Lauren Card Live

For me this statement is really not an option… I HAVE TO eat!

Okay… I admit, I’m a serial entrepreneur…I have been for over 14 years.

One thing that I occasionally suffer from and did just last week, was a huge drop in blood sugar from not eating. There are times when I’m way busy with whatever I’m doing, and too much time goes by and BAM… I start to feel weird and get cranky…ask my friends and family! Does this ring true for you too? Here are 5 tips that might help. I’ve started to do these in my life and find they really are a benefit.:

TIP #1:  Drink your water, preferably alkaline. Even if you are simply working behind a desk all day, your body still uses water. So don’t wait until you get that thirsty feeling in your mouth. By that point you are already dehydrated, which can impair your physical and mental functioning.

TIP #2: Avoid sugar and simple carbohydrates. Incorporate more proteins and complex carbohydrates into your diet, such as products made with whole-wheat flour, brown rice, etc. They won’t trigger blood sugar highs and lows, putting you more on an even keel.

TIP #3: Eat small meals. Have six small meals over the course of the day instead of three large ones. When you eat a big meal in one sitting, it overwhelms your body, causing it to work harder to digest the food. As a result, the digestive process diverts blood away from your brain and your extremities and uses it in the digestive track. With smaller meals, your body doesn’t have to work as hard.

TIP #4: Take walking breaks. Walking gets your blood circulating, helps you breathe better, and stimulates your brain due to the increased blood flow. Take a five or ten minute walk during the day.

TIP #5: Meditate. Meditation is great for rejuvenating your body. Each time you meditate, you’ll feel like you just took a six-hour nap. By meditating for fifteen to twenty minutes twice a day, you’re keeping your body continually energized. If you do run into the afternoon slump, meditating for a quick five minutes can immediately re-energize you.

Good luck and let me know if these help you!
L.

Certain words that we use on a daily basis have associations to them.  Did you feel uncomfortable when I used the word “selfish” as a positive expression in the title of this blog? Exploring non-traditional ways of using words that have judgments attached to them may give us insight as to how we can create a richer human experience.

For me, this quote from Mother Theresa describes how being selfish might be the best course of action…

“People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may just never be enough;
Give the world the best you have anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it’s all between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway.”

- Mother Teresa

When we limit ourselves to conforming to society’s value systems, or ways of thinking of things, we miss the opportunity for awareness and self-care.

It’s 10:00 Monday night.  You have a giant presentation in morning and you’ve been working all day long to get the Powerpoint just right.  As you finish up slide number 38 you congratulate yourself…they’re gonna love it.  For some strange reason, your keyboard stops responding.  You press the SAVE key, once, twice and then it hits you…your  computer is locked up.  You are going to have to reboot.   A cold chill creeps up your leg…when was the last time that you saved your work….OH NO…you realize that you NEVER SAVED your work.  The entire presentation is going down the toilet.  NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Feeling a bit of stress are you?  Are your nickers in a twist?  Well there Ms. Entrepreneur, what are you going to do now?  How are you going to fix this mess?  More importantly, how are you going to save from the  stress of burning the candle at both ends?  The problem is not technology, it’s one of perspective.

First of all, cut yourself some slack.  This kind of stuff is going to happen from time to time.  If it’s just now and then, have a glass of wine, and get ready for an all-nighter.   “But wait” you say,  this kind of stress happens all the time!  If it isn’t cashflow, it’s grumpy customers, slow sales, tough competition, you name it…your LIFE IS STRESS.

So when is some stress too much stress?

• When it’s 4AM and your dog looks at you thinking “Can I PLEASE go outside?”
• When out of the corner of your left eye you see a blinding light and you realize its the sun coming up.
• When the nervous tic in your eye starts to sync up with the YouTube video you’re watching.
• You turn the Redline can over for the ninth time, hoping for just one more hit of caffeine.
• When you just keep reading the same paragraph over and over again.

If you are a stress train wreck, here are some suggestions on how to unwind and enjoy the Entrepreneur ride:

• Stop what you’re doing, get up and go for walk
• Take a five minute mediation break
• Call a friend, your Mom, and get outside yourself
• Take the damn dog out for a walk
• Go make yourself a milkshake
• Put on a record and dance in your underwear
• Go soak in a hot tub

Break the pattern, celebrate yourself, find some balance.  You can do it, and you deserve it.

The idea of having a family game night is nothing new. Families have been playing together since they could place stones in holes. However, modern families are competing with video games, web surfing and of course the television. Board games are no match for a virtual character traveling through time and space, collecting gold coins. It may take some convincing to bring your kids on board, especially the older ones. After time, you may find yours, like mine, actually look forward to a designated family time and you’ll no longer feel jealousy, or guilt as you walk down the game aisle of your department store. As a matter of fact my kids took me to Target last Mom’s day to buy me 2 new games to add to our collection!

Why start a family game night?

• Family time of course.
• Game play teaches sportsmanship and good healthy competition.
• Playing together promotes communication.
• Family game night is inexpensive. Traditional parlor games are free!
• (see below for suggestions)
• Family game night creates life long memories!
• Heck – it’s just good old fashioned fun!

GETTING STARTED

Set a consistent day and time. You’ll need to schedule 1 – 1 1/2 hours. If every week is difficult, try twice a month to start;mark it on your calendar and make it a priority.

If you don’t already have games in a closet somewhere, purchase a few to get started, and then gradually add to the collection. We like many games and have a fun collection. Our favorites…Scattergories, Monopoly, Abundance and our newest favorite since Mom’s day…Cranium Whoonu Game. Great game for kids 8 and up and a really fun way to get to know each other better.

Select games that everyone will enjoy. Often this is difficult if there is a large age difference between your children. Parents or older siblings canteam up with little ones or you can create a variation of a more challenging game.

Kids or no kids, schedule a game night, invite your friends and have some FUN!

Are you a passionate Entrepreneur? Do you find yourself dragging on a regular basis as you get up too early and go to bed too late, frantically trying to get “everything done?” If so, don’t feel alone. Self-torture by sleep deprivation is a very common problem!

So what happens when you don’t get enough sleep? Plenty of bad stuff. Some of your organs stop functioning, you may become pre-diabetic, you function at an impaired level, and much much more. With all this being well documented in the medical journals, why are we so inclined to cheat ourselves of nature’s gift of sleep? The answer may lie in our shameful ignorance of the magical machine we live in.

Friends, your body is a temple! It is more sophisticated by a factor of 10, than anything that we can build. It’s also the only body that you have, so why not take care of it? In addition to good nutrition, the proper amount of sleep is ESSENTIAL to your body’s health and longevity. Six (6) hours is the absolute minimum requirement for a normal adult. Less than that can wreck havoc with the body’s immune system, bringing the opposite of productivity…sickness!

So what do do?
• Give yourself a bed time, and stick to it.
• Let your family and friends know your bedtime and give them “don’t call after” time
• Learn about ways to make sleep productive…yes you can actually solve problems while you snooze
• Recognize that one way to measure success is to plan your business so that you can actually stop working from time to time. Sleeping enough could lead to other big banana steps like paying yourself a salary, working out at the gym, and God Forbid, a vacation every now and then!
Remember that no one can take your healthy night of sleep away from you. Only you can give it away!

Julianna’s past -

• Julianna grew up in Pacifica, CA, a beach town 10 minutes from San Francisco, CA. Upon graduating from the University of San Francisco in May 2009 with a Master’s degree in Business
• After graduating moved down to Orange County her fiancé, Zach, to be closer to his family
• Worked for one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies, where she managed clinical trials
• She has looked for work in her field since moving to the OC, but has been either overqualified or under qualified, a conundrum resulting from the down economy

Julianna Today -

• Went to Quattro University this past August 2009. And realized with her fiancé Zach that he was not doing what he was most passionate about, speaking and training. They decided to launch their own speaking and training business
• Created business plan for new business and became an entrepreneur overnight
• Now in the process of product development and getting ready for the launch for their new venture

Julianna’s Future –

• The future is very bright for Julianna and she plans on building this company along with Zach to become a multi-million dollar organization.
• Would love to write a cookbook, one of her tips on cooking: never make the same dish the same twice, keep experimenting with different ingredients!
• Has a passion for fitness, animals and connecting with people

I shared this video tonight with my 21 year old daughter she and was shocked. She said, “I new they did this but to actually see it is very impactful.”

The media sets the bar so high for teens and young adults and distorts reality. How is it affecting their wellness, both mentally and physically? Even if one teen see this video, begins to understand what is real and what isn’t, and then decides to not buy into the hype, it was worth the time to pay it forward…will you?

As I continue on my Black Belt in Excellence workshop with Quattro University instructor, Sensei Ron Thomas, I am continuing the opening and dumping of my cans of worms I told you about a few posts ago. Today’s homework …(we have homework everyday!) was about writing down 20 things that make me angry or frustrated… then be in that mode all day…or pretend to!  We were to notice the judgment around each of the 20 items, whether a situation or person.

I had a huge epiphany as I went through my list to notice what my judgment was about each one and I didn’t have to go far to learn a lesson…

2. I am frustrated when my son doesn’t do his homework when I ask him to. – My judgment – I think it’s wanting him to succeed his last year of high school and concerned he’ll blow it off.

ready for the epiphany?… I went to the next one…

3. I get ticked off when people make assumptions about me – My Judgment - Whoa…Reality check!!!…look at your frustration in #2 … Who’s in the Mirror! I am assuming that’s my son’s intent, to blow it off…how many times do we do this in our lives?

I’d like to take this idea to another aspect of  life…our business. If we start from the assumption that we’ll fail, it’s hard to figure out where to start; after all, whatever we do is not likely to work anyway. But when we start from the assumption that we’ll succeed, we can identify what we need to do to get moving and what will drag us down. The assumption of success gives motivation, and identifying what needs to happen gives clarity and actionable steps.

I invite you to think about your plans. What would be different if you just pretended you would be successful? What is preventing your success, and what can you do about it? Think and dream BIG my friends!!

Another one off the shelf…

If there’s one word that isn’t in Brent Ragan’s vocabulary it’s Mediocrity…it just doesn’t exist, plain and simple! As I interviewed Brent for this spot, the 2 words that resonated over and over were Passion and Excellence. Brent has many endeavors he’s involved in, and along the way he has met the most incredible instructors and mentors which have helped him create the many achievements and joys that fill his life.

Brent’s Past -

• Comes from both Corporate and Entrepreneurial backgrounds
• Rated #1 in sales – for a corporation rated by Inc Magazine’s Top 100 Privately held companies in the United States.
• Set numerous records in Real Estate Income Property Sales in Beverly Hills
• Was ranked #1 in Martial arts in multiple states and 6th in the Nation.

Brent Today -

• Passion – This is a huge motivator for Brent.
• Because of the many mentors he’s had in his life,  Brent is dedicated to helping others get to where they are meant to be in life, finding purpose and passion within
• Loves variety… Brent’s doors are now open running and sustaining multiple businesses

Brent’s Future -

• Brent sees himself living in nature, in vibrant health and clarity, growing his own food and being in the rhythm of life
• He wants to be of service, a resource for others to help them achieve an effortless life in doing what they love

so….Are you curious???

L.