If you had the opportunity to speak on stage for 1 minute in front of a live studio audience (and simulcast viewers from around the world), what would you say? How would you prepare? What would you want people to know?

Well, at the Wealthy Thought Leader event in Vancouver last month, my mentor Andrea J. Lee gave each conference participant a chance to get up and do what she called an “Open Mic Throw Down.” What a cool way to experience in your bones what it’s like to stand powerfully in your message.

What I found most interesting about this exercise was that many of the learnings actually came in the time leading up to the throw down. I procrastinated. I worried more about what I was going to wear than about writing out a word-for-word script. I waffled between wanting to play it safe and just talk generically about stuff I already do versus taking a risk and actually announcing a new class I was launching (one that I was feeling not 100% sure about quite yet).

One of the things that helped me stretch myself was taking on the perspective that this was not my one and only minute. That I would have plenty of other opportunities to share my message. This was not the be all and end all and it didn’t need to be perfect (good thing given I said the wrong URL!).

So, at the very last minute I raised my hand, got up on stage without practicing or prepping, and spoke from my heart. I focused on being present with the audience. And I went out on a limb and did invite people to participate in my new video class Assessing Your Left-Brain Business Know-How.

I’m so glad I got to experience the process leading up to and doing the open mic throw down. And it was awesome to be witness to a room full of brave souls vulnerably taking the stage, too.

How can you “take the stage” today and share your message?

Remember, this is not your one and only shot. It’s about putting yourself out there time and time again and taking each 1-minute “throw down” as they come. Whether it be how you introduce yourself at an upcoming networking event or PTA meeting, the next tweet you write, or actually standing in the spotlight with a mic in hand. Each time you practice using your voice, you’ll get clearer and clearer on your message.

The other take-away I had from attending Wealthy Thought Leader was remembering how creating experiences and using the senses enhances learning. I played with that in the video class I did last week.

So, if you’re wondering what Greek and a chef’s hat have to do with left-brain details in your business? We’ll you just have to watch my free 75-min. video class to find out!

As a follow-up to my 75 min. class, I’ll also be doing a free live video chat Q&A today, Wednesday May 9th at 12noon PT on my Right-Brain Business Plan Livestream channel. I had received so many great questions ahead of time that there was no way to fit them all in, so I wanted to gather the circle again and answer some of them.

I’ll also be answering a few questions about my new year-long Right-Brain Entrepreneur Mentorship program that starts on May 21st. We sold out of the 1:1 Shining Star level (we have a wait list), but there’s still room for you in the Cohort Circle! One of the special early-bird payment plans expires tomorrow, May 10th, so if you want a cash-flow friendly way to invest in one of the most affordable ways to coach with me, act now. Find out more details about the mentorship program here.

Note from Jenn: Since launching the Right-Brain Business Plan® licensing program at the end of last year, our facilitators have been using this creative and visual approach in live workshops and with individual clients throughout the world.

In this post you get to meet facilitators Amy Egenberger from Minnesota and Michelle Rumney from London and hear a little bit about how their workshops are helping their clients get more focus and take more action.

Meet licensed facilitator, Amy Egenberger of Spirit Out!

RBBP Facilitator Amy Egenberger of SpiritOut!

“Another thing that surprised me was when one woman had been so sure-fired full-speed ahead with the idea of her business, that slowing down and taking a look the left-brain details was sobering in a good way. She realized where some of her blinds spots had been, opened her eyes and got grounded and re-energized to get into real action.”

“A favorite across the board is naming Creative Cohorts and Helping Hands. Yes! We are not alone! One participant came to the process feeling a bit burned out from going it alone in her business for several years. Several weeks later, she wrote to say, ‘I am working on 2 proposals to engage 2 interns to help me do some product development. I’m sure some of this stems from our work together at your workshop!’”

Here are some other exciting words from participants of Amy Egenberger’s workshop:

“Great class to gather all my ideas and a fun way to document a business plan. It was a wonderful feeling to leave with an action plan!” —Tanya Love, www.Passport2creativity.com

“It was all valuable! A great place to start to flesh out the business stuff for new businesses and established.” – Jodi Reeb-Myers, www.jodireebmyers.com

And you can see an interview I did with Amy on Livestream to hear her great tips for adding creativity into your business.

Meet licensed facilitator Michelle Rumney of Room on the Edge

RBBP Facilitator Michelle Rumney of Room on the Edge

“The other thing I loved was the way people eased into trusting each other as they settled into the workshop – it reminded me that I had brought them together and created the space for them to be here and do this – I felt tremendously honoured and humble about lighting these fires.”

“One participant has just started teaching a 14 part course at her local art gallery for MIND, a mental health charity. She has a full class already and sees it as her first step in her Big Vision of bridging art and mental health. She told me “I’m feeling I’m on the right path… the workshop has given me a lot of confidence – I have a waiting list for the next course!”

“Another participant told me today that the workshop helped her gain clarity in herself and stop trying to run two businesses at the same time. She was spreading herself too thin, and has since been focusing 100% on her radio show “DreamCorner” and now has four shows a week (she had two per week at the time of the workshop) and is seeking sponsorship to take it to the next level.”

Wow! Pretty cool results and outcomes from these fun workshops!

If you want to have new clarity, focus, and passion when it comes to your business, consider working with a licensed facilitator in your area, check out our directory and find upcoming workshops on our events page.

Last week I was in Vancouver for the Wealthy Thought Leader event which is hosted by my amazing mentor Andrea J. Lee. This was my third time attending the conference (last year I got to do a presentation about leading my first video summit!). As always, the event is innovative and thought-provoking and I had so000 many take-aways.

I’ll highlight just a few of those take-aways here:

• Create experiences using the 5 senses to create more value and impact. Participants will gain new insights through being fully present to what they see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. Hey, Andrea even had us eating raisins and wearing clown noses to drive the point home! For me, designing experiences often includes getting hands on with creative mediums like collage and other expressive arts. It’s always so cool to see the a-has that people get from making their visual Right-Brain Business Plans or from doing a quick doodle. I’m excited about incorporate some of the other senses in new ways, too.
• Lead in a collaborative “circle” formation rather than a top-down triangle. So much more insights and connections happen when there is a shared responsibility for the learning instead of an expert lecturing at everyone. I really love how the interactive nature of chat on Livestream fosters a virtual circle. We definitely felt the power of a shared learning environment on the super-active chat room during the Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit last month.
• Do a beta. Rather than waiting until you have every last detail figured out, test out an idea to help you improve it by getting feedback from your customers. It’s a great way to set expectations for yourself that things won’t be perfect and it will help you gain momentum more quickly. After all, as Andrea says you won’t know if your fabulous pie-in-the-sky creative idea is an actual business idea until that first dollar exchanges hands between you and your customer. And why not know that sooner rather than later after you’ve invested too much time and money into something that’s not working. You can always tweak things as you go.
• The line for “free” has moved. Since there is such an overload of information, the “pink spoon” free report or MP3 isn’t necessarily enough anymore to help you stand out. That’s where creating experiences and leading in circle formation add a new layer of value. And that’s why I’m really enjoying playing around with Livestream through the video summit and with occasional live video chats as a way to connect with my peeps. I’m able to directly engage with the right-brain entrepreneur community and learn from them, too! Plus, since I’m trying new things with it, it’s a way for me to “beta” ideas and concepts in a safe space.

I’ll be practicing some of these learnings next week as I lead a brand-new, free video class.  It’s called Assessing Your Left-Brain Business Know-How: What right-brain entrepreneurs can’t overlook and how to get started.

You’ll learn how to do a simple and fun assessment of your left-brain business know-how, you’ll discover what left-brain data is important to track (plus how to get it and what the heck to do with it), and more!

Let’s face it, even if you’re a creative person, you need your right AND left brains to work better together to build a sustainable and profitable business.

I’ll also be sharing about my upcoming Right-Brain Entrepreneur Mentorship program where I’ll personally guide you through making your big vision real and making more moola!

I hope to “see” you online next week. Make sure to grab your free “seat” in the circle here.

If you’re a creative soul with big dreams, you MUST read Danielle LaPorte’s new book The Fire Starer Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms. It is overflowing with wisdom and straight-talk about the entrepreneurial spirit. I cannot recommend it highly enough!

It comes out on April 17th and you can pre-order now on Amazon.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Danielle about her book earlier today. We chatted about money, time, self-promo, and the metrics of ease. Plus, Danielle answered great questions from our live chat audience. And here is a partial copy of the chat log.

Enjoy and happy fire starting!

You can find out more about her book launch festivities on her site: http://www.daniellelaporte.com and at the pre-order party.

One of the things I hear frequently from my community of right-brain entrepreneurs is that they feel like they don’t have enough time to do all of the things they want to do. That’s why I’m so thrilled to let you all know about a fantastic new book and an inspiring event from the Artella goddess herself Marney K. Makridakis.

I’ve always admired how prolific Marney is so it’s helpful to get an inside peek at her take on time.

I’m joining Marney as one of 25 Guest Luminaries (including SARK, Jill Badonsky, Tamma Keives, Jen Louden, Leonie Dawson, and Eric Maisel) taking part in The Creating Time Mega Event…three FREE weeks of inspiration as people all over the world will come together and welcome the ending of time as we know it…and the beginning of an exhilarating new life!

The Creating Time Mega Event celebrates the release of her new book, Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life.

Here’s what I had to say about this powerful and practical book, “If you’re a busy person like me and you’ve ever wished for more hours in a day (and who hasn’t?), Marney Makridakis’ magical book Creating Time is for you. Her wise insights, creative exercises, and inspiring artwork will empower you to say so long to scarcity and stress and hello to freedom, focus, and flow. Now, isn’t it about time?”

Through her book and event, Marney invites us to “time travel” as a collective community to create a new paradigm of time.

Have you noticed that time is moving faster than ever these days? That it’s virtually impossible to engage in or observe any conversation that doesn’t somehow bring up “time” in a negative context? That “time” is the one thing that seems to hold most of us back from living the lives we were born to live? I see this all the time in my work, and I imagine that you do, too!

Now is the time for a new time! I love being part of The Creating Time Mega Event and this exciting movement to change the way we see and experience time forever.

The Creating Time Mega Event is FREE and it all starts today Monday, April 2, 2012 and runs for three amazing, life-changing weeks. You’ll get inspiring live webinars, daily email inspiration, dynamic time-shifting games and challenges, a lively interactive community of fellow time-travelers, and so much more.

I am excited for the ways that this ongoing flow of innovative tools, techniques and ideas explored in this event will shift our experience of time forever. I’m so glad to be part of it and I hope you will join us!

We just wrapped up our live 2-week Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit extravaganza! And wow, what an inspiring 10 days it has been.

We’ve had thousands of creative entrepreneurs participating from around the world. In addition to the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia, we’ve had attendees from Serbia, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Israel, Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland, Panama, France, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, India, Japan, Mexico, and more!

This is indeed a right-brain revolution that’s sweeping the globe!

And our Livestream channel has had more than 12,650 viewer hours in just two weeks. Wow! You guys are hungry for business-building resources that really speak your language!

You can watch highlights from week 2 in this video recap below.

If you missed our first week you can see the week 1 video highlights here.

I love how engaged and connected this community is. We are so “chat-bose” as my tech consultant Jeremie Miller (pictured with me in the video above) says, that today we managed to break Livestream’s chat functionality with all of our messages and their tech folks even stopped by our chat room to see what all the fuss was about.

You can still catch a couple of the free full replays through this weekend, so sign-up now to see what you’ve been missing! The end of Friday’s replay has a really special extra surprise that moved me to tears.

And if you’re ready to go beyond the business plan and implement the learnings from the summit, upgrade to Premium. You’ll be able to connect more deeply with fellow creative cohorts and have group coaching calls with me. I can’t wait to help you build your thriving enterprise!

We had an amazing first week at the Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit! If you missed our free live video chat sessions or 48-hour replays, you can catch some highlights here. I’ve put together clips of some of my favorite moments of our guest interviews, so take a peek at the video above to see what you’ve missed (or to be re-inspired!).

What this video doesn’t capture is the energy of the interactions when we have hundreds of creative entrepreneurs from around the world interacting in the chat room. You’ve got to experience the session live for the full-on effect! So if these videos spoke to you, imagine what it would be like to share your light-bulb moments or ask questions of me, the speakers, or your fellow cohorts in real-time.

Our next session starts at 10am PST this Monday, so check it out! I’d love to see you.

You can still join us for free this week! During our final week of the summit we’ll have interviews with Elizabeth Marshall who will talk to us about marketing and spreading your message. We’ll hear from Alison Marks about secrets to a 6-figure business and we’ll have a live show & tell spotlight with modern-day wrangler of time and space Beth DeZiel. You can actually see a video of Beth below where she talks about why she upgraded to a Premium Pass at this year’s summit.

You’ll also meet one of my favorite creative cohorts, Jeremie Miller, who will talk to us about using technology to help connect with customers. If you’ve been curious about how I’ve been leading these webinars, this is the man to meet and the session to watch!

We’ll also hear from Chelsea Moser who will give us tips on how to hire a team and we’ll celebrate our final day together with the inspiring Jen Louden.

Come join the fun!

We finished up Day 3 of the 2nd annual Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit today and it's been such a thrill to connect with so many creative entrepreneurs from all around the world! We still have 7 more awesome sessions to go and I hope you'll join us.

We've already covered sales and pricing, social media, and legal basics with luminary leaders Mark Silver, Lindsay Wilson, and David Goldsmith. (You can catch up on the free 48-hour replays). These experts are helping us creative types bridge the gap between our right-brain and left-brains so that we can take our business more seriously. I've learned a ton listening to their wisdom and from reading all of our amazing participants' conversations on the live video chat.

Tomorrow's focus is on the moola so we have Tara Gentile talking about the Art of Earning and a live Show and Tell Spotlight with Nicole Fende, the Numbers Whisperer. And then on Friday, Hiro Boga graces us with her presence to share with us about spirituality in business. It's gonna rock!

The photo above is a behind the scenes look at what goes on while I'm driving/leading the live broadcast. I must admit there are a lot of left-brain details (and hand-eye-mouse coordination) that can be challenging for me to navigate while I'm also trying to talk! But it's totally worth it because there's nothing like the incredible interaction that happens in our virtual circle of right-brain entrepreneurs.

Here's some of the #rbbiz buzz the past few days on twitter

At 8pm PST tonight, the free 48-hour replay of Mark Silver's heart-opening and eye-opening interview about sacred selling and resonant pricing. There's still time to sign-up and catch up so you don't miss a thing.

And if you're already signed-up, why not invite a friend to join you in the revolution? You can send them a "virtual permission slip" here!

Note from Jenn: This is a guest post from Nicole Fende, The Numbers Whisperer, and author of her new book How to Be A Finance Rockstar. Nicole is no stranger to the Right-Brain Business Plan. She did an RBBP Spotlight here last year showcasing her magnetic board AND she’ll be doing a Live Show & Tell Spotlight next week at the free Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit!

To celebrate the launch of her book, she’s hosting a virtual cocktail party TODAY and you’re invited. It runs from 4:30 pm CST to 7:30 pm CST. And if you’re in the Twin Cities you’re welcome to attend in person.

Overcome Your Fear of Finance and Grow Your Profits

Are you afraid of finance?  Does the mere thought of doing the books, or running the numbers fill you with dread?

As Jennifer Lee rightly points out in Chapter 5 of The Right Brain Business Plan, understanding the financial side of your business allows you to turn passion into profit.  Do you wish Managing the Moola could be as fun as that title sounds?

It can!  However there is one thing you need to address first.  Fear.

Many, if not most, of small business owners and solopreneurs fear numbers.  While I love them, I also understand that fear.  It’s why I became The Numbers Whisperer™, to help people like you tame that fear and make a living doing what you love.

Through my coaching clients I discovered that one technique worked extremely well in conquering finance fears.  Particularly with creative people, probably because we (and yes I’m creative too) have such richly active imaginations.

Facing the Unknown

When you step onto a stage you often can’t see beyond the floodlights. Not knowing what’s out there is scary.

Think about Stephen King, the undisputed champion of horror.

His books focus on fear, often deep rooted ones, encouraging your imagination to run wild. That’s why the movies never live up to his books. The movies give a face to the fear.

Suddenly it doesn’t seem so scary anymore.

We want to mimic the Stephen King movie effect!

The easiest way to do this, create an avatar.

Let me introduce the Number Muncher, my villain avatar.  His favorite pastime is to tear up people’s financials.

While you wouldn’t want him hanging around the office, Number Muncher looks manageable.

(If you attend the Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit next week you’ll even get to meet him in person, so to speak.)

Prefer something closer to a horror movie?  I must blushingly confess a love to the classic hack and slash movies like Friday the 13^th.  How about this guy?

He doesn’t have a name, I just think of him as my axe murderer: a serial murderer who targets small business profits.

Creating Your Numbers Avatar

While you’re welcome to use one either of my villainous avatars, it may help to create your own.  Draw, paint, mold or describe those nebulous fears.  Give them a face.  Then throw darts at it – literally if you like.

Facing your fear gives you power, and frees you to focus on making money while following your passion.

About Nicole Fende

Nicole Fende is The Numbers Whisperer™ and President of Small Business Finance Forum.  As a credentialed actuary with experience as a  Chief Financial Officer, Investment Banker, and successful entrepreneur, Fende helps her clients reach their profit goals and learn how to effectively and enjoyably run the financial side of their business. In her book, How to be a Finance Rock Star, Nicole shares the same strategies she uses for her profit coaching clients to help them reach multi-platinum profits. 

We’ve got just a few more days before the 2nd annual Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit gets underway.

Have you grabbed your free ticket yet?

I hope so! We’ll be covering some of the more left-brain details that usually send folks running for the hills. You know, things like sales, marketing, pricing, legal, and technology. But don’t worry at this summit, you’ll learn how to manage all of that with ease.

And hey, if you get stressed out just thinking about it, check out the following fabulous Right-Brain Boosters and Left-Brain Chill Pills that have been submitted for our video contest. You’re sure to be inspired by your fellow creative cohorts.

Why not enter one of your own? You’ll get a chance to win upgrades that will give you unlimited access to the webinar recordings and extra support through group coaching with me.

Submit a video of your Right-Brain Booster or Left-Brain Chill Pill and enter to win! And don’t forget to vote for your favorite boosters and chill-pills.

The first five video entries already won free copies of my book The Right-Brain Business Plan, but you still have a chance to win a Booster or Premium Pass to the Video Summit!

Congrats to the book winners:

• Debbie from Schroon Lake, NY
• Erin from San Luis Obispo, CA
• Bettina from Berlin, Germany
• Jen from Bristol UK
• Marina from Cooroy, Australia

See you at the summit!!