Welcome to our Blog once again.

Here are more of the “Quote of the Day” from iLifestyleClub recently.

I am really enjoying collating these Quotes! I am finding that as I collect them to share with you that they are having an impact on me! We have had so many wise people in our world, from all walks of life! Some from places that would crush a lot of people (for instance, Helen Keller), but these people have chosen to use their circumstances to inspire others!

Wow! What amazing people!
I look forward to continuing to share with you some gems from some wise people over the coming months! Once again, I hope that you enjoy them!

Until next time.

Your Friend in Success and Life

Leanne Annett

Today’s success tip comes from Michelle Bowden.

At 28, with a baby and a huge mortgage, Michelle opened her training business, with AMP as her first client. She is an accredited NLP practitioner and master trainer in presentation and influencing skills. She works with CEOs and their teams to help prepare them for presentations at company meetings, conferences and sales pitches.

What are your top tips for influencing others in a positive and empowering way?

Rapport, rapport, rapport! Before you can influence others you must build rapport with them. My advice is to:

* Understand the person’s personality filters - the way they experience, respond to and manage their environment.

* Make a plan - what do you want to achieve?

* Use pacing and leading - pacing involves being like your audience in your dress, body language, eye contact, vocal variety, style, language, interests and attitudes. Some people call this matching or mirroring. Leading is taking the audience where you want them to go. Your audience won’t follow you or give you permission to lead them unless they feel an affiliation with you. You really can’t ask for anything until you have first built rapport.

* Show them what’s in it for them to change - we know this as the WIIFM or ‘what’s in it for me’.

* Cialdini’s influence patterns help you identify the other strategies to use - for more information I recommend you read Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini.

For more great tips and advice stay tuned for next week’s success tip.

Until then,

Allan Poole

Today’s success tip comes from Amy Lyden.

Amy is the Managing Director of Bow Wow Meow, which today is a leading producer of fun and functional pet tags. Its products are distributed through more than 1,500 pet shops sold throughout the world via the internet.

What advice would you give to an aspiring entrepreneur who wants to get started in a business of their own?

First things first, put together a great support team of other people in business that you meet with regularly and help each other out. Surround yourself with people whom you admire or can learn from. Create your own personal cheerleading squad - people who only want the best for you and who are prepared to help you shine and be the best you can be.

Next, consider what you are going to do. Try to think of things that makes people’s lives easier. Life is getting more and more complicated, how can you make it easier? Also, as a consumer, what are some of the products and services that you want that others might too? This is how I got the idea for my business.

Then, start researching. One of the key areas that I find people need to do extra research in is understanding the financials. This is absolutely essential. Often, new business owners underestimate or don’t understand cash flow. I highly recommend a course called ‘Beyond Survival’. It’s a two-day course put on by the Westpac bank. It is a highly practical, hands-on course designed to help business owners understand a profit and loss statement, balance sheet and the key ratios that determine the health of a business. Numbers do not lie, and if one doesn’t understand what they mean it can be a serious disadvantage.

Many people block themselves in this area by saying, ‘Numbers aren’t my thing’ or ‘I was never good at maths’. This is very damaging talk. It is critical to understand the financial aspects of your business - this is one area that should not be abdicated to the bookkeeper or accountant.

The bottom line is that no one knows your business better than you, even a CPA. I’m not suggesting that you micro-manage the financials, but you should at least understand the financial statements and cash flow of your business.

Until next time,

Allan Poole

After much coaxing from my beloved wife Leanne, I have promised her to write a blog by the end of the day, so here it is. Not sure what I’ll write about yet but I’m sure I’ll get inspiration as I go along.

iLifestyleClub - The early days

First of all, I want to address the progress of iLifestyleClub over the last few months. Thank you, Leanne, Allan, Tehillah and Josh for the Blogs you have contributed since we launched in July. With such diverse topics as photography, cooking, investment etc, we certainly are covering a wide range of lifestyle issues in our Blogs, to complement the in-depth resources available to subscribers from the iLifestyleClub “library” through the website.

Thanks also to our subscribers for supporting us in supplying the wealth creation,
personal development health and lifestyle resources you are currently enjoying.

iLifestyleClub - Where are we heading?

As we enter the 3rd month of iLifestyleClub, it is appropriate that we ask the question, where are we heading, in other words what are we aiming to achieve with iLifestyleClub?

I can’t answer for all our subscribers, but I CAN put out there, some ideas, aims and
objectives that I have myself, and hopefully some of these will resonate with some of
you too.

First of all, lifestyle for me is about quality of life. Sometimes you have to sit back
and evaluate where you have been in life, and I can say for myself that over the years,
although I have not had a rough life, the quality has not always been there.

I am not talking about material values, but purpose of life. How many of us, as we get
older and look back on our lives, will be proud of the number of hours of overtime we
did, or the number of sales pegged up as we worked away, cogs in the machine of the
economy, which we all, let’s be honest, have to do our time in as we go through life.

No, the things that will bring us contentment are based more on spiritual values, like how our lives impacted those around us, family, friends, church, and the world out there, which we all know has a lot of issues, people hurting, mostly from poverty
- material and spiritual. Making a difference in the world requires resources - again
some material and some spiritual. Giving into other people’s lives and addressing
these issues is paramount to maintaining a sense of purpose as we go through life.

So what does all this have to do with iLifestyleClub? Well, to me, iLifestyleClub
represents an opportunity to tap into resources that we can use in life as we strive to give into the lives of others around us, and beyond us, in the wider community and the world outside our national borders. There are financial opportunities, strategies which, if implemented correctly, will free up our time to enable us to give more effectively, materially and spiritually, into the lives of others. That is what I mean by quality of life, making a difference.

And as a man said a couple of millennia back, give and it will be given to you,
pressed down, shaken together and running over. That idea in itself is a spiritual
value which if it permeates communities, has been proven to change lives profoundly
where it has been put into practice. Some call it abundance thinking, others call it
generosity, goodwill, or charity. Whatever you care to call it, we all know it works.