Debra Kasowski

EPISODE 139 – The Art of Allowing NOT Resisting

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Have you ever look around your world only to be frustrated that things are not turning out how you wanted them to? Everything around you is a product of your choices. Poor choices result from negative thinking. People often take for granted how their thoughts and feelings impact their results. People tend to look at their current state instead of what is possible. Some people will look at the world with abundance and gratitude whereas others will look at the world from a place of scarcity and lack. You get more of what you are focused on so if you look at the world and you see abundance, there will always be more than enough. The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for. The opposite is true. You can focus on the lack of and that you feel there is not enough and you will not be able to be satisfied as there will never be enough.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of allowing is “to permit or give consideration to” whereas, resistance is “an opposing of retarding force”. You can let things unfold once you have put in your efforts or you can force things to happen. When you force things to happen, it is like pushing a round peg into a square hole – the struggle becomes very real. You may become frustrated and give up when challenges come your way.

You get what you put into and expect in your life. If you are not expecting SUCCESS and events to go as you want, you will not get success and things will not go as planned. You are not ALLOWING opportunities and success to occur. You are putting up walls of resistance with your mind. Self-defeating thoughts are resistant thoughts. Negative thinking is problem focused, therefore, blocking any solutions from being available. When you are thinking positive you are open and receptive to new ideas and you are more likely to implement a new idea. To attract what you want in your life and business, you must be OPEN and RECEPTIVE. When people are in a place of lack and scarcity they are NOT OPEN, they resist allowing positive outcomes. They are focused on not having and not seeing the possibility for the future. This resistance can hold people back from what they really want.

A person who offers resistance is often close-minded and this prevents them from seizing new opportunities that come their way. A person who likes to be the devil’s advocate questioning and gaining different perspectives is doing so to seek information and not necessarily resisting. If you are a resistor, you tend to come up with excuses and reasons why you can’t do something. Your choices are based on fears and self-limiting beliefs. It is one thing to ask questions and learn more and another to come up with the rationale for why something is impossible. When you ask questions, you learn what is possible.

To receive, you need to start shifting your thoughts and feelings to positive ones in which you will feel when you receive it. Start anticipating your successes! When you prime your state of mind to be one of abundance and positivity, you will be more likely to take actions required to get the results you want. You will be open to exploring and seek abundance.

You have an opportunity to choose which thoughts you allow and which thoughts you reject. Those thoughts impact how you feel. The actions you take are impacted by your feelings and emotions. Your emotions are there to guide you. Align with how you wish to be and feel I the process.

Allowing is about being happy in the here and now! Allowing others to be who they are without you getting upset about it and letting it impact your happiness and desires. You cannot change other people you can only change your responses to them. Allow others to make their own choices as you are only responsible for your choices. You can educate and encourage but ultimately, they are in charge of themselves. Allow yourself to love others for who they are and not how you wish them to be. Meet them where they are at. You can plant the seed of what you see is possible for them. It has been my experience that people flourish when people see something in them that they cannot see.

Relieve yourself of the internal pressures and allow things to be as they need to be and trust the process and detach from outcomes. The more you relax and the less resistance you have the more you allow things to happen. When you push or force things to happen they do not happen.

To Allow –  knowing it is going to happen. Be OPEN and RECEPTIVE to the opportunities coming your way. Put in the work, plan for, and EXPECT success!

We would love to have you subscribe to the Success Secrets newsletter on my website at www.debrakasowski.com where you’re going to get my just release FREE e-book about the 21 Habits High Achievers Kick to Achieve Success. I would love to hear about this podcast has impacted your life. E-mail me at Debra@DebraKasowski.com. Thank you for listening to The Millionaire Woman Show where we talk about leadership, business, and human potential to help you live rich from the inside out. Subscribe to The Millionaire Woman Show. Share it with Your Friends. Give us a 5-star rating!

DEBRA KASOWSKI, BScN CEC is an award-winning best-selling author, transformational speaker, blogger, and Certified Executive Coach. She has a heart of a teacher and is certified in Appreciative Inquiry and Emotional Intelligence. Her writing has been published in a variety of print and online magazines. Debra Kasowski International helps executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations boost their productivity, performance, and profits. It all starts with people and passion. Sign up the Success Secrets Newsletter and get your free e-book download today! www.debrakasowski.com

EPISODE 138 – Make It Difficult to Duplicate with Jerry Bigam

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Jerry Bigam
President & CEO Kinnikinnick Foods Inc.     www.kinnikinnick.com 
Graduated from U of A with BA in economics.
Held senior positions in economic development and planning in both the
Alberta and Saskatchewan governments.
Established economic development consulting firm that owned and managed
a variety of companies including an auto dealership (GMC), trucking
company, graphic arts manufacturing operation, furniture manufacturing,
and an architectural signage company.
Founder, Director and President of Westcan Malting in Alix, Alberta. (now
Rahr Malting) one of the largest maltings in the world
Founder, Director and President of Ceapro Developments – a specialty oat
processing plant with products for the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, human and
animal health. Took company public in 1997.
Acquired interest in Kinnikinnick Foods Inc. in 1998 – a local Edmonton
based gluten-free specialty food manufacturer.
Acquired the remainder of Kinnikinnick Foods Inc. in 2005. This business is
one of the largest gluten-free food manufacturers in North America with new
markets developing overseas. The company produces a broad range of bakery
products that are all gluten free, dairy free, sesame free, soy free, peanut free
and tree nut free. The company operates one of the largest “Free From”
food allergy operations in the world from 2 plants in Edmonton totaling
150,000 square feet.

Board Member of Alberta Food processors since 1999
Board Member of Edmonton Agricultural CEO Club
Board Member Food Processors Logistics
Chairman of the Alberta Food Processors from 2005 to 2009
Recipient of Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee Medal

Are You Blocking Your Success Intentionally?

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Do you ever feel that you have more demands on your time than you have ever had before? You are working on getting more done with less time and sometimes things are falling through the cracks impacting your productivity and performance. You need to start guarding your time and treating it as a commodity or treasure. Time is not something you get back. By guarding your time, you can focus on what is important to you. What is your biggest priority right now? Are you spending the majority of your time focused on this area? Each day you should be focused on your priority or what Brian Tracy refers to as “Eat that Frog” – doing the hardest thing first. If you get the hardest thing done first, you will feel accomplished and get many other tasks done. If you only accomplished the one BIG thing, you accomplished a BIG thing and not too beat yourself up.

Keep a Time Log

People are often unaware of where their time goes. Complete a time log for the next 3-5 days. Keep track of where you are spending your time and how long a typical task takes. By track your time, you will identify where time is used purposefully and whether is it wasted. According to Parkinson’s Law explained on Wikipedia, the law is “an adage that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” If you give yourself 20 minutes to file, you will fill the 20 minutes. If you block off 3 hours you will fill up the 3 hours. Blocking time allows you fill the time allotted.

Focus on What IS Important

Time blocking allows you to focus on what is important to you during a specific time frame. Get rid of the to-do list and put the items on the list in your calendar. Suddenly, you make them your commitments. Items you place importance to. Assign tasks to a particular block of time. Be realistic with your time; we often underestimate the amount of time it takes to complete a task. Organize your errands to get things done in one block of time so you can dedicate a big block of time to things that require more of your attention.

Be Intentional with Your Time

At the beginning and end of each day, allow for 15-20 minutes of planning and reflection time. If you are always going from one task to the next, you are missing out on having time to vision where you want to be and the lifestyle you want. Block off the time you want off for long weekends or summer or family vacations. When you do some forward planning, you can create the lifestyle you want and work towards a goal. Email tends to be something we react to because it is usually what others want from us versus what we need from them. Block off time to attend to emails. Communicate your business hours. People often think because you work from home you must not be working and if you are you have the flexibility to run errands and take care of extra requests. You may even put in your email messaging that you check email at certain times of the day and if you are required outside of these times that a person should phone. You may also consider blocking off your hardest work for when you feel you do your best work – morning, afternoon, or evening. Don’t forget to block off leisure time too, otherwise, it tends to be pushed to the side.

Put Your Oxygen Mask on First

Remember the safety advice announced at the beginning of your flight – put your own oxygen mask on first. You cannot help other people if you are not taking care of you. Schedule in date nights with your spouse/partner and separate ones with each of your children as well as family time. It is more about quality time versus quantity of time. It is too easy to get caught up in over scheduling everyone that you cannot even have one family meal together.

Eliminate Distractions

Turn off your cell phones or shut down your social media apps and email and app notifications. You can easily give away your time surfing the internet or checking out what everyone else on social media is doing. Keep your office space free from clutter and other distractions.

Be careful not to squeeze too much into your day. Be realistic with your SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely). Time expands to what we allow. Allow for some flexibility as we know life happens and we need some time built in to not react but to respond with intention. Keep sticky notes in hand to jot down thoughts and reminders so you can capture fleeting thoughts and get back to them. It is best to capture the idea while it is at the forefront.

Start blocking your time with intention to get to the success you desire versus sabotaging it. It is your time – protect it and use it carefully. Put a dollar value on your time and you may start to value on it even more. Wasted time is wasted money, time, and attention if not used with purpose.

How important are your goals?

DEBRA KASOWSKI, BScN CEC is an award-winning best-selling author, transformational speaker, blogger, and Certified Executive Coach. She has a heart of a teacher and is certified in Appreciative Inquiry and Emotional Intelligence. Her writing has been published in a variety of print and online magazines. Debra Kasowski International helps executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations boost their productivity, performance, and profits. It all starts with people and passion. Sign up the Success Secrets Newsletter and get your free e-book download today! www.debrakasowski.com

EPISODE 137 – Build Your People to Build Your Business

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“Whatever good things we build end up building us.” – Jim Rohn

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF81ZRxPavg[/embedyt]

Chances are you started your business to provide a solution to the marketplace and make money. As your business grows, you learn quickly that you cannot be all things to all people. You may hire or contract people to provide a service for you. No matter how much you strategize you need to know that to build your business you must focus on building your people. As your people grow so will your company.

One of the greatest challenges and opportunities is people building. What I love the most is being able to witness to the transformation and growth of people – doing things they never thought possible for them.

Identify Areas of Strengths and Potential

Do not assume that your employees know their strengths. They may be aware of some of their strengths and not aware of others.  You have heard the phrase, “can’t see the forest through the trees.” It is a phrase that explains that if you look too closely at the details you can miss the big picture. Those strengths are the ones that occur so naturally that they do not even see them as strengths; it is a part of who they are. When you can speak to what they are capable of doing, you start to plan seeds of encouragement. Who they have yet to become should have some focus NOT just what they do for you. By speaking to their potential and offering support, you increase their self-confidence, motivation, and loyalty. You may be one of the few people who has ever believed in them or took the time to be interested in their goals and what they want.

Provide Meaningful Feedback

Research shows that most people leave positions because they do not feel valued or appreciated for the skills and abilities they bring to the workplace. It does not mean you douse them with praise because doing so will come off as insincere. They may begin to wonder if you want something from them instead of being interested in them for who they are as a person.

There is a way to deliver feedback with impact. No one wants unsolicited advice so ask for permission to share your observations or input. People are less defensive if you ask first as now the conversation is two-way which feedback can be shared both ways. Feedback needs to be thoughtfully delivered to ensure the person you are giving feedback to remains in tact as a person. They need to be able to trust that you have their best interests at heart.

According to Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen’s book, Thanks for the Feedback, there are 3 forms of feedback: Appreciation, Coaching, and Evaluation.  You need to ensure that the person you are providing feedback to understands which feedback you are delivering. You need to provide more praise than criticism for people to have a rapport with you. When correcting or providing feedback, avoid the use of “Why did you…” or “How come you…”. These statements come across as accusatory and put people on the defensive. They become more upset with you that the feedback you are delivering. You are better to ask open-ended questions to learn more about their perspective on the situation and challenge your own assumptions. If they provide feedback to you, all you have to say is, “Thank you I will consider it” and nothing more. There are times when providing feedback can feel uncomfortable. Before reacting, give yourself time to thinking about it so you may respond appropriately. Take time to reflect on the feedback and see if it something you find useful or not. If you found it helpful, great – integrate it into your practice. If not, don’t take it personally and move on.

Focus on the Positive

When one of your employees or customers starts to complain or vent, hear them out. Thank them for them for expressing themselves – reframe the conversation. Ask for them to explain what the ideal situation would be. Use this as a learning opportunity. There may even be some quick action steps that you could take from the recommendations and they will feel as if someone heard them and valued their insight. They will feel more empowered to take actions toward the common goals.

Offer Learning Opportunities

There are many ways for your employees to learn new things. You can hire a coach, gift a book, or send them to a course or let them attend a workshop or conference. Investing in your people is important. They can build their network and share some of the golden nuggets that they have learned.

Provide Opportunity to Stretch and Advance their Skills

As new opportunities come up, see if you can involve or delegate some tasks to your employees so that they can grow and learn new skill sets. When people are learning and growing, they look forward to their roles and start thinking about how to integrate what they already know to the role.

Building people is one of the most valuable investments you can make. As you work with them to grow and change, you help change the world – even if it is your world and your bottom line. The ripple effect will extend to all who interact with them.

How do you build your people?

Special Announcement – New Book and Podcast Schedule.

We would love to have you subscribe to the Success Secrets newsletter on my website at www.debrakasowski.com where you’re going to get my just release FREE e-book about the 21 Habits High Achievers Kick to Achieve Success. I would love to hear about this podcast has impacted your life. E-mail me at Debra@DebraKasowski.com. Thank you for listening to The Millionaire Woman Show where we talk about leadership, business, and human potential to help you live rich from the inside out. Subscribe to The Millionaire Woman Show. Share it with Your Friends. Give us a 5-star rating!

DEBRA KASOWSKI, BScN CEC is an award-winning best-selling author, transformational speaker, blogger, and Certified Executive Coach. She has a heart of a teacher and is certified in Appreciative Inquiry and Emotional Intelligence. Her writing has been published in a variety of print and online magazines. Debra Kasowski International helps executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations boost their productivity, performance, and profits. It all starts with people and passion. Sign up the Success Secrets Newsletter and get your free e-book download today! www.debrakasowski.com

EPISODE 136 – Stop! No Excuses Allowed

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“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” George Washington Carver

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01VG9oPn56w[/embedyt]

One habit you are going to want to break free from is the habit of making excuses. Excuses are the long litany of reasons or rationale as to why you did not take action or do what you said you were going to do. Excuses defend your behaviours. When you fall on excuses, you are avoiding taking ownership of your life and responsibility for the outcomes and results that you want to get. It always seems to be someone else’s fault why they are not getting the success that they want. They play the victim. They often claim that their situation is different and no one understands what they are going through. Excuses are a way of avoiding reality and looking in the mirror.

Does this sound like you? If you catch yourself making excuses, STOP right there.

Do you want different results?

Yes!

You need to take 100% responsibility for your results. No excuses allowed.

You will find a way to figure it out. If you need to ask for help, you will ASK!

The excuses you are making tend to be due to FEAR!

Yes, that’s right. FEAR and there is a pay off for not taking action.

Some of the most common fears are:

  • Fear of Success
  • Fear of Failure
  • Fear of Rejection
  • Fear of Uncertainty
  • Fear of Responsibility
  • Fear of Change

Your fears hold you back from what you really want. If you allow your fears to hold you hostage, you cannot experience success. Your passion for what you want needs to be greater than you fear to step into your potential. When your fear is greater than your passion, you will make bad judgments, lack the self confidence to take responsibility to take charge of your life and may even live with regrets.

Start by taking a look at the excuses you have been making. What are they?

Not sure, listen to these excuse starters…

“I don’t have enough time…”

“I do not have enough education OR I am not smart enough.”

“It’s not the right time.”

“I don’t feel like it…OR I am not inspired to do it.”

”I do not know how to get started… OR how to do it”

“I am too old or too young.”

“I do not have the money.”

Challenge your excuses! Are you making excuses or do you have a REAL reason for something not turning out as you wished?

We all have the same amount of time in a day; it all depends on how you allocate the time you have available.

You can learn new information by researching and reading, watching YouTube Videos, taking a course, and asking others who already know how to do what you want to do.

Where do you prioritize your money? There is a tendency to focus your money where you feel is most important. Can you find a way to change the priorities assigned to your money?

When you feel its not the right time, you will note that there is a lack of resources, information, or confidence in your abilities.

When age is the excuse, it is due to a lack of confidence.

Whether you feel like it or not, you need to do it, Otherwise, you will always have a reason for not getting the results you want.

Focus on the here and now! What is in your control? You cannot change the past.

Stop comparing your situation to others. Don’t worry about what others are doing. Everyone is on their own journey and has different passions. Avoid comparing your situation or circumstance with others.

Focus on the solutions and opportunities in front of you and coming your way.

Look at your situation from different perspectives before making a decision.

Tap into your strengths. You are more talented and capable than you give yourself credit for.

You will find a way! No excuses allowed!

Excuses do not allow you to move ahead or grow in the process.

“If you have passion, there is no need for excuses because your enthusiasm will trump any negative reasoning you might come up with. Enthusiasm makes excuses a nonissue.” Wayne Dyer

Special Announcement – New Book and Podcast Schedule.

We would love to have you subscribe to the Success Secrets newsletter on my website at www.debrakasowski.com where you’re going to get my just release FREE e-book about the 21 Habits High Achievers Kick to Achieve Success. I would love to hear about this podcast has impacted your life. E-mail me at Debra@DebraKasowski.com. Thank you for listening to The Millionaire Woman Show where we talk about leadership, business, and human potential to help you live rich from the inside out. Subscribe to The Millionaire Woman Show. Share it with Your Friends. Give us a 5-star rating!

DEBRA KASOWSKI, BScN CEC is an award-winning best-selling author, transformational speaker, blogger, and Certified Executive Coach. She has a heart of a teacher and is certified in Appreciative Inquiry and Emotional Intelligence. Her writing has been published in a variety of print and online magazines. Debra Kasowski International helps executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations boost their productivity, performance, and profits. It all starts with people and passion. Sign up the Success Secrets Newsletter and get your free e-book download today! www.debrakasowski.com