Hey Ann Rusnak... The Time Diva Here... Cleveland Ohio is not only the Rock-n-Roll Capital of the World, it's where I reside and the home of my company, Marketplace Strategies, Inc. I always dreamed of owning my own business... One day, I cleared out my bank account to start a commercial interior design firm. At the end of the 1 st year, I broke even. The company showed a profit at the end of the second year. Talk about impressing my accountant. Growth continued into the third year and I began hiring part-time help. My business experienced phenomenal profit growth in less than 3 years. Yet it almost became a 3 year failure statistic. How could this happen, especially with significant profits? I worked hard... real hard...working 16 to 18 hour days…hardly any sleep… 7 days a week… to create this 6 figure business . No sleep! Within 3 years I could barely move... every joint ached. I felt constantly exhausted with very little energy left. My health and immune system ruined. One morning, I collapsed on the kitchen floor... terrifying my daughter.
It put my business on death row - well close anyway. My business was dying and there was very little I could do! I worked too hard to let my dream die and I made a promise to myself that failure was not an option. Three months in bed, flat on my back, recovering from extreme exhaustion gave me a chance to reflect on my business. But in the back of my mind…I kept saying, “There must be a more efficient way to run a business.” I had spent thousand dollars on time management and goal setting courses. But none of them dealt with the day-to-day tasks of running a brick and mortar business while maintaining a home. Especially on how to keep everything balanced. Then it came to me in an "Ah ha!" moment! Duh!!! I remembered something Warren Buffet said once to an investor: "The quickest way to succeed is to copy someone who already has succeeded." I needed help and for the first time in 3 years, my brain finally began to function clearly. Amazing how rest can rejuvenate the brain to find solutions. An idea hit. Why not find successful people achieving what I wanted and eliminated burnout in the process? And that's what I did. In desperation I swallowed my pride and begged for help. I created a Master Mind group(you read about it in Napoleon Hill's Book "Think & Grow Rich") enlisting the help of five mentors. These five mentors, notably solo-entrepreneurs, ran extremely successful business while maintaining a well-rounded life. They taught me their techniques, showed me what to do, mentored me on how to do it and helped me develop systems that turned my business around. They taught me how to focus my time on things that were important, necessary, critical and essential. More importantly, they showed me what to identify the high profit tasks to generate and going income for the business. Those five super achievers helped me create a system that doubled my income while working half the hours! Most days during that first year of recovery, I couldn't work more than 15 minutes to a couple of hours. Three hours at most and only sparingly. The most amazing thing was by the end of the year my business thrived! My 15 years of business experience and knowledge helped me become profitable right away . But it still didn’t prepare me to be an executive of my company. I still ran my company like an employee. A common problem that plagues most business owners… employee mentality… Traditional Time Management structure supports employee mentality. That’s why all those classes and books didn’t help… You are the Business Owner… and that requires a different way of looking at and using your time. I combined everything they taught me and after several years of working with clients and test groups, put together Thinking Outside the Clock Success System. A simple system easily fitting into the frantic pace and schedule of the busy solo entrepreneur. If you find your day getting out of control, I invite you to sign up for our FREE How to Control Your Day Gift Pack, where I share some of the secrets my mentor taught me. Looking forward to helping you get out of overwhelm and start enjoying your ideal day today.
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Who knew that ambulance ride to the hospital would wipe out those three years of hard work. 