BE A Rainmaker

Have you given thought to perhaps how valuable an employee you are where you are ? Could you merely clock in and out because you have mouths to feed and be nothing more ? When you took those first footsteps into the marketplace you probably didn't anticipate a great depression ,downsizing ,outsourcing or the economy getting the slammers.The floundering cash flow that has your company put everybody out on the streets ? That , despite the years industriously promoting and tooling yourself up the career ladder and arming yourself with a sharp set of skills - only to find out your company can't afford to keep you around because it's coffers have gone dry. So what do you do now? Here's an idea to ponder . Considering that the wealth of a firm can be it's employees , imagine how valuable you would be if you tripled your firm's revenue this year. Or how about tripling the traffic to their website ? How about saving the company from the hangman of dropping sales ? What's the likelihood your company keeps pace or even stays in business? Can you afford to sit back , stay oblivious and watch your hair turning instantly white with the breaking news that the doors to it's colossal entrance are closing forever in days! In today's ever-changing marketplace, you need to be more than being what you are - you could be the rudder that turns the ship around from shipwreck! LEARN the tools a company needs to use to beat back it's competitors. Take a good look at yourself and ask yourself : Could I be a rainmaker ? Have I ever thought of being a rainmaker ? What have I done for the company ? Now is the time to be the Obi Wan Kenobi for your company!

May the force be with you !

What Have You Done For Your Company?


Cally Rao

4 Ways to Prevent Burnout

Not long ago a friend murmured that I was a workaholic.I was startled.Hearing this outside my own head,it slammed me as a dart to my liver.It was shocking to think that getting hooked on work though it was work that I loved could be a problem. As I stepped back and looked at it hard it became apparent that my addiction was punishing family life and edging me towards burnout.Admitting it was hard but I had to and when I did I knew what I needed to do:less!

That's almost true for a lot of us because we are all engaged in work in the marketplace,giving out in countless ways - as directors,partners,shakers and movers,parents,friends,colleagues,children,teachers,artists and caregivers.This work never ends.But we must never overlook that we need to be renewed and recharged.And there's no better time then when our instincts or spider sense or heart beckons us to get out there.Out of cocoons and ivory towers.Here's a to do list that's helped me.

Stay Out Of The Supermarket
Go to farmers' markets whenever you can and smell those freshly harvested produce.Eat outside more often,picnic out.Get a straw hat,fresh bread,cheese,fruits, wine and a friend or two or a group.

Go Outside At Night

Walk around after dark.Admire the stars or how the clouds look in moonlight.Walking outdoors,listening to the waves or hearing voices from long ago from the books in your nearest library, memories or just thinking of your loved ones sharpens senses and ignites passions.

Find A Hayfield Or Hill

Atop a hill drink in of nature's splendors whilst everyone else is rushing headlong into their schedules and pursuits. The meadows, the valleys, rushing winds and swooping birds! And yes, a hayfield.When hay has been cut,drive by.Stop the car, just sit there and through rolled down windows,breathe in the sweet,green fragrances while watching the birds holding circus over fields vanishing into the inking darkness.

Let Go!

Paralysed by the pains or suffering of family and friends and colleagues and classmates or your own struggles?Give yourself some sanctuary,breathing room everyday and you'll find yourself better able to face up to the odds and things.With renewed energy you are wiser in reaching out in ways small and large to change our family's courses and the world.

Prevent Burnout

Cally Rao

Start Furthering Your Dream

This recession has laid bare the mettle that's in a lot of us. People have lost jobs, their businesses, their financial nests and in some cases their feelings of self-worth. They are afraid and furious. They feel victimized by events, by peers and even government.But they keep afloat on a lifeboat of debt and hope waiting for help to airlift them out of the mess or to be rescued by friends at church or someone. They bunker down and hope expecting that things will turn out for the better. But life's lonely in a bunker. It's a tendency that skyrockets during a downturn.

Remember an old proverb 'Iron Sharpens Iron'? Are you using stone to do the job? Life begins by refusing to see yourself as a victim, that you are instead captain of your own ship. Shipwrecks and navigating through typhoons are rites of passage and you don't get overwhelmed by anything. Don't give up and wait to be rescued-the hypothermia that that puts you into can kill.Stop waiting for rescue.You must push out onto new rafts,horizons and endeavors.You must press on."Can't act.Can't sing. Slightly bald.Can dance a little."was a film company's verdict on Fred Astaire's screen test.If the bunker beckons don't smell the flowers but go out instead and be an entrepreneur.Hustle,retool,take responsibility to remake yourself.Start an income stream.Take risks.Bring to mind the soulless grind that work had been.Start something. Put your faith in your talent and boot for your dream."Champions aren't made in the gyms. champions are made from something they have deep inside of them-a desire,a dream,a vision.They have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill," said Muhammad Ali,one of the most famous boxers of our times.

Walk into the future!Not let it become inebriated by the waiting game and die of cirrhosis of hoping help will come somehow.

Further That Dream

DIG Into Life's Second Chances

From the time he was eight years old Dave Thomas wanted to own a restaurant. Orphaned since birth he didn't have a stable home life neither did he excel at studies.But he clung to his goal. When he was 12 he got a job at a diner. He worked his way up to eventually become a restaurant manager. He turned around four failing restaurants and became an executive with that chain.Years later after putting together the necessary capital he opened his own eatery and named it Wendy after his own daughter.Today he has in excess of 3000 restaurants."I didn't set my sights on owning 1000 restaurants or even ten," he says."I just concentrated on making one profitable,then another,one step at a time."

Too often people set a difficult task,then give up.Goals should be focused on what is achievable."At some point in our life nearly all of us yearn for a second chance to do that one thing we always dreamed about,but never got around to trying. Most of us won't take the leap of faith that separates dreaming from doing.There's no school like "just doing it"!Life is full of second chances to move from failure to success,from humdrum to the fast lanes by moving on to a new endeavour or changing attitudes. Struck down by illness or catastrophe, assailed by grief or failure,dealt a raw deal or betrayed-in the words of Martha Graham:"You cannot give up what you are". The longing to beat the odds,to triumph and come through has what carried men and women into history.Strap yourself with a life jacket of books,doers,faith,purpose and a dream. Stop spending life waiting for things to happen or sell your tomorrows' soul to the 'someday' devil. Write down your goals. Outline what you want out of life and you can find ways and means to rally resources and enthusiasms.Keep your goal in focus.

Take individual steps. Never fear failure. Persist, persist, press on! Along the way to any goal you will be confronted with obstacles and dead ends and you would want to quit.Push that thought away and get back to work.Conquer the mountain in stages.At the end of the day it's what you DO,not when,how or whether you did it.George Bernard Shaw was 94 when one of his plays was first produced.Benjamin Franklin was a newspaper columnist at 16 and a framer of the constitution at 81.

Cling to your goal.

A Second Chance

Cally Rao

Why Not Just Wait..... ?

In Asian folklore,the mouse deer is ascribed mythical wit.One day he reached a river bank on a journey but alas found the river creeping with crocodiles and absolutely unsafe and too wide to cross by wading across either.But he had to think out of the situation to get across to the other side of the river bank.So he called out to the first croc saying that he had been asked to count the number of his kin in the river..if only Mr Croc can arrange for them to string out,he could do that in a snap and so the the crocs assembled one after another. Off jumped the mouse deer onto the back of the first croc counting "1","2","3" and soon he was on the other side of the river bank.And immediately after he waved and vanished. When the crocs found out that they had been had they raged the river dry and gnashed with such fury that almost all of them lost their dentures!

If you are in your 30's and it's another twenty years to go before you plan to retire to a life of leisure sitting on the beach sipping margaritas, have you thought of the croc infested financial waters in between?The future is not a level playing field and is visited with it's own demons,challenges,fears and anxieties.Can something come by and relieve you of your financial nests or fry your strategies? What about the real threat of being made financially homeless-isn't it both a weak weapon and option to be assumptive that friends or self correcting market forces or the government will be there to rescue one?Will Rogers said it right:'Even if you're on the right track,you'll get run over if you just sit there.'

Perhaps it's time to put together a toolbag and seek out to resource your income generating sources.I remember reading an article years ago in the Reader's Digest that said 75% of us have a deep down clamor and yearning to do our own thing.Write a book or..but we never or don't get to.Unless it's a better option to sleepwalk into the future here is an option that has helped me come to terms with what Will Rogers said.

Strike out!


Think Out Of The Box!

Strike Out!

To Your Dreams,

Cally Rao