September is National Preparedness Month here in the United States, but you do not have to live in the US to be prepared for an emergency, and you should not wait for September to begin making preparation. You never know when a crisis will affect you or one of your loved ones, so it’s important to take the time now to make sure that you’re all prepared and know what to do in the event of an emergency. Since this is the month to prepare yourself, your family, and your home, for emergencies, let’s delve into some of the things you must do to be the readiest you can be.
Learn about natural disasters in your neck of the woods and how to protect yourself from them
The first step to protecting yourself from a natural disaster is to learn about the different kinds that could affect your geographical region. Once you understand which disasters could possibly occur in your area, how you’ll know they’re happening, and what you can expect during them, you will be able to prepare properly. Teach your family what they should do to stay safe during each of those situations. After you all understand what should be done in each circumstance, you can then create your plans by visiting www.ready.gov/plan to access forms. You should have safe places designated for each possibility, whether it’s in your home or at a safe place somewhere else. Consider your family’s specific needs while establishing your plans and make sure to write down your arrangement so each family member can review your strategy often and memorize it.
Prepare older children to stay home alone
If you have children in your family that are old enough to stay home alone, you’ve likely already shared safety information with them. However, it’s always important to refresh their memory on those tips at regular intervals. Teach them how to safely use kitchen appliances, who to open the door for, when to call you, and more. Teach them how to lock up your home properly and how to use your home security system if you have one. Showing them tips online, such as Youtube Video How to Stay Safe Alone at Home, will help them learn how to protect the home and themselves while you’re away.
Choose a family safe word or sentence
A family safe word or sentence can be helpful for many different situations. A solid safe word is one that wouldn’t be used in normal conversation in your family. It’s also important to have a word that won’t allow others to know that something is wrong. For example, if you only have fish as pets, a good way to let a family member know that something is wrong would be to say, “Have you fed the dog?”. Children can also use a safe word to let their parents know that they need to speak about something that’s bothering them. Teach your children what they should do if you use a safe word, how they can stay safe, and how to let others know that something is wrong.
Stock up on emergency supplies
It is vital to have resources available in your home to help your family if an emergency arises. First, sign up each of your family members with a cell phone for emergency alerts. This way, each person knows if there is an emergency in your area. Next, find phone numbers and websites to communicate an emergency to others, like poison control and your local police station. Keep a list of these resources somewhere where everyone can easily access them. Finally, put together emergency kits to keep in your home and your car. Items that should be in your kit include long shelf life foods, first aid supplies, extra batteries, solar lights, candles, matches or lighters, personal hygiene items, and more. Visit www.ready.com/kit for more emergency kit information.
Teach fire safety tips to your family
The first step to teaching fire safety is to teach prevention. Make sure each member of your family understands how to properly use appliances that could potentially start a fire. Make sure your smoke detectors are functioning and have batteries. If the unfortunate situation of a house fire does occur, it’s important that your children know what to do. Teach them to stay low to avoid breathing in smoke and to stop, drop, and roll if their clothes catch on fire. A fun way to practice these tips with young children is to play Firefighter Says. You can also call your local firehouse to see if they have a time available when firefighters can teach your little ones all about fire safety and what they do. Last but not least show bigger children how to use a fire extinguisher, and when to use it. Always keep one handy!
These are but a few things to do to be prepared for a disaster. Be sure to follow the links and check the websites suggested here for more on disaster preparedness. Safety should be our #1 priority and we cannot take it for granted.
Now, how do you prepare with your family for an emergency? Are you prepared? Please share with us in the comment section below.
And, if you aren’t prepared, please take some time to get your house in emergency preparedness order.
MBB hosted our 6th biannual Design Your Dream Lifestyle event on Saturday, this time in the architecturally bold and beautiful city of Chicago. 32 amazing women attended and we all had a wonderful time analyzing our completed Lifestyle Designing Workbook and digging in to carve out our path to making our individual lifestyle design a reality. Unlike our Design Your Dream Lifestyle Los Angeles event held in January of last year, where many of the women did not do their initial homework 🙄 all 32 women did their initial homework for our Chicago event, and for that we want to applaud you all.
You see, you can get to do life your way. You can choose what’s important to you. You can choose how to be – about whatever. You can Live on your terms. You can enjoy your life. You can be you! And you don’t have to apologize for it. You don’t have to qualify it. You don’t have to justify it. You don’t have to feel guilt or shame about it.
But you have to do the work!
Congratulations to all 10 women who completed our Money Mojo Quiz and secured a free spot in our WERK Your Money Making Genie program – a $1799 program. If you were a part of our DYDL Chicago event but did not secure a free spot, you can still take advantage of our program at a 50% cost. Send us a note and include the words DYDL Chicago WERK.
My Blooming Biz International Design Your Dream Lifestyle Events and Workshops Are Changing Women’s Lives
We are happy to say that MBB DYDL participants are delighted with our program as they are seeing results and “feeling energized and optimistic” in the words of Gillian Brooks and Dana Shelton, about their new life design and where they are headed – respectively. See more of what My Blooming Biz family are saying on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages, and don’t forget to like, follow, and interact with us while you’re there.
As always, we handed out 32 bags of our signature goodies that include mbb gift cards, discounts to our UPPPP Your Genius system of programs, and copies of our popular signature book written by our CEO Eugénie Nugent titled – Unleash: Manifest Your Greatness & Become The Empowered Woman You Were Born to Be – Living The Empowered Woman Lifestyle. Lots of goodies!
But if you were not at our event, do not despair! Sign up to our newsletter and get notified of our next event, and also of new launches and promotions.
In addition to being created because we understand the brilliance, beauty, and boldness of women and the role that being balanced and purpose-driven can play in improving women’s lives, My Blooming Biz was created to help women harness their skills and talents and use them to propel a ton of money to flow in. In order to live life on our own terms we need money – and lots of it, and in recognition of that, our CEO and founder Eugénie Nugent – in collaboration with her team, have designed programs that are specific to building wealth and becoming financially independent.
As she often says and strongly believes, “Having our finances in order is the highest form of self-love, a love that cannot help but to command respect.”
Money is a subject many people are still hesitant to speak freely about, but money expands who we are, and what we are able to access. And so, as we teach here at My Blooming Biz International; being open about money – changing the way we view, treat, and interact with money will be the difference in whether we snatch, snatch and let go, or snatch and hold on to it, as she wrote in her book, The Elusive Money: How to Snatch & Hold On To It.
Bottom line: Money commands respect! And for those of us who were taught to hate money and negatively treat money, we need a new mindset in order to accept and act on this new reality.
Design Your Dream Lifestyle programs and events are designed to bring out the best in you and challenge you to empower yourself. In our CEO’s own words, “We are here to pull things out of you that you didn’t know were there, and assist you in making them work for you, to the enhancement and betterment of your overall life.” She has selectively created five (5) programs to help women become empowered and she is relentless in making “the empowered woman lifestyle” a reality for thousands of women.
Download your FREE copy of our Lifestyle Designing Workbook and complete the worksheets. It is packed with thought-provoking questions to get you thinking about your current life situation, where you would rather be, and how you can equip yourself (with our help) to get there.
Our next DYDL event will be in January 2020, so sign up to our newsletter to be informed when our venue is solidified. Design a life you love, and embrace your life. Embrace you!
Looking around the world today at what’s happening seems like a never ending roller coaster of tragedy, mournings, sadness caused by wars, rumors of wars, retaliations leaving many dead and those alive, in despair. This is a constant reminder that life is unpredictable. You can be here one minute, and gone the next. You can be here one minute with all your faculties, and losing any at any given moment. Adding to that, are the other culprits – diseases, illnesses caused by unnatural elements in our foods and air adding to the equation – painting a dismal picture and bringing into clear focus the fragility of our life, and why we have to do our best to live our best life possible – while we have the chance.
Many of us don’t think about this much until tragedy strikes us, or someone close to us. We never give a thought to the unpredictability of life and the urgency that’s required to ensure our life is lived to its fullest. However, this is something we must be cognizant of. Don’t wait to start living your life to its fullest. Start now! That said, there are things we can control and then there are things we cannot control, and will never be able to control. So what we have to do is figure out what we can control and make them work for us, and what we cannot and will never control, and formulate ways to work around, with, or through them.
Here are 7 Tips to Embracing Your Life and Following Through to Your Dreams Sooner Than Later:
Tip# 1. Write down everything you are passionate about in life
There’s a certain switch that happens when we write things down. It moves from the abstract into reality. Thoughts materialize on paper in front of us. This is monumentally important! So if you haven’t been writing down your goals, dreams, and desires, go ahead and begin writing them down. Not just think it in your mind, but actually write it down pen to paper.
Ask yourself, “what are you passionate about?” Don’t answer something superficial like money. Money is just a conduit to something else like freedom or security. The question is about passion. You are not passionate about money! Maybe about what money would bring. But forget about money for a moment. What else are you passionate about? Is it your family? Is it helping others? Is it traveling? Is it new experiences? Is it reading books? Writing books? Sharing stories? Write it down. Write down everything that you’re passionate about and then a short description of why it means so much to you in life. This is crucial! Don’t skip this step.
Tip# 2. Write down what you are no longer willing to tolerate
We usually end up tolerating things because we’re too afraid of the alternatives. For example, you might tolerate a relationship because you’re too afraid of divorce – afraid of being alone. You might tolerate your 9-5 job because you’re too afraid of starting your own business and possibly failing. Or you might tolerate your diet because you’re too afraid of trying to lose weight and failing and what others might think of you.
What have you been tolerating? What have you put up with in your life for far too long? Don’t just think about it. Write it down. Again, writing it down makes it real. Thinking about it keeps it in the abstract. Write it down then write down why you’re no longer willing to tolerate it.
Something amazing happens when you do this. You won’t realize it right away, but your mind will start searching for ways to overcome those things that you’ve been tolerating for too long that have been holding you back in life. Do this and watch your transformation unfold. Our lifestyle designing workbook is designed with this in mind.
Tip# 3. Revisit the big goals you’ve long given up on and enhance them with new empowering goals
When you realize how unpredictable life is, you begin to understand why you cannot sit and watch your dreams fade. You only get this chance at life once, and when it’s over it’s over. Also, there are things you can do more easily when you’re younger, things that will be more challenging as you get older. You must revisit those big goals you had – now, and begin working to bring them to fruition. You may also want to create a new set of empowering goals that will fuel you and drive you forward. Write them down. Create a plan and put your plan in action.
We live in fear too often! We think that if we reach for something and fall flat on our faces that it’s the end of everything. But it’s not, it doesn’t have to be! You can always learn from the things that failed and use those lessons to your advancement, so you can come out victorious the next time around. We’ve learned more lessons through failure than anything else here at MBB, and they have definitely made us better – individually, and collectively. Failure can either demolish you or drive you to reach higher. Choose to reach for your goals and let nothing stop you from accomplishing them. Use everything along the way as you embrace your process, to enhance and elevate you to your best standard of living and quality of life.
Tip# 4. Come up with compelling reasons to achieve your goals
We will only achieve our goals when they are meaningful to us. With that in mind, come up with some compelling reasons for achieving YOUR goals. Dig deep inside for the meat of your “why“ and solidify them. Why does reaching that goal matters most to you?
Figure that out and you’ll find the solution. Come up with reasons that you would quite literally give life and limb for. Think about it! In the past, didn’t you do whatever it took to achieve something when you really wanted it badly? Badly enough that you did whatever it took to achieve it? Of course you did! That’s the secret sauce right there – a meaningful why.
Tip# 5. Do something outside of your comfort zone
We all have a comfort zone! Pushing ourselves outside of that comfort zone is imperative, if we are to live and experience life to its fullest. Yes, you are in your comfort zone, but how comfortable are you if you are not maximizing your fullest potential? How comfortable are you if you are not fully living and thriving? Author and brand strategist Rachel Wilson Thibodeaux terms this the “uncomfortable comfort zone”. You are in your comfort zone but you are not comfortable because you are not where you want to be in life, you have not exhausted all your potential to be the best you you can be, and as such you are not living your best life – but compromising.
You’re probably afraid of the unknown, afraid of failing, afraid of what others may think of you as you step out. Stepping out makes us vulnerable! But it is in this vulnerability that we are seen, recognized, and able to extend our greatness to those our gifts were designed for. Defy fear! Put fear in its proper perspective so you can achieve success. Make the first step outside of your comfort zone. Even if it’s something small, for example, if you’re afraid of meeting new people, go to networking events and speak to others. Push yourself! It’s only temporary discomfort, but that temporary discomfort could mean a lifetime of empowerment, abundance, and true comfort. As our CEO Eugénie Nugent like to say here at My Blooming Biz, “Get it on! Short-term discomfort for long-term comfort”.
Tip# 6. Contribute something of value to help others
Here at My Blooming Biz International, we believe in the law of reciprocity which states, “it is in giving that we receive”. And no, we will not necessarily be rewarded by the ones we help, however, when we help others we become a part of the circle of reciprocity, and as your good flow out some good returns to you. So with that in mind, what can you do for others? What can you do for your family or friends? What about for the community? What type of life can you provide for your family and what value can you give to the world if you were to achieve your dreams? If you can find something that fuels you that’s bigger than you, it is your purpose. When you add value to the lives of others, an extraordinary transformation occurs. Imagine being able to make money doing something you love and also giving to other people at the same time.
Of course, this isn’t just about making money. You should find ways to contribute in any way possible. Donate your time to help others solve some problem or just to lend a helping hand. If you have disposable income, consider donating some of it. Do something to make the world and the lives of others better and you’ll begin to attract good things in life.
Tip# 7 Allow Nothing to Keep You Off-track
Things are going to happen that will take you off track, that’s life. As we said before, there are things we can control and things we cannot control. And so those “things we cannot control” have the potential to get us off-track, but how we will get back on track is by using the things we can control. Formulating new ways and approaches to achieving our goals. Changing our route if we have to, but never our BIG goals and dreams – not our destination.
You may have to say goodbye to friends, colleagues, and even family members who seem to only discourage, disparage, and dissuade you to thwart your dreams. Some of them will be temporary, some will be permanent, but you have to let them be so you can move forward and get pass those testy hurdles that would have been so much easier to cross if only those nays were actually yays. It’s difficult enough trying to jump those hurdles that are inevitable in life, but when the support is not there, and some are even making you question what you are trying to do – if you are even capable or good enough – it’s time to let them go.
So make a commitment to yourself that from now on you are going to do whatever it takes to live your life to its fullest potential, and allow nothing and no-one to keep you off track. You will set your goals, solidify your why, formulate your plan, embrace fear, stay on course because life is too short to not live every minute of it just the way we want to.
When you hear the word ‘why‘ what is the first thing that comes to your mind? If you’re not a parent or has never been around children, then you won’t give the same answer we do to this question. But ask this to a multitude of parents/guardians and they’ll quickly tell you that no-one on this earth uses the word ‘WHY’ more than children – especially young children. And when they ask ‘why?‘ if they are not satisfied with the response they get, they will continue on their ‘why’ path until they receive the response they seek – until your answer equals their question.
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” —Mark Twain
In our grown up world we must face the same question why? not only from others but most importantly, from ourselves as we work to figure out a way to ensure we achieve whatever we desire – our goals. So, what do you want out of life? What are your goals? Have you ever taken the time to write them down? How about creating a plan for their achievement? If you haven’t, now is the time to do so. But that’s not the only thing you have to do. You have to know why you want what you want. Your ‘WHY’ is immensely important to you achieving those goals because it sets the bar. It lights that fire in you to go after your goals and reignites it when the going gets tough. Your why gives you a reason to remain unstoppable in pursuit of your goals.
If you’ve ever watched one of those lifetime movies where one party believe they’ve been wronged by someone taking something valuable from them – many times a man, but sometimes even a space in a top university, and they decide they will stop at nothing to either a) get it back or b) make the person responsible life a living hell. That is their WHY! Something valuable was taken unfairly – in their eyes, and nothing and no-one will stop them from unleashing their wrath and achieving their goal.
When your ‘why’ is important, you’ll do virtually anything it takes to accomplish it. It burns like a fire inside of you! Identifying it and pulling it out is where the real magic happens. Once you know why you want something, deep down inside, then you’ll do anything it takes to get it. This is why it is vital to dig through the layers and ascertain your solid ‘WHY’. Real estate investor, entrepreneur, and motivational speaker Joe Stumpf speaking at Dean Graziosi and Joe Polish’s 100k Group, terms this reach 7 Layers Deep. And basically what this means, is that we all have reasons for doing things and wanting things but often, the first reason is the superficial reason. As we go deeper and question each of those reasons, we come up with a deeper and more profound reason. When you can’t go any further, it’s your ‘WHY’ and that’s the reason you have for doing what you’re doing. It often starts in the mind and moves to the heart. When it gets to your heart, that’s when it becomes profound. How does this work? Simple. Take your big goal or idea that you have for your life, and ask yourself the following question: What is the reason why I want to achieve or have this in my life?
For example, let’s just say you want to earn a million dollars. Why do you want a million dollars? Not because you want pieces of paper with dead presidents on it, right? Clearly that’s not the reason! So, what’s the reason? You might say that you want a million dollars so that you can buy a nice house. Okay, so that’s a superficial reason – the mind speaking and not the heart.
Next, you would ask yourself why you want a nice house? The answer will go deeper. You might want it so that your family has a nice place to live in a safe neighborhood. That’s going deeper, but not quite there. You might eventually say that you want to live in a safer neighborhood and have a nice place to live because, as a child growing up, you didn’t have a stable family environment or you moved around a lot or you didn’t live in a safe neighborhood.
So you keep going deeper. Then you might say that the reason you want to live in a safe neighborhood is because you don’t want your children to worry about being outside during the day or playing in the neighborhood after the sun sets. Then, you might say that the reason for that is because you want security for your family because you felt so afraid as a child growing up and you didn’t want that for your children.
Can you see how this process goes until you get to the core? Until you find your deeper why? Now, this might not take you 7 layers. It might take 5 or 10 or any other number. But you keep going until the answer equals the question! Coming up with a strong enough reason why you have to do something will make you much more attuned and eager to spend your time working on bringing that to fruition. A very strong activator, motivator, and stay-the-courser.
So, have you found your why for wanting to achieve those goals you have set? Do share with us in the comment section.
If you’ve been with us here at My Blooming Biz for a while you know how much we continuously stress the importance of improving our lives with the formation of good, positive habits. Why? Because habits are at the center of who we are. They are an integral part of all that we say, do, and allow in our lives, and will be the defining factor in whether we succeed or fail at anything. Keystone habits can further our habit formation agenda by showing up our bad habits, stealthily requiring changes in those areas, and creating a ripple effect of good, positive changes in our lives.
What are Keystone Habits?
Keystone is a term used widely to define the significance of one piece or component in a system of parts. Habits are things we continuously do, even without any conscious thought to doing them. Thus Keystone Habits are those central habits that dictate the functionality of all other habits. In habit development, the keystone habit symbolizes the importance of one single habit that brings together multiple other habits. The keystone habit acts as a center stone, providing support for the development of the other habits that are surrounding it.
One solid example of keystone habit is expense journaling.
When you keep an expense journal, you track every single penny you spend on a daily basis, the time you spend it, what you spend it on, and why you spend it. When expense journaling becomes a habit, it acts as a keystone in the identification of unnecessary expenditures, and the ability to see a vast overview of spending patterns and thus able to do something about it. In turn, this leads to better financial goal setting, an adjustment of expenses, and other positive financial habits.
Habits are not formed overnight! So the deliberate act of developing keystone habits will ultimately command better habits by subtly disrupting established habits, resulting in positive changes to our lifestyles.
How to Form Keystone Habits
Like any other habit, forming keystone habits takes time, discipline, consistency, and patience. It takes an identification of the habit itself, and a plan to form the habit – over time. No habit will be easy to form! Habit formation takes work, so you have to be prepared to dig your heels in, and do the work required with consistency and tenacity.
How to Leverage Keystone Habits to Improve Your Life
Step 1. Create a Checklist of Your Goals & Habits Needed To Achieve Those Goals
The first step in leveraging keystone habits is to create a checklist of the habits you need to have in order to accomplish your goals. On a clean sheet of printing paper – laid out horizontally (landscape), make two vertical lines that will divide the page in 3 equal parts. Next, make a horizontal line close to the top of page. On the left, write the heading GOALS, in the mid section write the heading NEEDED TO ACHIEVE GOALS, and on the right ‘MUST HAVE’ HABITS. Input your first goal under GOALS. Then, list all the things you need in order to achieve that goal under NEEDED TO ACHIEVE GOALS. Next, list the habits you must have in order to achieve that goal under ‘MUST HAVE’ HABITS. Repeat this process for all the other goals you have.
Our signature Goal Book has a section for this exercise in it, purchase your copy if you haven’t already done so.
Step 2. Identify Your Keystone Habits
The second step in leveraging keystone habits is to identify the keystone habits from your list of ‘Must Have’ habits. To do this, look at what you’ve listed under ‘MUST HAVE’ HABITS and identify the one habit that is central to all the other habits. That habit, that once you get a hold of, will command the other habits to get in formation. That is your Keystone Habit! Focus on getting that habit on par and improve your chance of reaching that goal. Repeat this process for all the goals you have listed.
Step 3. Put Those Keystone Habits Into Action
Put those keystone habits you have identified in Step 2 into action, and work consistently at developing them into habits – your new good habits. Things like weight loss, elimination of debt, increase in income begin with keystone habits. If you want to lose more weight, form the keystone habit of food journaling. If you want to eliminate debt, form the keystone habit of expense journaling. If you want to increase your income, form the keystone habit of effective time management. The keystone habit will be your gateway to the other habits that will help to support and improve your life in any given area.
“Successful people are simply those with successful habits” – Brian Tracy
Make every effort to form good success habits in your life and watch your life blossom and bloom. Focus on the small, minute changes through the development of good, solid keystone habits, and stay the course. Don’t try to take on too much, too fast. Focus on the keystone habit for each goal you’ve set, and watch the other habits surreptitiously fall in line.
MBB hosted our 5th biannual Design Your Dream Lifestyle event on Saturday in the beautiful, historically rich Washington DC. Over 60 women attended of whom 32 are active participants in our Dream Lifestyle Designing Workshop, and 18 women signed up to start our Dream Lifestyle Designing program.
We are happy to say that MBB DYDL participants are delighted with our program as they are seeing results and "feeling invigorated and optimistic" "very hopeful about my future for the first time" in the words of Rachel Claire and Jasmine Taylor, about their new lifestyle and where they are headed - respectively. See more of what My Blooming Biz family are saying on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages, and don't forget to like, follow, and interact with us while you're there.
We handed out over 50 bags of goodies that include mbb gift cards, discounts to our WERK Your Money Making Genie Workshop and our UPPPP Your Genius system of programs, and copies of our popular signature book written by our CEO Eugénie Nugent titled - Unleash: Activate Your Power, Manifest Your Greatness & Become The Empowered Woman You Were Born to Be. Lots of goodies! But if you were not at our event, do not despair! Sign up to our newsletter and get notified of our next DYDL event coming this July 2019, and also of new launches and promotions.
In addition to being created because we understand the brilliance, beauty, and boldness of women and the role that being balanced and purpose-driven can play in improving women's lives, My Blooming Biz was created to help women harness their skills and talents and use them to propel a ton of money to flow in. In order to live life on our own terms we need money - and lots of it, and in recognition of that, our CEO and founder Eugénie Nugent - in collaboration with her team, have designed programs that are specific to building wealth and becoming financially independent.
As she often say and strongly believe, "Having our finances in order is the highest form of self-love, a love that cannot help but to command respect."
Money is a subject many people are still hesitant to speak freely about, but money expands who we are, and what we are able to access. And so, as we teach here at My Blooming Biz; being open about money - changing the way we view, treat, and interact with money will be the difference in whether we snatch, snatch and let go, or snatch and hold on to it, as she wrote in her book, The Elusive Money: How to Snatch & Hold On To It
.
Bottom line: Money commands respect! And for those of us who were taught to hate money and negatively treat money, we need a new mindset in order to accept and act on this new reality.
Design Your Dream Lifestyle programs and events are designed to bring out the best in you and challenge you to empower yourself. In our CEO's own words, “We are here to pull things out of you that you didn’t know were there, and assist you in making them work for you, to the enhancement and betterment of your overall life.” She has selectively created five (5) programs to help women become empowered and she is relentless in making "the empowered woman lifestyle" a reality for thousands of women.
Download your FREE copy of our Dream Lifestyle Designing Workbook and complete the worksheets. It is packed with thought-provoking questions to get you thinking about your current life situation, where you would rather be, and how you can equip yourself (with our help) to get there.
Our next DYDL event will be in July 2019, so sign up to our newsletter to be informed when our venue is solidified.