3 ideas for any woman trying to fund the next step of her business

3 ideas for any woman trying to fund the next step of her business3 ideas for any woman trying to fund the next step of her businessTheres really no talking aboutwhats next for your business withouttalking about the money needed to get there. But I find that often in the stories of how we made a major move to scale a business, to launch a new product, to take on a huge new client, to make something new we often talk about the fear, the inspiration, or the mindset without actually talking about thehow. And girl, do we need to talk about thehow.Often, thathowcomes down tohow did you fund that jump?Now, let me define funding for a second because, in this age of unicorn companies and billion-dollar valuations, the word funding has become synonymous with venture capital and startup costs. But thats not the case. Nor is it right for many business models. And just because youre not venture-backed and scaling to the hundred million user (or customer) mark, doesnt mean youre not doing somet hing valuable.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreFunding sources are wide and varied. There are SO many options and roads to take in buchung to take the next big step for your business. If youre looking to scale your company just a little bit, secure the funds to buy that extra equipment or boost some of your marketing efforts, youre most likely looking for working capital. Working capital is essentially the money needed to make a big move on your already established business (rather than the long-term capital required to start one). Popular sources for working capital include business loans, company grants, crowdfunding, personal capital, venture capital, online lending platforms (and more).Some of the business I admire most have made it big because they did what it took to get the capital for a risky expansion, the same expansion it took to put them on the map. However, when you re struggling with cash flow (which 61% of small business owners say that they areaccording to this Intuit QuickBooks survey), finding the capital to expand or grow in any way can be rough.As I look to make a major extension of my own business, Im actively exploring the ways to fund this huge step. Building outWOMAN ON, a live-event talk show, has major earning eignung for me and my team, but it also requires some serious startup costs. So, Ive been actively researching what my options are to acquire the necessary working capital.Here are some sources Ive been exploring for you to consider, tooCrowdfunding This is an interesting idea because it allows people who are loyal to your mission, and what youre passionate about, to help see your big ideas through. Your backers will get to help bring a product, idea, or launch to life in exchange for tiered awards and access. Because I have a large platform and audience, crowdfunding could make a lot of sense if I wanted to market to all of my friends and followers. Even without a platform, crowdfunding can be a viable and interesting option, provided you know how to nail an ongoing marketing campaign.QuickBooks Capital yall know I run my business on QuickBooks. So, Ive naturally gone deep on the ins and outs of its lending offering,QuickBooks Capital. This offering puts money right into the hands of small business owners who may have otherwise struggled to demonstrate their creditworthiness, and therefore, get access to the working capital they need to grow. Its an amazingly transparent process that shows you your options with no commitment with loans of up to $100k for a 12-month term available. If youre approved, the loan will fund in less than 2 business days, so much faster and easier than traditional business loans. Exploring this has been so clear and interesting to me because I seriously had no ideathis was even an option. Hello, possibilitySponsorship dollars This doesnt work for every business move or produc t, but because Ive built my business on brand partnerships and experiential, finding sponsorship money from brands to fund my show could be an interesting fit for both parties. Id have amazing brand partners to support my vision, and theyd have access and deep engagement with the community and content of their target audience that they wouldnt otherwise have.No matter what is next for your business, dont stop talking to people and exploring your options for the working capital needed to grow. Ask other business owners, ask your accountant or bookkeeper, ask family, ask the internet, ask me And youll find the solution that works best for you. When it comes to working capital theres definitely no one right way.

How to achieve goals the easy way (using the Kaizen approach)

How to achieve goals the easy way (using the Kaizen approach)How to achieve goals the easy way (using the Kaizen approach)In 2015, I set a New Years resolution to achieve the goal of waking up at 5 a.m. daily from January through to December.During the first week of January, I nailed it. I woke up at 5 a.m. - even 4 a.m. on some days - every single day that week. EasyOr was it?By February, my motivation and willpower started to drop off. Instead of waking up to my alarm at 5 a.m., I would hit the snooze button and stay in bed till 7 a.m.By March, I had given up on my new morning kenntnisse. I was back to my old habits of waking up after 5 a.m.Id failed to achieve my goal, but this wasnt the first time. 3 years prior, I had set the same New Years entscheidung and failed in each consecutive year leading up to this one.Maybe you can also relate to my struggles with inconsistency. Do you sometimes feel like its unnecessarily hard to achieve your goals and New years resolutions?Most imp ortantly, is therbeie an easier way to achieve your goals? An approach that is stress-free, foolproof and effective?Id like to share a strategy that has been working for me, which could also help you achieve your goals the easy way.But first, why can it be so hard to achieve your goals?Why is it so hard to achieve your goals?Research suggests that approximately 81 percent of New Years Resolutions fail (this ranges up to 92 percent). 1In other words, youre more likely to fail to achieve your goals or stick to new habits at least 8 times out of 10 than otherwise.The odds are leid in our favor and there are several reasons for this.These include lack of motivation and willpower, lack of clarity on the big picture, a poorly designed environment and so on.But, by far the biggest reason is this we focus too much on the goal and not enough on the ordnungsprinzips or habits required to achieve it.In other words A goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or dont sometime in the f uture. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, its a system. If youre waiting to achieve it someday in the future, its a goal.- Scott AdamsTo explain this better, imagine two people with weight loss goals - lets call them Ben and Lisa.Ben is primarily goal focused. Ben says that he wants to lose 35 pounds in 6 months.Every day Ben looks in front of the mirror, looking for signs of weight loss. Hes disappointed with his progress given his long hours spent running on the treadmill daily.After 3 months of an intensive exercise routine and strict diet plan, Ben finally gives up on his weight loss goal.Ben mentions that his current weight loss progress is much slower than expected.Bens obsession with the goal led him to do too much too quickly. It also created unrealistic and inflexible deadlines to achieve his goal creating the feelings of failure from little progress.This explains why Ben fai led to achieve his goal.What about Lisa?Unlike Ben, Lisa took a completely different approach. An easier way to achieve your goals using the Kaizen approach.Lets explore that now.The Kaizen approach for progressExcellence is not a destination it is a continuous journey that never ends.- Brian TracyFirst off, what exactly is Kaizen?Kaizen is the Japanese philosophy and practice of continuous improvement.Instead of making big changes all at once, the kaizen approach focuses on small improvements over time for big results.This idea was originally influenced by American management theorists during WWII, who focused on improving production efforts with little resources available.After the war, America brought in these experts to help rebuild the weakened Japanese factories. The Japanese took these ideas of continuous improvement and called it Kaizen.Since then, the Japanese have successfully used the Kaizen approach to rebuild their economy and grow several automobile giants including To yota and Honda.To better understand this, lets get back to Lisa in the previous example.Instead of choosing a goal-focused approach like Ben, Lisa chooses a Kaizen approach.Lisa says that her goal is to lose 35 pounds, but she immediately shifts her focus towards a system or habit to achieve this.Her system is to run on the treadmill for 30 minutes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday - and to eat three fruits daily.If she can stay consistent with this system, the likelihood of achieving her goal is higher than otherwise.But, thats not all she did.Using the Kaizen approach, Lisa decides to slowly build this system into her lifestyle through small continuous improvements over time.For example, during the first week, instead of immediately running 3 times a week for 30 minutes, Lisa runs for 5 minutes on a Friday.In week 2, Lisa runs for 5 minutes on a Friday and a Wednesday.In week 3, Lisa runs for 5 minutes on a Friday, Wednesday, and Monday.And so on. You get the drift.After 3 mont hs (remember Ben had already dropped out) Lisa was still consistent with her routine, improving her system little by little on a weekly basis.After 6 months, to her surprise, Lisas friends and colleagues started commenting on how much weight she had lost. After checking the scales, Lisa realized that her goal had been exceeded, even though she hadnt been thinking about it for monthsBy using a system focused Kaizen approach to achieve her weight loss goals, Lisa was able to break down a big goal into small sustainable changes that made consistent action easy.Its much easier to get going and overcome procrastination, if the task at hand is smaller.Heres how you can use Kaizen to achieve your goals How to achieve your goals using the Kaizen Approach.Remember my personal struggle with the morning routine that I shared with you in the introduction?In 2016, after years of failure, I used the Kaizen approach to build the habit of waking up at 5 a.m.Heres how you can do this too Step 1 Crea te a system to achieve your goals.What are the daily or weekly behaviors or habits that will help you achieve your goal as a by-product?For example, when I set a goal of reading 25 books a year, I developed a system of reading 20 pages a day.By setting my focus on reading 20 pages per day, my goal of reading 25 books a year would be a by-product of this habit.If you want to lose weight - just like the Lisa example - save more money or even start keeping a journal, simply create systems that will achieve your goal.Step 2 Breakdown the system into its smallest form.Now you want to think about the smallest version of your system i.e. an action or behavior with the least resistance and effort for you to get started on a daily basis.For example, instead of attempting to wake up at 5 am every day, I decided to only do this on Mondays during my first 2 weeks of this morning routine.When I started a reading habit, Id focus on reading just one page every other day.Before writing for this n ewsletter every Monday, I started off writing an article once every month and a half.The key here is to uncover the first step that would be small and easy enough for you to do consistently.Step 3 Make small improvements until your original system is a habit.You now have an original system to achieve your goals broken down into smaller parts. Once youve built a habit of the smaller parts, you can now start to make small improvement or changes leading up to the original system.For example, after 2 weeks of waking up at 5 am on Mondays, I added Fridays into my morning routine the following 2 weeks.In other words, it was only after I got into the habit of waking up at 5 am on Mondays, that Fridays were introduced into the routine.The idea here is to make continuous improvements until your original system becomes a habit.Remember your original system is simply the complete set of habits or behaviors that will help you achieve your goals as a by-product.So in my case, during weeks 4 thro ugh 7, I introduced Wednesdays and so on. Several months later I had successfully built the habit of waking up at 5 am, 6 days out of the week.The same strategy can be applied to any other systems. For example If you want to read 20 pages a day Read a page a day on week 1, two pages a day on week two, three pages a day on week 3 and so on.If you want to exercise three times a week Go for a run once a week on week 1, twice a week on week 3, three times a week on week 8 and so on.If you want to write 500 words daily Write 500 words once a week on week 1, twice a week on week 4, three times a week on week 10 and so on.These are of course hypothetical scenarios, but Im sure you can now see a pattern in this Kaizen approach to achieve your goals.Create the system (or behavior patterns to achieve the goal), break it down to small enough parts and then improve continuously until the original system becomes a habit.Its that simple or is it?Focus on progression, Not the goalForget about per fection focus on progression, and compound the improvements.- Sir Dave BrailsfordThe reality is that it is that simple, but our tendency is to look for the perfect solution with quick results.We obsess about our goals, take too much action too quickly and beat ourselves up whenever our progress doesnt match up.This is the hard way to achieve your goals that often results in failure.The Kaizen approach takes the pressure off the outcome and helps you to stay consistent with your goals at a sustainable pace.It focuses on building the habits (systems) through small continuous improvements over time for a real change in identity.This is the easy way to achieve your goals this year.Go KaizenMayo Oshin writes atMayoOshin.com, where he shares practical self-improvement ideas and proven science for better health, productivity and creativity.To get practical ideas on how to stop procrastinating and build healthy habits, you can join his free weekly newsletterhere.A version of this article or iginally appeared atmayooshin.comas How to achieve your goals the easy way (using the Kaizen approach)FootnotesA research study by psychology prof John Norcross on success rate of New Years resolution.

How to Get Through Work When The Worlds a Mess - The Muse

How to Get Through Work When The Worlds a Mess - The MuseHow to Get Through Work When The Worlds a Mess The sniper attack in Dallas, the death of an innocent man in MN, the suicide bombings in Turkey, the mass shooting in Orlando- I could go on, but you probably dont need me to remind you of all the terrible things going on in the world.This isnt an article about whats right or wrong, its not about airport security, guns, or gun laws and it certainly isnt about politics or which politician is tweeting what.Its about you.When the weight of what youve seen and heard threatens to tear your heart in two, how can you possibly muster the enthusiasm for your 10 AM meeting or be expected to wrap your head around finishing that report by the end of the day?Doesnt it seem silly to dive right into the minutia of your daily work following such a major tragedy? Those hundred tiny things on your to-do list suddenly seem a whole lot tinier when the shadow of something horrible looms large. But you cant just stop working. Youre not going to quit your job or abandon the career youve been building. So what do you do?Here are three thoughts to help you cope.1. Love Your ResponsibilitiesGuns. Crime. War. Disease. Terror. Drought. Refugees. And on, and on, and on.There are a lot of soul-stirring things happening out there. Theyre happening right now, they happened yesterday, and theyre probably going to happen tomorrow, too. Focusing on your day-to-day responsibilities when theres major loss and sadness around you is challenging.You may feel like you got bumped out of your groove. All you can see is a larger landscape, and with that point of view, its easy to feel like what youre doing doesnt really matter, or that if you do knuckle down and start ticking things off your to-do list, then youre somehow missing the point or doing people who are suffering a disservice.But having a job and a set of responsibilities isnt incompatible with being a caring human being.You have a 5 PM meeti ng to attend? Excellent. Love the fact that you get to turn up and do great work. Just been asked to take on a new project? Awesome. Now dive into it and relish the opportunity. Forced to hand-hold a colleague through a shared assignment? Perfect. How wonderful that you get to help someone and have an impact on their work.Feeling, caring, and remembering dont require that you stop everything else, and choosing to embrace and love your responsibilities rather than disconnect from them can be transformative.2. Feed the AngelsFear, pain, and dorfwiese are like locomotives barreling through you. Imposing and banging and crashing, these powerful emotions divert your attention away from the task at hand.Applying yourself at work when theres a steam train rolling through your head and over your heart isnt easy, and buckling down so you can finish the deck probably seems downright trivial. Soon, youre struggling to keep an even, calm demeanor.Maybe you snap at a co-worker who asks you a que stion you deem dumb. Maybe you think Fine, Ill do it myself, when something isnt completed as you expected. And maybe you roll your eyes and rail against the small talk you hear in the cubicles and corridors.But you dont have to feed those things. You dont have to stoke the furnace that drives bitterness, or misunderstanding, or judgment. What if, instead, you were at your best as a response to a terrible event?Think generosity with time or spirit over armor-donning. Empathy over division. Compassion over judgment. Your best experiences at work have been the times when you were at your best, and dont think for a moment that choosing to be this way now is an inappropriate response to something horrible.Feed the angels, not the demons.3. BreatheWhen all is said and done, you still have a job to do. I know, I know, moving numbers around in a spreadsheet or running a meeting about marketing strategy seems kind of ridiculous when compared with whats out there. But its something. And havi ng something solid to focus on in a world that seems to be shifting can help provide the balance that you so desperately seek.So, breathe...Take a breath, and realize how lucky you are to be employed, to be alive and well, sitting in an office, getting paid to do work you care about (or at least, hopefully, dont loathe). In the best case scenario, youre surrounded by people who are good, decent human beings, and in the worst, youve got a work bff or a partie to grab a cup of afternoon tea with. Take a look around, breath deeply, and consider how fortunate you are.Some days youll still struggle to care a lot about the work in front of you when theres so much else to think about. You may even (temporarily) view your job as insignificant based on whats happening in the world, and thats OK, too. Letting yourself feel things and process is a part of getting back on track. Remember this Youre allowed to slow down until youre ready to do more. And that doing your job isnt incompatible with being a caring person whos worried about whats happening in the world. Photo of distracted man courtesy of Yuri_Arcurs/Getty Images.