Your Family Business Plan

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By Terry Orr

December is How to Write a Business Plan Month. Having authored far more business/strategic plans than I would like to admit – if done properly and updated as events change – can be an effective guide to success.  This article is going to focus on you Family Business Plan.

In a lot ways, I believe the Family Business Plan is critical tool to good sound family planning – a hint to which direction you want to be heading. It is more than just your financial and retirement plans - it bring all those  plans together.

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Now that I am retired from the daily grid – my home projects, chores and this blog occupy about 90% of my time these days and having my family plan helps keep me focused on what needs to be accomplished.  Like most folks, it is just a guide and real life events dictate changes – replacing a toilet, leak in the basement, or a car needs to be replaced.  My friend Bruce has some excellent habits on scheduling and ensuring preventive maintenance for his vehicles, heating and air conditioning, appliances, painting, caulking, and other things. I try and pass along those concepts to my children, grandchildren and friends – but you know how that goes (grin).

In previous articles, I have mentioned the wisdom of the late Dr. Stephen R. Covey of “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and other common sense approaches to life. Keeping it Simple – without all the drama and hype – makes life easier. So should be your Family Business Plan – short, sweet and to the point.

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According to Joanne Stern, Ph.D. - If you don't have a vision of where you're going and a plan on how to get there, you're likely to get swept away by the winds of life. You'll flop this way and that, not ever really knowing if you're off course and going in the wrong direction. Suddenly you may realize that you don't have money for that special family trip and everyone is disappointed. You may have spent your money on frivolous things without calculating the savings necessary to meet your family's vacation desires. Or one day you notice that your teenager doesn't talk to you anymore, and you don't know how it happened. You may blame her and think she's a bad kid-sullen and sneaky. But perhaps you neglected to set in place a plan for staying close and connected to her when she was younger.

She also writes:

Here are three reasons to create a family business plan that fits specifically for you and your children.

1. It creates a sense of team within your family and bonds you to one another.
2. It gets you to your goals.
3. It creates a family culture.

Each family will have a different plan-a different vision, a different dream.

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There are plenty of resources available to draw ideas from to develop your family business plan – online, book stores, libraries, consultants, etc.  I encourage folks to review other plans that are available and find what they like and dislike to form the basic outline and concept for their own plan.  Remember, this plan should be kept current and not just another dust collector.

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Good luck and let us know how you plan is coming along.

References and Links:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/parenting-is-contact-sport/201009/creating-your-family-business-plan

Grandma Moses Day

Anna Moses
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By Diane Forrest

"Now that I am ninety-five years old, looking back over the years, I have seen many changes taking place; so many inventions have been made. Things now go faster. In olden times things were not so rushed. I think people were more content, more satisfied with life than they are today. You don't hear nearly as much laughter and shouting as you did in my day, and what was fun for us wouldn't be fun now.... In this age I don't think people are as happy, they are worried. They're too anxious to get ahead of their neighbors, they are striving and striving to get something better. I do think in a way that they have too much now. We did with much less."

This is a quote from Anna Mary Roberson Moses in 1954.  It is the same thing that can be said today.  It’s funny that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Anna Moses was born in September, 1860.  She lived a long life, passing away in December 1960.  One of the most important things about her life is that when she reached the age of 76, she began a new life, a career that would splash her across the pages of Time magazine and make her known throughout the world.

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Anna enjoyed embroidery work.  She would sit for hours and work on needle point and even sell some of her pieces.  However, as she got older, her hands became arthritic, and she could no longer enjoy her pastime.  It was at that time she decided to pick up a brush and some paint and continue her artistic flair.  She sold her masterpieces for under 10 dollars at a local drug store until she was "discovered".  In 1939 her paintings were being sold worldwide, and in 1946 some were even being used for Christmas cards.  On her 100th birthday in 1960, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller declared September 7th Grandma Moses Day. Grandma Moses died at the age of 101 on December 13, 1960. She created over 1000 painting during her career, at least 25 of which were painted after she was 100.

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Anna Moses, also known as Grandma Moses, set the bar at achieving goals at any age.  She is an example and inspiration to us and shows us that life doesn’t end at a certain age.  You can do anything you set your mind to, and if something doesn't work out, you can try something new.

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Today is Grandma Moses Day, a day to celebrate life and achievements.  So whatever age you are today, find something you are passionate about and get started!  It's never too late, and you are not too old!!

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Healthy Habits – Achieving your Goals

By Akindman,

As we are now into the Holiday Season with our focus on: celebrating; gift buying; doing holiday letters, cards and phone calls; attending/hosting parties; decorating our Christmas trees and homes; and the endless gatherings where we can eat until our little hearts are content; are all part of the joy of the season – I found a very interesting article on Tuesday to share with our readers.

Earlier this year, we post several articles on 13 Healthy Habits (February and March) and throughout this year other related articles.  As I have recently began my quest for getting the ole body back into shape, my weight under control and more importantly having a healthier body – the timing of this article is excellent.  In addition, it just might help your during this holiday season.

How to Achieve Your Goals with Healthy Habits

Written by Leo Babauta

(http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/reach-your-goals-through-daily-habits/)

We’ve all faced the disappointment and guilt that comes from setting a goal and giving up on it after a couple of weeks. Sustaining motivation for a long-term goal is hard to achieve, and yet the best goals can usually only be accomplished in a few months or even years.

Here’s the solution: Focus instead on creating a new habit that will lead to achieving your goal.

Want to run a marathon? First create the habit of running every day. Want to get out of debt and start saving? Create the habit of brown bagging it to work, or watching DVDs instead of going to the movies, or whatever change will lead to saving money for you.

By focusing not on what you have to achieve over the course of the next year, but instead on what you are doing each day, you are focusing on something achievable. That little daily change will add up to a huge change, over time … and you’ll be surprised at how far you’ve come in no time. Little grains of sand can add up to a mountain over time.

I used this philosophy of habit changes to run a marathon, to change my diet and lose weight, to write a novel, to quit smoking, to become organized and productive, to double my income, reduce my debt and start saving, and to begin training for an Olympic triathlon this year. It works, if you focus on changing habits.

Now, changing your habits isn’t easy — I won’t lie to you — but it’s achievable, especially if you start small. Don’t try to change the world with your first habit change … take baby steps at first. I started by just trying to run a mile — and by the end of the year, I could run more than 20 miles.

How do you change your habits? Focus on one habit at a time, and follow these steps:

Positive changes. If you’re trying to change a negative habit (quit smoking), replace it with a positive habit (running for stress relief, for example).

Take on a 30-day challenge. Tell yourself that you’re going to do this habit every day, at the same time every day, for 30 straight days without fail. Once you’re past that 30-day mark, the habit will become much easier. If you fail, do not beat yourself up. Start again on a new 30-day challenge. Practice until you succeed.

Commit yourself completely. Don’t just tell yourself that you might or should do this. Tell the world that DEFINITELY will do this. Put yourself into this 100 percent. Tell everyone you know. Email them. Put it on your blog. Post it up at your home and work place. This positive public pressure will help motivate you.

Set up rewards. It’s best to reward yourself often the first week, and then reward yourself every week for that first month. Make sure these are good rewards, that will help motivate you to stay on track.

Plan to beat your urges. It’s best to start out by monitoring your urges, so you become more aware of them. Track them for a couple days, putting a tally mark in a small notebook every time you get an urge. Write out a plan, before you get the urges, with strategies to beat them. We all have urges to quit — how will you overcome it? What helps me most are deep breathing and drinking water. You can get through an urge — it will pass.

Track and report your progress. Keep a log or journal or chart so that you can see your progress over time. I used a running log for my marathon training, and a quit meter when I quit smoking. It’s very motivating to see how far you’ve come. Also, if you can join an online group and report your progress each day, or email family and friends on your progress, that will help motivate you.

Most important of all: Always stay positive. I learned the habit of monitoring my thoughts, and if I saw any negative thoughts (“I want to stop!”) I would squash it like a little bug, and replace it with a positive thought (“I can do this!”). It works amazingly. This is the best tip ever. If you think negative thoughts, you will definitely fail. But if you always think positive, you will definitely succeed.

Once the holidays are over, most of us will be once again making our New Year’s Resolutions for the upcoming year – so why not start now planning ahead for those goals and begin looking at healthy habits to help you achieve your goals?

I started mine a couple weeks: researching apps for my smartphone to assist me in tracking items that my doctor, dietitian/nutritionists, podiatrists, wife, friends and I have agreed items to track and goals/measures for each.