I had a lot of fun producing DSM Sushi Roll last Fall and earlier this year (stay tuned for news on this Fall’s DSM Sushi Roll schedule), so I thought I’d apply the same concept to one of my other favorite indulgences in life – WINE!
I’ve put together a bus tour of four, Central/Southern Iowa wineries/vineyards that includes education, tastings, food pairings, on-site shopping, vineyard tours…and it’s all happening on September 15th, 2013. Tickets will go on sale on August 15th, so mark your calendar.
Enjoy wine tasting, food pairing, education, vineyard tours and on-site shopping. Here’s the schedule if you want to check it out…Wineries on this tour include Jasper Winery, Summerset Winery, Two Saints Winery and Madison County Winery. Price per person of $55 includes ticketing fees, climate controlled round-trip transportation, bottled water and snacks on-board the bus. Must be 21 years or older to participate.
Iowa Wine Tour is really going to be a lot of fun and tickets will sell out quickly. Be sure to like the Facebook Fan Page or sign up for the e-newsletter to stay in-the-know. Who knows, if this Iowa Wine Tour goes well, I may plan more for the future!
Also known as, “Who’s Got Your Back: The breakthrough program to build deep, trusting relationships that create success – and won’t let you fail.
Forget about trying to be successful on your own. It’s difficult and not all that fun. This book talks about creating an inner circle of “lifeline relationships”, deep, close relationships with a few key trusted individuals who will offer the encouragement, feedback and generous mutual support we all need to reach our goals. Accountability!
And it really doesn’t matter what your goals are, whether they’re to lose weight, start a company, leave an awful job, learn how to play the guitar…this book is a road map to help you get there.
I haven’t read Keith Ferrazzi’s book, Never Eat Alone, but this book shows its readers that success comes from creating a team of trusted advisers that hold you mutually accountable to reach your goals.
In this step-by-step guide you’ll learn how to:
- Master the mindsets that will help you to build deeper, more trusting “lifeline relationships”
- Overcome the career-crippling habits that hold you back, once and for all
- Get further, faster by setting goals in a dramatically more powerful way
- Use “sparring” as a productive tool to make the decisions that will fuel personal success
- Replace the yes men in your life with those who get it and care – and will hold you accountable to achieving your goals
- Lower your guard and let others help!
None of us can do it alone. We need the perspective and advice of a trusted team. Who’s on your team?
In case you didn’t know, Google will no longer support its Google Reader product effective July 1, 2013, so I’ve been using Feedly for the past several months and it works GREAT!
If you’ve been using Google Reader for the past several years, you’ve probably been managing your content within this product:
- Following people
- There’s probably a list of people who follow you
- Starred items
- Liked items
- Shared items
- Created notes
If you want to download all this data as an XML file before you lose it, you’ll want to use Google Takeout.
Click here to start downloading your Reader data from Takeout. Once downloaded, your subscription data should be easily transferable to another product, where you can continue to keep up with your online reading.
This year I was among 49 Des Moines business leaders chosen to participate in the Greater Des Moines Leadership Institute‘s (GDMLI) Community Leadership Program (CLP).
The rigorous program started with an orientation in August and our first of 10, 5-hour long classes in September. Classes included dinner…even dinner at the Mitchellville Correctional Institute for Women!
Each year, class members are charged with completing one very large community improvement project as a class and at least one small group community service project. Our small group was so ambitious that we did two!
Photo Credit: Angela Ten Clay; L-R: Grant Johnson, Suzanne Hull, Jacque Mohs, Angela Ten Clay, Ben Bruns, the Green Cohort
For our community improvement project, we had to make some very difficult choices since all of the non-profits that applied were worthy. We ended up choosing to partner with Amanda the Panda to create the first, solely dedicated grief center in our community. This year’s class renovated the space located at 1821 Grand Avenue in West Des Moines, to accommodate needed program expansion. This former hospice doubled Amanda the Panda’s current space to allow program expansion, eliminate rented off-site storage and provide a fenced outdoor space for activities.
Photo Credit: Angela Ten Clay; L-R: Angela Ten Clay, Suzanne Hull
At our first class, we were asked to write a note to ourselves including what we hoped to get out of our participation in the program. My note read:
- How to work better with others – this honed constantly as I was on the steering community for our class project
- Meet new and interesting people – met individuals that I KNOW will be friends for life
- Make networking connections – got the opportunity to network with individuals that I never would have met otherwise
- Learn more about the Des Moines community – The Polk County Housing Trust Fund does a bus tour three times a year throughout Des Moines. Sign up for it and go. It will blow your mind. It blew mine…
- Discover new things about myself
- Learn to be more open-minded
A huge time investment, is an understatement. Be prepared to grow as a person, as a professional and as a member of your community if you choose to participate.
When you’re cooking something for dinner, you can definitely tell when you’ve forgotten to season it; whatever it is you’ve prepared, if it’s not tasting good, you’re not going to eat it. So, why do you ask your blog audience to read posts which you haven’t spiced up at all?
I’ve been using the word “consumable” quite a bit lately as it relates to blog posts written by the clients I’m coaching. As they write, I impress upon them the importance of making what they’re writing “taste good” so it can be easily digested.
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Lately I’ve come to know a few people who are operating an extremely successful freelance business….but they don’t have a business. name I applaud them because they didn’t let the stress of arriving at the perfect business name hold them back from moving forward with their dream.
When I started my business last fall, I spent about a month brainstorming names until I landed on Contemporary Business Solutions. Did I love it? No. Did it represent my business well? Yes. I’ve created a current, contemporary solution to business’ needs by contracting my time when they have project that needs to be done. All too often small business owners feel that they need to hire staff when the workload picks up – that might not be the best solution. It’s extremely expensive to hire a permanent employee when you’re not positive that the upswing in business is going to last. That’s where I come in.
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I recently presented to a networking group about how social media can help them grow their business. I told the group that they could jump right in with their questions as I wanted this presentation to be more of a conversation than a speech. Right off the bat, a gentleman asked me what social networking was. Below are some definitions:
Wikipedia
http://www.whatissocialnetworking.com/
About.com
Social Networking in Plain English:
Click here to watch the video
