INSPIRATION Corner

Being a successful retailer isn’t always about business--it’s also about being happy, fulfilled, and inspired as a person so you can bring energy and creativity to your work. For that reason, we offer you the following articles, tips, and features, designed to support and encourage you as an individual and business professional.

52 Weeks of Authenticity: Practical Ways to Make 2012 the Year You Finally Get Real and Start Living the Best Life for YOU

-Are you really making the decisions that are right for you? If you’re like most of us, probably not. Kathleen McIntire offers 52 tips—one for each week of the year—to help you shape a life that’s more fulfilling, more authentic, more YOU.-

Authenticity. It’s a word that gets tossed around quite a bit these days. (In fact, it’s in danger of becoming a bit of a cliché.) Sure, we all think we’re authentic in our words and actions. But are we really? Kathleen McIntire says that, consciously or not, most of us let the expectations of others drive the decisions we make every day—from the major we choose, to the kind of house we buy, to where we go on vacation, to whether we stay in and relax... <+>

Excerpt from: Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza

Familiar Memories “Re-mind” Us to Reproduce the Same Experiences

Every day, as you see the same people (your boss, for example, and your spouse and kids), do the same things (drive to work, perform your daily tasks, and do the same workout), go to the same places (your favorite coffee shop, the grocery store you usually frequent, and your place of employment), and look at the same objects (your car, your house, your toothbrush . . . even your own body), your familiar memories related to your known world “re-mind” you to reproduce the same experiences... <+>

The Post-Recession Relationship Reset: Ten Ways to Weed Out Relationships That Don’t Work—and Strengthen Those That Do

-Our economic upheaval has accomplished one good thing: it’s reminded many of us that the people we love matter more than anything money can buy. Susan Apollon explains how to make more room in your life for deeper, more meaningful relationships.-

It’s been a rough few years. As a nation we’ve lost many things. Jobs. Companies. Homes. Retirement funds. A sense of security. Here in the post-Madoff, post-Great Recession era, many of us have even lost our faith in the bedrock American certainty that old-fashioned hard work leads to a comfortable and happy life. These are surely losses worth grieving. And yet, as we pick through the rubble of our old lives, many of us are discovering some pretty remarkable gifts... <+>

The Myth of Work/Life Balance: Seven Ways to Rethink Your Approach to the Daily Grind (and Get Happier in the Process!)

-If you’ve been killing yourself trying to achieve daily work/life balance, Jon Gordon warns that it may be a pipe dream. He offers up another (better) solution.-

In a perfect world, “work” and “home” would balance out neatly. We’d work from 8 to 5 each day, take an hour-long lunch, and then come home and spend uninterrupted time with our families. But for those of us here in the wake of the Great Recession, firmly entrenched in an “always on” society, this notion seems hopelessly outdated. Most of us are working longer, more stressful hours, and work is spilling over into evenings and weekends... <+>