80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients.  You’re probably quite familiar with the 80/20 rule as it applies to your business, but have you ever considered how it applies to your daily tasks?   80% of your results come from 20% of your tasks.  Often that 20%, the results-oriented tasks are the difficult ones that tend to get put off.  This is when procrastination enters the picture. 

Starting something new is always a challenge even when it’s something we really want to do or know we should do.  Let’s face it.  To a greater or lesser extent, most people are resistant to change and starting something new represents a change. No matter how difficult change may be for you or how long you’ve been putting something off, the 12 minute solution can help you manage your procrastination.  The 12 minute solution is based on the simple premise: make the choice and you can do anything for 12 minutes.

It all started on New Year’s Day and a resolution to start exercising—again. This time I wanted to start doing yoga and take the dog for a walk in the mornings. That sounded easy enough–or so I thought. Unfortunately, the days passed and no exercise program materialized.  I happened to mention that I wanted to start a yoga practice to a client who promptly sent me a yoga DVD. 

Several weeks later, she asked me how it was going. A little embarrassed, I incoherently mumbled something about being too busy.  She was gracious, but didn’t let me off the hook.  She proceeded to tell me that one of the workouts was only 12 minutes long and certainly I could fit 12 minutes in somewhere.  Reluctantly, I admitted she was right.

The more I thought about our conversation, the more I knew that I could do just about anything for 12 minutes and “to do or not to do” was just that–a matter of choice.  In many instances, the longer we go without doing something we know we should, the less we feel that there’s an actual choice involved.  We become victims of our repetitive patterns of behavior.

The next day I made a choice to do that 12 minute yoga workout.  With varying degrees of enthusiasm, I dragged myself onto the mat those first few days to do my 12 minutes of yoga. By day 5, I started to feel a bit more flexible and those pesky little aches and pains started to miraculously disappear.  My 12 minutes turned into 15 which soon became 20.  By the end of the second week, I was up to 30 minute and my practice continued to build from there.

Now I was excited.  If I could use this process to actually start exercising, it had real business potential.  So I started asking clients two questions:

• ·         What in my business did I avoid? 
• ·         What would have the greatest impact on my business if I started doing it consistently?

From the first question, I had them develop a comprehensive list of everything in their business that they did their best to avoid.  To help them answer the second question, I had clients rank the tasks they avoided according to the potential impact, the task if done consistently would have on their business.  Now they had their answer to the second question.  This became our starting point for implementing the 12 minute solution. 

Not doing what we know we should is draining physically, mentally and emotionally. By doing the difficult tasks that previously had been procrastinated away, my clients started to feel more positive. In the midst of this year’s market uncertainty, feeling more positive was a nice reward but it didn’t stop there.  Many were able to break through their old plateaus and make significant strides in their business during a difficult and volatile market.  And, it all started with just 12 minutes of new activity a day.

Activity has a way of healing what ails you.  It’s the perfect antidote to worry, fear, self-doubt, anxiety and disappointment not to mention, it always breathes fresh life into your business whenever you initiate it.  However, with today’s business challenges, sometimes starting something new can seem virtually impossible.  Starting is always the hardest part.  That’s where the 12 minute solution can help you manage your procrastination. The effort is minimal but the rewards are great.  Remember, you can do anything for 12 minutes!

Let us know all you were able to accomplish in 12 minutes.  Share your results with us right here on the blog.

 Photo by yuniversum

I feel I’ve spent the last seven months in some online parallel universe that has finally led to this moment–the infamous first blog post. Over that period of time, I’ve taken on everything from WordPress to plug-ins to Linked In groups to search engine optimization, Tweetdecks and everything in between. I consider myself on a steep learning curve so I apologize in advance if I technologically offend anyone. On this technical journey, I’ve discovered that there are certain things I’m supposed to accomplish in this first blog post–so here goes. 

My name is Erin Tamberella and my company is Executive Transformations Inc. I was a financial advisor for 17 years–11 of those with Morgan Stanley, three as a branch manager. For everything you ever wanted to know about me, check out the About Us page.

I’ll be blogging twice a week to start. You can expect a new blog post each Tuesday and Thursday morning. I’ve started blogging because I wanted to offer advisors an “enlightened” self-coaching resource. When you’re dealing with bulls, bears, bubbles, downgrades and debt ceilings all day every day, sometimes it’s hard to feel enlightened or feel any sense of purpose at all other than keeping your head above water.

Yes, I’ll be giving you lots of tools and ideas that will help you build your business. I’m a strong believer in building repeatable systems to power your business and I believe those systems should be modulized for maximum effectiveness. So, you’ll see a lot of how-to posts on building systems for different aspects of your business.

Now for the “enlightened” part. As important as practice management and business development tools and systems are to your business, it’s the mental aspects of the business that will ultimately determine your success or failure. Interestingly, these are the very aspects that are rarely discussed by the firm or even among peers. The “enlightened” posts will be about getting your sense of purpose back and it’s about taking that tireless, fearless, creative energy that comes from having a strong sense of purpose and channeling it back into your business to drive your business. I hope to help get you out of your own way with ideas for conquering the self-sabotaging behaviors that may have held you back in the past–fear, procrastination, lack of consistency and burn-out to name just a few.

Your thoughts and comments are extremely important to me and everyone else in our community here. I encourage you to leave your thoughts and comments in the spirit of helping yourself and other advisors. I will answer every comment in that same spirit. 

Now you know nothing gets written these days without some sort of disclaimer so here’s mine concerning comments to the blog. There are some instances where comments will be edited or deleted. Comments deemed to be spam or questionable spam will be deleted. Including a link to relevant content is permitted, but comments should be relevant to the post topic. Comments including profanity will be deleted. Comments containing language or concepts that could be deemed offensive will be deleted. Comments that attack a person individually will be deleted. I reserve the right to edit or delete any comments submitted to this blog without notice and this comment policy is subject to change at anytime.

With that said, my goal for this blog, as for my coaching is to help you see your potential, help you build the systems you need to believe in your potential and give you the motivation and courage to reach for it! Welcome.

Photo by Jorg Reuter stachelig