Own Your Power

Meet Lytoya Parker, a fireball of energy and a giving spirit who LOVES WHAT SHE DOES! What she does for women is very close to my heart as well, since inspiring others to go after their dreams is one of her main goals. For the last three years, her business, Gorja RCC, has specialized in marketing, consulting, and coaching. Last year , she  launched her very first conference in NYC called Unlock Your Dreams!  It was a huge undertaking and the place was PACKED. I had the pleasure of being a speaker. I look forward to watching Lytoya blossom into tomorrow’s hope of inspiration.

What does your business do? Provides services to African American women who want to start or expand their business and/or life. In addition, we assist women with image and life consulting.

Any interesting facts that you can share about your industry? It’s very competitive, however everyone has their THANG! That is what I love about consulting, marketing, and coaching … each one can help another, everyone could WIN, because of the high demand.

What year did you kiss Corporate America goodbye and why do you hope to never go back? In 2002. I don’t hope to never go back! I know I will not be back. The Most High has blessed me with too many talents, visions, gifts to activate and working at a “job”, I will not be able to do all in the time span he NEEDS me to work.

How do you stay motivated? What drives you? My WHY keeps me motivated! Truly knowing and constantly internalizing my purpose on a daily basis and KNOWING what I am supposed to be doing is what motivates me. Also, the current state of society TODAY.

What’s a bold move you took that turned your business around? To put together my first conference, “Unlock Your Dreams.

What’s a unique talent that you have that might surprise us? I have a way to change my voice to sound just like a Man … It’s very funny!!!

Have you used social networking to gain new contacts/business? Yes!!! One of my favorite social networks is Real Sisters Rising, that company has generated me countless of clients.

Want to reach out to Lytoya and find out more? You can call her at 646-406-9650 or email her at unlockyourdream@aol.com.

Website (s): www.gorjarcc.com or www.unlockyourdream.info

Love what you do? Email us and you might be featured soon at simone@ownyourpower.biz.

Delegation is something that is needed when you are running your own business. You have to be honest with yourself and focus on what you do best. I’m the creative type and I actually don’t like math. Ok, I HATE IT.

Over the years, I noticed that whenever I have to deal with accounting, I started to procrastinate since it wasn’t a favorite activity of mine. So, the smart thing for me to do was get a bookkeeper that can work with me each month and crack the whip on me to make sure I’m staying organized with my finances. I encourage you to get a book keeper since they are pretty affordable (some as low at $100 a month) and it’s better for you in the long run to keep track of your spending, especially if you rather be out managing, creating, speaking, and well, playing

Check out this article I found that breaks it down for ya!

Simone

Book Keeping Basics

Despite the importance of bookkeeping, small businesses often neglect it because of the time and effort it takes to set up and tend to a bookkeeping system. Most business owners would rather be out generating sales than sitting in the office making journal entries or entering debits and credits in their general ledgers.

But bookkeeping is one thing you can’t afford to ignore. To understand why, it helps to comprehend what bookkeeping is and how it affects your business.

Bookkeeping is the recording of a business’s financial transactions. It’s the first step of the accounting process, which also includes classifying, reporting and analyzing financial data.

Bookkeepers are responsible for organizing and tracking receipts, canceled checks and other records generated by financial transactions. Bookkeepers chronologically record all transactions — cash disbursements, cash receipts, sales and purchases, and others — in a journal and post the journal entries to a general ledger of accounts, which accountants use to prepare monthly financial statements.

Although bookkeeping doesn’t contribute directly to your profits, there are several good reasons to maintain balanced books:

* Lenders and investors want to see accurate and complete books for a business before granting loans or raising capital for it. If you rely on outside financing, this is the most important reason to invest time and money in bookkeeping.

* Bookkeeping generates the information you need to manage your company. For example, up-to-date general ledger information shows which customers are past due on their accounts or have outstanding balances on lines of credit. Financial reports help you assess whether or not gross profits and expenses are in line with your budget and projected net profits. In other words, these reports help you anticipate and avoid cash-flow problems.

* In order to know how much you owe the IRS, you need an accurate picture of your company’s income. In addition, keeping receipts and canceled checks will back up whatever deductions and tax credits your company takes. Without good record keeping, you leave yourself exposed to fines and penalties if you get audited.

Bookkeeping Options

Many businesses hire an accountant or a bookkeeper to maintain their books. But if you can’t afford to or don’t want to hire an accountant, you can learn the basics by taking a bookkeeping class at a community college or small business center in your area. READ ON HERE….

Check out this article I found that gives it to you straight. What are your time robbers?

3 Ways to Create More Free Time – By Anastasia Netri **

Effective time management is something that eludes most of us. As a culture, at least in America, being “stressed” and “overwhelmed” has become entirely too commonplace. Healthy balance between work and play in someones life is rarely seen.

As I work with more and more Home Based Business Owners, the same challenges continue to come up again and again. I hear phrases like, “I’m bad with time” or “I tend to procrastinate a lot”. I also hear these quite often: “I work too much, and I’m not sure where the workday ends” as well as “I don’t seem to have very much free time”. Most people got into owning a home based business because they wanted more freedom, and in many cases they wind up in a different kind of prison.

A very effective first step to creating more free time is to identify the time wasters in your life. Creating this simple awareness can cause things to turn around very quickly. Most patterns in our lives are there because we’re running on auto-pilot. When you begin to notice a pattern, it’s just a matter of time before you will know exactly what you need to do to shift it.

The first most common time-waster is living and / or working in a sea of disorganized clutter. Did you know the average person spends one hour a day looking for something? That’s seven hours a week, and 28 hours per month. Many people think it takes a lot of time to get organized, but the reality is that is takes MORE time to be disorganized. Clean up a bit, file some papers, and you could literally get back 28 hours per month. That’s a good chunk of free time.

Another major time-waster is electronic boxes. Computers, TV, Blackberries, Video Games, etc. I’m certainly not saying these are all bad, I’m all for a some mindless entertainment on occasion. However, OVERUSE of these things has become the main problem. Entertainment is one thing, distraction is another. The question is, are these things robbing you of time you would rather be spending doing something else? Where could you draw the line on your electronic box use and replace it with something more fulfilling? Check in with yourself and see what you come up with, it just might surprise you.

The third and biggest time-waster of all is carrying around your schedule and to-do list in your head. I see this much too often, and I notice that this a huge energy drain. This can cause feelings of being overwhelmed, stressed, and completely unable to relax. I speak from experience! I always have 27 thing on my to do list, and I have found that writing it down and prioritizing it is an amazing way to relax. It no longer is swirling around my mind. When things are laid out in this way, it’s easy to schedule what needs to be done and have more time to do other important things in my day, like take a nap!

People generally forget that we only have a certain amount of hours in the day. It’s important to remember that in order to say yes to something, we will have to say no to something else. We cannot keep piling things on. Decide what you would like to have more of in your life on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. Write down what these things are, and then ask the question, “What must I say NO to to make room for these things?” This is a great way to create more free time, fun time, and time with loved ones in your life. Keep your eye on what’s important, it easy to get lost in the details.

Copyright 2009 Anastasia Netri

About the Author:

Anastasia Netri is a Certified Life Coach who specializes in Work and Life Balance for Home Based Business Owners. She is passionate about helping people who have had the courage to start their own business learn the skills necessary to be more successful in their business, work less and do more, have more free time, and take better care of themselves.

Anastasia has been an entrepreneur for 14 years and owned many different types of businesses, including a medium sized corporation with over 20 employees that she sold for six figures at the age of 29.

Visit her website to get your free report “3 Reasons Why Home Based Business Owners Procrastinate More than People with Jobs!” http://www.havebalanceinlife.com

Well, maybe not save the world, but make a nice big dent in the cause to improve the environment at least! :0) I am a big fan of recycling and my newest thing I love to do is composting. Nothing gets wasted in my house! LOL Did you know that uneaten food now makes up roughly 12 percent of landfill material? My little garden is now blossoming thanks to old fruit peels, tea bags, newspaper clippings, leaves, shredded bills, and papaya skins, just to name a few. I know, sounds scrumptious doesn’t it?

I used to think my mother was NUTS or just a green thumb fanatic. When I would visit her, after I had made breakfast, she would lose it if I threw certain things in the garbage. She would make me put egg shells and tea bags in her gross pile of stuff for her plants. There was a pail she had way in the back yard and when she lifted the cover, it was not nice to see. LOL I had no idea what she was doing, but I did know she did have the greenest garden on the block! You could also live off the land. She had grapefruit, tangerines, tomatoes, peppers, callalou, pineapple, mint, just loads of things growing in her back yard along with beautiful roses and other flowers.

When my husband and I moved into our home with a garden, I started to read up on how you could recycle things in the home with composting. I only knew how to take care of house plants before,however now having a garden made me catch the ‘green thumb’ from my mom. So, I now see Mom wasn’t that crazy

If you can compost, I suggest you try it out and read up on details of what NOT to compost such as meats, fish, etc… Make sure you get good containers to put them in as well, since the smell is not always that pretty in the very early stages of it. Composting overall cuts out on garbage and it’s a great way to help out the environment and create your own rich soil for your plants.

Good Resources To Browse:

1. Read on here for more on composting.

2. Composting 101

3. All about Composting and Composters

Now you know that there’s more to recycling than melting down plastic soda bottles to make new plastic soda bottles. These days you can turn medicine bottles into life jackets and old running shoes into new playground surfacing. How’s that for reincarnation? Check out this new little tool I found that helps you get creative with going green!

Keep Livin’ Good!

Simone

Ena Shed is driven, outgoing, and has a big heart to help others. As the founder of Els Life Fitness Fitness Coach she encourages others to lead healthy and enriched lives. Find out why Ena loves what she does!

She LOVES helping you get fit!

How long have you been in business?: I started Els Life Fitness in 2007, but I’ve been teaching / training since 2005

What does your business do? My mission is to help create a better you… I can help improve and/or maintain one’s cardiovascular, muscle strength/ endurance and flexibility. I also offer basic nutritional tips and a weight management program to point one in the right direction in maintaining a healthy diet, along with relaxation and meditation techniques to help soothe and relieve the mind and body of stress and negativity.

Most popular problem you help people solve? To get in shape

What year did you kiss Corporate America goodbye and why do you hope to never go back? Well, I wasn’t really in corporate America but, I was behind a desk though. I was an office manager for a doctor and worked at a gym in the evenings. In March 2007, I moved to Columbia, MD where my freedom began. Fitness is my life which makes me happy and that’s why I do what I do.

How do you stay motivated? My faith and the thought of sitting behind a desk again makes me gasp for air…NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!

Biggest pet peeve in business? Bad customer service.

What’s a bold move you took that turned your business around? Moving to MD, increasing my faith and beginning the process of letting go of my fear to succeed.

One thing that you would change if you could? What I’m working on now is to learn how to except and deal with rejection which will help me build more confidence in promoting my service.

What’s your favorite area in the Own Your Power Community on www.ownyourpower.ning.com?
I love it all…seeing all these people doing there thing is very motivating to me.

What’s a unique talent that you have that might surprise us? Well, I don’t think it’s a talent, it’s more like a gift… I can understand people sometimes just by the vibration that they give off which helps me understand what there true needs or weaknesses are. Now, I keep this to myself most times. Explaining this to some people can become a problem because, it’s not something I can explain I just know it and if one is not spiritually connected they will not understand… that’s all God not me. Amen.

Last time you laughed until you cried? The other day with one of girlfriends, I can’t even tell you what it was about but, when we are together we are like two silly little girls.

If you could do it all over again, what is the biggest mistake you’d avoid next time around? Well I wouldn’t change anything… I love the woman that I have become and I owe it all to my past. I will keep on learning and growing until I die.

If you could have superpowers, what would you want? I would like the ability to teleport. ( I don’t have a car at of the moment, getting around is a pain… thank God I have been blessed with people who love me) lol lol lol.

Contact Info:

If you would like to learn more about Ena or Els Life Fitness, add her as a friend and join her Group in our online network!
She can also be reached at Lenore@elslifefitness.com or (646) 528-7341.

If you love what you do and want to get some exposure, please send me an email at simone@ownyourpower.biz. We’d be happy to consider your business!

Own Your Power,

Simone