Think Richard Branson, Oprah, Kathy Ireland, and the like.

These multi-passionate entrepreneurs have gone big time by embracing their eclecticism, and there’s a good reason for it.

It works.

Simply put, embracing all the facets of who you are means you’ll feel more satisfied in the work that you do. I’m a direct sales coach, and a mom entrepreneur. I fought hard to carve out a niche in the coaching arena and realized that it was only a fraction of who I was, and the work that I do well. In reality, I like working with all kinds of entrepreneurs, and my heart most resonates with parents – and entrepreneurial moms in particular.

So do I give up coaching direct sellers? Hardly! Not only am I good at bringing fast results for direct sales professionals, I LOVE it. Why would I give it up?

However, there are so many hours in a day. Any mom can tell you that. How do you bring all the things that you love under one roof? Here are my strategies for embracing eclecticism:

1. Focus on one project at a time. This is a challenge for entrepreneurs, but in order to find success in anything, you’ve got to focus on SOMETHING – even if it’s only for a short time. I completed my book and developed my coaching client base so that I had enough income to pursue other interests. The more money you have to throw at a project, the easier it is to keep multiple plates spinning at once.
2. Develop a reputation for excellence. If you sell crap, people will talk. If you deliver the goods, consistently, reliably, and with quality, people will also talk – and they’ll trust you when you branch out into other categories or markets. They’ll refer others to you based on their history with you – even if they’ve not sampled your new venture. When I launched The Renaissance Mom this year, I was able to introduce my existing clients rapidly to my new venture. I just launched the first product for the new company, The PEACE System, and I had more than 80% attendance on the live preview call (I’ve NEVER had that kind of turnout, and I’ve been told that 30% is more typical.) Some clients embraced it immediately, others sent me referrals because they knew my reputation for delivering a quality program. A reputation for excellence begets clients more rapidly.
3. Diversify slowly. Don’t throw 15 irons in the fire. Give your new project enough focus to have a fighting chance for success. Oprah incubates projects under her care. Branson has an entire panel of people considering new venture investments. When you decide on something, take action to make it successful, but take your time when adding to your business “portfolio”.
4. Grow your support team. Whether it’s support staff (VA’s, employees, etc.),  an emotional support team or a mastermind group, you can’t grow beyond yourself by yourself. A solid support team makes exponential growth easier, and more possible.
5. Enjoy your success. It doesn’t mean a hill of beans if you have an incredible team of people and a highly profitable business if you can’t take time off to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Find ways (even small ones) to reward yourself and celebrate your accomplishments. It’s a form of self-care that shouldn’t be ignored.
6. Rinse and repeat.

What about all those ideas you want to work on? Start with the low hanging fruit first – do what comes easiest, and add projects as time and money allow. I keep a mental lock-box of ideas for later use, and incorporate them into my PEACE System process each day. It’s fun to be able to pull them out (and dust them off sometimes), and figure out where they fit in the grand scheme of  ”my business empire.”

Don’t panic if you have a ton of ideas. Sequester them, assess them, and decide where to move first. Then you can come back later and add the others to your arsenal. You, too, can become the multi-faceted, multi-passionate entrepreneur you’ve always dreamed you’d become.

Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals – BHAGs. These are the stuff entrepreneurial dreams are made of. BHAGs are motivating, inspiring, and often take more than a minute or two to complete. In fact, sometimes it can take years to bring a BHAG to fruition.

But there’s an even bigger, more hairy audacious obstacle that prevents many entrepreneurs from ever attaining their BHAG.

Distractions. Entrepreneurs have a horrible time with this. We’re constantly distracted by the ideas that float into our brains. Great ideas, though they may be, we’re often found floating from idea to idea, never really completing anything.

Several terms have been concocted to describe this condition. Shiny object syndrome is a pervasive problem amongst entrepreneurs. According to one study, about 50% of entrepreneurs demonstrate ADHD tendencies, and becoming distracted is a big issue.

So if you have big, clearly defined goals, what can you do to stay on track?

For me, it took dying my hair a bright, shiny, platinum blonde color.

From This...

To This

I took a LOT of flak for this change. And the comments (to my face) ranged from “Oh GAWD! What were you thinking?” to “Wow! You look AMAZING!” – and everything in between. I can only imagine some of the snickering that went on behind closed doors.

Deciding to go blonde had nothing to do with having more fun, or really even about being more visible – although those were possible side effects. For me, there was a deeper meaning to embracing my “inner blonde”.

It was a constant, daily reminder of three BHAGs I needed to accomplish in my life.

Every morning I wake up, I look in the mirror and see this face, surrounded by this hair – an unavoidable reminder of things left undone. Things that MUST be completed before my hair goes back to a more, um, natural shade.

I could have chosen a less outspoken color, but part of the shift that needed to happen in me was being able to embrace my outspoken nature. And the other goals I’ll talk more about at my live event this fall.

Some people can use a vision board, or write it down, or do a daily visualization and consistently hold those goals in their mind. Some people can plug it into a computer, a PDA or have someone else hold them accountable.  I’m not one of those people. Ink washes away. Strings break. Kids spill stuff on your PDA, delete your hard drive, and decide to color on your vision board.

I needed something indelible. Something that wouldn’t rub off, wash off, or get lost in the translation. So about this time last year, I made the leap from dark brown to blonde (with a pit stop at orange. There’s a picture somewhere on Facebook, I think. It’s horrible.).

In the intervening year, my “daily reminder” was met by occasional snide remarks – even from family and friends. The suggestions to “pick a more flattering color”, the questioning, and the outright assumptions on the part of most people were more examples of how people don’t always ‘get it’ when we want to accomplish something huge. Sometimes our closest friends think they’re doing us a favor. They think they’re being supportive, but in reality, they’re trying to fit our BHAG into their world.  People don’t understand (or care to understand) the motivation behind the transformation, they only judge the outward manifestation of the first step.

Crazy? Silly? Stupid? Unflattering? Perhaps. But I didn’t go blonde to please you. I didn’t even do it to please me.

The thing about changing your hair color to something VERY different from your natural color is that it requires work to maintain. You can’t just quit when the going gets tough – or another distraction comes along.

When the roots come in, you’ve got to decide to keep going or go back. Cut it off or let it grow. For me, this was a very visceral, tangible, and physical manifestation of my business and personal goals.

Do I quit just because it’s hard? Just because I haven’t reached my goal yet?

Do I cut myself off just because other people are telling me it can’t be done – or that I’m too (old, fat, young, smart, dumb, poor, educated, etc.)?

Do I keep going, or go back?

I chose (and continue to choose) to ‘let it grow’.

A couple of weeks ago, I hit goal number one of three. So blonde don’t live here no more.

My target is to complete goals two and three so that this whole “hairy goal” thing is ironed out by August – and settle on the final hair color for the rest of my 30′s.

Or until my next BHAG comes into view.

In a recent conversation with Ann Evanston, we talked about bringing sexy back to business. She is the beauty and brains behind warrior-preneur.com and is an instructor at my Small Biz Super Summit at the end of the month.

One of the key take-aways from that conversation was the idea that saying ‘no’ is sexy.

I have been SO un-sexy lately. And it takes work for me to say no.

Speaking opp? Okay.

Performance opp? Sure thing!

Sign up for a free teleclass? Why not?!

Help you promote your stuff? How can I help!?

In fact, for most women, it’s hard to say no – most of the time.

But this week, I put in some extra effort and turned down a couple of bright shiny objects that were REALLY appealing to me.

And I felt sexy.

And by ‘sexy’, I mean I felt more in control of who I am, what I’m about, and proud of the way I’m taking care of myself and my business.

Could there be anything more sexy?

Yes. Saying ‘no’ is sexy, but saying ‘YES!’ is even sexier – when you say ‘yes’ to the right things.

I said ‘yes’ to writing a book by the end of April, and getting it proofed and ready to publish. Yesterday, I said yes to creating a new e-book about the three secrets I’ve uncovered to get more of the right things done in my life. You can get your own copy when you post your details in the opt-in box on my website. I’m excited about sharing it and can’t wait to get your feedback.

Look at all the stuff I’m getting done! Because I chose to be sexy! Saying ‘no’ to bright shiny objects, and saying ‘yes’ to business enhancing projects.

That’s a whole lotta sexy goin’ on. By saying no, I was able to say yes.

Now instinctively I know that. I’ve read the books that say ‘create a vacuum in your life to make room for the better things God has planned for you’, ‘less is more’ and stuff like that.

And usually, I’m pretty good about sticking to my plans. Every once in a while, we all get distracted. And while those BSO’s have been flying through my radar for years, sometimes we need to get distracted.

I made an impromptu investment in a coaching program with Marcia Hoeck – and you’ve already seen my posts on how that worked out. I wouldn’t trade that BSO for anything. It moved my business exponentially down the field toward my ultimate goal. It distracted me from my work on the Super Summit, but it WASN’T a distraction for The Renaissance Mom. It was a MUST DO.

Part of my saying ‘no’ has been cleaning out my in-box this week. It’s been more than 3 years since I’ve had less than 1000 UNREAD messaged in my mailbox. I started having my assistant create filters, and I STILL had over 2000 unread messages. The oldest unread message dated back to April, 2008. Now most of these are subscription notices or updates and marketing messages that I just never opened because they didn’t apply to me. But I didn’t delete them, either. tsk tsk tsk.

As I went back to the messages from 2007, I saw an email promoting a website that is now defunct. Then another and another. In 2008, I saw more emails of the same ilk. Emails touting the next “latest and greatest” thing, and when you click on the link, the sites no longer exist.

These folks fell off my radar months, if not years ago, and yet they were still in my in-box. I think it’s safe to say I was one of those ‘non-responsive’ list members (more on that in part two)!

I know a women who STILL holds the recruiting title in her company for adding more than 50 recruits in a single month in her direct sales business. And yet, by the end of the year, less than 10 of those recruits were still active. She spent SO much time and energy training them, and lost 80% of them by the end of the year.

I’m not one to want to spin my wheels like that. That’s too much like work, and not enough like enjoyment, for me.

Setting healthy boundaries – in my personal and business life has allowed me to actually HAVE a life. Minimum wheel spinning, maximum enjoyment.

It doesn’t get much sexier than that.

I suffer from a chronic case of typosis.

My suffering stems from two problems. First, I type a bit faster than my laptop can sometimes keep up (that’s from my days as a secretary). Second, my mind races pretty fast and my fingers have all they can to keep up some days.

That’s still no exuse, um, I mean excuse. Even speel check – I mean spell check – doesn’t always catch my Gramma errors (or is that grammar? hmmm.)

And even when I try my trusty “read it backwards” proofing tip, I still miss things.

I’m not alone. As an administrative assistant, I worked for an incredibly busy executive in the auto industry and couldn’t for the life of me figure out how this guy got promoted when his typosis was so bad.

Yeah, I was in my twenties at the time and thought I knew a lot more than most of the world. I’m feeling much better now.

The reality of the matter is that Entreprenurial ADD doesn’t allow us to “worry about” spelling. That’s what spell-chcek is for right?

But then in our haste, we forget to hit the speel cehk button and our missive is fojangled.

Yes, the previous typos were on purpose. Any from this point on are not intentional.

I am blessed beyond belief to have not one but two sets of keen eyes scanning my blog and newsletters from time to time. I am grateful to them every time they email me (privately of course) to point out the errors on my pages. Other writers may call them nit-picky, but as my friend Mark pointed out, typos damage credibility. You look foolish, and whether you want to admit it or not, you’ll end up with less credibility in the world.

I see my ‘back seat editors’ as my front-seat brand guardians. They tell me when I’m doing well, and keep me humble when I need improvement. I’m the first one to tell you I’m flawed. They’re the first ones to help me keep my mouth shut.

And PRIVATELY is the way to do this. I know I’ve blown this myself by publicly posting a typo correction on someone’s facebook page (sorry, Ted), or blog, so I stand as accountable as the next person on this issue. Posting publicly isn’t usually the fastest way to fix the typos (I’ve learned), so publicly posting only spouts YOUR intelligence, which is what makes it come off as rude, when you may really be trying to be helpful (again, sorry, Ted!). And maybe you meant to be insulting. I’m just trying to see the good in people here.

So if you write, be grateful for your editors – whoever they are – even if they’re volunteers! And if you edit, be vigilant, but also be sensitive to the people for whom you edit.

And if you’re an entrepreneur, slow down. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but as my video suggests, taking time to be “in the moment, at the moment” is one of the best tips I’ve ever learned to help overcome typosis.

Thank you Mark and Bonnie. You are my champions.