What’s New At StepOne

Been to the StepOne Member site recently?

We’ve added over a dozen improvements. 

Here are just a handful of upgrades we added:

• Download your Vision Board to your PC and then view it just by double clicking.
• ‘Share’ one or more of your Vision Boards with friends/family members.
• Each of your StepOne Vision Boards can now have its own song.
• Clear / delete a goal with a single click.
• Change the background colour of your online viewer on the fly.

Many more improvements are in the works.  Look for more updates in upcoming editions of Achieve!  Or better yet click here and get started making your own StepOne Vision Board just by becoming a StepOne Member.

We are on a mission to make StepOne the best site on the web for helping you reach your goals. 

We’ll do this by bringing the latest research on goal achievement to StepOne Members.  That research will also include interviews with some great Coaches and Thought Leaders regarding their approach to goal achievement.   Look no further than this issue of ‘Achieve!’ for our interview with Mandie Crawford, President of Roaring Women.

Mandie’s story and the challenges she has overcome in her life are truly inspirational.  Most importantly, like us, Mandie is a seeker of the secrets behind goal achievement.   We’re delighted to have Mandie be a part of this 1st edition of Achieve!.  We hope you find the interview helpful and insightful. 

Live Courageously!

Susan Nicoll
Founder – StepOne

Goal Achievement Interview with Mandie Crawford – President of RoaringWomen.com

On March 31/09, Susan Nicoll, Founder of StepOne Vision Boards, interviewed Mandie Crawford.  Mandie is an ex-Police Office, a Mother, a successful entrepreneur and the President of Roaring Women.  Mandie has done extensive research on Goal Achievement to the point where she has actually created a highly successful course on the topic.

You can either read the highlights of the interview below or listen to the interview at BlogTalkRadio.com by clicking here.

Interview Transcript

Sue: Tell us why you started Roaring Women and what it does for its members.       

Mandi:  I started Roaring Women because I was seeing all these great businesses run by women that were not well known.  I started writing about these female entrepreneurs and submitting the stories to newspapers.  A lot of times the articles wouldn’t get published so I decided that starting a website dedicated to female entrepreneurs would be the way to go.  From there Roaring Women.com was created.

As for what the site does for its members, it allow them to be profiled in a different way on-line.   Roaring Women allows the member to tell the story behind their business – why they started it, what it does, where they came from and what propelled them to create the business.

Sue: How long did it take you to go from initial idea to your first 20 members?

Mandi: It was the first week of April 2004 that the idea of creating the site happened.  On June 1/04 we launched with 12 members. By December of the same year Roaring Women had 45 members, most in the Hamilton, Ontario area.

Sue: What were some of the obstacles you had to overcome to get Roaring Women going?

Mandi: Most people say money but I didn’t really see money as an obstacle because I just kept moving and not looking over my shoulder.  But there was a challenge in getting a proper business loan.  I also found that many people saw this as a new idea.  In 2004 Facebook hadn’t yet arrived so many people didn’t realize the value of connecting on-line.  This meant that there was considerable work to be done on explaining the concept and getting prospective members to see how an on-line community could help build their business.

Sue: You must have had some moments of doubt - how did you get through them?

Mandi: Oh, I’ve had lots of moments of doubt!  It’s funny because I’m always teaching people to move forward and have belief in yourself.  But everyone of us have a time when you don’t feel that belief.   I work to surround myself with really good information.  Great business books can help.  When I get down I go looking for a business book that might help me tweak something. In the end it comes down to having a really strong self belief.  When I was feeling like ‘gee this might not work’ I’d have an argument with myself.  ‘Look it Mr. Doubt this is going to work!’.  I would have this part of myself that wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer.  Lots of doubt comes from that little voice, that gremlin, that can see a little problem and magnify it.

I’ve always worked to see things from an end state perspective.  If I focus on the end what can be problems are just seen as little bumps that can be moved over and through.  My approach has been to aim for something that’s really huge.  I then go after it and before I know it I’ve accomplished all these things along the way that I might have initially thought were beyond me.  Thinking from the end and keeping moving allows you keep your energy up.

Sue: Ya, I know what you mean.  I was talking to a Coach in Florida the other day and he said how we dreamt when we were little is how we should be dreaming now.  When were little there were no limits on what we might do.  Going back to that place is still possible, still achievable regardless of your age.

Mandi: I agree.  When were little we were told ‘No’ a lot.  Our parents aren’t trying to slow us down so much.  It’s in their protectiveness and desire to protect us from being disappointed they start setting artificial limitations.  But the fact is if you can see something clearly enough and have enough energy around it, you can likely achieve it.  You know there’s a really good book out called ‘The Dream Giver’ by David Wilkinson.  He talks about having a dream and learning to get past what he calls ‘the border bullies’.  People who have a vested interest in keeping you just as you are because if you change then so must they.

Sue: You've actually written a course on goal setting & goal achievement.  What were some of the things you learned in researching the content for the course?

Mandi:  I really don’t call it ‘Goal Setting’ any more because anyone can set a goal.  I think it’s important that we start achieving our goals.  I realized when I started writing the course that I had achieved a lot of my goals.  In researching I learned a lot about how our brain works and how we process disappointment.  Lots of people in January set out to achieve a lot things. But at the end of the month most people have become mired down in life and failed to do the things they said were important. 

What’s interesting is when we fail to do something inside of us there is this small sense of shame.  Shame then attaches itself to goals.  Our brains are wired to run away from pain.  So when you set enough goals and fail at them you start to avoid even starting.  So I learned that instead of framing things as goals set them as promises.  When people make a promise they are far more likely to keep it.  The example of promising someone you’re going to pick them up somewhere.  You will be bound and bent to pick that person up come what may.  But if you have a goal to pick someone up, psychologically it feels easier to say ‘well I just missed my goal’.  A promise is a far more powerful thing.

I also found that having a 90 day plan that’s a stretch and one that can be broken down into small chunks can make a big difference.

Sue: Well, on to something close to our hearts - Visualization.   How do you use Visualization and Vision Boards in your life and in your business?

Mandi:  Well first of all when you’re considering where your life or business is going to go, we don’t see things in words, we see it in pictures.  So it’s important to select pictures for your goals and then put them in places where you are going to see them on a regular basis.   I’ve got my vision boards placed on the walls of my home so I see them, if only out of the corner of my eye.  Your brain is taking in a lot more than we think and it’s processing those images AS IF they are real.   One of the things I have on my vision boards is meeting with famous people and solving real world problems.  When I look at those images I start to realize my goals are happening!

Sue: Ya, one of the things we’ve created at StepOne is the ability to take your Vision Board and download it on your PC or Mac and view it with a single click.

Mandi:  This is great because for people like me who are on their computer most of the day this is a great feature.   One of the things we set out to do this year was to find a site where you can build a Vision Board on-line.  That’s how we stumbled upon StepOne.  I’m really pleased that we found you as a lot of people don’t want to get out the scissors and glue! 

Another thing that’s great is being able to add music.  It taps into another level of energy in your mind and body that can make a difference.

Sue: What's the difference between a Vision Board that works and one that doesn't?

Mandi:  (Laughing) The only way a Vision Board wouldn’t work is if you built it and just put it away never to look at it again!  I think that if you really have the desire for something, you keep the images on the Vision Board in front of and you believe, you can reach pretty much any goal. 

Sue: To close off, there are a lot of people out there that are feeling overwhelmed, frustrated by failure and wondering if change is really possible.  What thoughts would you give them that might help get them to the next level?

Mandi:  When I was 16 years old I moved out of my home, didn’t have any money for school and was stuck in a dead end job.  I think if you want to change anything you first need to start changing your thinking.  Putting yourself in the picture of your future.  That’s the thing in your Vision Board is to see yourself in the picture.  What the images but go to the next level and imagine yourself in that picture.  And we all go through times when we don’t think we’re going to get there.  The thing is, you’re going to change one way or the other.  People change everyday they just realize it.  Sometimes it’s just taking baby steps. 

Anyone who has investigated how a tsunami forms has found that huge wave was formed from some relatively small vibrations in the middle of the ocean.  It then builds over time and space to become this massive force of nature.  But it didn’t start this way, it started out as little bump!

And that’s the way our lives can work.  As we move forward it’s typically not big steps but a lot of little ones.  Change is happening, we may not see it but it’s happening.

I think our life is a journey.  Sometime we can get mired in the space of ‘Is anything good going to ever happen to me?’.  But when you recognize that life is change and this is only one moment in time on your journey it can make things a bit easier to move through.

When you get on a plane going to Florida. You’re on the plane and you’re thinking about beach, sun and palm trees.  But then suddenly the plane hits turbulence and you’re thinking ‘Hey! I’m supposed to be in Florida not in the middle of turbulence!’  Life can often be like that.

Sue: Okay that’s great, I am finished my questions.  Thanks for some great answers!

Mandi: Okay before we close off can you tell us a bit more about the site.  Where is website? Where would like to see StepOne in a years time?

Sue:  Well you can find the site at www.steponevisionboards.com        

We tried to make it as simple and user friendly as we could.  We linked the two vital elements of sight and sound together to help make the Vision Board more full of impact for the user.

So much is out there right now about ‘if you think about something it will come true’.  That can happen but there are also lots of other little steps along the way that you need to take in order to get to that final destination. That is where the Vision Boards come in.

This can be really hard work, you sometimes have to search your soul. This is not light and fluffy stuff.  We did a lot of research on it and we tried to make it easy for the masses to look at and navigate their way through.

Mandi: it is also very inexpensive isn’t it…this blows me away! I cannot believe it, I cannot imagine why every body doesn’t have one! Can you tell us about that.

Sue: If you go month to month it is $5.97 and for six months it is around the 30 dollar mark.

Mandi: Wow that is less than coffee!

Sue: True…our intention is to make StepOne accessible to as many people as possible and easy to use. Like I mentioned we added a downloading function where you can load it right onto your desktop and have a look at your Vision Board every day.  It gives you the opportunity to look at your goals and say, ’I did this really really well today’. As well as these are the areas I need to concentrate on tomorrow.

Mandi: My last question for you before we close is…where would you like to see the business in a year’s time?

Sue: Well…I would like to see us doing some on-line workshops like…what is a goal, how do you set a goal, what are some little steps you take each day to move toward that goal. I would like to make the site more interactive, actually try to do something with Facebook.

Mandi: That’s good…I would like to get my vision board done and loaded onto my desktop. I am tired of looking at other peoples.

Sue: Ya once its done you will feel so good when you look at that at what you’ve done.

The nice thing about a StepOne Vision Boards is that you can change them and make them relevant for what you need right now. You can also start small, just do a board for a certain aspect of your life and as that one gains momentum you can move onto another one until they are all finished.

Thanks for interviewing me!

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