Here are some of my favorite things…
Where I go for Inspiration
Brian Johnson, Optimal Living When I am about to get on a call and want to get my energy pumped way up into the stratosphere, I often randomly tune into some part of Brian's Optimal Living Series that I took part in a year or so ago. I've got it all on my iPod. Doesn't matter WHERE I plug in – I always get genius, tips, energy, goodness. He covers 12 ideals like Courage, Optimism, Wisdom, Love – and reports on all the big ideas philosophers through the ages have had about these ideals. It's REALLY fabulous.
Mike Dooley. Where would I be without my daily Note from the Universe in my in-box? They're free, they're great, they make you smile, they make you think and they keep you in touch, in a happy way, with your biggest self. If you go to Mike's site and register, you can sign up to get these for free…and they are WELL worth it. And he's just plain got a lot of great programs. I have his book Infinite Possibilities by my bed, and I loved his program Manifesting Change.
YES! Magazine is one of my favorites – based on a single theme and coming at the nice pace of once every three months, this magazine offers good news, inspiring stories and reports from around the world about what individual people and groups are doing to create positive change. I've been a subscriber for years and years – at the moment, in fact, it is my ONLY subscription to a physical periodical.
Tools
People often ask me how I get as much done as I do, working basically solo. Some of it is the magic of Virtual Assistants, or "VA's". Much of it is automation. Some of these tools are for business, some help me personally…they're just amazingly helpful and make my life much easier and less stressful.
Business Tools
1. Organizing meetings & sheduling
World Meeting Planner. Got to figure out what time it is around the world, for a telecall, a meeting or just a conversation? This makes it EASY. And it's free.
How to dial International Numbers. I do a lot of international calling and never can quite seem to remember all the intricacies of international codes, country codes, etc. With this handy tool, I don't have to – plug in the number I want to call and the country it's in, tell it where I'm calling from, and it tells me exactly what numbers to dial. LOVE it. Again, this one is free. And Here's a second one if you want to try an alternate.
Automatic appointment scheduling – TimeTrade. BOY does this save hassles! You set up your calendar (I use the Google calendar) with the times you want to offer, send a person a link, they go and find the time that works for them, time driver takes care of the time zones, synchs with your calendar…makes it all pretty darn sweet.
Project Organization & Implementation:
Smartsheet. Need a good way to organize projects, share management with people you're working with around the world, have a template to follow so you figure the process out ONE TIME instead of reinventing every time you offer a course or workshop? The uses are pretty phenomenal. This is a really good tool. And a LOT of people use it, so it's easy to get other people on board with it, if you're managing a project with multiple players.
Website:
Site construction: WordPress. Hands down the best way to go. As they say – it's free, and it's priceless. It is SUCH an easy tool to use.
Web Hosting. I've tried a lot of hosting services, Host Gator is hands-down my favorite. They offer GREAT service and if you are switching from another host, they make it REALLY easy.
Domain Names/ URL's – Go Daddy. The best deal I've found.
Recording calls, creating audios:
Audio Acrobat. Need to record your telecalls, tape a message to your peeps, send an audio file, make downloading easy? I really love Audio Acrobat. I find it easy to use, I've never had an issue with it in probably five years of using it…it's not free but at $19.95 a month I consider it well worth the price. I use it all the time.
Business Training:
Package U. On the business topic of how to brand yourself authentically, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Debbie LaChusa and her work. This is a very affordable year-long program that will make a huge difference to you in that (often) oh-so-frustrating quest of how to position yourself so YOUR people find you.
Creativity Tools
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. TOY is the operative word…it's a great way to play with affirmations in a more creative, graphic way. You can also use it to get a sense of what words you are using most on your website – one of the ways to create a cloud is to enter your domain URL and see what comes up. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. FUN!! Warning: Don't open this during business hours!!!
My Favorite Books – an eclectic mix, for sure!
You can click on any of these images to get the complete description.
Blogs
I really enjoy Sensophy, from Jacob Sokol. He is a young man in New York, on a mission to inspire 8 million people.
I get a lot out of Seth Godin's Blog
Note. You should know that for some of these tools, I am part of an affiliate team – so I get a small fee if you decide to buy them through me. You pay the exact same amount as you would buying from them, and I NEVER recommend something I am not using and delighted with. You can become their affiliate as well – it's one really good way that good things get passed on, in the online world.