Dotti Berry, iDigital Media Pro Empowering Entrepreneurs

What does triathlon training have to do with your Business Success?

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What does triathlon training have to do with your Business Success?

Everything!

“To be, or not to be: that is the question,” said William Shakespeare (from Hamlet)

“To tri or not to tri: that is the question,” said Dotti Berry (from Trek Women Triathlon Series).

Yes, I made the decision to tri.  My friend, Sheldon, who has ALS and  Sally Edwards, the legendary triathlon icon, both inspired Roby and me through the manner in which they approach life.

You can “try” or you can “tri.” People get the two confused.

The way it seems most people refer to “try” is via the following dictionary definition:

v. to make an effort or attempt:  he tried to climb a cliff

I don’t know what you believe, but in the above scenario, the person either climbed a cliff…or he didn’t.

True Story:  I had a person hand me a salt shaker one time and say, “Try to move that salt shaker across the table.”  I picked it up and moved it to the other side.  He said, “No, I said ‘try” to move it.”  So, I held it, making great effort to hold on to it before finally moving it.  He looked at me and said, “In life, you either do something or you don’t.  Trying is an illusion.”  That lesson stuck with me.

People often confuse success with lots of effort.  Ironically, the opposite is often true.

Extra energy expended is often detrimental. Think I am kidding?

Think about Michael Jordan. Think about other world class athletes. Their movements are fluid and efficient.

The key to success, whether in sports or business, is eliminating extra and unnecessary effort, movement and energy.  It is refining the behaviors and actions so that processes and systems are as efficient as possible.

You can “try” to complete a tri, but in the end result, you either complete it or you don’t.

And that is why completing a tri has everything to do with business success…if you understand the connection.

You either make the calls you need to make…or you don’t.

You either follow up…or you don’t.

You can “try to succeed” in business; however, you either succeed or you don’t.  Assume 100% responsibility for either achieving business success or not achieving business success, without blaming others when you fail.  This will enable you to refine those skills, behaviors and actions which lead to increased success the next time.

Tri it…you’ll like it!

That’s what we did for Sheldon… in honor of who he is in life.

In the second short video, Monica shows how choosing to learn to swim enabled her to complete a tri.  Go Monica!  Choose tri over try!

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Tags: "Sally Edwards", "trek women triathlon", "What does triathlon training have to do with your Business Success", triathlon

Make your Own Vision Board

Make Your Own Vision Board? You may be saying “Are you Kidding Me? No…I’m not!

You may continue with…”I can’t afford the time…blah…blah…blah.”

Here’s the deal. You may not be able to afford NOT to take the time. This organic progress can ground you and is your key to attracting exactly what you want! Create YOUR Vision Board the Law of Attraction. You can make it offline/online…I’m a both/and person vs. an either/or.  Why act like one way is better when both work!  Decide which method best resonates with you.

A question to start you down your Visioning path…
Does Your Vision have the Midas Touch?

If you don’t know what this Midas Touch is or your answer is “No,” keep reading.

It’s take to time TAKE CHARGE of YOUR LIFE! I’m baring all about what is necessary for creating your Vision Board and your Vision Biography. A biography is an account of something.  In this case, it’s an ongoing account of your Vision! Get your cup of coffee or glass of wine. This is a longer post…Enjoy!

I am asking myself this question as Roby & I “revamp” our Vision Board. It’s worth repeating…

Does your VISION have the Midas Touch?

Why ask this question?  First of all, Your Vision...envisioned through your Vision Board illustrates your Vision Biography and is a part of your master business plan.  Like a business plan, it is not static…it is ever changing and evolving.  Our desires don’t remain the same.  I am not the same person today that I was yesterday.  Being personally in the midst of this process right now, I know that I want it to have the Midas Touch...I want it to be the set of wheels on my vehicle that takes me to my ultimate, massive financial freedom… affording me the options and flexibility I desire. I will forewarn you that this process does not come without a certain amount of angst.  That will only continue, however, if you resist the inevitable chaos vs. embracing it in order to move through more easily and naturally in this process. If you feel overwhelmed, check out this prior blog post about how quantum physics can help you create your dreams. It gives you a framework for moving through your personal chaos!

So…here’s how you begin the process of envisioning and creating an offline Vision Board (meaning it is a physical one that you can touch and feel vs digital one) with the Midas Touch over a several week period.  You will discover that you begin attracting some of what you envision IMMEDIATELY!

• MULL – Seriously contemplate your desires…both personal and business. Go through magazines and cut out anything that jumps out at you.  This is an organic process.  Do not censor at this point.  Just cut and throw it in a big bucket or box with a lid (you’ve heard of a bucket list from the movie of the same name…that’s what you are creating!)
  
• INVESTIGATE – Imagine examining your desires & dreams under a microscope. It’s now time to pull those magazine dream catchers out of the big bucket. Allow this to be an evolving process. I suggest you do this investigative process on a different day than you do your “mulling” involved in the initial step. Analyze your desires, see them in your mind and then sit quietly with them to determine if they resonate with your core values. Take those that fit and throw them into a second big bucket. Don’t fret if several from bucket one just don’t “feel right,” after this investigation.  That’s why you are doing it.  Nothing goes in bucket #2 that you do not want to (at this point!) add it to your Vision Board.  Remember…this is YOUR Vision Board.  Don’t add something just because some hot shot guru added it to his or her board.  You are unique! Live by it.
  
• DEVISE - Conceive, plan & design how you want to put together the pieces of your Vision Board to sync with the core of who you are – You can do it by sections. Again, use another day for this process. Pull the pictures and words out of the second bucket. Spread them around on the floor.  This isn’t a race.  This is about creating a Vision from which you will make your choices. You can add your Vision Statement (some call it a Mission Statement). Our middle section of our Vision Board is like our own middle of our body.  It is a core foundation of who we are.  It must provide a strong foundation. It represents our spiritual center, although that part also overflows to the left third bottom (as you are looking at the board below) while our real estate dreams are at the left third top.  That is one of our properties.  Some of these living words such as “DANCE” (something we do with one another each day before going to bed) are also a part of our spiritual core and connection.
  
• ACHIEVE - Ponder how you intend to bring about the results of your Vision. This is where you can now move to your Business Plan and start writing your detailed goals….ah, another post will have to give the outline for that plan.
  
• STRENGTHEN – This is where you continue to “erase and replace” pieces of your Vision that you no longer feel are empowering you.  Remember, this is about evolving, not remaining static!  Remove any part at any time.  Once a quarter, give your Vision Board a good 2-3 hour session and overhaul.  During the first week of the new year, devote an entire day to mulling, investigating, devising, achieving and strengthening so that you are fully prepared for being all that you can be in a new year!
  

Our Vision Board is a tri-fold one on black foam core. You are looking at it unfolded.  Its normal full-time spot is one where it sits unfolded on top of the filing cabinet in our office so that we see it on a daily basis. I like the aspect of literally unfolding our Vision Board and placing it on our counter top. There is something organic about unfolding the board…perhaps it is analogous to the unfolding of our dreams. It also allows me to view the back. The entire front and back doesn’t have to be completed initially.  Leave some open space into which you can grow. We started with the front and expanded to the back, Mulling, Investigating, Devising, Achieving, & Strengthening. The central picture on the back of the Vision Board is shown in this short video below.  It about the connections between all of us…connecting and engaging…a central theme to my life! May it inspire you to Reach…Awaken2Life & Create Your Dreams!

Keep reading for more on new additions to our Vision Board and how we are Awakening2Life & creating our Dreams. Although our dreams contain some “things,” they don’t make it to our Vision Bucket List unless they equate to awesome experiences and resonate with our core.  We already live in the home of our dreams. You’re probably thinking BIG, huh? No…just the opposite.  SMALL…a dream of 1150 square feet with a sun room across the back leading to a deck with a hot tub with electric awning (yea…it rains a little in the Pacific NW, but not as much as people think…we rank 36th in the country in rainfall), look out over English gardens and a pond with Canadian geese, ducks and blue herons.  It’s a healing energy place that also has a 400 foot cottage for friends and my coaching clients…both individuals and couples…who come for “Coach B’s Tune-Up” week-ends or weeks. (One 80 year-old retired executive from Texas who wanted to learn about internet marketing actually rented for a month and got his coaching!).

Yes, we’re into small.  We took a year-long journey across America pulling a 13 foot trailer with an intention to engage hearts and minds, create authentic connections and transcend differences that separate us.  Life was simple, and we loved it.  We haven’t forgotten that journey and why we liked it!

Speaking of Small…I was at the Olympics in BC and saw something soooo small I had to contact the architect (who turns out to be from South Africa originally).  We will be going up to meet with him in May to see about potentially securing the rights to market it in the United States. DREAM BIG!

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Tags: law of attraction, LYF, Make your Own Vision Board, midas touch, mission statement, vision, vision board, vision plan, vision statement

Friend, Mel White, & his son, Mike, in 1st place on Amazing Race!

I have laughed myself silly watching my friend, Mel White, and his son on the Amazing Race.  I literally cried I was laughing so hard when I saw Mel in one show, scooting down a hill with a 25 pound of cheese in his lap.  The others were manuevering the treacherous terrain with their cheese (and often two round 25-pound blocks) in this wooden carrier on their backs.  I jokingly said to  Mel that I was thinking, “You old fart (since he is 69!)…what are you doing sliding down the hill on your ass?”  Amazing Race is the perfect show for Mel White, an AMAZING man.  As usual, Mel, was simply “ahead of his time” in discovering another way to achieve a goal and winning while doing it.  He was also leading and inspiring, another of his remarkable gifts.  How do I know that?  Minutes later, after people’s wooden carrier began to break apart from the weight of the cheers, I saw others imitating Mel.  Being older and wiser does often help!  Mel has inspired me since I first met him in Lynchburg, VA.  Mel was the ghost writer of Rev. Jerry Falwell’s books (and for others as well).  Once Mel came out as a gay man, however, many of his “religious buddies” no longer found his life-long friendship necessary.  One who didn’t turn his back on him is Philip Yancey…Philip even walked in a Gay Pride Parade with Mel.  At any rate, I was there to stand for the first time with Soulforce to say “The spiritual violence from religious institutions is harmful.”  Many of us have personal experience, but have stood up to live our lives as the gift that we are.  Mel and Mike are currently in 1st place!  It is because of becoming involved with Soulforce that I have had the opportunity to sit, side by side, in a jail cell after an arrest for an act of civil disobedience to stand up justice and equality for all…people like Arun Gandhi (grandson of Gandhi).  I asked Arun while we were being transported to the jail cell in Cleveland, Ohio after our arrest, “Arun, what is it like to be arrested?” assuming that he had done this before.  He looked at me and said, “Dotti, this is my first arrest.”  I said, “Your Gandhi’s grandson and this is your first arrest?”  He replied, “Yes, I thought this was a worthy cause.”  Yolanda King was with us that time.  Peggy Campolo, wife of Tony Campolo, was also with us.  Rodney Powell, a young man when he took a seat at the lunch counter during the civil rights era, was also there.  Jim and Phil Lawson, retired United Methodist ministers were also in jail with us.  Jim taught non-violent process for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Sometimes, it simply feels good to be in good company.  That was how I felt that day as I sat in jail.  I also felt humbled beyond words. Enough said about that.  Bottom line…catch Mel and Mike this Sunday, March 8, 2009, on The Amazing Race.

So when Gandhi said, “We must be the change we wish to see,” we believe it and took it to heart. It is our intention set forth in our three weddings to one another, “I come to you with an open heart and vow to change the world through the expression of our love.”  Mel White and our work with Soulforce inspired our year-long journey in 2005/06, Gay Into Straight America, with us being affectionately dubbbed “Two Women & a Poodle” because of Rylee Joy, our wonderful “connector.  This  evolved into our non-profit, Stand UP Speak OUT, and our continued commitment to speaking throughout the U.S. and Canada, while engaging hearts and minds, creating authentic connections and transcending differences that separate us, transforming ourselves and our world, one person at a time.

Tags: "Two Women & a Poodle", Amazing Race, Amazing Race #14, Arun Gandhi, Gay Into Straight America, M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence, Mel White, Mike White, Ryleejoy, Soulforce, Stand UP Speak OUT