The December Edition...go ahead Create Your Year...

Welcome to our newsletter...in it we have information, articles, events to help you propel your business forward. I am really focused on helping small business owners succeed in these exciting times we're in. It's time for community, working together, and making a difference...kind of what this newsletter/blog is all about.


What do you want to create in 2009?

Welcome to this months posting and newsletter. The picture to your left is titled, "If these walls could talk". My question to you is...what would they say?

As we close out 2008 and head into 2009 there is a sense of optimism, closure, fear, excitement, the unknown all wrapped into the time of year and more so this given the times we are in now.

So if the walls could talk, what would they say about how you're going to live life in 2009? Are you going to play full out? Give it all you got? Leave it on the field?

What would you want the walls to say about you in one years time?

Personally, I am going for it. I don't care any more about the economy (well I do and don't...but that's another story for another day)...I don't care about other people judging me, I don't care if I have total support of my family...I am living my best life, my highest life for me in 2009.

Is anyone else on board?

Here is the game plan.

1) Get clear on your true value and be confident in your abilities. I am not saying become an ego maniac about your skill sets and abilities but be confident that you can do what you do and do it well. Walk with pride and an inner knowing that you can do it and if you can't you'll learn, you'll be open to coaching and you'll be a team player. What are you're true gifts? What are your strengths? What do you do better than anyone else? What do you love to do...and would even if you didn't get paid?

Know your value. Get clear and confident about your best abilities and begin to communicate and market them effectively.

2) Develop an action plan and re-work your business plan. Once you get clear on what you bring to the table in terms of talents and skills and value, you want to position yourself with companies, people and organizations that can benefit from them. Personally I intend to re-chart my course this year and be more "Niche" focused in who I target. I don't know about you, but spray marketing (telling everyone) is really tiring. Having a clear target segment, knowing them and talking their language is where it's at. Shotgun, Spaghetti marketing doesn't work. It's a long road to take. Figure out who you're ideal client is. What their issues, concerns and challenges are and get clear as to how you bring value to them and you have a good starting point for doing business. So...create your plan, re-visit your goals, your business plan...bottom line is chart your most safest, optimal route towards your living your best life.

3) Have a supporting cast around you. I have realized this past quarter that I can no longer do what I do alone. I need a mastermind team, a mentor, a coach and someone to help me sell. If you're a solo-entrepreneur, who can you hire, what help do you need, who can take on the tasks that don't serve you? In my mastermind team meeting this past weekend, I have established a very cool direction and it's now begun to take shape. It means some re-branding but it's totally cool. My supporting mastermind team, has me focused, excited and guess what?...they are there to support me in my business. Be sure to create some support in your business or life. Remember even Moses had his brother Aaron to bounce ideas off of...don't quote me, but if it wasn't for Aaron, the Jewish people would have been in the desert for another 10 years...but Aaron said, "No Moses...turn left, turn left man"!!!


4) Don't worry, pray. How many of you have been focusing on what you don't have? Or are in a state of fear about the economy, the future...all that. Reverend Michael Beckwith (from the Secret and the Moses Code documentaries and Agape Ministries in California) states we are in a time of "Prayervolution" a time when prayer leads to a new spiritual evolution. You can't control what you can't control, but you can control what you think and you can take actions towards solving the worry points in your life. Pray, focus, meditate, visualize...however you do it...just do it.

5) Trust. My good friend Jennifer Hough of the Vital You (www.thevitalyou.com) says in her work as a facilitator and awesome coach, "The Universe has your back". Meaning the universe, god, or whatever you want to call it...has your best interests at stake. You have to have faith and trust all will be taken care of. As Jennifer so aptly puts it and I love her for this line, "In a Universe that makes Milky ways and galaxy's and made all that there is (I am paraphrasing) and made you, then you can count on it to come through" It's brilliant stuff and a needed way to think. So trust, everything is as it should be "All is well", as personal development expert Louise Hay would say. Or finally, "Get over it" as Jennifer would suggest.

6) Think BIG! Set big goals this year. Do what you've dreamed, stop buying into the darkness, the fear, the naysayers. Cut them out. As Nelson Mandella once said, "Who are you to play small, you're hear to glorify G-d" (or the universe) and be all you can. Take on living your wildest dreams. Lately, I have been setting the intention for how my day will go in my day-timer...and low and behold if it's not coming true. Last week for example I wrote "Get two new clients" and it happened. Friday, I led a training session and I wrote in my day-timer, "It's going to be an awesome day of learning" and it was!!! Think Big, train your mind to have amazing ideas and juicy thoughts and for gosh sakes write it down. It becomes real then!

7) Have balance and self love. No matter what happens take care of yourself. Exercise, eat well, take your vitamins and accept failures as learning lessons. If you don't take care of you...who will? We have to take "Responsibility" and "Care for the self" now more than ever. Incorporate self-care in your life, every day.


8) Have an attitude of gratitude. Act like whatever you want in your life has already come through. Express gratitude everyday for all the good things in your life. As my good friend Shawn Shepheard says, "Yes the guy in front of you on the road, just cut you off, but instead of getting even or angry, have an attitude of gratitude in that moment". Be thankful you didn't crash, that you're well, that your family loves you, that all is good in your life, that you have a place to go too on your drive...

Gratitude gets you more of what you want...so be thankful for all of the good things and trust me there are lots of good things...

I am going to leave you with a magical prayer that I read almost every day. It's a prayer that if you read every day it will change your life. It's called the Prayer of Jabez. It will open doors and broaden your horizons. If you want grab the book at a bookstore. Call my good friend Shelly, she owns an independent bookstore called Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge and she would love the business plus you don't have to go there you can order the book by phone from her. It's called the Pray of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson. Shelly can be reached at 905-852-4282 and she will order it in for you.

Here is the prayer, read it every day and watch how your life will unfold:

Oh that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that your hand might be with me and that you would keep me from harm that it may not pain me.


Read that every day and watch will unfold in your life.

I want to invite you to 3 events:

One is the Durham Small Business Meditation Project...happening on December 11th at Essential Communications at 101 Dundas St. W. (at Brock in Whitby) at 6:30-8 pm.

The other is the World Healing meditation on December 31st at 6:30 am until 8 am at the St. Lawrence Centre at King and Jarvis St. (Pay by donation) and this is not an event I am running, I am just letting you know...it's a beautiful to close a year and begin a new. Log onto http://www.peace-the-21st.org/dec31/ to learn more

Also on January 9th at the Business Advisory Centre Durham. I am co-facilitating "Create your year" from 9:30-12:30 and it costs $49.00 (plus GST) to get in. I would love you to come out and get ready to create your most amazing year yet.


I want to wish you a wonderful, peaceful, holiday season...with health, fun, and abundance in 2009.

David Cohen The BIG IDEAS GUY -"BIG"


P.S. I have embedded a video this month...an interview with Bruce Wilkinson on his other book (The Dream Giver) a follow up to his Prayer of Jabez. Plus a Gospel Version of the Prayer o Jabez...

In Joy!

David