sellers become students of the group dynamic, and harness different group decision-making processes in order to optimize results. You can add critical players, propose new processes yourself, get coaching to help shape decisions from within the group, and even work within formal processes like RFPs and bids to optimize your chances of success.

If you are a Sales Leader or a Business leader:

Understand how process used determines the outcome achieved.

If you don’t like the product, you may not need to change the people or other resources. To change results, look at your processes. Great leaders become students of group decision-making, and learn how process affects product.

On making decisions: look at your decision process. The way you facilitate each decision shapes it. The process you and your team uses to make a decision indelibly shapes the product – the outcome — of the decision.   If you don’t know how the process you imposed is affecting that decision, you’re either blindly replicating old decisions (for better or worse) and hoping for better results this time…or relying on luck.

On looking at your Processes: Don’t kid yourself about what you already have. In my sales performance consulting practice, I help customers change selling processes. The clients who initially think they don’t have a process are wrong. They have a process, even if it’s just an “everyone does what they want” process. That’s why changing it is hard (it would be a lot easier if “no process” really existed).

Feel free to comment below, or contact me directly. I offer tools to help sales professionals effectively and efficiently optimize customer processes, and love talking about them with new people. If I can help you guide your thinking on your own processes, I’m happy to share my thoughts.

To your success!

#sales, #salesprocess, #millerheiman, #millerheimangroup, #MHIglobal, #salesperformance, #customercentric, #process, #decisiondynamic

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Best Practices Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Can I Speak With Someone in the Customer Prevention Department?

What company would even have such a department?? You would be surprised and horrified to find out, especially if that department existed in your company!

Make it easy for customers to do business with you… or they won’t! Have you ever tried to do business with a company that seemed like they had a Customer Prevention department? It might sound silly, but think about it!

Here are some signs that a company does not want your business or care about you:

  • You call them and leave a message but they don’t call you back……. ever
  • You ask them to send you something and you never receive it
  • They answer their phone and sound bothered that you are calling them and interrupting them
  • They don’t have their phone number listed on their website
  • You can’t leave a message if you call after hours for a return phone call
  • You visit their business and you can’t find anyone to help you
  • You go to the counter to pay for your purchase and the person behind the counter is too busy texting on their cell phone to notice that you’re even standing there with money in your hand
  • The employees of the company complain about their bosses, co-workers, policies or other customers in front of you

If you encounter such a company when you’re the customer, my advice to you is to pass them by. A friend of mine recently went to a local hair salon to get a blowout before a special event. She told me that although her hair looked beautiful, the hairstylist spent the entire time on a personal call on her cell phone. Not only did my friend feel unimportant, she felt like an inconvenience. Why should she return to a salon that clearly does not appreciate or value their customers, when there are numerous salons who do?

Business owners need to remember that they’re not the only game in town.  Actually, they probably have many competitors whose product or service is in all probability very similar to theirs.  The price is likely comparable as well.  So why should you buy it from them instead of “Joe down the street?”

Imagine getting into a car accident. You call up your insurance company and explain the situation. The first thing out of the agent’s mouth is, “What’s your policy number?” This agent is in the Customer Prevention Department. How should they have handled the call? “I’m so sorry to hear that you were in an accident! Are you alright?”

According to a survey by Bain & Company, 80% of companies surveyed believe they deliver a superior customer experience.  However, only 8% of their customers agree.  Those numbers just don’t add up, and it’s a recipe for disaster.  If you think you’re doing a great job taking care of your customers but your customers think otherwise, they may not be your customers for very long.

If you suspect that your company has a Customer Prevention Department, then it’s time to eliminate that department – and quickly!

Categories
Best Practices Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

When You’re Just Too Busy

We wear busy like a badge of honor. Busy has become a status symbol within our society, which is crazy when you stop to consider how terrible it is to our productivity, personal well-being and relationships. We believe if we aren’t busy, we aren’t productive.

Researchers have discovered people are feeling overwhelmed at work dealing with constant distractions that then spill over into our personal lives, affecting our recovery, families and friendships. The result: the feeling of anxiety, stress, fatigue and a lack of focus on what matters most.

The Centre for Time Use Research at Oxford University says the total amount of time people work is the same as it’s always been and data indicates people who say they’re the busiest generally aren’t.

Question is: If we aren’t actually busier than in the past, why do we feel like it?  

Part of the answer is simple – attention is our new currency and is more valuable than ever before. With a constant stream of incoming emails, meetings to attend, things to read, ideas to execute, it’s no wonder we feel unable to give our undivided attention to what is most important.  When you couple everything competing for our attention with the digital age of technology, it’s no wonder we are feeling overwhelmed, overstressed and overtired. Fact is: we work 24×7. We never get a break.

Technology and societal pressures leave us feeling the need to be accessible to everyone all the time. As a result, everything suffers. Ironically, being constantly accessible actually decreases our productivity, not the other way around. When we feel rushed, we actually suffer from decreased production, focus and attention to detail. The pace of which we work slows, we are more apt to make mistakes and more likely to disconnect from meaningful relationships.

When we are overwhelmed and lack concentrated focus, we inadvertently compile our stress by taking on even more obligations than we can handle. Before we know it, we are sacrificing what matters most to suffice what matters now. Even worse, we have preprogrammed ourselves to believe we must always be on, plugged in and responsive. We fail to give ourselves the necessary time to recover and refocus.

It’s time to change our mindset. It’s time for an Attention Revolution.  We must stop considering busy as an indication of our importance. We must measure our success not by the time it takes to complete a task, rather the results we achieve. It’s time to prioritize what matters most to us and use those priorities as filters for what we commit to doing. We must learn to say ‘no’ to requests for our time that steal our attention from what matters most. It’s time to start realizing the value our undivided attention brings to relationships, productivity and accountability.

Maybe then, we’ll see we aren’t as busy as we thought we were.

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Are You a Thought Leader? Get Your Ideas the Attention They Deserve

Have you ever heard the term ‘Thought Leadership’ and wondered what it was and who gets to call themselves a ‘Thought Leader?’ True thought leaders shape and shift ideas, perspectives and focus in others.

Thought leaders don’t just know something, they are known for something. People often consider themselves Thought Leaders and yet are actually just thought repeaters. If you really want to stand out as a unique leader who drives passion and focus in others, you must know with conviction, or be willing to develop the skills that meet the following Thought Leadership criteria:

  • Within your business or corporation, you are the go-to resource that best represents your brand, idea and thoughts.
  • You can quickly strategize using thought leadership as a marketing strategy to operationalize your unique ideas.
  • Create ideas and information your business and department can capitalize on by sharing it with the world in a way that is unique and one-of-a-kind.

Utilizing your unique talent and ideas in Thought Leadership can help you inspire and develop top talent within your company. It can also help you attract and retain a larger client base with great connection, engagement and partnership with your brand.

Question is, once you’ve identified your inner thought leader, how can you share your insightfulness to those around you?

1. Capture what you know: You must take the ideas from your head and create ways to communicate them to the marketplace. Thought Leaders can be found in any existing field of work imaginable; however, having a thorough knowledge and unique insights into a topic is only the beginning. Document what you know, your intellectual property. Become a subject-matter expert with unique insights and perspectives to share in your area of expertise. Communicate them in a way that demonstrates value, with language that is uniquely yours.

2. Make your ideas known by others: Of equal importance is the Thought Leader’s ability to educate others on their ideas. It is critical to to share ideas in such a way that you inspire others to want to pass the information along to those in their inner circle. So, package your ideas in an accessible and attractive format to distribute to a market hungry for insights and solutions to problems, and those hearing your message will be eager to distribute it accordingly.

3. Communicate with other Thought Leaders: Communicate with other industry thought leaders, those that are shaking up the way their industry operates. Those with unique insights and ideas often value like-mindedness. They will embrace your approach and engage others willing to listen and learn.

4. Concentrate your messages to the markets that will value your expertise: Your ideas offered must be powerful enough to shift, or contribute to the future direction of an industry, community or even a whole way of thinking. If your thought leadership ideas focus on customer engagement, focus on developing relationships and creating connections with those whose interests concur. If technological ideas are what you’re known for, engage with other like-minded industry thinkers that will see the value in your message and understand the long-term impact your ideas will have.

Thought leadership is a unique skill set and way of packaging solutions to problems others may not consider. Once you’ve identified this talent within yourself, or developed the skills to be known for what you know, move forward with the communication strategy presented so you can spread your knowledge and ideas successfully.

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Best Practices Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Attempting Fairness Isn’t Fair – The Difference Between Policy and Process

Treating all employees fairly with a specific policy sounds important, reasonable, and necessary.  Fairness is important, correct?  All managers should work to achieve it. Correct?  Unfortunately, the concept of fairness is vague at best and misleading plus harmful to employee engagement at worst.  Being fair depends on interpretation.  Interpretation of a situation can create too much variation.  Any attempt to be fair with all employees using policy alone will create unintended negative consequences.

When my daughter Emily was a junior in college she worked part time for a catering company.  She served dinner to the elderly at a Senior Living facility.  Her boss rarely saw her.  He did little more than create the work schedule for the workers (including Emily).  He never needed to be at the location because the students worked well as a team and needed little direction or supervision. The process for serving dinner was very predictable and relatively easy to learn and implement. Plus, the customers were very happy.

After working a year for this company Emily was scheduled for a raise.  The company policy required employees be considered for a raise only after receiving a performance review.  This policy was an attempt to treat all employees fairly and to ensure employees who receive a raise in fact deserve one.  It sounds reasonable and necessary.   However, there is a problem.  The boss was rarely, if ever, available to observe her performance.  He therefore had to guess.  There was no predictable process in place to access Emily’s performance.  The policy existed but there is no process to carry it out. Senior leadership wanted a fair policy for all employees.  What they got instead was a great policy for damaging motivation.

The boss and Emily met.  He rated her a 3.5 out of 4.  He attempted to justify his rating.  In this company’s performance management policy, the “1” rating is unsatisfactory and requires immediate dismissal; the “2” required immediate improvement with a performance plan; the “3” means “meets expectations”; and the “4” means “exceptional”.  The boss explained that “no one ever” receives a “4” rating because he doesn’t believe in awarding a “4”.  He explained, “everyone can improve and therefore the rating of exceptional is unreachable and unattainable”.  The boss had his own interpretation of the policy. In other words, he had his own process and he was incapable of explaining it effectively without damage to my daughter’s engagement.

My daughter was disappointed in her rating because she had never missed a day of work scheduled, had filled in for other employees when they called in sick or needed an evening off multiple times, and the clients loved her. She continually received unsolicited accolades and even gifts from the seniors.

She decided to speak up, “How can you rate my performance, you are never here?”   “That’s not true” he replied.  “Occasionally I arrive at the end of the shift in time for me to see you mopping the floor.”  She was not only disappointed but also appalled by his explanation.  She was de-motivated and discouraged. All this unintended consequence because she was due a raise.

Policy alone cannot deliver fairness, nor can it deliver engagement.  An event that was intended to increase engagement actually damaged it.  Policies don’t deliver fairness, processes do.  Without predictable processes, based on sound theory, fairness will be non-existent and engagement will be damaged.

While all employees need to understand policy it is not the policy alone that delivers the outcomes.  It is the process.  Employees also need to be treated as individuals.  Their individual needs, characteristics, skills all need to be addressed to honor their unique make-up.  The current performance appraisal process doesn’t deliver this (nor will it ever be able to do so in its current form).  My daughter’s story is not uncommon.  The typical performance review can create a disengaged employee even if it is a “good” review.

A process is needed that is both flexible and clear.  Then the variation needs to be managed to achieve desired outcomes.  Too often a leader “sends down” edicts to the masses and expects compliance.  It just doesn’t work that way. Not in today’s knowledge economy where employee engagement is a strategic advantage. Policy is an unsophisticated and damaging way of achieving engagement and the results show it.  The policy to conduct a performance review will not predictably deliver employee engagement even when the intentions are good.

Check out the interview on C-Suite Best Seller TV to learn more about how to stop leadership malpractice and replace the typical performance review: https://www.c-suitetv.com/video/best-seller-tv-wally-hauck-stop-the-leadership-malpractice/

 

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.

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Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness Management Marketing Technology

Billionaire Naveen Jain Shares His Moon Shot

As part of my nationally syndicated radio show, Take the Lead, I interview top leaders and successful individuals who share their success stories. Naveen Jain, the billionaire behind Viome and Moon Express, sat down for a live interview with me.

To hear the entire interview, you can go to:  http://drdianehamilton.com/episodes and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z0KVSnO9Ow&t=219s.

The following are highlights of what he discussed in our interview:

  • Going from being poor to becoming a billionaire is a mindset
  • Ask what can I do about a problem
  • What if energy becomes like oxygen and does not cost money
  • Abundance makes things demonetized
  • Half of the Fortune 500 companies will go bankrupt in next 15 years
  • The pace of disruption
  • What Uber has accomplished and what will happen to them
  • What is your moonshot and what is possible
  • Smaller problems are harder to solve then bigger ones
  • How to get to the point of landing on the moon
  • Don’t have a plan B as a crutch
  • How to create a billion-dollar company
  • Reason people buy products
  • Curing all disease
  • Better to get into industries with which you are not familiar
  • 70% of serotonin is produced in the gut and not the brain
  • Tony Robbins and Peter Diamandis and the Joe Polish Genius Network event
Categories
Best Practices Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development

Ken Fisher of Fisher Investments Discusses Leadership

As part of my nationally syndicated radio show, Take the Lead, I interview top leaders and successful individuals who share their success stories. Ken Fisher, the billionaire behind the success of Fisher Investments, sat down for a live interview with me. To hear the entire interview, you can go tohttp://drdianehamilton.com/episodes and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDNSdlhM9cE&t=27s

The following are highlights of what he discussed in our interview:

  • Whether leaders are born or made
  • The importance of knowing yourself
  • What people will do vs. what they can do
  • Activity and attitude equals success
  • What his day is like
  • The key to success in life is wise choices, keen observations, and recognizing your observations are often wrong and modifying when they are wrong
  • The importance of degree programs
  • Universities like Harvard or Stanford are broken, and degrees are equivalent to a bad education in 1910
  • What he wants to hear from an interviewee
  • John Tamny’s article about the uselessness of patents
  • How the economy will change before and after an election
  • Trump vs. Clinton
Categories
Best Practices Growth Human Resources Management Skills Women In Business

Stop! Don’t Choose Employee Engagement as Your New Year’s Resolution

Seems like an odd request, but not when you realize that only 8 % of the population keeps their New Year’s Resolutions.  Enhancing your business culture by improving employee engagement is too important to set up for failure.

For the same reasons that people don’t stay on their diets and quit exercising, businesses lose the momentum to build a culture that makes a significant difference in success.  This is true on so many levels, from recruiting the best talent to customer satisfaction.

Here are some reasons companies fail at building a culture of engagement:

  1. Too much pressure

The thought of making January 1st your day to “turn it all around, “gives the illusion that at some point you will be done. In fact, every day can be used as a perfect day to begin and continue a new idea, concept or way of conducting business

Solution:

Make the change manageable.  Take the time to discover where you are right now.  You can only do this if you ask for people outside of your circle of influence what their perspective is.  Then engage those same people to help find the solution to a common goal

  1. It’s hard

Nothing soft spoken here.  Yes, it can be.  Any change takes work.  Depending upon where you start and what your goals are, the challenge and its difficulty correspond to the difference.   However, you have the choice to experience the changes as hard or a series of opportunities.

Solution:

In one word, acceptance.  When you can accept that this new movement towards building a community of people with a common goal will take time, repetition and detours, it is less stressful.  Knowing it is a challenge does not mean it has to be hard.

  1. It’s complicated

Interestingly enough, the process is as complicated as you make it.  The research I did for my book, Blueprint for Employee Engagement, showed me how important it is to break your goals and ideas into small baby steps.  You actually get to achievement faster that way.

You don’t decide to create a new business culture and voila, it appears.  In fact, when attempting a broad change, many people will be skeptical.

Solution:

By far the best way to simplify an action is to have a plan.  When I coach executives the only way to see to the end result is a plan.  Map out the plan like an outline and then break each point into more action steps.  Then take each of those steps and give them at least 3 stages.  It may look like you are complicating the process, but in actuality you are creating those baby steps so you can succeed with a greater feeling of accomplishment

  1. The realization that you have to keep doing it!

My favorite adage is, “Life is a journey and not a destination.”  If you want to make permanent change in your business environment, it is a forever process.  Get ready for setbacks.

Solution:

Once you realize this is a continuous journey a lot of pressure is removed.  It also means that along with the inevitable setbacks comes opportunities to re-evaluate and fine-tune.  This allows you to be on a continuous improvement plan for your entire business.

Don’t make employee engagement and company culture a fad.  Deliberately choose to create a better workplace environment.  Get the best talent, to be the most productive and creative, so they provide your customers and clients with the ultimate in service.  That is a decision you will forever be proud of.

Julie Ann Sullivan has the cure for retaining good talent and reducing absenteeism. Want a free copy of her book, Blueprint for Employee Engagement 37 Essential Elements to Influence, Innovate & Inspire? Talk to Julie Ann @724-942-0486.  Julie Ann hosts the Mere Mortals Unite and Businesses that Care podcasts on C-Suite Radio.  For more information go to http://julieannsullivan.com/

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Skills Women In Business

The New Year’s Resolution You Can Keep

Like most people, I usually hate making new year’s resolutions. They are something we create out of a sense of obligation, knowing all the while that we will probably not stick with it for more than 24 hours. Then as icing on the cake, there’s a predictable little twinge of guilt for giving up on it, since it was something that should make our lives better somehow. Well, I want to suggest a way to make this year different.

Decide for yourself that this year, the resolution will not be about you, but about others. More specifically, take stock of your relationships, and take an honest look at the nature of your communication patterns with them. Is there something about the dynamic between the two of you that  brings out a tendency to be unnecessarily blunt, passive-aggressive, or indifferent? Do you shut down or avoid people when there is real or potential conflict? This year, let your resolution be a gift to them – and to yourself: the start of a new, healthier and more positive relationship through a shift in the way that you communicate.

Here are three ways you can wrap your gift:

First, be mindful of what your eyes say even when your lips aren’t moving. We often don’t realize that our face is reflecting our true opinions about something we hear before the other person is done speaking, and often before we even start.

For example, do you have a habit of rolling your eyes, breaking eye contact, or cocking one dubious eyebrow when you disagree with someone? These are signs of disdain that shows you are not open to hearing what they are saying, and will put people on the defensive.

For me, I know that my “thinking face” has my eyebrows scrunched down, furrowed. It doesn’t mean I’m angry or disagree, but that’s often what people mistakenly think it means. In reality, they should be happy when they see that face, because it means I’m listening carefully and seriously considering what they’re saying, but unfortunately that’s not the effect it has. That’s why I need to remember to “reset” my eyebrows to a more neutral, nonjudgmental position.

If nothing else, be sure to make eye contact when someone else is talking. You don’t have to stare them down, but don’t multitask, look at the computer or smartphone screen, or keep checking your watch. Give them the gift of your full attention.

Second, watch your words. Small details in word choice can have a big impact on how people hear and interpret what you say, and how they feel about it. Beware of absolutes, such as everything, nothing, everyone, nobody, and always… Statements like “Nobody wants…” or “You’ll never convince me that…” show that your mind is made up, you are sure that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Plus, they are a form of exaggeration, making you sound melodramatic. In the end, they shut down productive conversation and any chance at collaborative negotiation.

Instead, if you want to promote mutual listening, try hedging those statements. Try phrases like from my perspective…, on multiple occasions…, or I’m concerned that… They allow you to state your case, but allow for the fact that it is your perspective, not “gospel truth.” It shows you are open to working together to reach a mutually acceptable solution.

Finally, engage people. I know you are busy, so you don’t need to hear their life story, but seek to connect with them as people, not just as coworkers or employees. For example, when you pass someone in the corridor, give them more than a perfunctory nod acknowledging their existence. Stop for a moment and ask them how they’re going to use the time off if your company is closed for a holiday, how they’re feeling if they’ve been under the weather, or how their kids or pets are doing. Just remember: a little effort goes a long way.

The beauty of these little tips is that they take so little effort in comparison to what you get back, so it becomes the resolution that you actually want to keep!

**********

Do you have a comment or question about how to easily and effectively make this shift? Click here to set up a 20-minute focus call to discuss it with me personally.