Are We Guiding Our Ship? | Boaz Rauchwerger

Did you see the story on Thursday about the shelling and sinking of that rust-stained fishing trawler in Alaskan waters?

The Ryou-Un Maru, about 200 feet in length, was swept away as part of a giant debris field generated by the 9.0-magnitude tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011.

The U.S. Coast Guard sank the trawler after it was determined that the unmanned vessel posed a hazard to mariners and Alaska’s marine environment.

This ship, until its sinking, was drifting aimlessly, unguided, across the Pacific. No one was onboard running the ship and guiding it by using the rudder to get it to a specific destination.

Isn’t that an interesting analogy to life? Too many of us, including me in the past, set sail for an un-specified destination. We don’t define specific goals and then we get upset when we arrive at the wrong destination.

We don’t use a mental rudder to guide our journey and to make course corrections when necessary.

The majority of people, some estimates have it at 97%, do not write down specific goals and then they get disappointed with what the future gives them. What is the difference between no written goals and that ship drifting across the Pacific?

Nothing.

And what happened to that ship? It was sunk.

That ship, during its nearly 13-month drifting journey, traveled about a mile per hour. That’s not a fast pace. However, when you add up all of the miles it traveled in 390 days, that’s a lot of miles.

Time, for all of us, goes by at one minute at a time, 60 in each hour, 1,440 in 24 hours.

May I suggest that we all take a moment today to write down some specific goals for the next five years, for the next 12 months, for the next 30 days, for this week. Make the short-term goals believable and then take action.

Let’s identify where you want your ship to go, give it some power with specific, achievable goals, and let’s keep our hand on the rudder in case we need to make course adjustments.

You are special. You are unique. You are destined for greatness! Have a powerful day!

A Goal-Setting Affirmation

This week I’m writing down specific 5-year, 12-month, 30-day goals, and goals for this week. I’m taking action on my believable short-term goals.

Boaz Power Corp., 642 Baywood Dr., Newport Beach, CA 92660, USA

A Smart Way to Take Credit Card Payments | AllBusiness.com

Interchange fees. If you’re a small merchant, you know how irritating they are, because you have to hand the bank a piece of the transaction each time a customer pays with a credit card. The fees average around $2 on a $100 transaction, and they really pile up. Interchange fees are the second-highest expense for most small merchants, after labor costs.

But like a lot of other annoyances in life — mortality, taxes, etc. — exorbitant interchange fees (and the hidden charges that often go with them) are unavoidable. At least, they have been until now. Recently, a disruptive little device that plugs in to a smartphone or tablet has made it easy for merchants to swipe customer credit cards without paying through the nose for the privilege.

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Online tool connects businesses with experts for one-off advice | Springwise.com

Connecting those with skills and those who need them is a perennial challenge in the labor marketplace, and there seem to be virtually infinite ways to make that happen. Just a few days ago we featured Beyond the School Run, which focuses on career opportunities during school hours, and since then we’ve come across KnowHowMart, an online tool now in beta that’s focused on helping skilled professionals sell their expertise to companies that need one-off advice.

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Managing Employees: 5 Scary Small-Business Mistakes | AllBusiness.com

author of article

Yes, your employees can make or break your business, but battling zombies can be easier than managing people.

When ‘Giving Your All’ Gets You Nowhere

Case in point: I received an email recently from an employee who wanted to know how to turn down a “promotion” that meant doing two jobs without a pay, title, or bonus increase. She wrote:

Read – 5 Scary Small-Business Mistakes.

New Business Ideas | CoolBusinessIdeas.com

SmallScaleBusiness.com is pleased to announce that they currently have over 660 small business ideas with plans to expand this to 1000 by the end of 2012. More and more people are making the decision to start their own small business due to layoffs and other financial problems. Most of these are looking for ideas for businesses they can start with little up front investment.

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