Habit

Have you ever thought about the habits that you have and how they affect you, your business, and your clients? This past week, I've been taking extra special notice of the habits I have and how they impact others and myself. The information I've been collecting on myself has yielded a variety of responses to my own behavior - some good and some not-so-good.

This has allowed me to determine not only what I don't like, but also what upsets me enough to actually make a change.

This self-assessment has also been good from the standpoint of reminding me of my strengths. So often we take our strengths for granted.

Have you ever done your own self-assessment? What are you learning about yourself and your business? What changes would make a big impact on your business?

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Tip from a Member

10 Cooking Tips to Help Save $$

• Cook batches - If you have time over the weekend, make large quantities of your favorite dinners. Set aside enough to serve the next night, and freeze additional batches for days when dinner's a rush. (Freeze promptly so teenagers don't polish off the extras…) Florentine Brunch Casserole and Beef Tamale Bake are easy to make and freeze.

• Go meatless a few days a week - You'll save money and reap health benefits, too. Try Creamy One-Pot Pasta or Portobello, Red Pepper & Goat Cheese Pizza.

• If you do buy meat… buy the tougher cuts, which are less expensive, and stew, roast or marinate to tenderize and add more flavor. Try Balsamic-Glazed Strip Steaks or Chipotle-Rubbed Beef Filets.

• Use whole grains - Brown rice and quinoa are delicious and nutritious in their own right, but you can also use them in Quinoa Salad with Shiitake Mushrooms and Leeks and Harvest Brown Rice Salad.

• Buy beans - Dried or canned legumes like white beans, chickpeas, and lentils are an inexpensive way to add protein to your diet. You can use them to make a tasty pot of chili go farther, or you can make a salad topping by combining white beans with some extra-virgin olive oil, chopped garlic, and crushed red pepper. Try Hearty Oven Chili or the Hearty Six-Can Chili recipes.

• Make a pot of soup - Easy, nutritious, filling, and inexpensive soup is the ultimate money-stretcher. Throw in leftover veggies or protein, pasta or rice, and lentils or beans. Try Roasted Tomato & Barley Soup or Italian Meatball Soup. Add a side of crusty whole-wheat bread, and it's a meal.

• Boost salad - A simple salad dressed up with easy additions such as cold roast chicken, shrimp, ham, or chunks of tuna can be an entrée rather than a side. Try Deluxe Cheeseburger Salad or "The Works" Baked Potato Salad

• Experiment with herbs - Fresh herbs add a flavor boost to any dish. If you find you have extras, whip up a quick sauce or pesto for use later in the week. Sautéed Halibut with Citrus-Basil Sauce is a great way to use basil, and you can experiment with Basil-Walnut Pesto to brighten up pastas, soups, and even sandwiches.

• Make your own snacks - You can reduce your food bill by reducing your snacking. Packaged snacks are expensive, often loaded with sugar and fat, and full of chemicals you can't even pronounce. If you're a compulsive snacker, switch to homemade treats such as Game Day Party Mix Another good choice? Moroccan Hummus is a dip-with-a-kick for dunking baby carrots or pepper slices.

• Employ leftovers quickly - Don't push leftovers to the no-man's-land at the back of the fridge. Make sure you use them promptly, either for lunch or another dinner. Turn leftover 30-Minute Chicken into Barbecue Chicken & Onion Pizza and leftover turkey into Turkey Vegetable Cobbler.

Want to know where to find these recipes? You can find them in the following Pampered Chef cookbooks and product use and care cards:

• All the Best, It’s Good for You, Season’s Best Spring/Summer 2008, Grill It Quick! Recipe Collection, Spin on Salads, 29 Minutes to Dinner, More Stoneware Sensations, Smooth Edge Can Opener Use and Care Card, Colander & Bowl Set Use and Care Card, Hooked on Fish Recipe Cards, Moroccan Rub Use and Care Card

Ronnie Keels
The Pampered Chef
717-747-0883
www.pamperedchef.biz/Rkeels

Traveling With a 19 Month Old

As you are well aware by now, I drove up to Rochester, NY to run in the half-marathon this past weekend.

I decided to take our son Grant with me on this trip - he's 19 months old. The trip served two purposes. First was to run the race and second was an opportunity to visit my family.

I learned a great deal from this trip. First, 19 month olds have a lot of stuff. I had 2 bags for the trip, everything else was Grant's. Now understand, we have three children, so we are used to taking a lot of stuff for a trip. It just struck me about how much stuff we needed for this little person.

I also learned to take notice of things I would have never noticed as I drove. Grant is great at pointing out animals, big trucks, and anything that catches his eye. This gave me an opportunity to see the world through my son's eyes.

Third, I learned to appreciate more frequent stops on our trip. Grant can only sit in the car seat for so long before he needs to stretch out a bit. Well, that stretching helped me as well.

So why do I share all this with you? Well, I don't have employees, but I do have clients. What Grant taught me was to take a look at the world through his eyes for a bit. It made the trip more enjoyable. I wonder what would happen if I looked at the world through my client's eyes? What would happen if you looked at the world through your clients' or employees' eyes?

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Vision 2.0

Over the last few weeks as I've been working on implementing my strategic plan, something has been bothering me - my vision statement. I wasn't sure what exactly it was that bothered me though. I just knew that something about it wasn't right - which means that it was time to re-examine the vision statement.

I scheduled time over the last week to rework my vision statement, worked diligently on the statement and now have a new vision statement that keeps the theme the same as the previous statement, but is more focused and more compelling. Most importantly, my new vision statement brings the strategic plan together nicely.

In case you were wondering, my new vision statement is "To be the invaluable resource that assists EADD entrepreneurs to turn their own "Someday Island" into paradise on earth."

I tell you all this to ask you a few questions. What's your company's vision? What does it mean to you? Is it compelling or just a bunch of buzz words strung together? When's the last time you looked at it? What do you do with your vision statement?

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Wow

Every once in awhile you have one of those weeks that just wow you. That's happened this week. So many good things happened this week that it can only be summed up with "wow."

Meetings with suspects and prospects, a great teleclass, excellent meetings with clients, great networking events, moving forward with my own strategic plan, meeting my financial goal for the month, a great training run, my oldest daughter starting kindergarten, and some political news that I was excited about. I'm sure there's more, but the list is big enough to make the point.

Each time I was wowed it built on the last wow - building momentum. And that momentum didn't just affect me, it had an effect on everyone I touched this week. Isn't that what it's all about?

So what is it that wows you? What about your business wows other people? What would it mean to your business to be able to wow someone else, a co-worker, or a client?

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22 Miles

This past Saturday morning, I woke up at 4:45am so that I could be out the door by 5:30am for my latest training run - 22 miles.

I can't think of a training run, especially a distance training run, where I haven't learned something. What I learned Saturday was the notion of breaking large things down to manageable parts.

Now, I've always known that it's easier to break down a long run into smaller runs - ie - making a 22 mile run the equivalent of two 11 mile runs or two eight mile runs with a seven mile run. What I learned this Saturday is to break the 22 mile run into even smaller parts. I broke the run down into a series of one, two and three mile runs. I would run the distance I was shooting for, maybe a two mile run, and reward myself with a drink of fluid and a short walk of a block to allow my body to rest for a moment.

These short runs are great training for when I am in the "wall-" the time in a marathon when everything hurts and you question why you are doing the marathon at all. If I can train my body and mind to only worry about doing a one, two, or three mile run at a time, then if I do hit the wall, I only need to worry about going a short distance before I get a break.

See, breaking down a 22 mile training run into a 3, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1 and 1 mile runs is alot easier from a mental perspective. 22 miles is a long distance. Two or three miles is a nice warm up run. The perspective is different. I also come away with more mental energy because I only ran two or three miles at a time as opposed to the accumulated mileage.

Is all of this a slick attempt at fooling myself. Maybe, but it's working. I completed the full run doing a 10 minute pace, which includes rest times. I know it would have been a slower pace had I focused on the full 22 all at once.

Exit questions: What big project do you have - what's your 22 mile project? How can you break it down to manageable parts?

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Thinking Differently

So often in life, what we know to be true can only take us so far. Many times, if we are to go to that next level we are seeking, we have to start thinking differently.

The old saying that sums this up goes something like - What got you to where you are won't get you to where you are looking to go.

I bring this up this week because over the past week, I've observed something interesting - I've noticed a huge strain on relationships - personal, professional, etc. Over the past week I've listened to people tell their story of the ending of a marriage, several business partnerships, a strategic partnership, etc.

I know this much, ending a relationship can be difficult, regardless of whether it is personal or professional. That's because the people involved have invested time, energy, emotion, and effort into one another.

So often though, people stay in relationships that they have either outgrown or are worse, harmful to them.

My question to you this week is this - examine your relationships - both personal and professional. What's working and what's not? Which relationships need time and attention and which relationships need to be ended. What's your plan of action to move forward?

In business, look at your sales relationships, client relationships, relationships with people you network with, relationships with your co-workers/employees.

In your personal life, look at your relationships with all the people who make an impact on your life - family, spouse, children, parents, etc. And all the people who you make an impact on - friends, etc.

Strong relationships are important not only because of what they bring, but also because of what they prevent. Poor relationships cause many forms of stress. How productive are you at work when you are dealing with a stressful relationship? I'll guess that the answer is not very productive.

Confront and resolve those stressful relationships as soon as possible. In a difficult business environment you need all your focus on being productive, not fretting over a relationship.

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