The very first event I registered for this year was Fabienne Fredrickson’s Marketing and Mindset Breakthrough Workshop (MMBW). Yes, I totally registered so early to increase my expenses at the tail end of 2009.

But seriously, I also registered for Fabienne’s MMBW because several of my friends attended the event last year and came back raving about the valuable content and how easy it was to understand. But more important, I heard how they were able to learn tips and tricks to help them shift their mindset to play a bigger game and take bigger leaps toward their goals and dreams.

I registered for Fabienne Fredrickson’s MMBW to:

Connect with other online entrepreneurs.
Live events and conferences are a great way to stay in touch with your social networking contacts, friends, fans, and followers and hang out with them in person. It is also a way to meet new like-minded people who could be strategic partners, joint venture partners, clients, friends, mentors, and more. You never know when your next important life-changing relationship will be born and the more you get out there and attend events, the more likely it will happen sooner than later.

Experience a different perspective on marketing.
If you have spent any time at all perusing the Bourn Creative website, you can see that I’ve got branding, web design, optimization, and all different types of online marketing in my bag of tricks. I am really looking forward to experiencing Fabienne’s approach to marketing and client attraction. I know that I will come away with some great nuggets of valuable information in those areas. I also look forward to learning marketing from another expert. I don’t care who you are. NO ONE KNOWS EVERYTHING. And, no one teaches it the same way or with the same perception and background experiences.

In fact, if you ever meet a marketing expert that knows everything and has nothing else to learn, RUN!

To work on my mindset.
This is difficult for me to admit in such a public setting, but my mindset is the area I struggle with the most. My family, friends, and client always tell me how amazing I am and love to remind me of the vast knowledge I carry around in my head. My coach Kelly O’Neil asked me on a recent call what my biggest challenge is. When I replied “getting prospects to see the immense value and level of service Bourn Creative provide,” she almost laughed and replied with, “Well have you told them all you bring to the table and what they get when they work with you?”

That answer would be a resounding, No. Part of it is because I hugely take for granted the breadth and depth of knowledge I have, and part of it is more personal. I do have to admit that I am working on my mindset each and every day and I have an amazing set of supporters that are constantly their reminding me of my greatness. I am really looking forward to working with my coach Kelly O’Neil this year to stomp on my mindset issues, and to attend Fabienne’s MMBW in April to help accelerate the process.

If you’ll be attending Fabienne Fredrickson’s Marketing and Mindset Breakthrough Workshop (MMBW) in April, let me know! Leave me a comment or connect with me on Facebook or Twitter… I’d love to support you too!

Back to normal. If you think about it, that is a really odd phrase.

What is normal anyway? I definitely know normal for me probably isn’t the same as normal for you.

What I realized when I was thinking about the idea of normal, is that "normal" changes every day as we grow and change.

With the start of the new year, comes a fresh start for your mindset. January is a huge goal setting month for business owners and entrepreneurs. We’re all feverishly charting, planning, and mapping out our 2010 goals and what we are going to do to make them a reality by year’s end.

By setting goals, planning product launches or new programs and services, and creating marketing plans, we are committing to making big changes. And, by making big changes, we will be transforming what is considered "normal" today into something completely different by year’s end.

I challenge you to write down what you consider to be normal in your business right now, what things you tolerate because it is normal, and what actions you take because it is normal. Then I want you to write down how you are going to change what you consider "normal" to improve your business and improve your business mindset throughout 2010.

As an amazing woman Maria Gamb says, "Change the norm. Change the world."

One of my favorite things to do after I attend live events, conferences, and seminars is to read through all of my notes from the event and write down all of the most important ones in my journal.

Rewriting those notes and positive words of encouragement helps me remember them. It also helps me reflect a little further on what they meant to me and why I wrote them down.

Today I’d like to share with you some of the nuggets of wisdom I jotted down at the Ali Brown Shine Event, where I not only got to hear from Ali and her team speak, but from Real Estate Mogul & Business Consultant Barbara Corcoran and Academy-Award Winning Actress & Activist Marlee Matlin!

Here are some of my golden nuggets:

• Be true to you and make decisions based from where you want to be.
• There is no magic pill, but there can be magic as long as you do the right things.
• Your purpose is your big vision. Your business’s purpose is to make money.
• Know what you suck at and delegate it.
• Do what you love. Know whats important. Give back when you can.
• Bad marketers blame failures ont he economy.
• When you have an idea, look at the competition. If there is competition, find a niche not being served. If there is no competition, evaluate if there is really a need.
• How you position yourself determines what people think of you and how much they will pay.
• Stay open. Influences can come from anywhere.
• Why would the universe give you more if you are not taking care of what you already have?
• How do you know what product to develop? It s what you get asked for over and over again. It may not be exactly what you want to do, but it is what they want and it will get your audience into your funnel.
• The hole you give through is the hole you receive through.
• Organization and systematization are the two most important tools in business.
• Quick decision making under pressure is the key to turning failures into successes.
• There are two types of people, expanders and containers. Every business needs one of each.
• Marketing = Communications and relationships with people who need your solution.
• Only focus on and take the next step. Master it fully before taking another step.
• Never stop believing. You have no reason to doubt.
• If you want to grow, you need to make time for growth.
• When you want it bad enough, you’ll make it happen.

I hope at least one or two of these golden nuggets resonated with you. Shine was a great few days to allow me to focus more on my business mindset. If you are looking for support with your business mindset, I highly recommend you check out Ali Brown and Shine for 2010.

As many others I ran into this weekend would say, “This is my second Ali Event” and I have to say it was an amazing event.

In 2008, I attended Ali’s Online Success Blueprint Workshop (OSBW) and while there experienced some big Ah-Ha moments in regards to my business.

I knew where I wanted to go, what I wanted to achieve, and the things I needed to do to get there. But what I wasn’t sure about was the order in which to do them and the details that tied them all together in a logical sequence. At OSBW all of the pieces fell neatly into place, the right place, and in the airport on the way home I mapped out my entire business plan for 2009.

Even in what the media continues to label as the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, 2009 has been a great year. I am extremely thankful that my business has continued to grow and flourish.

Naturally, when the announcements went out this year for Ali Brown’s 2009 Shine event in Las Vegas, I immediately signed up for two reasons.

1. Attending an “Ali event” means surrounding yourself with and networking with powerful, like-minded, success-driven, women entrepreneurs who are taking serious action to uplevel their businesses.
2. I knew I would be inspired to take the next step with my business and learn some new strategies or ideas to apply in my business. Plus, conferences in general seem to light the proverbial fire under your butt to get started.

This year the event was much more “Woo Woo” than expected, with quite a bit of time spent on personal or inner work, and not quite as much time spent on actual how to business strategies.

I’ll be honest. At first I was a little put off by the touchy-feely inner work junk. Most people know that I am not super big on all that stuff.

I was there for business. I didn’t come for the “Woo Woo” junk.

• What I didn’t anticipate, was how much that “Woo Woo” junk would affect me personally.
• What I didn’t anticipate was the powerful realizations I would come to in regards to myself and my relationship with my business. Yes, I am in a red-hot love affair with my business and I think I have been cheating on my social life!
• What I didn’t anticipate was how much the “Woo Woo” junk and inner work would change the way I do and look at my business. I am raising expectations for myself and for my clients and I am finally admitting to myself just how great I am and how much I have accomplished so far.

OSBW may have been great for my business, but Shine was great for my mindset and as a result, my business.

So with that said, it is time for action. After all, what’s the point of going to conferences and events like this if you don’t take action on what you learn and experience?

I’m curious, what’s your take on the “Woo Woo” junk and your business?

The week before I leave town for a conference or vacation is always like this. Professionally, I am wrapping up as many open projects as possible or working to get them to a place where we can continue moving forward while I am away, and more than likely I am pulling an all-nighter or two. Personally I am running all sorts of last minute errands. This week was compounded even more with school fundraisers and Halloween activities.

All this craziness got me thinking about how often we over commit ourselves in business because of fear.

It may be fear of losing a potential new client, fear of not making as much money, fear of rejection, or even fear of making someone mad.

When operating from a place of fear, we often commit to too many things, or things that aren’t necessarily a good fit for us or our business. We also tend to ignore the big picture effects and focus only on the immediate results. In the long run, this not only raises our stress levels, but it hurts our businesses too.

So remember, when adding things to your to-do list and committing to new projects, events, or tasks, look ahead at your schedule and workload and evaluate the immediate results and the long term effects it will have on you and your business.