Invest wisely

If you don't spend your time, others will spend it for you. Or better still, if you don't invest your time, others will invest it for you.

Do you want someone other than yourself investing your precious time?

No, I didn't think so!

I challenge you to think about five things that are important to you and then look at how you are spending the next four days - Thursday through Sunday. This way you get some weekday & some weekend time. I'm sure there are more than important things in your life, and maybe those things change from time to time. But are you investing your time in what you believe to be most important?

What are you doing related to those five priorities?

Are you investing well?

I'll go first. Here are five things that are essential in my life and how I'm investing my time over the next four days:


1. Faith - going to mass on Sunday morning with my family.


2. Family - hosting a Sweet 16 party for my stepdaughter & immediate family on Sunday


3. Friends - spending Thursday evening with one of my best pals, Melissa, who is in town for a visit.

4. Self care - participating in a Reiki share on Saturday. I'm actually going to be giving & receiving Reiki at this event so not only is it a beautiful way to take care of myself by receiving a treatment, but I can also give back as well since Community Service and giving back is also on my list (but I promised we'd only work on our top five). This also supports another priority of mine Health because this energy work is very healing and the event takes place at The Bloodroot, an excellent vegetarian restaurant, so there will be a delicious healthy lunch as well. See how one choice can support many priorities? But I did say five, didn't I?


5. Business - exhibiting at a corporate Health Fair on Thursday and then spending a full day of working on business strategy with a fellow biz owner on Friday. We're heading up to the Mercy Retreat Center in Madison so we can really focus. Not only will I be brainstorming on how to help my business to flourish, I'll be spending time with a good friend and we'll be making it fun as well (sunscreen, bathing suits and wine will be packed and ready to go).

Now it's your turn. What investments will you be making in the next four days and how to they support your priorities? Feel free to share all five or please share at least one and spread the inspiration!

A Father's Day reflection

My dad, Thomas V. Hallett, was definitely an energetic, make things happen kind of guy. Although he died suddenly just days after his 52nd birthday, his legacy is always with me.



He is my daily reminder of the "life is short" cliche which shapes my choices and actions. His example encourages me to ask myself often what kind of person do I want to be? How do I want to be remembered? What kind of contribution do I want to make in this world?



Business Insurance magazine ran a wonderful story/obituary following his death.



In honor of Father's Day, I thought I'd share the following excerpt from that article which ran in March, 1993:



"Tom was a bundle of energy," [a friend & colleague] said. "He was an instigator, and was always provocative and always a joy to be around. " "He really felt that he wanted to be a success in life and in business," [observed another friend & colleague] "He was relentless in touching all bases and doing everything possible to make things happen. He was a real inspiration."




So today, be a joy to be around and honor your father.



Miss you and love you dad!

It’s mid-year 2010. Do you know where your intention is??

I'm excited to introduce the inspiring Lorin Beller Blake founder of Big Fish Nation our guest blogger today. Lorin is about getting it done! She is author of From Entrepreneur to Big Fish: 7 Principles to Wild Success. I had the fantastic experience of participating in one of her Big Fish programs.

Since I'm a big advocate of setting intentions and creating accountability, I really wanted to share Lorin's Twitter Party concept with you. You can follow Lorin on Twitter at LorinB or follow me at khrzasa!

Looking forward to hearing your intentions and to begin setting some of my own.

Take it away Lorin.......

It’s mid-year 2010. Do you know where your intention is??

Intention is the tone we set and keep as we carry out everything we do (business, personal, or something inbetween), or simply what we want (or intend) to accomplish or complete.

Although it’s not difficult to set an intention, it is sometimes challenging to remember on our own to set an intention every day.

So in March of this year, we launched the Big Fish Twitter Party – a virtual shared “intention journal” for us to each post our DAILY intention.

It’s time to re-energize that party, so this blog post is your invitation (or re-invitation) to join this intention-setting movement. Note: Everyone is welcome, this is not exclusive to Big Fish Nation members!

Here is how it works: You just tweet your intention for the day, and at the end of your intention, be sure to add the hashtag #BigFishIntention. (See recent blog post for more details).

Why do this??

1. FOCUS: Setting our intentions DAILY requires us to clarify our priorities and our focus each day, and writing them down makes them even more powerful. Twitter is the perfect tool for this, keeping our intentions short and to-the-point.
2. ACCOUNTABILITY: Sharing our intentions adds accountability to each day. A quick Twitter search on “#BigFishIntention” shows each person’s tweeted intention for the day, so others can see and support your intention. Accountability is a strong business tool, so let’s add it to our intentions!
3. CONNECTION: The more we tap into our network of resources (see recent blog post), the richer our businesses can grow – literally and figuratively! When others tweet their intentions, we get insight into what is valuable to them and their business. This is important information for making powerful connections, and we find new people to follow on Twitter.
4. INSPIRATION: We all need inspiration to keep moving forward. Sharing our daily intentions gives each of us new ideas for motivation and inspiration, and even new approaches for handling practical issues.
5. EXPERIENCE: Each of us who tweets an intention with the #BigFishNation hashtag is a member of the (unofficial) Daily Intention Tribe. As I said in last week’s blog post, tribal membership and leadership need to become part of everyone’s business toolkit, and this is a perfect “practice tribe” for you. Do you want to lead? Lead by example then encourage others to also post their intentions.

If you’re not using Twitter, you can still participate in any of the following ways:

1. Join Twitter: It’s free — just sign up at http://www.twitter.com), and you can immediately tweet today’s intention.
2. Start your own Intention Tribe on Facebook: Post a status update telling people your intention for the day and asking “What is yours?” You can do this *any* day!
3. Start your own Intention Tribe via email: Ask people in your valued network to email their intention to each other daily. Most of us have overflowing email IN boxes, however, so I recommend keeping this email tribe to just a few members. Even just one other person can make a big difference in accountability!
4. Create your own solution: What other ways can you think of to effectively and efficiently share daily intentions?

I have a challenge for each of us today: to set today’s intention to begin or renew the practice of setting and sharing our daily intention. I hope to see you online!

Write Your Way to Weight Loss

You’ve tried it all before - counted calories, joined a weight-loss group, and exercised until you could hardly walk. And even if you succeed in dropping a couple of inches, the pounds seem to come back faster than they left.

Does anything really work? According to study results from Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, keeping a food diary is the best predictor of actual weight loss. A food diary is a written log of all the food that you intake each day. The diary can give you insight into your eating patterns. But, it only works if you stick to a few specific guidelines.

Judi Sheppard Missett, founder and CEO of Jazzercise, Inc., offers these suggestions for keeping a food diary.

• Log everything. That’s right. Record everything that you eat – from the handful of peanut M&Ms off your co-workers desk to the three bites of macaroni & cheese you eat from your kids’ plates. If you don’t have paper handy, then scratch it out on a napkin. When you actually see every morsel that you’ve eaten recorded on a page, you may be surprised at the volume of food you’ve ingested in a given day.

• Keep track of the details. Write down the time you ate, the food that you consumed, the location where you ate (i.e. – your car, your desk at work), and your feelings. Logging your feelings can be a helpful tool. You may find that you reach for crunchy snacks when you’re stressed or creamy treats when you’re sad. Then, you can determine some alternate ways to cope with these emotions that don’t involve food.

• Stick with it. Keep your food journal for a minimum of three consecutive days. Include at least one weekend day in your food journal, as your weekend habits may be vastly different from workdays. After these few days, you may begin to notice patterns. From there, you may wish to continue your food journal until you’ve reached your goal weight.

• Be proactive. Once you’ve noticed patterns in your food diary, take some proactive steps. If you find that you constantly celebrate with food, then choose another way to reward yourself for your next success, such as a manicure or massage. If you notice that you eat from the vending machine between 2 – 4 p.m., then toss some nuts and dried fruits into a desk drawer for your mid-afternoon slump.

• Write it down first. Once you’ve had some success with keeping your food diary, you may want to step-up your tactics to another level. The next time you’re tempted to reach for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, grab your notebook and pen instead. Commit to five minutes of writing down your feelings. During the course of writing, you may be able to identify some emotions – anxiety, guilt, sadness, or even hunger. After the five minutes is up, if you’re still craving Chunky Monkey, then go ahead and have a reasonable portion. But, in many cases, you may just save yourself from mindlessly ingesting 500-plus calories.

This post is compliments of Jazzercise, Inc.