Don’t know what RBBP means? Well it stands for Right-Brain Business Plan®. Starting in 2012 I’ll be running workshops as a Right-Brain Business Plan® Licensed Facilitator. I’m really excited. I did my 3rd business plan using this method and I’m working on my 4th at the moment.
Dates for workshops still TBD but feel free to contact me for more information. If you’re more interested in a one-on-one work arrangement definitely shot me an email. I don’t plan to have a lot of individual clients.
In the meantime enjoy the excerpt from the book!
Excerpt from The Right-Brain Business Plan: A Creative, Visual Map for Success
By Jennifer Lee
www.rightbrainbusinessplan.com
Does This Sound Like You?
You know you’re a right-brain entrepreneur if you respond with a resounding “yes!” to the following questions:
Do you hate the idea of writing a business plan but know you need one?
Do numbers numb you out?
Do words like business plan, cash flow, and balance sheet make your skin crawl?
Would you rather have an MFA than an MBA?
Do you have a big vision for your business but struggle with seeing it through?
Do you prefer colors, images, and feelings to spreadsheets, tables, and templates?
Do you want to make a positive impact with your business but avoid the business aspects of your job?
Do you feel that planning is boring or daunting, or that it gets in the way of the “real work”?
Are you turned off by the formality and nitty-gritty detail of traditional business plans?
Do you believe there’s got to be a better way to run your business?
You are not alone! I hear clients, workshop participants, and blog readers answer yes to questions like these all the time. Sure, your feathers may get ruffled when you hear the letters ROI, but that doesn’t mean you can’t artfully run a business.
Why a Right-Brain Approach to Business Planning?
Typically, we think of business planning as very much a left-brain activity, and yes, the left brain certainly does play a key role in the planning process, since it is geared for logical, analytical, critical thinking. The left brain is a rock star at solving problems, sequencing steps, and hashing out the details, all great attributes when it comes to testing a plan and carrying out the steps to make that plan happen.
The challenge is when left-brain thinking comes too early in the visioning and planning process and kills the party with its questioning, judgment, and need for every single piece of the puzzle to make absolute sense before taking that first step. This limits your thinking; good ideas are quashed before they’ve even had a chance to form. You get analysis paralysis. Unfortunately, this can leave you feeling frustrated, stuck, and without a plan to speak of. Sound familiar?
Fortunately, as a creative person, you’re naturally gifted with right-brain intuition, imagination, and innovation. But this isn’t about left-brain bashing. In fact, the left brain plays an important role in different parts of your planning process. What we want to avoid is letting your left brain hijack the situation.
When you approach business planning with your right brain first, you free your mind to see creative options, explore, and find patterns and purpose. You allow yourself to dream big and to connect emotionally with your vision. When you begin with your authentic vision, you’re so much better equipped to deal with all the other “stuff.”
Yes, it’s important to know the details and understand the numbers, but if you start from that point, you force yourself into a box and may not even get your plan finished because you become frustrated or blocked. You can always ask an expert about how to read a profit and loss statement, but you can only ask yourself about what matters most to you and your business. If you start with your vision and values, the details will follow.
Excerpted from the book The Right-Brain Business Plan © 2011 by Jennifer Lee. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com. Download the free illustrated poster of The Right-Brain Entrepreneur Badge of Honor and play sheets from the book at www.rightbrainbusinessplan.com.
I’ve never written about any personal health problems with any great detail but my most recent experience has prompted me to do so for several reasons. Several months ago, I had hip arthroscopy…while it is a minimally invasive procedure…that doesn’t mean it is a pain free experience. Full recovery is between six months to a year. To make a long story short I had a hip labral tear. A hip labral tear involves the ring of soft elastic tissue, called the labrum, that follows the outside rim of the socket of your hip joint. ~ Mayo Clinic. Put simply torn cartilage in your hip. Physical therapy is how it is treated in a lot of instances; it wasn’t an option for me though. How it happened is anyone’s guess. I was pretty physically active with yoga, dance and martial arts classes.
The surgery itself was a piece of cake. I got knocked out and remember nothing. While pre-surgery testing was annoying it was nothing like the post-surgical experience I had. I was given a cane to use the day of the surgery…yes this is a out-patient procedure and they make you walk out that day once you wake up.
I expected to have some trouble navigating the public transportation system in New York, my mother had polio as a child and while she recently started using a cane herself I had seen prior to this how people treated her when she visited. She was slower going up steps and was nearly tripped on more than one occasion. It’s one thing to watch but it is quite another to be the victim of other people’s truly moronic behavior.
Anyone who has met my mom knows she wasn’t too pleased to hear what I was dealing with on the subway almost daily. I told her it was beyond pointless to write the MTA but she did anyway…
Below is the response she received…
This is in response to your recent e-mail to MTA New York City Transit regarding priority seating.
We sincerely regret any difficulty you have experienced. As you know, New York City Transit has seating on buses and subway cars specifically designated for senior citizens and persons with disabilities. The seats marked “Priority Seating” are designated for customers with disabilities, as mandated by federal law. If a customer requests one of these seats and the occupant refuses to move, the bus operator or conductor (if available) must explain the policy and ask the person to vacate the seat. The role of the bus operator or conductor in this case is to remind the customer of the law. This issue is complicated by the fact that not all disabilities are obvious physical ones. The person occupying the Priority Seat might refuse to vacate the seat because the person requesting the seat shows no visible sign of any disability. The person with the disability is not required to state their disability and the bus operator or conductor is not allowed to ask about the disability.
Seats at either end of a subway car, with signs reading, “Won’t you please give this seat to the elderly or disabled,” are considered “courtesy seats” because it is up to customers to voluntarily give up these seats. It may interest you to know that NYC Transit has a public awareness campaign intended to encourage our customers to give up their seats to the elderly and disabled. It should also be noted that while bus operators and conductors are obligated to request compliance with the law, they are not authorized to compel compliance.
If you have further transit-related concerns, you may visit our website at www.mta.info, or call (718) 330-1234, from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., daily, or write to Customer Services at 2 Broadway, Room A11.146, New York, NY 10004.
We thank you for taking the time to contact us.
The first time I read this email from the MTA my initial thought was bullocks. I haven’t seen any awareness campaign and I ride the subway pretty much everyday. If the goal of the campaign is awareness well it isn’t working or is so well hidden it’s a Mission Impossible assignment.
If bus operators and conductors are not authorized to compel compliance what exactly is the point.
Seriously…
I was nearly hit by several strollers on the street..and yes they saw me..I was just moving too slowly to get out of the way. One man even jumped to get around me nearly causing me to fall over. He said he was sorry as he was doing it. Right. My response to him was if he was actually sorry he wouldn’t have done it in the first place.
People would rush me to get into an elevator, I love kids but a stroller isn’t a disability the last time I checked. The sign does say people with disabilities and the elderly should be let on first. My mother had the same issue when she was here. I even asked a elderly woman on the subway one day what her experiences were like on the transit system. She used a cane as well. Sadly she’d also had people nearly trip her with strollers, bikes..you name it…it had happened.
Someone said to me perhaps because of my age people assumed I didn’t need a seat. Er, please. People didn’t even get up for an older woman. Crutches, cane, wheelchair…doesn’t matter you become part of the invisible crowd…and yes people do avoid eye contact. My physical limitations were temporary, people deal with this crap everyday. How I don’t know. I was sorely tempted to whack someone with my cane a few times…I’m only half joking.
Well, I’m having knee surgery in a few weeks, not sure I’m ready for another round of that rubbish. But thanks to all the strangers who did give up their seats or stopped me from falling when others bumped into me.
So my plea is this:
- Be more aware of your surroundings and fellow human beings.
- Offer your seat to pregnant women, the elderly and people with disabilities. They shouldn’t have to ask.
I’m not talking about food. I’m taking about blogs or whatever place you hang your avatar out for the world to see.
Recently I decided to go on a “weight loss” program.
Why?
Well several reasons..time, illness, lack of interest..whatever the reason I started deleting, disabling or un-publishing stuff like mad.
I started with my Facebook Fan page. I created it as an experiment to understand how it worked for my consulting career. Mission accomplished. 200+ fans later I have no direction or reason to keep doing it at the moment. So I put it on holiday. Facebook will keep making changes – guaranteed but for right now I don’t need to have a fan page. The next page I create, should I choose to do so will be because I have a human not technology reason to have one. I have no desire to have a page just to say I have one.
What was next?
Posterous. I’ve had a blog on there for over a year now. I posted infrequently yet I had followers. Who knows why. I made it private and no more posting for me on that platform. At least for now.
To create your own plan ask yourself:
- Where are you really involved?
- Do you care about what you’re doing? If you feel guilty about not participating more – it’s on the list to go!
- If you aren’t ready to delete just make your accounts private, if possible. If you don’t miss it after a few months I’d say it’s safe to get rid of it.
Next to go will probably be my YouTube channel. Again I have zero reason to keep it active. I have one video!
You don’t have to be on every social network or whatever’s cool at the moment. It’s like spring cleaning your media presence. It needs to be done. You wouldn’t keep clothes that were falling apart or stuff you never wore in your closet in hopes that you’d wear it? Well same thing applies online. Well unless you’re a hoader…that’s a whole other issue entirely.
I’m sure there is some social media guru or “social media scientist” out there who disagrees but whatever gurus are overrated.
If you can’t part with it use it. Create a plan and implement it. Otherwise it deserves to be in the rubbish pile.
Flickr Photos
