Power to Prosperity

http://podcast.pauldsouza.com/

Power Play # 32 - Get 1000 Fans

Love this interview on Seth Godin. He is very grounded in his approach to using web technologies to fulfill ones life purpose. The market has changed, have you? Get real and be the best in the world at what you do. Do not be a "wondering generality" but be a "meaningful specific". Brilliant!

Power Play # 31 - Be yourSELF!

I just enjoyed watching a few videos of Victor Antonio, a Motivational Speaker. This guy is cool, what got me was his passion and love for what he does for a living.  That alone is electric and worthy of attention.  He is very energized and animate, but boy is is real.  This blog post is to shed light on that idea.  Victor has figured out what it takes to be Victor!!

On Youtube.com you will find many videos on him and one of them is a Documentary, check that one out too. You will get behind the scenes to a very real person speaking about himself, his family and the reality that is him.  Love his openness. 

Check it out - get moved to be more of who you really are.  That is the biggest give Victor gives us.

Check this out ... I like this technique, it has NLP written all over it, but very powerful and very useful for everyday living.

Power Play # 30 - Shift The Criteria for Success

My friend Rajesh Setty is at it again! He has published another eBook today called Defiant! - what's cool is that he made it free for us to download.  There are no registration requirements or things to sign up for to have access to this eBook - check it out http://www.activegarage.com/projects/defiant

One thing that stood out, while I was grazing through the book was this idea of Shifting the Criteria for how "Others" evaluate the value you offer them.  What makes this so powerful is that he offers us insight on a "game changing" play we can make to set us apart from all the others we would typically be competing with.

In today's economy that playing field could be very crowded, with so many people being laid off.  And another concentration factor that I have noticed; the many Forced Entrepreneurs that are responding to the market and offering solutions the problems people have.  Shifting the Criteria how people value the offer you make them is a game changer.

This is a different kind of book ... because it offers you an opportunity to design and build a powerful strategy for success. While Defiant! is about strategy he offers us 80 Tips and Ideas that will help.  There was one that stood out and resonated with me ... it is this idea of taking care of ourselves.  Check out Tip # 35 A letter from David Zinger, its page on 61.

Congrats Rajesh and Thanks for this gift to all of us.  I love it.

Power Play # 29 - Do YOUR Thing!!

I recently met Donna Browning of Sweaty Bands (www.sweatybands.com) and loved her story of doing her thing!  She is living her dream, doing what she loves to do and energizing a host of people along the way.

She started Sweaty Bands from a need she found herself.  Let me tell you, she is one tough mama!! and has a career doing exercise related activity, from Personal Training to Yoga, it was during these workouts, that she was getting so irritated with her hair falling on her face, that she decided to find a solution.  And a solution she did find.  Donna designed head bands with super utility and style.  She improved on a product that been around for decades, but took it to the next level and made them much more effective and totally cool and exciting. 

What makes her story additionally powerful is that she is not outsourcing her manufacturing to far away lands of cheap labor and other costs. Instead her business model leverages her friends and others locally in the Cincinnati area to manufacture these head bands for her.  She is keeping jobs here and is giving people an opportunity to be productive right here at home.   What she likes about this model is that it makes her feel connected with people in ways she did not expect, some of these women have come back and thanked her for the opportunity to save their home, with the recession we are in - every dollar earned is put to good use.

Congrats Donna and we wish you all the very best.  Here is a pic of Donna with my wife, Shino; that bought a few of them which she will be sending to Tokyo to our friends that do Yoga there.

Sweaty Bands make great gifts!!

Launching the Book at the Selling Power Leadership Conference in November 2009 - Try to make it. http://short.to/ndiy

Burritos without Borders - Met the VP of Opps for this cool restaurant chain - http://www.currito.com/

Moods are everything AND you can control them - http://is.gd/2kE3v

What Recession - One man's Stand - http://short.to/mwgy

Where is the harmony in your life?

Had the opportunity to spend most of the day with Uncle Jim and Aunt Katie in Kentucky today.  I always love chatting with them, they ground my thinking in so many ways.  One of the many conversations we had was around the subject of the market and our speculation of when things might come back ... which led to a conversation on "Come back to what?"

The good news is that we were in agreement, that the market should come back, be more robust and enable people to make money and have better lives, but in a way that was healthy.

They spoke of some one they know who was living the "New American Dream" that just got shattered.  A $800,000 home, boats, cars, two jobs and lots of bills.  Well both husband and wife lost their $100K+ jobs over a two year period and sort of lost most of it.

The story ends with the husband finding a job with Toyota and the wife get a job that pays 25% of what she was making before, they now live in a much smaller house ... BUT they are in a sense, glad that it all happened.  What they say is that they came out on the other side - living happier lives, feeling more in love with each other and overall in a much healthier place. With that wake up call they now focus on what is important; the joy, the harmony the love in the their lives.

All's I'm going to say to this is ... Amen!