Sarina Russo & 5 Reflections to prepare for peak performance

Sarina Russo is the daughter of an Italian immigrant farmer in Australia who built a business empire based on her desire to empower young people to gain confidence and enter the workforce.  She didn't initially know exactly what she wanted to do.  She figured it out by realizing what she didn't.  She wasn't always the assertive go-getter that led her to dine with the U.S. president and other influential leaders.  In fact, there was a time when it looked like she was destined to stay home and work for her family until the best suitor was chosen for her.

To read her autobiography, "Meet Me At the Top" inspires us to reach inside ourselves to tap into our own hidden talents.  Are you aware of your potential? She reveals her perception of success in business: how to launch and market yourself, how to recruit for a business, how to enhance  your performance, how to negotiate effectively with clients, how to build a brand how to develop qualities in yourself that will inspire other people to have faith in your potential. Consider these ideas derived from Sarina's life which could help us all see our lives differently:  

1) The pain associated with struggle is preferable to the pain of regret.  You're better off taking steps to put an idea into action than wonder if it would ever have worked.  After disillusions by school and dissatisfied with her life as it was, Sarina left home with a dream to create a new life.   She had little money and admittedly struggled to 'get on her feet,' but she never has to look back on her life and wonder what would happen if she didn't try.

2) Be grateful to former bosses who fire you.  Without being thrown out on your figurative rear, how else would you learn to stand up on your own two feet? Think of animals that are born learning to stand up already and how humans are coddled in some places for so long, they would never choose to leave! To fall into a state of complaency wouldn't enable you to grow.  Sarina had a variety of secretarial and stenographer jobs and her personality wasn't always compatible with employers and co-workers. More than once she tried to get an old job back and was refused because former employers thought she needed to move forward not backward.

3) Appreciate every experience for the stepping stone it is.   You will have your ups and downs but every experience offers wisdom if you choose to see it.  You can learn more about your strengths and weaknesses, what kinds of risks you're willing to take and what you're willing to lose in light of the bigger picture. 

4) The best revenge is to define & experience your own success.  People will always judge and disagree with your views and aspirations.  You're better off not wasting your energy in fights with naysayers. Channel it instead to create a life that makes you feel good about yourself.  You have no reason not to take advantage of the time you're given. Create your own opportunities.

5) Don't hold back.  In pursuit of your dreams, you'll realize it would benefit you to appraoch people who know more than you do.  You'll realize you'll have to learn to stick up for who you are and the value in what you aim to do.  Develop self-confidence and express yourself in ways that convince other people that you're a force to reckon with. First, you must convince yourself.

Give up what you think you want

You may dream of experiencing things that aren't happening as fast as you'd like.  It may be too early to tell whether these things are meant to occur at all.  Are you assuming too much too soon?  Perhaps you're putting all your eggs in one basket. Take a risk to leave all that behind you.

Whatever your view, you don't have to give up your dreams, but it may be worth taking the risk to separate yourself from what you think is the preferable outcome.  To take your mind off your hopes doesn't erase your intention, or your will to succeed, but it just may free the negative energy that causes your tension and a sense of helplessness about certain events.

Imagine, for a minute, that there's another way.  We're so often taught that concentrating on a goal is what will make it come to be.  Holding onto the thought that results may not come simply focuses energy on fear and insecurity.  Learning detachment is based on your belief that the most appropriate outcome will unfold, whether or not you put all energy in that direction.

Rather than become wrapped up in trivialities, why not free your mind to get involved in other pursuits?  You can take steps to connect whatever you do to a larger picture.  To give up focusing most of your energy on what you think you want,  might open your eyes to experiences you never knew existed.  You may discover you have been chasing things that aren't going to happen. 

What is known has happened already.  Traditional security is based in the past.  What has yet to unfold are things you can influence.  To take a risk reveals your willingness to see potential in what you have not yet seen.  Why not benefit from the positive side to your imagination, including what you speculate as meaningful adventures and anticipation about your future?   

Behind the eight ball

As a business owner, you may not realize the importance of organized management in keeping your head above water. If you already feel like you're 'behind the eight ball,' then your troubled position may put you at a distinct disadvantage. It's never to late to turn your situation around.

As you have many issues to contend with, you may ask yourself, where should you begin? The complexity may initially seem overwhelming. What does make sense is not to try to tackle everything yourself. No matter what your business focus, the size of your staff, current debts, or your annual turnover, you'll benefit from these tips:

1) Break down responsibilities.  Be aware of local, national and federal levels of responsibility.  This touches on government and business associations to whom you can be held accountable for your decisions and actions. It pays to be informed about existing and acceptable practices so you can share the workload and empower staff and other people to help you remain 'on-the-ball' or, get informed where you have uncovered serious short-comings.

2) Bureaucracy. Taxes, pension contributions and occupational health and safety are but some areas where the government adds layers of bureaucracy to track and your day-to-day business. Book-keepers and accountants are some of the professionals who can help you get on top of this. Delegating responsibilities can be wise so you don't spread yourself too thin or get in over your head. Regular reviews of budgets, spending forecasts and bank transactions are indispensible not only to show due diligence, but also to ensure things are 'above board.' If problems are found, creditors will generally be glad to work with you to arrange new payment arrangements.

3) Costs & compliance. Whatever your products or services, you have basic costs to cover in product materials, travel expenses, insurance, possible loan repayments, as well as regulations and standards in your umbrella discipline or industry. How well-read are you about your obligations to creditors? Have you conferred with legal specialists? Are you aware of repercussions if you are found to be in non- compliance? Knowing bottom line costs and what you're willing to spend in view of prospective profit margins, is one thing. Knowing the licenses, memberships or membership you're in position to lose for non-compliance or other unacceptable behavior, is quite another.

4) Employee matters. Minimum wage and company obligations to recognize and compensate for inflation are just the tip of the iceberg. Have you taken the time to outline specific written roles and responsibilities and to interview individual staff about realities and expectations? Are existing written document already guiding and protecting your staff that you haven't taken time to read? Employee law includes a variety of subjects worthy of consideration including; discrimination, workplace relations, wages and hours of work, health benefits, health and safety, and obligations and protection of foreign workers.

5) Competition. Staying on top of your industry market trends is important in recognizing what you need to to to stay at least neck-and-neck with your competition. Do you know who they are and what they're doing? How do your products and services compare? Are there ways you can help each other to promote win-win situations? Devote at least as much time on your own innovation.

Ease into the flow

Relationships with some people come so easily while other relationships seem awkward and strained. You may ask why? How can you get along so well with a friend or colleague and have parents, a partner, siblings, in-laws or other people, causing you to feel self-conscious or 'out-of-place?' What is the nature of incompatibility? What does this tell you about harmony?

As you get-to-know yourself, sorting through feelings and vibes gets easier.  You actually know yourself better than anyone, yet may temporarily lose confidence.  Rest assured, openness is a trait you have as a child and you can tap into it at any moment.  Why do you think it felt much easier to express your feelings more directly then? Ease into the flow;

1) Be more aware. Ask the source of love in your life what you need to work on. Keep an open mind.  Watch which emotions arise as you listen and hear the observations. Discover negative vibes  are not telling you about people so much as why you resist expressing love. Invite love to come in and replace negativity. Zero in on why you may think someone won't accept you or like you, and why this matters. Reasons for discomfort you thought you'd never solve resolve themselves. Issues actually begin in your own imagination.

2) Open your inner channels to feel. Recognize that anxiety or worry are telling you valuable things about your complaints and reactions to particular people. What do you fear? What might other people fear about you? Allowing your energy to flow reminds you the more fulfilling life you envision can't come if you're stuck in a mode of self-criticism. You can't control what others may think. This is an invitation to release thoughts you outgrow.

3) Feel good about yourself. Your own desires create, deepen or sever relationships based on what your mind allows. If someone clearly asks you not to contact or interact with them, it's their call. Such people have and may deny their own issues. As you release your own negative thoughts, any unwanted energy will dissipate and stop controlling you. What remains is grounded in compassion.  Trust this process and negative energy won't return.

4) Accept flashes of insight. The truth is that quieting the mind enables you to reframe the relationships you live. Observing your own thoughts and behaviour triggers flashes of insight.  The mind says all pieces will fall together and the heart knows no puzzle ever fell apart.  Intend fulfilling relationships and this is your experience. All is always well.

Turning points

You may ask how you know whether your life is evolving in desirable ways.  If you make such an inquiry, my guess is, you already know the answer.  Yet, will you choose to do anything about it?

Consider where you focus your attention. How you perceive your life shapes it more than your realize.  Your imagination is the canvas. You paint the canvas with visions and dreams and things you would like to happen.  You do this on a conscious and subconscious level. Your feelings can undermine any original ideas and goals.

For example, you may aspire to follow a life path yet, deep down, fear success.  If this is true, your choices may systematically make it very difficult to follow that chosen path.  In effect, you may not really desire to follow this path at all. 

At any time, you're surrounded by options.  You tell yourself if you really desire to do what people tell you and what you may think you tell yourself.  Your future person is talking to who you are now. This may seem hard to grasp, to be in two places at once.  Yet, the only way to get yourself to where you wish to be is to already be there, and look back to how to get to where you already are.

Turning points are like milestones.  You sense you're on the right track in life, making decisions that happen in what you perceive to be a logical sequence.  Changing who you are doesn't have to seem like you're losing anything.  In fact, the healthiest changes are those that enable you to overcome fear and see that what you're gaining is far better than what you ever had or how you previously felt. 

Ultimately, its not really a question of losing or gaining but rather, transforming. You forget who you were because you're so excited about who you are.  Being 'in place' is happiness.  Anything else you simply invented to cloud the real education.