In my continuing discussion of success in work from home careers today I want to cover the power of reflection. The Slight Edge philosophy focuses on ‘the now’, about realizing there is only ever really now. The choices we make in each moment are what lead to the path of success.

How to reflect on your  business

Reflection is about using the results you have been getting, taking time out to look at them on a daily basis, and then seeing if your home Internet business is heading towards success.

The key is to remember to avoid dwelling on the past. Take my cousin Miriam, she has no high school diploma and instead of taking the GED test she still complains about low income. There are many really good websites that offer GED practice tests and online classes free of charge so there are no excuses for complaints.

If you use reflection that fact you did something wrong several times means you can learn. In fact, you have learned, you have learned several things to change. You then have the power to choose to change the actions you take and reflect again. This is a continuous improvement process, ‘plan, do. review’.

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Years ago, the owner of a New York department store said that half of the advertising dollars he spent annually were wasted. He said his problem was that he didn’t know which half. The following video tells you more about the basics of advertising:

Today there is good reason to believe the wasted portion is what a company spends on the creation and production of advertising. We Americans, exposed to millions of dollars worth of advertising daily, hardly remember even the most recent ad we’ve seen.

National audience research annually lists a “Top Ten” of stand-out ads – consigning all the others to unmemorable oblivion. In other words, good ads are one in a million.

Is it that bad? Why does advertising clutter the landscape and abuse our eyes and ears like a pack of screaming monkeys?

We think it is because there is, in place, all across the country, from local media and agencies in historical Merced in California to New York and Los Angeles conglomerates, a generation of advertising professionals that neglected to learn the basic structure of salesmanship and storytelling in advertising.

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Last week’s post on Why You Secretly Want To Fail (Or Why Sharing Your Creativity is Like the Dream Where You’re Naked) unraveled the idea of vulnerability and the personal rejection Creatives face when their work is rejected.

It prompted Tessa Zeng of the gorgeous new site Experiencing Revolution) to tweet Oh, the need to be transparent! Easier said than done. She said she’d rather take a break and go to historic Merced and visit Yosemite. Now, THAT’s easier said than done, I would say!

Very true. It really is easier said than done. Her sentiment and Jamey Burrell at Life as An Experiment Twittering about decision-making got me thinking about how we unlock the ability to put our creativity and lives into action. I use this approach when I was helping people to get ready for the GED exam. Combined with the right tools it works wonders!

Embracing Empathy “Easier Said Than Done” is all largely expressed because we make it all so complex. As human beings and creative innovators, we all have large egos in one way or another. Even the most demure and uncertain of us still think we have something to say.

Or we wouldn’t be searching blogs for insight and affirmation and creating our own. In those egos, we wonder how to make it easier. How to make it certain. How to know what we’re saying and doing is as worthwhile as everyone else.

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