Category: Business

CGC - Clarity Exercise

Clarity Exercise: What You Want, Why You Want It, and How to Get It

by Christina Giordano

If you want to create any result in your business, or even your life, you have to know two important things: what you want and why you want it.

When starting a business, we often jump in with as many service offerings as we can think of, and chase as many customers as we can – whether or not those services and customers are in line with our most authentic and true business vision.  

Strong businesses are built on strong foundations. To create this foundation, you need clarity, because clarity equals power. The more clear you are about what you want and why you want it, the faster and easier it will be to create results.

Below is an exercise in clarity. Take out a pen and paper and get started!

What do you want?

Whatever it is, you have to be crystal clear about the outcome. If you just started, maybe you want to get your first 10 paying clients within the next 6 months. If you’re already successful, maybe you’re looking to double or triple your profit. Or maybe you’ve been at this for awhile, and you want to take more time off and automate more of your business. Write it down.

Why do you want it?

Now that you know what you want, you have to have a really good reason for wanting it. Without a clear why, there’s no emotion or excitement. If you have enough good reasons to do something, you’ll do it. Write it down.

This is effective!

If you have enough reasons to have your business, you’re going to follow through. When you’re clear on what you want and why you want it, you become unstoppable. Research proves it. Dr. Gail Matthews, a Psychology Professor at a University in California, did a study on goal setting with 267 participants. She found out that you are 42% more likely at achieving your goals just by writing them down.

How do you to get it?

Now, let’s talk about steps you can take right now to start getting the results you want. Here is a highly effective brainstorming exercise that you can use for literally anything that you want. First, take out a piece of paper. At the top of the page, select a goal from the list you came up with earlier, under “What do you want?” and write it down. Then, you will come up with a list of 20 ways you can bring this goal to life. What are 20 ideas you can think of to make this happen?

Let’s consider an example.

Say you’re a health coach, and one of your goals is to increase your profits enough to put aside money for an emergency savings account. You want this, because a savings account provides you with financial security. So, here are some ideas to bring this idea to life:

  1. You can launch a new service, like a bridal program, if that’s your market.
  2. You can create a new product. Perhaps you enjoy blending oils and can sell them.
  3. You can commit to attend 2 networking events per month to increase your contact list.
  4. You can raise your rates.
  5. You can create a referral program to increase client intake.
  6. You can put yourself on a strict budget.
  7. You can automate your business management to online platforms so that you spend less time on admin work and more time with clients.
  8. You can talk with your friends about your goal and see if they have ideas or opportunities for you.
  9. You can join a coaching association and market your services within their platform.
  10. You can host paying workshops or classes.
  11. You can be a guest host in someone else’s workshop or program.
  12. You can build a strategic partnership with a colleague and pass referrals or build a program together.
  13. You can collaborate with a yoga studio to provide a service or presentation for their members, if that’s your market.
  14. You can create an opt-in offer on your website to increase your leads and your client base.
  15. You can lead a regular meet up that supports other business owners and shares references.
  16. You can submit a guest blog or article to a relevant publication.
  17. You can work with influencers to help get the word out about your services.
  18. You can submit your business to directories.
  19. You can train yourself to optimize your website.
  20. You can attend the Empowered Marketing Workshop Series to get better at marketing and learn new ways to market yourself.

Hope this helps provide some clarity in your business. Good luck in making your business goals possible!

CGC - Empowered Marketing Workshop Series

New Workshop Series Starting Soon!

by Christina Giordano

Many business owners out there never put “marketing” and “easy” in the same sentence.

After all, it can be complicated! How many times have you researched the latest marketing tactics only to feel confused, frustrated, overwhelmed and unsupported? How often do you find yourself spending time throwing marketing ideas at the wall to see what (if anything) sticks?

Good news: I can teach you how to market your business.

I can help you put an end to:

  • Hounding clients who aren’t in alignment with you or who don’t want to pay you what you’re worth,
  • Banking on discounts and deals,
  • Duct-taping your marketing strategy together, and
  • Expecting free marketing webinars and downloads to change your circumstances (there’s a reason they’re free).

How can I help you? I relish in developing plans and protocols. I enjoy being knowledgeable about all things marketing. I thrive on organization, and I love simplification. I use these skills to help my clients make marketing easy. And yes, I just used “marketing” and “easy” in the same sentence.

If you want to learn how to use smart, honest online marketing to reach more people, align with the right customers, and convert more visitors into buyers, this workshop series is for you.

Introducing: The Empowered Marketing Program Workshop Series

Through this series, you will finally be able to market your own business with confidence. You will gain the tools, skills, and insight to become a master of your own marketing. You will feel empowered to put your marketing in your own hands, ultimately fueling your profits, your purpose and your passion.  

Workshop Schedule:

Taking place every 2nd Wednesday from 12:00pm to 2:00pm for 7 months

Workshop Location:

Tribe – 1819 W. Belmont Ave. Chicago, IL 60657

Is this Workshop Series for You?

This series is for conscious, soulful, big-hearted entrepreneurs that want to either launch a business or change the way they market their current business online. Whether you are an action-oriented, ambitious beginner, or already successful but want to grow your audience and revenue online, this is the program for you. This program is perfect for service-based professionals, particularly in the wellness industry, such as coaches, therapists, trainers, and practitioners.

What You Get at Each Workshop:

  • Lecture followed by exercises, along with in-class feedback from Christina,
  • Bonus take-home items from each workshop, including resource lists & tutorials, and
  • A special discount offer on one-hour, one-to-one marketing clinics, which can be used at any point during the series, as often as you’d like.

What It Costs:

$50 per workshop or $270 for the entire series (a 10% discount!)

Click here to sign up!

Workshop Dates & Learning Objectives:

March 13: Defining Your Marketing Goals (Free Session!)

Take this free workshop to learn more about the program and to begin the process of building a strong, profitable business. This workshop will provide you with clarity about what you want and why you want it. You’ll outline your purpose, the people you’re serving, and the product (or service) that you’re selling. This workshop is also an opportunity for Christina to learn more about your business goals and become more acquainted with you as a person and entrepreneur.

April 10: Workshop 1: Planning Your Strategy to Stand Out to Your Ideal Customers

  • Discover your exact ideal customer and learn to think like them.
  • Position yourself by selling outcomes, rather than services.
  • Find out your strengths and what makes you unique.
  • Create your unique selling proposition.
  • Map out how your services and/or products will revolutionize the industry.
  • Outshine the competition by simply making them irrelevant.

May 8: Workshop 2: Enhancing Your Website, AKA Your Digital Storefront

  • Learn which website platform is right for you.
  • Find out exactly what your technical capabilities are when it comes to website design and development.
  • Uncover your website objectives and how they will convert leads to sales.
  • Tap into what your ideal customer wants to see, read and experience on your website.
  • Understand everything you need to make your website successful.
  • Analyze your website’s effectiveness with a simple yet comprehensive checklist.

June 12: Workshop 3: Positioning Your Offerings to Maximize Profits

  • Enhance your service offerings in a way that makes your customers’ lives easier, more convenient and more joyful.
  • Come up with “outside of the box” solutions that will sell your services at rapid-fire speed.
  • Create a Before/During/After strategy to promote customer satisfaction and retention.
  • Learn how to position, price and deliver your services in a way that builds loyal and raving fans.
  • Understand why discounts are unnecessary and potentially damaging (except under a few circumstances).
  • Set your prices at numbers that feel great and make financial sense.

July 10: Workshop 4: Communicating Your Message to Go Viral

  • Get familiar with the pros of content marketing and how you can integrate it into your business.
  • Develop a strategic plan to stay connected with your audience.
  • Generate content ideas and develop a 3-month content calendar.
  • Understand the value of SEO in content marketing and how to integrate it into your plan.
  • Write irresistible headlines that gather clicks, conversions and could even go viral.
  • Offer value and insight directly related to what you are selling through content.

August 14: Workshop 5: Reaching Your Customers to Generate Leads Right Now

  • Find out why opt-ins on your website optimize and expedite success.
  • Create a smart, effective and winning opt-in offer for your website.
  • Learn why email marketing is the most essential and profitable strategy for your marketing plan.
  • Develop an email marketing plan with specific methods to promote your business.
  • Generate leads immediately and at no cost to you.
  • Explore 25 free list building strategies.

September 11: Workshop 6: Marketing Your Business with Proven Strategies

  • Become more comfortable with marketing and find out why and how you can become a phenomenal (and ethical!) marketer.
  • Consider 20 additional and effective marketing strategies that you can try right now.
  • Learn 4 research-driven pricing strategies to add to your marketing toolbox.
  • Create or enhance your current pricing strategies to sell better.
  • Get the best formatting formula that can be used for a PR pitch or a sales letter.
  • Write headlines and copy that makes traffic click.

Click here to sign up!

About Christina:

All too often, confident, capable entrepreneurs have business dreams that can help others and change the world, but they lack the marketing knowledge and skills required to make it a reality. That’s where I come in. I will arm you with the tools, strategies and resources required for you to do it all yourself – in a way that not only saves you time, but makes you more money.

I have a deep commitment to those that want to consciously and authentically make a difference through their businesses, and I want to help you get the word out. My passion is to help you build the business you desire and deserve through honest and authentic marketing practices.

Click here to sign up!

CGC - How to Improve the Effectiveness of Your Website

How to Improve the Effectiveness of Your Website

by Christina Giordano

Websites aren’t optional in modern business.

What’s more is that your website shouldn’t just be pretty, it should be your best unpaid salesperson, working around the clock to grow your audience, generate leads and then convert them into paying customers.

Think about this: When you originally created your website, did you make a list of objectives? What did you want your website to do for you? Or, in other words, why does your website exist?

The primary objective of a website is typically to acquire leads and sales. Other objectives include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Grow your email subscriber list,
  • Convert sign-ups to a webinar,
  • Sell your product or program,
  • Subscribe to your podcast,
  • Inspire visitors to comment on blog posts,
  • Enroll people in a loyalty program, or
  • Build trust and credibility.

Now that the year is coming to an end, it’s time to think about how you will use the remainder of 2018 to improve your business and enter 2019 with intentional and proactive goals. One of the best ways to start is to be crystal clear on the reasons your website exists – for you and your visitor.

Then, you will use the following “3 C’s” to determine if your website is truly meeting your objectives: is it connecting, capturing and converting? Below you can find an explanation of each.

Connecting to your audience: Your website should be able to instantly connect your ideal customer to your business. It’s critical to make sure that your messaging and the way you format the website is really customer-focused. Think about what your ideal customer wants to see and read.

Capturing potential leads: As part of your marketing strategy, your website must be able to capture names and email addresses for the purposes of marketing to your customers and reminding them that you can solve their current problem. Besides making sales, growing your list is the most important reason for your website. Remember, transactions are built on trust, and trust takes time to build. Most people won’t purchase from you on the first visit to your website, so capturing emails in an effort to continue marketing to them is a great way to build genuine trust over time.

Converting leads into customers: Your website is your digital storefront, allowing you to convert leads to sales and generate business. It gives you the opportunity to really showcase your products and services, make offers, and sell! It should include enough information about you and your services and make it as easy as possible for the visitor to buy from you.

The 3 C’s will help you improve your website’s effectiveness. Refer back to it every now and then to ensure that your site is as effective as it can possibly be!

CGC - Marketing through Your Pricing Strategy

Marketing through Your Pricing Strategy

by Christina Giordano

Does pricing involve marketing? Of course!

When it comes to pricing, you have to think about your big picture – your overall brand, the competitive landscape, and how you want to position yourself in the broader marketplace.

With every product or service you offer, you have to ask yourself basic questions when deciding on your pricing model. You first have to consider your income. How much revenue do you want to generate with this offering? And how much of each offering do you honestly think you can sell? Then you have to know your costs. This includes upfront costs, variable costs, fixed costs, and anything that’s an ongoing cost. What do your profit margins look like when you factor these into your pricing model?

Once you have an idea of what your pricing model entails, you can begin to think about pricing from a marketing perspective.

Below are four pricing strategies to consider as part of the marketing of your offerings.

  1. Price anchoring: This strategy is mostly used during initial communication about an offer. Basically, you put a proposed price for an offer in the minds of your potential customers. Then, at the very end of your presentation, you surprise your customers with a reduced price. For example, when Steve Jobs was first showing the iPad, he put the price at $999, stating that this is what investors said it should be worth. Then, he surprised the audience by stating that $499 is the actual price. Immediately, it was perceived as a deal.
  2. Ending in 9s: This has often been described as a cheesy marketing tactic, but turns out, it actually works. A recent marketing study compared the sales of a woman’s shirt that was $34 one week and $39 the next. The $39 shirt outsold the $34 shirt by 24%!
  3. Options pricing: A marketer for The Economist did a pricing test to see how online and print sales would go if they offered multiple pricing options for subscriptions. They offered a web-only subscription for $59, a print-only subscription for $125, and a web and print subscription for $125. When people saw the value of print, they were more drawn to the last option. So, if it’s appropriate for what you sell, you may want to consider testing different pricing options, such as coach, premium or first class options.
  4. The rule of 100: If you ever decide to run a special sale or discount for your products and services, you want to do it the right way. Let’s say you’re selling t-shirts, and the sale price is $20, and the discount is either $5 or 25%. Even though they are the same, people view 25% as the greater value, which triggers more sales. Conversely, if you’re selling a necklace for $3000, with a discount of 25%, people view the absolute value of the discount (which is $750) as the greater value. Therefore, psychologically, people view percentage discounts as a greater value when the sale price is under $100. When the sale price is over $100, absolute values are perceived as the greater value.

Which pricing strategy will you try next?

CGC - Free Workshop Video Available

Free Workshop Video Available: “How Do I Get the Word Out About My Business”

by Christina Giordano

At this time last year, in September 2017, I hosted a workshop at Tribe for their members, entitled “How to Get the Word Out About My Business.”

The objectives of the workshop included the following:

  • Learn how to create a brand message with a unique selling proposition,
  • Learn how to differentiate yourself amongst your competition,
  • Learn about the online and offline marketing options available to you,
  • Learn about the pros and cons of each marketing option,
  • Learn about the top 3 best practices for each marketing option, and
  • Learn how to create a plan of action and marketing schedule that works for you.

The goal of the workshop was to empower the members with the tools that would help them revitalize their business, re-engage past and inactive clients, and become more confident in how they present their business to their audiences.

The workshop was a mix of lecture, exercises and discussion. There were also opportunities for Q&A breaks.

The entire workshop was filmed so that it could be accessed via private link to the workshop attendees. Now, on its one year anniversary, I am making it available to you for free!

To access this video, CLICK HERE.

To those feeling stuck, lost and confused about marketing, this video will provide a great introduction into the world of marketing. Hopefully you will generate some helpful ideas from it! If you need additional assistance, you can check out my Empowered Marketing Program or my consulting services.

Enjoy!

CGC - 4 Ways to JumpstartYour MarketingThis Season

4 Ways to Jumpstart Your Marketing Strategy this Season

by Christina Giordano

The back to school vibe is all around – we’re heading back indoors, back to full work days (so long, summer hours!), back to the strategy boards and ready to take on the fourth quarter of 2018. Right now is the best time to take advantage of the energy of the season and use it to revitalize and jumpstart your business marketing. Take a look at the four strategies below for some tips on how to freshen up your marketing, prepare for the end of the year, and launch campaigns that will hopefully increase your sales and your bottom line.

  1. Get very clear on your brand. Powerful messaging requires a strong identity. Before you launch any marketing campaign, you must be clear on your brand – what you stand for, how you want to appear in the world, who you are targeting, and why you’re the best solution for them. Now is a great time to do some branding exercises or even attend a branding workshop. By being crystal clear on your brand, you’ll be able to figure out marketing avenues that are more aligned and intentional.
  2. Launch a thoughtful and action-oriented email campaign, and then complement it with social media efforts. As many of you know, I believe email marketing to be paramount to any successful marketing plan. Set up an automated campaign, a drip campaign or just a few e-blasts within a third party email distributor, like MailChimp, and be super intentional with your messaging. When complimenting your efforts on social media, focus on where your ideal customers are located – are they on Facebook? Twitter? Snapchat? Wherever they are is where you need to be.
  3. Find like-minded brands and influencers to collaborate with and cross promote. Once you have figured out your brand identity, including the specific audience you’re targeting, you can align with those businesses that may have similar audiences but provide different services. For example, if you own a yoga studio, check out brands within the “health foods” or “yoga clothing” industries. Broaden your company’s awareness by aligning with them and creating strategic partnerships.
  4. Take a look at what your competition is doing. Instead of trying to look at what they do and snag their ideas, you would create a “strategy canvas,” which is a visual representation of your business in the industry. On this canvas, you would map out what the competition is doing, from their pricing to their offerings, and then map out your business, with the intention of differentiating yourself. I discuss this exercise in depth in my blog post about the Blue Ocean Strategy book. The exercise requires leadership, creativity and really trying to revolutionize the industry.

Through these four tips, you’re well on your way to ending the 2018 on the right foot. Each one does take some time and effort, but none of overwhelming. How do you plan on jumpstarting your business this season?

Advice from Famous Entrepreneurial Families - Guest Blog by Fundera

Advice from Famous Entrepreneurial Families (Guest Blog by Fundera)

by Christina Giordano

Within my business, I typically address and work with the entrepreneur individual – the self-starter and the sole proprietor. However, there’s also a need to address those of us entrepreneurs that start businesses within a group or team. A common and more complex entrepreneurial team is the entrepreneurial family.

This week we have a guest blog from Fundera. Here, they share advice from a variety of famous entrepreneurial families. If you’re thinking about starting a business with your family, read this first!

***

Some families just have a knack for entrepreneurship. Starting a family business has unique advantages and challenges. On one hand, families work together and coordinate in a way that mere business partners cannot, and everyone in the family participates in the success of the business. On the other, familial bonds can get in the way of business decisions and pressures and even be detrimental to the business. There isn’t one specific way to correctly deal with these issues, but a good place to start is to study the stories of other successful entrepreneurial families. There’s plenty of great advice that comes from such families, and Fundera has compiled 7 such tips from them in a handy infographic to get your family through those tough times!

Fundera: 7 Business Lessons From Famous Entrepreneurial Families

CGC: Finding a Blue Ocean in a Sea of Red

Finding a Blue Ocean in a Sea of Red: Differentiating Yourself from the Competition (Exercise Included!)

by Christina Giordano

About the Blue Ocean Strategy

As a marketing strategist, I’m often asked by my clients, “how do I differentiate myself from the competition?” Aside from focusing on a niche market and utilizing a unique selling proposition, there’s another systematic way to effectively make your competition irrelevant. It involves being a leader, getting creative and really trying to revolutize your industry.

There is an incredibly insightful book called Blue Ocean Strategy, written by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. The lessons from this book are so powerful that it’s even included in my Empowered Marketing program, as one of the strategies that I teach. Here’s a quote from it that essentially explains the purpose and goal:

“The only way to beat the competition is to stop trying to beat the competition. In red oceans the industry boundaries are defined and accepted, and the competitive rules of the game are known. In blue oceans, competition is irrelevant because the rules of the game are waiting to be set.

“The creators of blue oceans, surprisingly, didn’t use the competition as their benchmark. Instead of focusing on beating the competition, they focus on making the competition irrelevant by creating a leap in value for buyers and your company, thereby opening up new market space.” [W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne]

The core concept of the idea is this: instead of focusing your branding efforts in a red ocean, which is bloody from all the cutthroat competition in a crowded industry of the same businesses, you want to create a beautiful blue ocean through thinking differently about your industry. Doing this will obviously require you to step up and take some risks.

Using the Blue Ocean Strategy

In order to make this idea applicable to your business, the tool used is called a “strategy canvas.” It’s a very simple visual representation of your business in the current industry. It can be used for your current business and at any time you want to position something new or different in the marketplace.

If you’d like to give it a shot, start by mapping out what the competition is doing in your industry – from their pricing, to offerings, to delivery, or anything that comes to mind. Then, map out your business and how you can differentiate yourself from your competition within those same elements (pricing, offerings, delivery, etc.).

Let’s look at an example from Cirque du Soleil and how they differentiated themselves from traditional circuses.

Let’s review each point:

  • Cirque du Soleil places more value on a higher ticket price, rather than a lower ticket price like traditional circuses.
  • They place little to no effort on star performances, unlike traditional circuses.
  • There is no emphasis on animals, unlike traditional circuses.
  • Same with aisle concessions – there are none.
  • Both Cirque du Soleil and traditional circuses place seemingly the same value on unique venues.
  • However, when it comes to themes, Cirque du Soleil places more value on that.
  • Artistic music is definitely not emphasized in traditional circuses, but is in Cirque du Soleil.
  • And finally, Cirque du Soleil is much more refined than a traditional circus.

Some questions you want to ask yourself during this process include: What are the industry norms? What does everyone else focus on? How can you really be different? What can you innovate or create that is fresh and new and inspired?

CGC: Why Do You Need a Brand

Why Do You Need a Brand? What is a USP? (& A Few Good Exercises to Find Yours)

by Christina Giordano

Although a brand and a logo go hand in hand, they are not the same. A logo is a business’ identification in its simplest form via a recognizable mark or symbol. On the other hand, a brand is the emotion behind what someone feels, sees and tastes, when they interact with you on any level. It bears much more responsibility than a logo. For small businesses in particular, branding comes down to creating a positive perception through clear, concise and consistent communication.

To do this takes two steps. The first is to decide what you stand for, or what your unique selling proposition is. A unique selling proposition (or USP) is what makes you different from your competition; it’s what sets you apart from the rest.

Let’s look at a USP in a deeper way. If you are a massage therapist, for instance, some questions to ask yourself might include:

1)   What type of massage do you specialize in?

2)   Do you have other qualifications or certifications, which may be relevant?

3)   Do you have other life or career experiences that will give you a better understanding or make you more relatable to specific potential clients?

4)   Are you involved in other activities that help to establish you as an expert to your niche market?

5)   What about the delivery of your service? Can the experience with you be different than any other experience from beginning to end?

Finding your USP is the first step to establishing your brand. The second step is then making sure that all aspects of your business are in line with these. The goal is to apply your values to everything you do, clearly and consistently.

Exercise #1:

1)   List the features and benefits that are unique about your product or service. Think about your competitors and the benefits that you have that set you apart from them.

2)   Decide what emotional need is being specifically met by your product or services. Think about this from your customer’s perspective.

3)   Identify aspects of your product or service that your competitors cannot imitate. Put a star next to anything that cannot be easily duplicated, reproduced or copied.

4)   Now, using the words from steps 1 to 3, create phrases about your unique product or service that are short, clear and concise. Make sure that they can be easily communicated to and understood by your customer.

Exercise #2:

This a fun exercise called The Comparison Game. This exercise is about equating your brand with something else. It’s a quick way to assess your brand’s personality and positioning.

If you’re brand was an animal, what would it be?

You can draw it or write out its traits. This exercise helps you look through a different lens to see new things in your brand. For example, you may dream of being the lion when your brand is more like the lamb. There’s something non-threatening about comparing your brand to an animal, and it can reveal interesting insights.

Exercise #3:

If you found the previous exercises to be challenging, I have another exercise in mind that should be able to help you a bit more. For the exercise, simply complete this contact form: http://www.christinagiordano.com/#contact and in the “Message” box, put “Branding Exercise #3” to receive it within 24 hours!

The goal of these exercises is to come up with a brand message (or an elevator speech) that really conveys who you are and what you do in about 10 seconds or less.

Branding is all about the impressions you make. If you want to succeed, that impression should do two jobs – it should convey what is special about your business and it should show you in a positive light.

18 Motivational Quotes that will Inspire You

18 Motivational Quotes that will Inspire You to Achieve Your 2018 Resolutions

by Christina Giordano

It’s that time of the month in January when people begin to slack or give up on their resolutions. Whether you have made personal and/or professional resolutions this year, now is the time to create and retain lasting habits that serve your end goals. In this blog, I’m showcasing a roundup of quotes from renown influencers and leaders that will hopefully help you create those daily habits, and if you’ve made resolutions, help you stick to them. Remember, setbacks and problems are part of the journey, but getting back on your feet and staying determined will define and demonstrate the level of success you wish to achieve. Here’s a mid-January pick-me-up just for you:

Neil Armstrong:
“I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.”

Charles Darwin:
“It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.”

Walt Disney:
“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

Thomas Edison:
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”

Tim Ferriss:
“The stars will never align, and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually,’ just do it and correct course along the way.”

Thomas Jefferson:
“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”

Helen Keller:
“Keep your face to the sunshine and you can never see the shadow.”

Charles Kettering:
“Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“If you can’t fly then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”

Dalai Lama:
“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”

Marissa Mayer:
“If you can push through that feeling of being scared, that feeling of taking a risk, really amazing things can happen.”

Barack Obama:
“The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won’t. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.”

Tony Robbins:
“People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Jim Rohn:
“If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”

Eleanor Roosevelt:
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Socrates:
“The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.”

Oprah Winfrey:
“Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.”

Kate Winslet:
“Life is short, and it is here to be lived.”