I was taking a walk this morning and reflecting on many wonderful things happening in my life, and I had the thought that I make a terrible single mom.

It’s not that I’m bad to my kids or or that I’m a bad mom.

It’s that I’m flabbergasted by role of being a single mom.  I don’t know how to do it all by myself.

As I walked along, I thought about how overwhelmed I get, about how I always look to the invisible partner next to me for support, about how I always seem slightly undone by the fact that I’m alone.  I feel scattered and crazy behind in my to-do list.  I feel like I’m always running to catch up.  My thoughts went from sunny springtime smiles to dark stormy frowns.

And yet none of this made sense.

In reality, I run my household pretty well as a single mom.  For the most part, I get people where they need to be.  The kids are not dirty and naked because I couldn’t get around to getting them clothes.  They have everything they need and a lot of what they dream about.  Sure, I’m busy and I don’t hand in forms to my daughter’s school on time, but who does?  And so what I told the vet the dog had been sick for 6 weeks but when I looked at my calender it had actually been 3 months (did I let it go that long??)

And I have great support.  Cathy would do anything for me.  Dominica and Mary are my constant cheering squad.  My father and Bonnie have been unfailingly supportive.  I have lots of people who believe in me.

In other words, while I would love to have a partner, while I would love to have someone who loves me intimately and who supports me and the kids, and who actually helps me in the day to day workings of a household–I don’t need that person.

Habitual Negative Thinking

Why do I think I make a terrible single mom when I’m actually doing OK?

I have the habit of thinking those negative thoughts.  I think  I need a partner.

I think that I need the support.  I think that I need the love.  I think I need the help.  I think that without it, I’m overwhelmed and barely keeping up and that I’m doing a terrible job.

I’m sure you won’t find this remarkable, but every time I have those thoughts, I become overwhelmed and can barely keep up.

Even though I have a lot of evidence that I’m actually doing fine, my mind defaults to this habitual negative thinking.

True Leaders Train their Minds

Habitual thinking, and especially negative thinking can be the end of any progress we make in our life or in our business.  If we want to be true leaders, to really help the people we serve, we must be very aware of habitual thinking.  It is rarely accurate and usually serves to undermine what we are doing.

The first step to correcting your habitual and negative thoughts is to become conscious of when you think them.  Notice what your default story is–what do you tell yourself every time something happens.  When I feel challenged about the many details of running my family, I automatically think,  “Julia, you’re bad at being single.  Other single mothers handle all of these details with much more grace.  Other single moms get so much more done than you.  Other single moms don’t have a son who has needed a haircut for 2 months.  If you had someone who loved and helped you, you’d be Ok.  Your son would have short hair.  But instead, you’re barely keeping up.”

The second step is to notice how these thoughts make you feel.  In my case, I feel overwhelmed and I screech to a halt.  Since the reality is that I’m a single mom, having these thoughts doesn’t solve anything.  My son’s hair is still too long.  They aren’t constructive.  I start to frown and I feel tense.

Next, ask yourself if these thoughts serve any purpose.  Does feeling bad and overwhelmed do anything to correct what you’re worrying about?  I certainly don’t get less overwhelmed by thinking about how bad I am at something.

Finally (and this step is a doozie), acknowledge your habitual thoughts and then let them go.  Don’t focus on them; don’t promote them.  Just like you would do with a whiney child, you hear them but don’t play into them.

This last step takes discipline and practice but it is truly the key to moving beyond them.

I have been challenging myself to move past my habitual thinking.  This morning, I had those thoughts and then put them aside.  I kept walking and in a few minutes, I was sunny and accomplished again.  In a short time, I didn’t feel overwhelmed and I realized that I’m a lucky woman and that I am doing just fine.

Habitual thinking happens all day long.  When you run your business, you will have thoughts which are not constructive and which can bring you down–it’s the human condition.  The real question is what you do with those thoughts.

To be a true leader, you must learn to manage your habitual thinking.  Replace negative thoughts with positive ones, and learn to let negative thoughts pass with no impact.

I get overwhelmed and it is hard to manage a modern family on my own.  But I’m not a terrible single mom.

There’s been a lot of changes happening in the last 4 months.  Business Moms Kiosk is in the process of a complete overhaul, from facelift to new content, look for some exciting changes.

One of my biggest announcements is the start of a new project which will focus on WAHM’s (Work at Home Moms) and feature some great new videos.

I am lucky to be part of a new WAHM group.  We are busy scheming and planning, but soon will have a fun, new resource which will get all your questions answered about how you can get your business started online.

Look for more information really soon.

When you’re a beginner at Renegade Professional, it is so easy to be overwhelmed.  Dozens and dozens of videos on all types of subjects can distract you.

If you manage to make it through Renegade Professional, then there are all the other distractions on the webs–the newest launch from the latest internet guru, the latest changes from Amazon and Google, the emerging social media tools.  It’s a jungle to get lost in.

And if you manage to stay out of that, the final and most devasting distraction can hit–the voices in your own head.  The constant dialog telling you why you can’t do this, why you’re making mistakes, why it will never work, why you’re wasting your time.

The distractions are endless.

Stay Focused

Mike Klingler has great advice for Renegade Professional beginners.

Stay focused.

And if you need help, get a coach to help you.

It’s a big job handling everything it takes to get an internet business started.  The technical learning curve alone can be overwhelming, but the emotional battles can take you out.

Find a coach to help you wade through it all.

A chai wallah does one thing: he makes tea.

He makes tea day in and day out. Over and over.

I remember when I was in India how the chai wallahs would enter the trains at every stop and each had their own way of calling “chai”. They would squeeze up and down the aisles with their pots and glasses, at all hours of the day or night (you never got a quiet time). They would shout about their chai is such a way that the words ceased having meanings and became a song.

They were all experts at the same thing, making tea, but they each had their own way of doing it.  (For a wonderful website devoted to the chai experience in India, visit chai pilgrimage.)

Are You Willing to Become a Wallah?

To become a wallah, you must specialize.  Avoid distraction and do the same thing over and over until you become good at it.  And after you have repeated it over and over, your own unique mark will develop.

Focus on one thing and ignore the rest until you become good at it.

“When you go all in, it focuses your attention and effort, doesn’t it?”

—Seth Godin in his blog post Chai Wallah

If you focus your attention, practice until you’re crazy, you come up with your expert call.  You will become a internet business wallah.

You can’t reach success without failure.

I never knew that you had to fail to succeed.

When I was growing up, I was taught that failure was, well, failure.  Failure was not supported.  Failure was something to be ashamed of.

It has only been though building a business that I have made friends with failure.  I fail.  I get up.  I move on.

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Ever dreamed of working from home?  Managing your own schedule and having the flexibility to care for the kids while still earning money?

Starting an internet business can seem daunting.

Besides the mysterious techie stuff, how do you know what to do?  What are the options?

The best way to start a profitable internet business is with a good guide.

I have just completed a Squidoo lens (a type of article) which gives a broad overview of the process of building an internet business.   This would be a great place to start your investigation of the possibilities.

If you want more information, there are many sources I can recommend.  But it is always easiest to give a recommendation, if I know specifically your needs and goals.  Contact me through the comment form, and we can schedule a free 30 minute consultation about what your business goals are, and how best to go about meeting them.

In our consultation, we will discuss:

• What your income goals are
• How much time you have available for your business
• What your interests are
• What your skill level is
• What parts of internet business would you enjoy the most

By the end of the call, I will help you formulate a plan to begin your internet business–a plan that is tailored to you.  If you love writing, maybe you need to blog.  If you love chatting on the phone, maybe your business model will involve a lot of customer consultations.  Do you spend a lot of time online clicking around?  Maybe you’re good for social media.  Got money but no time?  Try PPC.

There are many,  many business models online and they are not one size fits all.  But when you begin, you don’t know where to start.

In my free 30 minute consultation, I will help you make a plan which points you in the direction that fits you best.

The best way to start a profitable internet business is to not do it alone.

Your Two Step Plan to Start an Internet Business:

1. Read How To Start an Internet Business Profitably
2. Contact me to schedule your free 30 minute consultation.

Are you prepared for the coming depression?

Robert Kiyosaki’s new book “Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money” will be released in September.  In this interview, he asks us whether you are prepared for both types of depressions.

What?  Two types of depressions?

If you listen or view the news, I’m sure you are as overwhelmed with the news about the economy as I am.  Every day I hear more friends loosing their jobs or getting their hours reduced.  Every day I hear of businesses going under and loved ones having their homes foreclosed.

The economic forecasts are confusing and daunting.

How can we protect ourselves from the ever shifting economy?

Robert Kiyosaki has always recommended being a business owner or investor as a way to control your financial future.  When I started out with “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” many years ago, I completely agreed.

But when I started my business, I soon found out that it was much harder than I thought.  I had great products.  I had lots of enthusiasm.  I even said all the affirmations.

But I had no sales.

My education in business has been long and slow but I have finally found the mentors who help me get on track.

Renegade Professional is the most thorough, the most complete system of step-by-step training I have found.  There are dozens and dozens of click-by-click tutorials of how to use the internet to build your business (and more added every week).

Before I joined Renegade Professional, I had been fooling around, tying to get traffic to my websites and get that traffic to convert to sales for years.  Renegade Professional is a one stop shop which showed me how to put it all together.

For example, through Renegade Professional, I learned how to twitter.  Now twittering is not that hard, but how do you use it to drive traffic to your business?  And once you get new people to your site, what do you do with them?  What are the twitter rules of etiquette?  How can you get like-minded twitterers in one “room” to tweet together?

All of this became clear when I joined Renegade Professional and had one aha moment after another.

Before I knew it, I had traffic to all my websites from twitter.

Renegade Professional pulled it all together for me.  Years of study about internet business had taught me many techniques and skills, but forming them into a cohesive business plan had eluded me.  With Renegade Professional, I not only learned new skills, but learned how to use them to make money.

Join Renegade Professional to get your internet business flying.

When you want to start a business, it is really important to find niche markets which are profitable.

Twitter is a great way to find profitable niche markets.

There are many guidelines for finding niches, and of course, many times people make considered choices to disregard those guidelines.  But in general, to find niche markets you will look for:

• High demand.  You want to find a niche which has many searches for the service or product you are supplying.  Find out what people want. What are they looking for?  What do they need? Low demand can make building your business slow.
• Low supply.  The fastest way to profit is to find niches which are under-supplied.  If there is a lot of supply, this may indicate that a niche is particularly profitable and worthy of your business–or it may mean its over saturated.  Research a lot and make a considered decision.  You want a niche where people are desperate for a solution.
• Good monetization potential. You’re in business to make money and you want to be sure your niche is profitable.  Find a niche were people are willing to pay for their solutions.

How do you find these elusive perfect niches?

Twitter.

Twitter is a great way to find out what people are talking about.  It’s like listening in to hundreds of conversations at once.  You learn what people need, what they hate and what they love.

Twitter is a perfect tool to find niche markets.

To learn how to use twitter to find niche markets, read my hubpage “How to Find Niche Markets with Twitter“.  You will discover how to find the people talking about what you want to hear, and what to listen to.

If you have wondered how to join the “Work from Home Moms” club, and thought that you could never do it, Lori Ramsey will inspire you.

Lori Ramsey is a successful work at home mom who raises 6 kids while building her internet business.  She makes a full time income by developing and managing 4 websites, including www.stages-of-pregnancy.com.

On April 17, 2009 I had the opportunity to interview Lori and find out how she does it.  This interview, takes you through Lori’s story–from learning to open an email to eventually creating an income that exceeds her husband’s.  And she tells her story as a chronology of having babies.

Find out how Lori:

• Started with a retail business site and why that was stressful for her.
• How SBI changed Lori’s business and gave her back her dining room table.
• Challenges to being a WAHM.
• How Lori uses “mother time” writes an article in 10 minutes or less.
• How long it took for Lori’s business to take off (less than you think)?
• Lori’s biggest challenge to running her business and what every mom-preneur should know to master it.

Lori’s story is an inspiration to every woman who has dreamed of working from home and caring for her children.

To learn more about Lori Ramsey, please read Work From Home Moms.