kellersbraincloset-blog

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Really good photoshop work!

🐱:(source)

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PLN Update - Business Model Presentation and Thesis

My original goal for Business Model Presentation and Thesis was to create a business plan, test the business plan and presentation, and tweak what needed to be tweaked.  I can’t believe how far I’ve come on my business plan and as a professional.  A year ago, I had an idea.  Today, I have a year of research and development behind that idea and I have a physical plan to pitch to potential investors.  I’ve presented the plan to family, friends and my professors and continue to make tweaks as I go along.    

From this course, I’ve learned the importance of knowing your audience and molding your presentation to fit that audience.  I learned how important it is to present your elevator pitch and presentation and get feedback.  I had the opportunity to look back at my SMARTStart canvas and see how far I’ve come and whether or not I’m still on course.  I also learned how to create a business model in both written and visual form.  The more I look at my research the more engrained it becomes.  This becomes beneficial when I’m asked questions about my venture that I don’t have in my presentation. This course wasn’t introducing new material.   In general, this course furthered my development in various areas.  Taking a look at everything as a whole.  Putting the puzzle pieces together to create a finished piece.  

Looking back, the most impactful lesson I learned this month was from the video by Barbara Corcoran about turning negativity into motivation.  It’s easy to judge a book from the cover and think successful people fell into it.  But in reality, there is a lot of hard work and hurdles to overcome.  To hear about her struggles and life path was real.  And I appreciate her ability to share these struggles.  

This last Mastery post is a bitter sweet moment for me.  While I’m happy to have my free time back to pursue my goals, I will also miss the support I had from teachers and classmates.  It’s been a long road and I really enjoyed the ride.

Barbara Corcoran - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F13isVtzNO4

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PLN Update - Business Model Implementation and Management

According to my personal development timeline, my original goals for Business Model Implementation and Management was to bring my business plan together, create a plan of action via my SELF journal, and to develop a management strategy and define which will best fit my business environment and business model.

This has been an interesting class.  While we are still working towards our ultimate goals, this last month has felt as though all the small, but important subjects are being covered.  As I reflect back at the last few months of classes, I wish the topics in this course were covered in other courses and we could spend more time with finance.  The feedback loop could be added to Business Model Development, Metrics could be split with Innovative Work Environment and Leadership into Mastery.  But I understand I’m not the only student.  

That being said, I did learn a lot in this last month.  I’m always pursuing ways to become a better leader at work and in my personal life.  Prior to this month I didn’t know so many leadership styles existed.  I gained insight into how some of the styles I don’t use could be helpful in certain situations and how some of the ones I do use could be detrimental in certain situations.  I learn about metrics and how to utilize them to improve a business for both customers and employees.  And lastly, I learn how to utilize a feedback loop to continue growing an idea or business.  Learning about how products and business have developed over time to become the success they are was fascinating.  Sometimes we only see the end product and never consider how many steps were taken to get to where it is.  

For me, the leadership information I learned was put into direct use at my current position and I will continue to pursue gaining more knowledge on how to improve my leadership skills throughout my life.  The feedback loop has opened my mind to more possibilities by allowing versions of my work to be seen before completion in order to lessen the amount of changes in the long run.  And while I haven’t used metrics yet, I do plan to when I start to move forward with my business.  This will help me save valuable time and money by understanding what is working and what isn’t.  

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Where can I get a cat like this? Might slips his harness in under 5 seconds.

#MAJA🐱🐾💖EXPLORING FAIRYWOOD🌳

(12 weeks) 🐈🍃

@samirafee

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What an amazing shot

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So true.

Pay attention to the things you are naturally drawn to. They are often connected to your path, passion, and purpose in life.

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Keep reading

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PLN Update - Innovative Work Environments

According to my personal development timeline, my original goals for Innovative Work Environments was to learn how innovation can benefit my company, incorporate innovation into the workplace, and how that can translate to our customers.

Prior to this class I didn’t pay much attention to workspace.  My favorite exercise was looking back at the various places I’ve worked and how those environments affected my productivity.  I also enjoyed taking a look at my current home office environment.  As I said before, I never paid much attention to these.  Now I notice a pattern of what works and what doesn’t and how, without realizing it, I created what my perfect work environment would look like.  Flexibility is the most important aspect for me.  And not just in the ability to physical change the space, but in the ability for me to change within that space.  I don’t like to be stuck in the same position and same chair all day long.  I also enjoy having different areas to move to when I need a change.   I’ve learned there is a direction connection between workplace environments and the success of a business.  And that you don’t need slides and large budgets to make a workplace better.  Most things can be incorporated at little to no additional cost with a little pre-planning.

When it comes to my business, I will be much more aware of the importance of the office area.  I will be spending a great deal of time at the office and it needs to feel like home and have the flexibility I need to keep pushing forward.  I’ve also put more thought into ways of creating more of a family atmosphere amongst workers.  I want my employees to have pride in their work.  Finding ways of celebrating that pride and making it known will only help further the business and the communal bond.

I’ve also learned about co-working spaces and I am trying to find ways to incorporate a co-working space into my business as another way to bring in revenue.  I believe it’s a perfect addition to the third space atmosphere I’m looking at creating.  I’ve come across another climbing gym that is doing something similar.  Their yoga room doubles as a conference room and their party room as another communal area.  They also have a workspace above the walls.  I could also utilize the tap room / café to have private parties and working events.  I also plan to look into having more windows and ways to transition from outside to inside the building.  Patio areas, garage doors that open up and let fresh air in, et cetera.

I haven’t completed my final assignment for this class, but I look forward to researching more way to bring innovation into my climbing facility.

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How to Accept Yourself

1. Focus on your positive qualities. It’s true that we can all improve in some ways – but start by finding your good qualities – and recognise that these are a major part of who you are.

2. Be aware of, and fight against, your negative self-talk. Negative self talk can quickly snowball and become an angry tirade against yourself – so you become your own worst critic and your own worst enemy. Instead, choose to respect yourself, to love, affirm and believe in yourself.

3. Don’t dwell on things you know you cannot change. We all have imperfections, weaknesses and flaws. They’re really not that crucial, and they’re not that big a deal. Try to keep them in perspective – and change what you CAN change.

4. Make your own decisions – don’t always look to others, and think that they know better … But choose to trust yourself.

5. Always try to do your best – as that’s all that is required. You’re a normal human being who’ll sometimes get it wrong. When you do, just forgive youself, then get up and move on.

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Things we don’t think about...

https://workdesign.com/2016/11/acoustics-open-office/

We talk about things we see and feel but what about what we hear.  In a work where open work spaces are taking over, how do we keep the voices of all our co-workers from our heads.  ADI Workplace Acoustics has a variety of options to keep sounds from bouncing off...well...everything!

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The agony of trying to unsubscribe | James Veitch

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#FunnyNotFunny

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PLN Update - Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs

According to my personal development timeline, my original goals for Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs was to develop my ventures branding, define my target market, and create a marketing plan.

I think this class, and a few others along the way, have helped me to meet my goal by further developing the target market for my business.  I thought this class would be the easiest class for me because I work in a marketing department as a Creative Director, boy was I wrong.  Although I struggled at first, I did thoroughly enjoy diving deeper into the companies I reached.  I learned so much about how easy it is for a company to veer off course if they don’t have a solid brand and marketing plan established.  I also learned how quickly power businesses can lose customers if they ignore PR aspects, like social media.  I learned how to write a press release and why they are important.  I learned how branding can overcome disruptions in the market.  I think the most important thing I learned is that social media is a powerful tool and that every generation uses that tool differently.  

When it comes to social media, I feel the material I learned has done more than educate me.  It has really opened my eyes to how people use social media.  I no longer look at it as a way to be unsocial and I know understand that it doesn’t have to rule your life.  Moving forward, I will stop looking at social media as something that is a necessary evil and start looking at the possibilities and connectivity it could bring to my brand.  I also plan to use the 5 levers for change as a starting point to both my business and my marketing strategy.  I’ve always planned for my venture to do good things in the community, help people reach their fullest potential and help veterans with mental and physical health issues.  What I didn’t think about was how to use those different pieces to build my brand.  In a way they do build the brand, but they are all separate ideas with no cohesion without some thought and planning.  

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I was reading about Alex Honnold today.  He is a free climber.  If you don’t know what that means you can take a look at this article.  Basically, he climbs cliffs without ropes or safety precautions.  I was watching an interview with him and he mentioned how people say he is reckless and how that angers him.  See he doesn’t climb with ropes to be reckless.  He does it to challenge himself.  If he didn’t think he could do it he wouldn’t.  And he doesn’t get lucky.  He trains like crazy with ropes until he is confident enough to do it without the rope.  

The reason why he gets frustrated when people call him reckless is because they are judging him.  They think he is seeking an adrenaline rush.  Honnold has the perfect answer to those who want to call him reckless, look in the mirror.  Honnold points out that we all engage in recklessness.  Whether it’s not eating properly or getting enough exercise.  To him, that is being more reckless than training for months to do something and then accomplishing it.  Kind of makes you think!

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Love these quotes!  Thanks for the share @bettercody

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Never judge a book by its cover.

I’m at a work conference in Indianapolis this week.  When I was registering I felt nothing be dread about having to come here.  No particular reason why.  I simply felt that it would be a boring city in the middle of nowhere with nothing much to do.  Boy was I wrong!  I’ve only been here two days and I love this place.  It’s still in the middle of nowhere, but you don’t think about it because there is so much to do.  The city is beautiful, the unique food options are incredible and the walking trails/bike trials and hands down the best I’ve experienced.  In the last two days I was reminded why you should never judge a book by its cover.