I just stumbled across this poem. It truly seems to be a message I needed today. Maybe for you, too...

http://www.kellyperdew.com/personal/inspiration/

Ken.

There is often much confusion regarding the three roles an entrepreneur plays in his business.

Nearly all of his is spent as president, executing the plans of the company and making decisions in the company's best interest. This is a very hands-on role. Sometimes he is in the CEO role where he works to create strategy and systems for the company's growth and future benefit. This role is much less hands-on, but critically necessary for the long-term success of any organization.

The Owner Role

However, the role of owner is often most confusing to everyone, including the entrepreneur himself. Unlike President and CEO, the owner of a business is not an employee and therefore has a different role. The owner must make a financial investment in the company, which is often used to fund its startup and growth initiatives. In return for this investment, the owner receives shares of the company. Since owners are not employees, they are not paid a salary, but instead receive dividends.

In addition to their investments in the business, owners are usually required to personally guarantee the responsibilities of the business. This puts owners at significant financial risk and exposure. As such, successful owners will ensure that their businesses are properly cared for to ensure healthy growth. This oversight includes ensuring successful strategies/systems, proper financial management, effective leadership, strong teams, and valuable products/services. In small businesses, most owners are also employees when they serve other roles in the company.

By defining and providing clarity to these roles, both the entrepreneur and all those around him will benefit. Many times in business, the roles get blurred. This can cause enormous confusion in a business. Once these roles are defined, it is best to state which role the entrepreneur is playing, when communicating with others.

I recently was referred to The Success Training Network (TSTN), a really unique concept which I'm really enjoying. It's loaded with 30-minute and 1-hour long presentations from some of today's top business people.

I especially enjoyed the "Relationship Selling" series by Jim Cathcart. It is really in-line with our company's business approach.

Bob Proctor's "Paradigm Shift" was excellent, too!

The list of "faculty" includes Zig Ziglar, Dr. Denis Waitley, Brian Tracy, Charlie "Tremendous" Jones, Tom Hopkins, Dr. John Gray, Dr. Stephen Covey, and many, many more.

Check it out at www.tstn.com and let me know what you think!

I recently reread a fascinating little book, which I had originally read 15 years ago, called Acres of Diamonds. It is a written copy of a speech given by Dr. Russell H. Conwell in approximately 1910. Reading this insightful book really helped me recently.

Dr. Conwell works diligently throughout his speech to explain that there are an unlimited number of opportunities sitting right in front of each of us, just waiting to be noticed and implemented. All one needs to do is look at what is needed and do something about filling the need.

He talks about MANY people who started simply filling a simple need, such as the poor man out of work in Hingham, MA who whittled children's toys out of his firewood and eventually is rumored to have become the richest man in Massachusetts selling his amazing toys. Or a woman in New Britain, CT who invented the snapping button because her regular button had gotten stuck in the hole one time.

He tells a funny story about a man from PA who wanted so badly to work for his cousin in the oil business (and get rich) that he studied hard, sold his farm for $833.00, and moved to Canada to work in the oil business. Amazingly, the man who bought his farm found that the previous owner had put a plank across a brook of scum to cross. It turns out that the scum was actually oil and the farm produced over $1 billion over its lifetime!!

He also does a great job of explaining how making money is a good thing and is in no way something to be ashamed of or bashful about.

What's this go to do with the Internet?!? Well, just before I read this book, I had been thinking recently that it seems the Internet opportunity of the past had dried up. It felt to me that every great idea had already been taken and fully exploited, and that any worthwhile venture would take an enormous amount of money to accomplish because the Internet standards and expectations had been raised so high.

However, after reading this little book, it became clear to me that at ANY TIME IN LIFE, especially RIGHT NOW, there are opportunities sitting RIGHT IN FRONT OF US just waiting for us to pick them up and take advantage of them. Often these opportunities are hidden because they're SO close that we don't even see them.

So, this book really changed my outlook and shifted my paradigm such that I'm starting to see new and interesting things already right in front of me. Like most successes, these things I'm seeing are not at first earth-shattering or monumental, but little things I can do (and am doing) to fill a need or make something better in what I already do.

Amazingly, in the past 2 weeks, I'm already noticing improved results beginning to appear in an exponential way - small at first, but almost growing as if they have a life of their own.

I'm really interested in your ideas regarding the INTERNET Acres of Diamonds sitting right in front of us. Please read this little story and let me know if it changes your insight, as it did mine. I'd enjoy reading your comments.

The first few times I read "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz, I didn't pay much attention to Chapter 6, entitled "The Toltec Path to Freedom." I figured I knew what the 4 agreements were, so what else could I need from the book. My recent assignment by my business coach was to re-read chapter 6 and note insights.

As I re-read the chapter there were several things that I found important:

- While we think we are free, we aren't really as long as we are bound by our fears, a byproduct of the domestication process. - Freedom is honoring and embracing that little child inside us, who appears when we're having fun, playing, or doing anything that makes us happy. Freedom is being and expressing ourselves.

- Nobody is to blame for this. Everyone has done their best with what they knew, including us!

- The first step, as is always true, is the Mastery of Awareness. This awareness allows us to see who we really are with all our possibilities. Once aware, you can make a decision to continue or change. This decision to change causes us to become warriors against all that attempts to destroy our future.

- The second step is the Mastery of Transformation. This the ways we will change, to become free.

- The third step is the Mastery of Intent. This is the energy that allows us to change.

- The Judge, the Victim, and the belief system are like a 1000-headed parasite, each one a fear within us, which slowly sucks energy and dreams (our future) from us, giving nothing useful in return.

- We can destroy the parasite by (listed in order of difficulty):

- (a) attacking each fear one at a time by practicing the 4 agreements: (a) Be impeccable with your word, (b) Don't take anything personally, (c) Don't make assumptions, (d) Always do your best.

- (b) starving it by gaining control over our emotions and disciplining our own behavior. Forgive everyone with whom you have an emotional reaction, out of compassion for ourselves. This destroys our denial system, so we can't lie to ourselves and instead develop a healthy self. Learn how to hold emotions and express them at the right moment, not sooner or later.

- (c) killing it all at once. We never know when we're going to die and we can choose to make each moment happy one. Treat everyone around you the way you would if you knew it was going to be the last day of your life (it may!). By doing this you rewrite your life, killing the old dream as well as the parasite.

- By having the freedom of the child along with wisdom, instead of innocence, we break our domestication and become free again!