From the Desk of Janet Barclay

One of the last exercises we did in the Turbocharge Your Business class was to pretend it is a year from now and that we’ve just bumped into someone from the class, and to tell them all about the past year. Here’s what I said:

I had a really great year! I have been busy, steady. There hasn’t been one month where I’ve had to sit down and figure out where I’m going to get the money for bills this month; it’s always been where it needed to be when it needed to be there, and in fact, I’ve been able to actually put some money aside. We’re thinking we might be able to put a down payment on a condo on the Lakeshore.

The reason that I’ve been able to do this is because I’ve got people in place that I’ve been able to subcontract to or refer to if I was too busy, or things I didn’t want to do, and I’ve also got systems in place for myself so I can stay on top of what needs to be done and follow up with my clients who need that extra prodding to make sure that the work gets done and not just forgotten about.

I’ve started to form a Team 100 list, my 100 experts that I can go to or refer to, and everybody’s starting to think of me as the resource person - if they want to know something, they call me, because they know that I either know the answer or can find the answer for them quickly. 

And the best part of it is, even though I’m so busy, I’m taking good care of myself, I’m healthy, I’m spending time with my friends and my family, my relationships are stronger than ever, and I’ve even got some time to do something for my community; I’ve been doing some volunteer work. I’m so happy – I feel great!

What’s really exciting about this is that it doesn’t seem unrealistic (except maybe the part about the condo on the Lakeshore) - especially when I consider that my income doubled from 2005 to 2006, and based on my current list of ongoing clients, could easily double again in 2007.

A lot of people say they have collections (especially of paper), when really they just have crap. Can’t tell the difference?

A collection is (thank you Dictionary.com): a group of objects or an amount of material accumulated in one location, esp. for some purpose or as a result of some process.

Crap is stuff that just hasn’t been thrown out yet.

Don’t know which is yours?

When you die, the things grouped and categorized into a collection will make sense and/or have meaning to others. And if when you die people have no idea what all this stuff they now have to deal with is, then it’s crap.

Source: www.somedaysyndrome.com

I recently completed a telecourse through Dreamcrafters Inc. called Turbocharge Your Business. Based on the Law of Attraction, the main focus was on attracting your perfect customers, but we learned that the same principles could apply to attracting your perfect subcontractors, your perfect mate, etc.

I like the concept of volunteering, but in my experience, whenever you volunteer for a specific task or activity, the organization involved always expects much more than that. For example, several years ago, I decided to become a Big Sister, which was a wonderful experience. However, I was pressured to also participate in various fundraising and promotional activities, such as working in a smoke-filled Bingo Hall at the time I’d usually be thinking about going to bed.

During my first year as a POC member, the Director of Membership had to step down for personal reasons, and I was asked to step in. I was told it was mainly an administrative position, updating the member database and sending out membership kits. I was happy to take it on, and remained in the position for nearly three years. However, what started out as a few hours a month grew to a few hours a week, as the membership grew from under 100 to nearly 400 during that time. In addition, because the Board members were located across the country, I had to participate in telephone meetings, which often lasted several hours. I am not really a telephone person and found this quite excruciating. Then there were all the phone calls and emails from prospective members and new members…. It was a valuable experience which I don’t regret, but when my term ended last fall, I decided I would take a break before getting involved in anything else.

Since then I have been looking, off and on, for a volunteer opportunity that would be in keeping with my interests and talents. I’ve searched Volunteer Hamilton, Charity Village,  and Volunteer Match, and of course there are always opportunities within the various groups I belong to, but nothing seemed to really excite me.

Just before Christmas, I came across a posting on Volunteer Match looking for a volunteer to research websites with career information for high school students. This was a big part of my job for over five years, and I have over 1000 links which I collected during that time. This is the perfect opportunity for me. It will give me a chance to finally go through those links to delete those which are no longer active, and at the same time, I can provide a service to some young people.

I do believe this is an example of the Law of Attraction at work. I loved working as an employment counsellor and sometimes have regretted leaving that world behind to start my business. However, over the last few months, I am attracting more and more clients from related industries: recruiters, resume writers, trainers, and so on. It’s really quite amazing.

I can’t wait to see what I will attract in 2007! 

I had the pleasure this year of sharing Christmas dinner with my father, sister, and brother-in-law. My husband was unfortunately sick and unable to be with us.

One of my brother-in-law’s family traditions, passed down from his father, is for each person at the table is to name someone who fits into a category suggested by the host, and for everyone to drink a toast to that person.

The first category was someone who did something you admired during 2006. My choice was Alex Fayle, Past President of Professional Organizers in Canada, who sold his house and put the rest of his life on hold to fulfil a lifelong dream of going to France and writing a book. I enjoy reading about his experience and life lessons in his blog, Someday Syndrome.

The second category was someone you admire that you’d like to meet in 2007. This was more difficult, but I picked Danielle Keister, Founding Member of the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce. Not only does she has a very successful VA practice herself, she dedicates a lot of time and energy to raising the bar for the virtual assistance industry. I have no doubt I could learn a lot from her!

The rest of the categories were more personal in nature, bringing to mind family members near and far. All in all, it was an entertaining yet thought-provoking way to spend an evening.  

I hope that everyone reading this had a wonderful holiday spent with people near and dear to you. I plan to do a lot more reflecting over the next week as I consider my achievements over the past year and my aspirations for 2007.

We’ve all received them. They usually consist of warnings of a computer viruses or other dangers, or stories of lost or sick children who can be saved by forwarding the message to everyone you know. Some of them ar very obvious, such as the claim that Bill Gates will pay money, either to the sender or some charity, every time the message is forwarded, but every day, someone will pass it on, "just in case."

Please, before you waste the time of everyone in your address book (or even a handful of friends), take a moment to check it out for yourself at Snopes.com. Simply type in a few keywords in their search engine, and within seconds you’ll know whether the claim is true, false, or unknown. If it turns out to be true (which happens occasionally) then feel free to pass it on.