Do you start Monday mornings in groggy panic? Most every business owner I talk to is in some state of overwhelm.

What is one of the smartest 2x2x4 actions you can take this week? Take the first step to get the 'stuff you don't like doing' off your plate. The more that you can spend your time using your core competencies the more you can have a successful life and an business...and it that order.

"Any time you do something you aren't good at you are paying top dollar for amateur results" Michael Russer. You can hire top talent in just about any area of your business to handle it for you. That person is called a virtual assistant or virtual consultant.

I am very fortunate to be working with one of the top virtual assistants in the country, Christine Buffaloe. She has been invaluable in building our business. Chris has done a huge amount to create our #1 on Amazon campaign that is about to roll out. So stay tuned.

"People used to say to me: 'You know Katie, not everything in life is going to be some happy experience.' Now I say to them: "Why not?" So says 29 year old Katie Saffert, wedding planner and owner of ”Inspired Events", an Orange County-based event planning company that has skyrocketed to success in less than a year.

With her warm, personal style and phenomenal talent, Katie and her business are both flourishing. In nine months, she's gone from having a handful of clients consisting of friends and coworkers to booking major events with celebrities. After throwing a huge event for a private Pearl Jam concert, Ms. Saffert booked a high profile wedding for the daughter of a pro golfer. Out of state clients are flying her in to plan their events. And the business is poised to catapult itself once more: starting in January, Inspired Events will be featured and promoted in Ceremony Magazine, a top publication for the Southern California Bridal Industry. How did she get so far so fast? According to Katie, it took a leap of faith, the courage to finally do what she loved, and the help of life coach and fellow business owner, Eli Davidson.

According to Katie, Eli's combination of stellar business advice and personal coaching has transformed her business. "For a long time, I lived my entire life focused on other people." says Katie. "That was the major thing working with Eli. She had me focus on me, what I wanted, and where I wanted to go without listening to all these other outside influences. It changes your life completely".

And Katie had been ready for a change. "I was working at a corporate job for five years and was absolutely miserable", she recalls. Her amazing energy, focus, and commitment to quality were talents benefiting everyone but herself. She loved planning events at her job, but the limitations within the corporate structure were hard to ignore. "You don't get recognition." she explains. “It was for someone else to take the credit....and obviously you have a lot of people above you saying, 'This is our idea. This is what we want to do with it.' “Katie knew she was keeping her own inner hopes in check.”I got caught up in the corporate world ethic that says: 'This is what you do when you get out of college. You get a job, you work 8 to 5. You work up a ladder." The fact that she didn't know where the ladder was going haunted her. "I felt I was being held back..." she admits, "...and I think it was my own self holding me back."

And then on her birthday last year, Katie marched into her office and quit. ("It was one of the best days of my life", she laughs.) She already knew her dream was to have an event planning business; "My mother was an events coordinator." says Katie, "She always did the big Junior League charity events and Debutante balls. Our holidays are more outdone than anything you can imagine. It was always something I loved". Fresh out of her cooperate job and only a few weeks into starting her company; Katie accompanied a friend to young business women's luncheon. Fate sat her right next to the guest speaker, Eli Davidson. Eli's vivacious energy and business savvy sparked inspiration. When Katie learned that Davidson was a Business Coach, she decided to follow her heart. "I thought, well, maybe this is a sign," says Katie. She joined up with Eli's group coaching sessions the very next day.

After her first few sessions with Eli, it became clear to Katie that that financial success would call for a change within. Katie remembers: "When we first started together, Eli asked me to name three things that I liked about myself and I couldn't name one. “Not that Katie didn't know her worth she just didn't know she had the right to claim it. "I didn't feel comfortable even acknowledging those things. I thought maybe I would seem arrogant, says Katie. But Eli got me to stop that...and my whole outlook changed."

Along with getting Katie to claim her value in all aspects, Eli's coaching offered her concrete strategies and tools for financial success. Katie's first assignment was her toughest: envisioning herself already succeeding in her new career. She was to write what Eli called a 'Success Script. In the exercise, Katie was to write about herself as if she had actually already achieved her highest career goals. And she was to describe it as vividly and boldly as possible. "It was so scary for me in the beginning.” says Katie. “I didn't want to do it. Because writing these things down makes it real." But courage and determination prevailed. And write it she did. As soon as she acknowledged what she wanted, the results were immediate. Within three weeks, she booked the private Pearl Jam concert.

Even more impressive was the fact that it was the first major event she had done single-handedly. "I'd done so many events before" says Katie, "but I always had a whole team surrounding me. I thought, this is amazing. And I did really well at it. “After that, people started calling out of the blue. Working with Eli, Katie watched her confidence and her business grow together. "It was about acknowledging who I am. I didn't go after anyone. I just put it out there and said: 'Hey, I'm starting a business. Here's my business card'.

Katie also learned effective brainstorming techniques with Eli. Whether the day was about calling prospective clients or presenting major business proposals, Katie now had the answers to any challenge. "Eli would have me come up with three solutions. They could be bad, good, off the wall or realistic. The point was getting into the habit of creating solutions for yourself."

The coaching also helped Katie to congratulate herself more and criticize herself less. "I expect a lot of myself", say Katie. She was well aware she was entering a business full of experts in the field. "I thought that I should be where these people are who had been doing this for twenty years." Eli helped Katie to recognize that she had already done brilliantly in a short amount of time.

She also showed Katie how to create reasonable and achievable goals for her business on a weekly basis. As a result, Katie’s now working with vendors she had always admired and respected, and she's created a career she had only dreamed about. Along with being incredibly grateful for success, it’s clear that Katie truly believes and knows that she deserves it. "I put my mind to something; I know I'll be able to do it.” Now, she's regularly telling herself “You did such a great job, you worked for it. Go congratulate yourself for it."

Would she recommend life coaching for other business owners? Katie is emphatic. "I would tell anyone to go to Eli Davidson for coaching. She gave me actual steps for success every single week." And it goes even further than her career. Katie knows that "it's been completely life changing.”

Check out Inspired Events in the January Edition of Ceremony Magazine. Inspired events can be found online for booking at http://www.inspiredeventsinc.com/

Eli Davison is an internationally recognized expert on empowerment. To sign up for coaching, go to http://www.elidavidson.com/

For the two yeeeeeeeeears I was dating my laptop and finishing my book, my biggest high was to sneak into Barnes & Noble. My heart would pound so hard that it was my B&N High. Instead of dreaming of kissing some hunky dude I salivated as I starred at the Self Improvement self imaging where my book might go.

What a crazy nut job. I'd never written a book. I'd never had a writing class. First time authors without a big publisher NEVER get onto the selves of a Big Book Store. I might as well have been on crack...which some store goers might have thought was the case.

Today, I was in that very same Barnes & Noble. My book wasn't on the shelf.
Nope. They had already sold out of the first batch.

They have sold so many copies that it was featured on the Self Improvement Table.

Funky to Fabulous was 2 books away from Oprah's new book. (And we all know what that means!) My book was there along with books that had changed my life. Louise Hay's, You Can Heal Your Life.

What does this mean to you...
Even if everyone in your life thinks your idea is ludicrous...keep at it.

Imagine driving your car down the freeway-the wrong direction.

You wouldn't do it. Ever.

But, you probably did do that today when you talked to yourself or your team. It's staggering to see how often leaders deflate their teams. Negative focus creates negative results.

Ever time you have an interaction with a team member you are grabbing the steering wheel. If you are at a top level of managment, it's all the more important to direct your team toward the results you want.

Dr Kevin Money “Everyone experiences emotion at work so the challenge for employers is to get their people to think more positively and learn from what others do well. It is up to those at the top to create a positive culture where employees take time out to reflect and share experiences in terms of what is working well and why.” http://www.cipd.co.uk

"God's the kind of guy you can trust," was my friend John's advice on a particularly bleak autumn morning. At the time, I probably gave him one of those oh-please-do-you-think-this-is-going-to-help-me-pay-my-bills looks. Sure, he could trust the Universe. He had a beautiful wife and a great family. He lived in a glorious home and took exotic vacations. He drove a BMW— with a car seat. He did not roll his grocery cart down the aisle bypassing the artichokes because they were too expensive.

I looked at him with his picture-book-perfect life and my upper lip curled. I scanned my own life and felt like I was facing off against the Green Bay Packers wearing high heels and a dress. And I didn't see any solution in sight. Those dang credit card bills were pummeling me so hard I was seeing double.

How could I even think of trusting in divinity? I had recently discovered that my husband was wildly unfaithful. On top of that, I had lost my business. I was living in someone else's pool house, driving a beat up borrowed car with a shredded roof because I was far too broke to afford even the smallest car payment, and surviving on peanut butter to pay off Mr. Mastercard.

Sure John could trust the Big Guy upstairs. His life worked. Mine sucked. His GPS was functioning; mine was obviously on the fritz. The Higher Power assigned to him had coached him all the way to the Super Bowl. Mine had left me sitting on the bench.

Oh, It's Easy for You to Say

Being a pretty sensitive guy, John picked up on my inner rant. He saw through the "crash and burn" of my circumstances and focused on all the good in my life. He reminded me, first and foremost, of my health and the wealth of people in my life who genuinely cared about me—like John himself and his wife, Gracie, for instance. I was fortunate to have such close friends during a tough time. Plus my ex-husband's mom was actually loaning me a car. Oh, and yes, I had a small but lovely roof over my head. Don't you hate it when people cut your complaining in half? I sure did.

I would look back on this time in my life and count it as a blessing, John assured me. A blessing! I looked at him like he was smoking crack. But he wouldn't give up. I had the chance to be a phoenix, he said— that ancient mythical bird that rose from the ashes of its own funeral pyre, miraculously born anew. He and Gracie knew that in the midst of my challenge was an opportunity for me to become a bigger and better person. Bigger and better person? Ha!

But from John's viewpoint, my precarious situation was a noble quest. I had unwittingly put myself in the flames. Now the decision was mine: I could roll around in the soot of feeling sorry for myself, or I could start making choices to become a more magnificent being. When he reminded me that Spirit saw my goodness even if all I saw were the charred remains of what I had called my life, he struck a powerful, deep chord.

I thought of Cinderella and the ashes. As a little girl I always wanted to rush through the beginning when she was covered in cinders and wearing rags, and get to the part where she wore pretty clothes and got her Prince Charming. Even as a kid I was a sucker for a good tiara and a great dress. I sighed a deep breath and figured it was time to dust the ashes off and go find my ball gown.

John was right. If I had a shovel to dig myself out of my mess, the Universe had a backhoe (that's one honking big digging machine). Regardless of what it looked like, maybe a Higher Power was supporting me. Trusting Spirit, however, was as foreign to me as football. I grew up playing with Barbie’s, for goodness sake.