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This is my last post

by JimRaffel on December 24, 2010

image of Happy New YearOK, don’t panic, it’s not my last post forever. This will be my last post until January 3, 2011. I have posted here every day since July 1 and feel I need a break.

This decision has been well over a week in the making. There is a great deal of fear surrounding this decision for me. Since I began posting here every day my life has taken off like a rocket ship ride. I don’t want to lose the momentum that I have achieved over the last year and that has accelerated since July 1.

Today I am confronting that fear and not posting again Until January 3rd. In order to keep myself honest I plan to have the January 3 post written and scheduled within a day or two. Yes, it’s going to be a new year resolutions post.

Until then, here are the ten most read posts of 2010 for your reading pleasure.

10. Nine Books That Inspire Me

9. Third Tribe Marketing is my Drug of Choice

8. Small Business 101: Build Recurring Revenue Streams

7. Body Weight Only Exercise Routine

6. I Work Without A Job Or Time Clock

5. The Personal/Professional Blur

4. Real, Authentic and Sustainable

3. Color and The State of the Printing Industry 2010

2. Three Types of Communication

1. 18 useful WordPress plugins

Enjoy the Holiday season with your family and I’ll see you in 2011 recharged and reenergized!

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Decision Making Points

by JimRaffel on November 18, 2010

image of decision points - fork in the roadI was recently asked to make a decision that involved a relatively small financial consideration. As I was involved in the decision making process I pulled back. It occurred to me that the other individual involved was perfectly capable of making the decision.

Empower others, increase your freedom

I let the other party know it was their decision to make and I supported whichever course of action was chosen. The next step for me, is to let those I work with know exactly what level of decisions I would like to be involved in and which decisions I prefer they retain ownership of.

This is different than delegation. At least for me, delegation is assigning tasks and/or complete projects to another person. Decision points revolve around those day-to-day and month-to-month decisions required to run a company. Big companies have signature authority levels why shouldn’t small businesses?

I will spend the rest of 2010 making decisions that will allow me to focus the majority of my efforts on customer interaction (future sales and current customer relationships), content creation (here and on the other sites I have an interest in), and strategic business decision making. Notice, there is nothing in the previous list about maintaining and redesigning blogs, web-sites and web servers. The decision to completely free myself of those activities inspired this blog post.

In 2011 it’s going to be Customers, Content and Strategy. Over the next six weeks I will create an environment in which I can constantly ask myself if the task I am working on fits one of those three categories. If it does not, I will not be using my time, abilities and decision making skills in the most useful way for myself, my company and my audiences.

Where will you focus your decision points in 2011?

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The decision to act

October 26, 2010

Filtering great ideas and making the decision to act on the best of them is the single most valuable use of your time. What does that process look like that ultimately separates the winning ideas from the losing ones? Moving ideas into action You have no shortage of good ideas, for that is seldom the [...]

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Perspective on Decision Making: Is Your Glass Half-full or Half-empty

March 6, 2010

In the past I kept a stiff upper lip and claimed my glass was always half-full and never half-empty. I realize now that was not always reality. I chatted about half-awake vs half-asleep the other day with my friend Angie Sorge on Twitter. It was early in the day and she commented that when she [...]

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Decisions Are Made Following My Gut

January 17, 2010

Sometimes this means I spend more time in the kitchen than I should tracking down yummy snacks….oh wait that’s a different kind of following your gut. What I’m actually talking about is making a decision to do or not do something because it just feels like you should or should not. The polar opposite of [...]

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