Written By Michele Wisneski, Founder of Thriving through Grief and Loss.

In a wise and daring conscious choice, you pause and listen to your heart as the world speeds by.

With deliberate laser focus you take account of where you are. Perhaps many emotions surface so you have a well ground friend journey with you back to your loss, challenge or transition. This time with courage you make the simple choice of saying Hello so you can say Goodbye.

Taking account is just acknowledging the “What’s so”, judgment and criticism have not been invited nor did you hide in busyness. Harvest your strength as tears and emotions are released. The inward expression of your grieve becomes an outward expression of healing. In this sacred place of Hello your starting place is marked, a new beginning. You are gathering yourself Heart, Mind, Spirit and Body as you Reconcile the past to the present allowing for possibilities in the future.

As mental clarity and hope arises you are Inspired to Visualize new dreams, goals, and strategies. Acknowledgement is complete so with gratitude you round the corner whispering Goodbye and Engage with action your new future.

Many of us participate and sell our products. For example, If you are looking for ideas, customers, and suppliers, job opportunities, or networking contacts, etc., PowerNetworking is one of the best places to be.

But all too many go only to grab a bag of free goodies and some good times–without seizing the opportunity to engage in meaningful networking.

I have become convinced that most people don’t really know what to do with themselves at these gatherings, and so they opt to party or to indulge in the distraction of their choice.

Here are some Success Tips we teach at the PowerNetworking Conference for handling yourself at major events:

• Choose the event wisely.
• Make yourself available to speak on subjects within your range of expertise.
• Volunteer to help out, if you have the time and flexibility.
• Consider setting up your own booth space.
• Remember the event’s OBJECTIVE!!!

Bottom Line: The true purpose of a conference or convention is to educate, to communicate, and to motivate. If you can return home with some benefit from each of these functions, your time and money will have been well spent.

Smart people value their time. I will tell anyone: “Do anything but don’t waste my time.  I will get more money but I will not get anymore time. And I don’t know how much time I have and I don’t want to know.

How will you know that you are wasting your time?  You will know you are wasting your time if you could leave your job tomorrow and be happy, you’re in the wrong darn job.

 Therefore, my advice to you is to go to your job tomorrow, pack up your things and get out of there, you are screwing up your life and you’re screwing up that job.

What do I know about people who do work they don’t really love? – They are mediocre.   You don’t have enough time to be both unhappy and mediocre.

I have never met anyone who is good at what they do, but hate it.

Here is my question to you: What gift are you holding hostage from our community because of your personal fears?

 Time flies so you must be the navigator.

As a business owner, achieving success requires all of your creative energies, working in concert with a defined action plan.  However, once you attain your desired level of success, maintaining it necessitates utilizing advanced skills sets.  This is where I am at now with my company, in terms of going to that “next level.”

Mentoring and training are two vitally important ingredients all business owners must embrace, that is, if they are serious about expanding.  Seasoned entrepreneurs have the benefit of sharing invaluable lessons-learned experiences with those of us who are ready, but don’t automatically know the next steps to take.  Here in the FraserNET Inner Circle, I am privileged to receive proven business counsel on how to leverage my resources, maximize opportunities, and grow my business to heights never imagined.  If you view your business as a premium investment, continuous mentorship and training must be essential components of your growth strategy.

When moving from surviving to thriving it’s important to be able to define what you are going through. It’s essential and important to know the language.

When we use the words “grief” and “mourning” we substitute them one for the other. Yet there is a critical difference between them. When people are willing to move through grieving to healing they are mourning. The emotional and mental internal dynamics of expressing the lack of something or someone that is no longer there is grieving. Mourning is the external expression of that grief as we let it outside of ourselves.  As we experience a loss of a job, a relationship, business opportunity, become an empty nester, mourning allows us to move through.

At some time or another we most all go through both grieving and mourning, yet many times we are taught to embrace the myth of keeping busy.   We can’t run from ourselves and surviving on the edge of exhaustion is not a healthy option. We must move from Surviving to Thriving as we go through grief and loss, otherwise we run the risk of  volatile emotions, unclear thinking, possible health challenges and a longer time before healing. Your energy is precious at this time so make wise choices in prioritizing what needs to be done and get help for the rest. As we go through our losses in life go through the process and thrive on the other side.

For example, we are starting to understand that successful African-American entrepreneurs may not assemble a large network. They put people in their network who can be helpful to them. I call them “instrumental networks”.  Many people, scholars included, tend to view large networks as beneficial, but they may actually be crippling unless they include people who can be specifically helpful.

 Another example of the difference between a network of convenience and an instrumental network is the issue of family. There have been a number of studies in the Asian-American community, where family members are routinely relied on as sources of both labor and capital. While relying on spouses, relatives, and friends is quite natural, these contacts may not be the most knowledgeable.

 They may not be the people who are connected to those other contacts who can help you grow your venture into new markets. If at all possible, you want to get people with the requisite knowledge and financial resources quickly and efficiently. Bob Johnson, President of BET is a perfect example of the utilization of “instrumental networking” not family networking.

 Bob’s relationship with John Malone (President of TCI) from his days in the cable industry helped him grow his company to $3 billion in value in just 21 years. John mentored Bob and helped finance each step of Bob’s business. The two things that really mattered to Bob at that time was information and money.

 The bottom line is pretty simple, networking works and we must expand our “instrumental” social capital/networks. We must find ways to develop trust between network participants; between Blacks themselves and between Black and white business leaders so that we can access our own resources and America’s great resources more efficiently.

 Yes, it is through networking with each other that we must leverage our collective resources and intellectual capital more effectively.

 Therefore the next question is, how are we doing?   The answer is; better than ever, but not as good as most.

The Gallup Study commissioned by my organization showed positive signs of growth in this critical area; an area most other cultural groups have long mastered, but field research shows too many Blacks are still caught up on negative Black stereotypes, “going it alone,” and the fear of asking questions or seeking help.

 Many say they don’t like asking questions because they don’t want to be thought of as “unintelligent,” “begging” or being rejected.

This is foolishness in the midst of a new untested administration, a hostile supreme court, ravaged affirmative action and social programs, gaping racial and wealth disparities and the lowest growth percentage rate of new business start-ups of any major cultural minority in America over the last 10 years.

 Surely networking with each other couldn’t hurt, but the Gallup Study indicated we have a lot of work to do.

 The Gallup Study uncovered 5 areas we must work on right now. They are:

•  The need to stop prejudging the long-term value of people we meet;

                                49% said the most nagging aspect of networking is wasting time with people that may not be of any help.

 Response: how would they know they are wasting their time; everyone is important; everyone has value. Some of the most important things that have ever happened to me came from the most unassuming sources.

•  We must spend more of our time networking and cultivating new relationships;

                                 70% spend less than 5 hours/week cultivating new relationships

 Response: studies show effective networkers spend 14% of their time cultivating new relationships, but successful networkers spend 54% of their time working on their relationships.

•  We must increase the number of instrumental contacts/friendships we rely on;

                                  46% had less than 75 contacts

 Response: a good network requires 150-250 well-developed and instrumental contacts at work, at home and in the community. I have over 1,400 in my network.

•  We must understand that networking is “building rapport first,” not selling.

                                   Only 37% felt building rapport was important at all.

 Response: must people are networking to get something, wrong, you network to give/share and as you give, you develop rapport and friendships . . . than you get.

•  Finally, 54% said they agreed most with the statement, “It’s all about who you know.”

 Response: it’s not “all about who you know,” but about who knows you and what is it they know about you. You could know 300 important people, but if they all think you’re a jerk you got real problems.

 As a result, Blacks in business and/or interested in starting a business felt the following 3 reasons were major obstacles for starting/building a new business:

   1.   87% said access to resources to include money and mentors was the key obstacle.  

 60% felt a lack of knowledge and training was a big obstacle.

    2. 32% said: we needed to place more emphasis on networking at conventions/conference.

 Networking works, it’s one of the best investments you can make of your time! 

 Click HERE to see Part I

Building the Networks To Make Our Businesses Work—Part 1 —

It isn’t widely recognized that the tradition of entrepreneurship in the Black community is quite strong. In the days of slavery, skilled craftsman were able to run businesses on the side after fulfilling certain obligations to their owners. Among free Blacks, racial discrimination meant that they had to rely on themselves for services like banking and insurance. Black owned banks, insurance companies and newspapers were not accustomed to looking outside their own community for markets.

Paradoxically, the civil rights movement of the 1960s had two negative effects on Black entrepreneurship. The gradual decline in discrimination eliminated the protection some Black business-owners enjoyed because of aggressive redlining. Meanwhile, some of the best Black talent went to work for white-owned businesses or for government.

The civil rights movement accelerated the debate in the African-American community between assimilationist and separatist theories of economic development. Before then, the choice didn’t really exist, because the assimilationist model — relying on professional employment in the mainstream economy—was so difficult to do. The separatist theory of economic development was always associated with Black entrepreneurship. Only nowadays, the hope is that Black-owned businesses can market to whites as well as to Blacks.

Today Black entrepreneurship is not where it should be, if you take the view that Black business ownership should be roughly proportional to the Black population . . . about 12%. So the question remains; what are the barriers-and challenges—facing Black entrepreneurs today?

You can’t answer that question without mentioning continued racial discrimination and the gap in education levels between Blacks and whites, which is reinforced by concentrated poverty in central cities. Even controlling for education, Blacks are under-represented in science and engineering occupations, which are obviously important fields for entrepreneurship in the New Economy. As crucial as these problems are for explaining overall outcomes for African-Americans, our research addresses a more manageable problem and basic question.

What about the barriers facing an African-American who is educated and already motivated to start his or her own business?

Past research on this question has almost always focused on the economic barriers facing Black entrepreneurs, particularly their historically poor access to formal education, markets, mentoring and financial capital.

But my work is different. I’m interested in the entrepreneur’s access to social capital (networks).

This sociological approach is relatively new to the study of entrepreneurship. Let me explain. Social capital is defined as the resources that are accessed through your network of contacts and relationships.

For example, most entrepreneurs don’t get their ideas in a vacuum. A new idea usually comes onto the radar screen from someone in their social network. Then, they use others in their network to validate the idea. In other words, recognizing a business opportunity is a social process.

Your network—or lack thereof—can help or hinder initial idea development. Other important resources can also be accessed through a network, including capital, labor, and emotional support.

Said another way, it’s “who you know, who knows you and what is it they know about you”. It is clear from our Gallup Study on Networking In Black America that the first recognition of a new venture opportunity grows out of a conversation or interaction with someone you know and where the respect and trust is mutual. These contacts encourage not only the basic idea, but also its development into a business plan, referrals to secure financing, a startup labor force and so forth. It’s a complicated process, but people who will share their knowledge are clearly crucial to it.

So while knowing a lot of people is good it’s more important to have an effective network than simply a large one.

Part II To be continued….

People going nowhere want you to go nowhere with them. People doing nothing want you to do nothing with them. If you want to change your life, change your relationships.

Your five best friends tell the world who you are based on their values, principles and lifestyles.

This team will either lift you up or pull you down. If life is a tree, and your friends and associates are branches, prune the toxic ones so the rest can get stronger and grow the sweetest fruit. So don’t spend major time with minor people.

And those with the strongest teams triumph on the battlefield of life. Sizing up people is critical, so recruit trustworthy allies who share the common ground of your values and vision, your likes and dislikes, but can challenge you. But first make sure your strategy is strong and your self-confidence is indomitable. Who do you need on your team to bring your dream (s) to life?

List the people you will recruit to help you climb the ladder of success. If you already know them, great!  If you need to meet them, figure out how to make that happen. For example:

• Do not judge a person by their relatives; we do not choose our families.
• Evaluate how your friends and associates add, subtract, multiply or divide your happiness, productivity and prosperity.
• Bless and release people who violate your visions and values. Nurture your positive relationships. Spend more time with power brokers, connectors, and engage in shared activities.

Bottom Line: In every situation, we have to know who is on our side, and how they can help us connect with other folks to join our ladder-climbing team. 

Without trust, we have nothing. “Trust implies accountability, predictability and reliability,” writes leadership guru John Maxwell. Yet from an early age we are programmed to distrust; we are warned: “Don’t talk to strangers.”

Now, as wary adults, it’s counter-intuitive and downright scary to see good in people first. When I tell people during speeches or in casual conversation to embrace the idea of trusting first, they often scowl as if I’ve asked them to swim with sharks or walk barefoot in the snow. That would make them feel exposed. Vulnerable. Reckless.

That’s because our first instinct is to distrust until someone proves him- or herself worthy of our trust. And exposing ourselves to what we believe are the wicked ways of the world, lurking in strangers, is terrifying. Likewise, opening ourselves up to trust people in the competitive, ruthless business world may sound naive or reckless–even though the opposite is true.

As the old saying goes, “Strangers are just friends waiting to happen.” So how can you get to work on trusting?

• Know thyself
• Listen to your Intuition

We must switch our brain’s default setting from distrust and reprogram it to trust first. The feminist writer Gloria Steinem said: “The first problem for all of us is not to learn but to unlearn.”

Bottom Line: Let someone earn your distrust by giving them the benefit of the doubt. So start within, by trusting yourself, then believe in the good of people–first.