The 10 commandments of Leading Ladies

12. CONTACT US Connect with Heidi Alexandra Contact Heidi: heidi@leadingvalue.net Follow Heidi on Twitter: @CommsCoach and @LeadingLdsInt Read Heidi’s blog: www.leadingladiesinternational.com.au/blog Follow Heidi at: www.facebook.com/Leadingladiesinternational And for more information on Leading Value helping your business go to: www.leadingvalue.net "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.“ Pericles

Editor's Notes

When you think “millionaire,” what image comes to mind? For many of us, it’s a flashy business type who flies a private jet, collects cars and lives the kind of decadent lifestyle that would make Nathan Tinkler proud.But many modern millionaires live in middle-class neighborhoods, work full-time and shop at Target like the rest of us. What motivates them isn’t material possessions but the choices that money can bring: For many millionaires, it’s not about getting more stuff. It’s about having the freedom to make almost any decision you want.Wealth means you can send your child to any school or quit a job you don’t like.1. Set your sights on where you’re goingTwenty years ago, Jeff Harris hardly seemed on the road to wealth. He was a college dropout who struggled to support his wife, DeAnn, and three kids, working as a grocery store clerk and at a junkyard where he melted scrap metal alongside convicts. “At times we were so broke that we washed our clothes in the bathtub because we couldn’t afford the Laundromat.” Now he’s a 49-year-old investment advisor and multimillionaire in York, South Carolina.There was one big reason Jeff pulled ahead of the pack: He always knew he’d be rich. The reality is that 80 percent of Americans worth at least $5 million grew up in middle-class or lesser households, just like Jeff.Wanting to be wealthy is a crucial first step. Says Eker, “The biggest obstacle to wealth is fear. People are afraid to think big, but if you think small, you’ll only achieve small things.”It all started for Jeff when he met a stockbroker at a Christmas party. “Talking to him, it felt like discovering fire,” he says. “I started reading books about investing during my breaks at the grocery store, and I began putting $25 a month in a mutual fund.” Next he taught a class at a local community college on investing. His students became his first clients, which led to his investment practice. “There were lots of struggles,” says Jeff, “but what got me through it was believing with all my heart that I would succeed.”2. Educate yourselfWhen Steve Maxwell graduated from college, he had an engineering degree and a high-tech job—but he couldn’t balance his checkbook. “I took one finance class in college but dropped it to go on a ski trip,” says the 45-year-old father of three, who lives in Windsor, Colorado. “I actually had to go to my bank and ask them to teach me how to read my statement.”One of the biggest obstacles to making money is not understanding it: Thousands of us avoid investing because we just don’t get it. But to make money, you must be financially literate. “It bothered me that I didn’t understand this stuff,” says Steve, “so I read books and magazines about money management and investing, and I asked every financial whiz I knew to explain things to me.”He and his wife started applying the lessons: They made a point to live below their means. They never bought on impulse, always negotiated better deals (on their cars, cable bills, furniture) and stayed in their home long after they could afford a more expensive one. They also put 20 percent of their annual salary into investments.Within ten years, they were millionaires, and people were coming to Steve for advice. “Someone would say, ‘I need to refinance my house—what should I do?’ A lot of times, I wouldn’t know the answer, but I’d go find it and learn something in the process,” he says.In 2003, Steve quit his job to become part owner of a company that holds personal finance seminars for employees of corporations like Wal-Mart. He also started going to real estate investment seminars, and it’s paid off: He now owns $30 million worth of investment properties, including apartment complexes, a shopping mall and a quarry.“I was an engineer who never thought this life was possible, but all it truly takes is a little self-education,” says Steve. “You can do anything once you understand the basics.”3. Passion pays offIn 1995, Jill Blashack Strahan and her husband were barely making ends meet. Like so many of us, Jill was eager to discover her purpose, so she splurged on a session with a life coach. “When I told her my goal was to make $30,000 a year, she said I was setting the bar too low. I needed to focus on my passion, not on the paycheck.”Jill, who lives with her son in Alexandria, Minnesota, owned a gift basket company and earned just $15,000 a year. She noticed when she let potential buyers taste the food items, the baskets sold like crazy. Jill thought, Why not sell the food directly to customers in a fun setting?With $6,000 in savings, a bank loan and a friend’s investment, Jill started packaging gourmet foods in a backyard shed and selling them at taste-testing parties. It wasn’t easy. “I remember sitting outside one day, thinking we were three months behind on our house payment, I had two employees I couldn’t pay, and I ought to get a real job. But then I thought, No, this is your dream. Recommit and get to work.”She stuck with it, even after her husband died three years later. “I live by the law of abundance, meaning that even when there are challenges in life, I look for the win-win,” she says.The positive attitude worked: Jill’s backyard company, Tastefully Simple, is now a direct-sales business, with $120 million in sales last year. And Jill was named one of the top 25 female business owners in North America by Fast Company magazine.According to research by Thomas J. Stanley, author of The Millionaire Mind, over 80 percent of millionaires say they never would have been successful if their vocation wasn’t something they cared about.
Thou Shalt Not Speak With Forked TongueThough it may feel satisfying, popular and gratifying to hunt with the pack and spread rumour and gossip about others in your workplace, community or circle of friends, this strategy is the quickest way to destroy your chances of becoming a true feminine leader. Instead of bitching, vilifying and pointing fingers, we must learn to understand others, to see them for who and what they are and to understand that many people are operating from a place of fear. The dreaded tall poppy syndrome is alive and kicking, and it is cruel and unfair. Inequality affects everyone negatively, even those who seemingly have the upper hand. I know I have been hurt by horrible things people have said in the past – sadly mostly from other women. I have even spoken at an event and heard people talking about me in the bathroom afterwards! Tall poppy syndrome is alive and well in Australia. Don’t be an instigator or a perpetuator, encourage others to consider the impact such poisonous gossip and language and keep your negative personal opinions about others to yourself.
In business it is so important not to just network for networking and ego sake but to build and strengthen your web.
Traditional business models focus on problems and gaps and fixing them – instead focus on opportunities, strengths and solutions.
On an average day you get up and go for a walk, put out the washing, make breakfast, make your bed and everyone elses in the houseshold, pick up socks, towels and toys, leave the house 5 minutes late. Get frustrated in the traffic, then have to stop for fuel, arrive at work running, work a 9 or 12 hour day, answering 100 emails, taking 20 phone calls, solve 5 staff problems, listen to others whinge and whine, sign a ream of unnecessary paperwork, leave unfinished work on your desk, wrestle the traffic home, pick up the kids from day care, stop for milk and bread, pick up the mail and dry cleaning, arrive home to the TV blaring while you cook two separate dinners, one for fussy eaters, drink a glass of wine, complain to the family that you wish they’d pick up after themselves, make sure they’ve done their homework, bath the kids, eat dinner, put the kids to bed, drink another glass of wine, pay some bills, watch tv while folding washing, grunt at your partner, open a book to read, nod off by the 3rd line, go to sleep and get up and do it all again the next day wondering when your next holiday is?
Women at a party will give their man a high sign from across the room – later she will seethe at him – why didn’t you come over before? He’ll say what?When I signalled you!Oh I just thought you were saying hi!You idiot I want to leave!Women are better at reading signals than menGestures, eye patterns, breathing, signals, subtle changes in voice,
IF you focus on what you can give you will never have to worry about what you will receive because you will always get more back. In order to become a true leader you must learn to serve first. The secret to living is giving – find something that you love doing so much that it is not a task and then focus on how you can change lives through doing what you love.Although as they say ‘business is business’ there is no need to be a professional who only engages with head and not with heart. Caring for persons, your team, competitors and customers is the rock upon which a good business is built. If a better society or business is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the capacity and will to care about others. As a feminine leader you have a unique opportunity to show that a blend of head and heart can manifest amazing results, not to mention the loyalty, happiness and commitment of people. Practice optimism, compassion and empathy and be a servant leader. Ask yourself do those I spend time with become wiser, more free and more joyous from being with me?The more people you serve and help the more money you will make. Now this was true for me in my own life particularly around property investment you see I loved investing in property, searching and finding the right place, making the offer and the renovating and improving the offer, but then the challenge for me was putting the tenants in. Because I had never rented in my life, my parents owned their own house and I owned mine, I wasn’t familiar with the rental market. So I had all these hang ups and stereotypes playing in my mind about the rental market, the types of people who rent, the media hype about the damages they do to your property and the issues around never being able to get rid of a bad tenant. So this was a real challenge for me. It wasn’t until I was on my second or third house that the penny really dropped. At the interviews for a tenant there were several families in dire straights, not because they weren’t good people but because circumstances such as illness in the family, retrenchment from their jobs etc had put them in the awkward position of being desperately in need of a place to live. Not only were they happy to pay the rent just to be given a go they were ecstatic, weeping and overjoyed at finally having a place for their family to go so they wouldn’t have to continue moving from motel to motel. I was shocked. All the time I was worried these people would see me as a greedy capitalist when they were actually looking to me as their helper, a person who after many had rejected them, was willing to give them a go. What’s more they promised and did look after my property as if it was their own because of the deep gratitude they had. It was a total shift for me – once I shifted in my mind from it being about the money to it being about being of service then everything shifted and began to move fast. People began approaching me and asking if I would find a house to buy for them to rent, tenants began referring friends and family and the circle of my new extended family grew. No longer was I a landlord, I was a friend, a bearer of hope – and the financial success followed growing my net worth to over a million dollars by the time I was 34 years old. Once I changed my thinking processes and beliefs about my worth then things changed. It’s not working harder that makes a difference it is what’s going on in your head. And for me it was realising that what was important was not what I could get but what I could give.That way money no longer runs you, you run your money. The best way I have found this is:- Give away 10% of your money – tithe to charity, to those who need it (it says to your brain there is more than enough and it gives you joy to be a contributor) At Christmas time perhaps you can donate food and toys to families in need. Now I know what you are probably thinking – I haven’t got enough money to live comfortably let alone give it away. But what do you think is easier – giving a dollar away when you own $10 or giving away $100,000 when you own a million? You’ve got to work up to it. The bigger the amount, the more difficult it is unless you establish the pattern now. - Take 10% and use it to reduce and pay off your debts, - mastercard, visa, personal loans, loans to friends, whoever you owe money to.- Take another 10% and use it to invest or save it until you have enough to invest. We live in a capitalistic society, and yet few people do it – it was meant to give us choices and yet because most people are unhappy because they haven’t attained it. - The final and remaining 70% is what you use to live on. The problem is people say to me “But I don’t have enough money to do all of this” – my answer to them and to you is you don’t have enough money not to! That’s the reality – handle financial pressure and things will change. Sure money won’t fix everything but it will allow you to arrive at your problems in style and handle them from another level. .

The 10 commandments of Leading Ladies

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The 10 commandments of Leading Ladies

Editor's Notes