In the corporate world, they call it “work-life balance.” In the real world, they call it “getting a life.”
For small business owners and entrepreneurs, all too often work is life, and the idea of stepping away or at least sharing the load is a foreign one. That truth may compound for home-based workers. This imbalance of work within the context of daily life isn’t necessarily an unhealthy ‘workaholic’ syndrome. Often it spurs from the commitment and concentrated effort it takes to build and nurture a business—with the goal to make a better life. Yet ultimately, the results are commonly the same: burn-out, depletion and isolation. Does this describe you?
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Type your name into Google and see what happens. If you have multiple forms of informative content about you appearing in the top ten, congratulations, you are pretty well branded. If your results are slim, however, you have some work to do to increase the power of your name. Large corporations understand the power of a name, but now, we are in an “Age of the Individual,” where your name is your brand, and the power of your brand determines your success.
There are many great ways to increase your individual brand power, and here are a few tips to get you started. Read the rest of this entry »
Women are often masterful multi-taskers. The ability to juggle multiple tasks at once is especially helpful for small business owners and entrepreneurs, who’re notoriously required to wear many hats to keep career and home life afloat and thriving. A few years back, a study conducted by Small Business TV revealed that nearly 70% of 14,035 small business owners surveyed conduct work while watching their children at practices. The majority of respondents to the survey were women.
However, just because one can “do it all” doesn’t mean one should. Research shows that multi-tasking—also known as switchtasking—is not a very effective mode in which to work productively. This is a challenging truth to embrace for female small business owners who must keep watch on budgets and staffing for their companies while holding the greater responsibility for daily household functions. No wonder women have long embraced a multi-tasking approach to daily life.
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The sandwich guy is still out there.
Even as the Hubble camera snaps photos of outer space and people communicate fluidly from around the globe via electronic communications and doctors are transplanting hands and faces successfully, the sandwich guy stands at a busy intersection in the heart of town during lunch hour most weekdays. He holds up signs about special pricing on subs, dances like nobody’s watching and waves to drivers with cartoonish exuberance.
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