After55:

One last chance to learn from 2007. In this quiet time, as we plan and gear up for 2008 and its opportunities, let’s each take a minute to reflect on the year that is closing. What are we most proud of learning or accomplishing? How long can you make your list? Like everyone else, I’ve had several challenges this year. But, looking back, I am really proud of how I met them, learned to listen to what I felt to be true, and responded both from my needs and integrity. Wow! This might be the first year I can truly say that! That comes from wisdom–and you don’t have that when you are 25. Here are three accomplishments I am proud of this year:

1. I have been a columnist and blogger for eight months–and I had never done either on a regular basis before.
2. My website is up and I am bringing a dream to life.
3. I got married!

If you like, please share your Points of Pride and we’ll all celebrate them together.

Happy New Year!

It seems like so many businesses have essentially shut down for the rest of the year. When I find myself in this situation, where I can’t get much of anything to happen, I step back. Everyone and his or her aunt is writing about goal setting for the new year, and it is vitally important to know where you’re heading. I like to use these two weeks to take a break and “fill myself up” with good reading on a wide variety of business topics. This gives me the mental sharpness and positive outlook to really start the new year out right.

This week I am reading books about organization, time management, fulfilling a life dream and entrepreneurship. Yes, that is four books plus the latest Sue Grafton. I’m also starting a brainless knitting project to keep my fingers busy, which gives me time to sit and think. I also got a new grid notebook to write down what comes to mind and a fresh bottle of brown ink for my beloved fountain pen. I can hardly wait to see what great ideas and insights flow from that pen. I wish you the same. Let me know what your ideas and insights are.

I’ve talked about loving my business because it is totally mobile and have shared that I have written my blog and column while traveling to the East and to the West. This week I am appreciating the flexibility of my business life because it has allowed me to keep moving forward though my husband was unexpectedly hospitalized for six days. The hospital has wi-fi throughout (and free). During the inevitably long periods when nothing was scheduled, I just whipped open my MacBook Pro and went to work. How wonderful to have a business that I could work on at any hour. Yet another reason that I am so happy to be an entrepreneur. What are your reasons to look at your business life and say “Wow! I am so happy I have this work situation I have developed”?

My new website is up! www.silvervixens.com. The columnists are terrific, the rewards will be great, the neat women will be so cool, and on and on and on. I can see wonderful things happening if we can connect neat women, shine our lights, share our knowledge and have fun.

The process had ups and downs, took longer than expected–OK, so I was out of the country 31 days in the fall–and turned out to be quite complicated. But it is incredible to actually see what I have had in my head.

Please take a look at it. I hope you find it and its potential as exciting as I do. I would more than appreciate if you would tell anyone you know who fits the Woman of a Certain Age description. I hope you will join and consider giving the membership as a gift to a family member or girlfriend. The more of us, the merrier we can make it.

Dreams do come true–not to those who wait, but to those who work hard and persevere.

It seems all of the media are highly focused on helping us spend like crazy. We are portrayed as having 1 million social events, being hostesses with the mostest, fantastic home decorators with our to-do lists totally under control–of course, all of this is on top of running our businesses! True confession time. This is not what my December looks like. My holiday celebrations are small and simple. On the business side, December is focused on taking a good, strong look at my business plans. I am not just talking about goals but rather revisiting the plans, metrics, marketing, publicity and connections I want to make happen. I am also taking time to organize, read and think. I am feeling energized rather than exhausted. What are you doing this holiday season?

During this season of thanksgiving, it is important to remember that not all entrepreneurial endeavors are for profit. Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Jane Albanese, a serial entrepreneur whose latest venture is a response to a deeply felt need to give back. A year ago, while watching Oprah, Jane “knew� she was to start a charity based on the Pay It Forward concept. Using the drive and passion that are so familiar to all of us After 55 entrepreneurs, she founded Giants of Generosity. Within a month she was incorporated, and within three months she had single-handedly filed for and received the 501c3 status. Her first fundraiser was four months after that, and Giants of Generosity has already made its first grant.

Using our skills of vision, determination, planning, organization and heart we not only can build a profitable business, we can bring comfort, support those in need, and even change our world. That is an ROI we aspire to. Have a happy and meaningful Thanksgiving.

Do you read the newspaper announcements of promotions and new positions? I always do, both out of curiosity regarding what companies’ positions are experiencing changes and to see if anyone I know is mentioned.

What I have noticed more and more lately is that fewer women are pictured than men. This is not a scientific sampling. However, if there are four pictures, generally at least three will be men. One reason could be that the women don’t have a professional photograph at the ready to submit with their good news.

Have you ever had a professional photo taken? It’s great fun to be made up to look your best and then play fashion model for a while, looking this way and that. The cost is generally quite reasonable.

The most important benefit is that when opportunity knocks, you are ready with a great photo to share your good news with the world. A picture is worth a thousand words… How about making sure your picture tells a great story?

I don’t usually refer you to a newsletter in its entirety, but Harvey Mackay wrote a wonderful tribute to Anita Roddick of The Body Shop this week.  I think we would all like to think such words could be said of us — while we are alive to enjoy them, of course.  She had genius about her, but never strayed from the basics.  Take a few minutes to honor an After 55 — “One body not short of soul”.

Over the months I have been writing for WomenEntrepreneur as both a columnist and a blogger, I have been on the same personal journey that many of my readers are traveling. My short bio at the end of my column says I am a lifelong entrepreneur. I am in the throes of it again! I have written here about finding what would make your life easier or more fun and filling the need. Yep. I did that too. Remember the one about thinking like a young techie? That has been an important component too. So what on earth have I been doing?

In June I remarried after eight years on my own. Seismic shift. My new husband is semi-retired and accustomed to wintering in Scottsdale. Seismic shift. One of my daughters and her family, who I am used to seeing at least 6-8 times a year moved out of the country. Seismic shift. How could I reconfigure my life to maintain the professional part of my life that I so love and yet totally uproot it?

I knew I could have a totally mobile business, because I had co-owned a direct selling business that I ran my part from my laptop, but my current business had been structured on relationships in the Chicagoland area. So I looked at what I had. For the last two years I have had a cute little, do-nothing website that I couldn’t figure out how to describe what I wanted it to be, though I had built two corporate websites before and two since! I would spruce it up from time to time, but couldn’t find the vocabulary to move it forward. In early May, Lena West, the Tech Forward columnist, and I had occasion to talk about it. She gave me the vocabulary!

I used the process from my IT’S REINVENTION workshop and looked at my strengths (ugh! my weaknesses, too) and what I love to do. One of my very strongest qualities is that I am a connector. I am fortunate to meet someone interesting everywhere I go and somehow we are connected or I know someone who has been looking for them. (Last week in the airline lounge in Hong Kong a Chinese woman looked at me and asked if I was a writer because she is looking for a woman to write a book with her! Why me? But it happened I know a good resource for her). I love telling peoples’ stories. I love to laugh. I love business. I have friends who are experts in their fields. I love to share information I learn. I love to give dinner parties. I love color. I like to learn new things. I love to travel. I’m independent, rather fiercely I’m afraid. I think I’m smart and I like to be around intelligent accomplishing women. These are not unique, rocket science kinds of qualities, but they add up to me. So what did I do with this? I designed an online community for women over 55!

As I just typed the above qualities, I am astonished at how many of them are visible in the site (I’ll let you know when it goes live - SOON!). It not only meets my needs to meet women like me, but it also meets my need to be mobile. Over the last 5 weeks I have been in Italy, Israel, England, Hong Kong, Macao and Vancouver — and you didn’t know it. We have been connected though you may have been travelling too. How cool is that?

Just you know — your columnist is actively using the same processes she suggests for you.  Stay tuned.

We all dream of having the multimillion dollar company or enjoying first class travel to exotic locations to wrap up a big deal, but the latest Marketingto Women Datafile from EPM brings me back to reality:

“43% of all businesses owned by women have revenue of $10,000 or less; 70% have revenues under $50,000, according to the Women Presidents’ Organization. ”

The vast majority of women owned businesses have fewer than 10 employees and most are home based, sole proprietorships with no employees.  Many of us After 55s work to “keep our hand in” to make up the difference between retirement income and wants, or to keep our personal networks alive.  While this may fly in the face of our pipe-dreams, it is oddly liberating.

We are in great company if we don’t aspire to have a huge business. We have figured out how to make entrepreneurship fit our every changing lifestyle.  Good for us!

Remember when your mom told you to write your thank you notes?

The quickest way to “stand out in a crowd” is the handwritten note. Do you remember the last time you received one? Neither does your client, potential client or colleague. I admit to being a notecard and fun pen junkie. I can hardly walk by a display of colorful papers and pens, but that is part of the fun.

A quick thank you note takes about two minutes to write and one minute to address and stamp. The best part is you can even develop a formula if you like:

Dear ____,

Thank you for ___________ (taking the time to see me, your order, your help). It was a ______ (pleasure, very helpful, very interesting) to __________ (meet, learn more about your company). I look forward to ____________ (meeting again, working together).

________________ (Warm regards, Yours, truly),

See? That was easy. You’ll feel good, and the recipient will be shocked and will definitely remember you. Huge rewards for a small amount of time. Mom was right — it is a good thing to do.

On a British Airways international flight a few days ago, I watched a program with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett filmed at the University of Nebraska, Buffett’s alma mater.  It was a Q & A format. One student asked the titans what was the best investment that they had ever made.  Their answers were not what I expected.  Buffett said that whatever he had spent on self improvement was his best investment and went on to speak about the value of reading, a very important part of his work. Bill Gates spoke of the two weeks a year he goes into seclusion to read, think and envision the future.

This got me to thinking about how much time I devote to reading — a great love of mine — and self improvement.  A common lament of entrepreneurs is lack of time.  It is hard to set aside 30-60 minutes a day for reading, reflection and thinking. We probably don’t have the resources of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett with full staffs to free our schedules.  Yet they both indicated this was one of the foundational blocks to each of their success.

On that same flight I saw an ad for Soundview Executive Book Summaries. For $149 per year, they will send you thirty 8 page summaries of what they deem to be the top business books of the year.  That is certainly a step in the right direction!

We are at the beginning of the fourth quarter with “goals to go” by year’s end.  If Warren Buffett and Bill Gates say reading and self improvement figure prominently to this day in their personal success, I’m willing to put it on my calendar.  What about you?