Insights and Action Steps from Ali Brown’s OSBW

My hubby and I attend a gazillion seminars each year – it’s just what we do. We love personal and professional growth and subscribe to the Kaizen/constant-and-never-ending-improvement approach to life. (We met in ’99 at the fab Money & You seminar!)

It can take a lot to impress me after attending so many high-end, big-name speakers’ events. I just attended and spoke at Alexandria Brown‘s 5th annual – and last ever – Online Success Blueprint Workshop as I wrote about here live from the event.

I’m delighted to say Ali’s event was nothing short of spectacular. Certainly it was a profound honor to be the ONLY female speaker at the 3-day OSBW event and to share my contribution about Facebook and social media marketing. Additionally, the positive vibe of the entire event was palpable!

I tweeted up a storm with the hashtag #OSBW. (Hashtags make it easy to follow and search for tweets from specific events). Here’s the main tweetstream for all #osbw tweets.

My primary takeaways from Ali’s event:

Global effect of women in business:

More women entrepreneurs and business owners will help bring peace to the planet. Amen. And, we heart our guys too of course!! When Ali shared this nugget – there was a chorus of “YESSS” from the few guys in the audience! I love that Ali has claimed her purpose to inspire women business owners around the world.

The importance of self care:

Self care is a vital component of running a successful business. We must take time for ourselves to rest and to re-energize. This is a huge one for me as I continue set up more effective systems to free up more of my time. I appreciated how Ali’s team schedule all her beauty care, for example, at regular intervals far in advance. It’s the small things like this that can make such a big difference – no more stressing about how to fit it all in. Just plan well!

The importance of a TEAM:

Ali emphasizes seeing hiring help as truly helping yourself and helping the service provider. My own team is growing in leaps and bounds: I’m now working with a business manager, project manager and several VA’s (virtual assistants); a graphic artist, marketing expert, platform sales coach, productivity/focus coach (yes, I need help focusing. lol!) and more. Plus, I’m delighted to have on my team two-time Ironman Triathlon finisher, Ashley Mahaffey, as my fitness coach – whom I met on Twitter, I might add! (Ali’s fitness coach is the amazing Laura Mak in LA who I got to meet at OSBW too).

The importance of a supportive environment:

Okay, this isn’t new of course… but when I took a look at my uber flexible, mobile, hybrid lifestyle – I realized I need to make some changes coming up. I just love RVing with my hubby and now that we’re back in SoCal at least for the winter months, I need a bigger space to be more nurtured and productive at the same time. Stay tuned for what we create next!

By the way, Ali talked about having both a supportive emotional and physical environment. Look at your life and see who may not be fully supporting you right now – could be it’s some family members and you may need to limit your contact with them. And with your physical environment, clear out any clutter and make sure your work space is nurturing. (On another note, my money expert friend Joan Sotkin says that the “urge to purge” is a sign that more money is coming your way. Love that!)

The power of mentorship; think big, manifest fast:

If you’re going to be thinking up ideas for your business anyway, you may as well think BIG!! One of the highlights of Ali’s event was meeting her BILLIONAIRE mentor, my fellow Scot, Anne McKevitt. Anne is often referred to as the “Martha Stewart of the UK.” She runs 22 businesses, has 1800 employees and is incredibly REAL. Everyone just loved her to bits.

Anne never learned limited thinking: from an early age, she surrounded herself with powerful successful people and, as she says, “by process of osmosis” (say that in a brrrogue!) she became very, very successful herself.

For many years, Ali has been the Ezine Queen. Yet now with Anne’s guidance, Ali is stepping up to a much, much bigger game to fulfill her own powerful life purpose as an international leader of women.

The power of knowing your life purpose… and life lesson:

My life purpose is to be the “Innovative Messenger in the Spotlight” says hand analyst Baeth Davis. I was truly blessed to have a reading with Baeth – when she explained to me my life’s purpose I was moved to tears. I felt SO grokked (gotten). My purpose is to take the complex, simplify it and teach it to my peeps. I’m a leader of leaders. YES! I am SO on track with my career passions as a social media business coach.

Then Baeth shared my life lesson (we all have one): guilt about my gifts. Whew. You know that profound Marianne Williamson quote about how we’re more afraid of our LIGHT than our dark? Well, that’s me to a tee. However, the good news is Baeth encouraged me to simply “feel the feelings and go for it anyway.”  LOVE that! And I am – BIG time! Speaking at Ali’s event was a fantastic experience and opportunity for me.

Ali’s EMA model:

You may be familiar with the E-Myth by Michael Gerber. We often get so good at what we do – the technician in us – we get stuck IN our business rather than working ON our business. I love Michael’s book. But I just love the simplicity of Ali’s model more: it’s a three-step pyramid with A at the bottom, M in the center and E at the top.

A stands for Administration – this is where many business owners are stuck; handling all the minutiae of day-to-day admin, running ragged. But when you implement systems, outsource, delegate and hire help – you can free up your energy and attention on the A to then focus on the M which stands for Management.

With your team and systems in place, now you get to manage your business. But management can have it’s mega demands too… and, fortunately, much can be delegated as well freeing you up to focus on the top level. E is for Entrepreneur. You get to be a true entrepreneur with the Admin and Management handled for you.

There were many, many more profound nuggets of wisdom and awesome aha’s. Plus, meeting SO many amazingly successful and powerful women and men too! I could write a blog post about everyone I met! 😉 [See party pic: Dr. Cindy Brown, Katrina Sawa, MaryKay Morgan, Kelly O’Neil, Michele PW, Mark Anthony Bates, Fabienne Fredrickson, Melanie Benson Strick, Mari Smith, Lesley Bohm, Erin Thoms Melnick.]

2009 is going to be a mega year for all of us. There is profound change and a huge positive shift in the air now! What is on the horizon for you? I’d love to know – please share below:

Mari Smith

Often referred to as “the Queen of Facebook,” Mari Smith is widely known as the Premier Facebook Marketing Expert and a top Social Media Thought Leader. Forbes describes Mari as, “… the preeminent Facebook expert. Even Facebook asks for her help.” IBM named Mari as one of seven women that are shaping digital marketing. Mari is an in-demand keynote speaker, corporate social media strategist, dynamic live webcast host, and popular brand ambassador. She is coauthor of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day, and author of The New Relationship Marketing.

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