by Zhana
What People Are Saying about Zhana
“Committed to success, efficient, conscious and reliable are some of the words I would use to describe Zhana, who is a powerful woman with a vision.”
Shola Arewa, Owner, Inner Vision
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“Zhana has always been an amazing inspiration to me and many others! She continues to grow and share her knowledge with us - full of creativity and Self empowerment. Wonderful work!
Top qualities: Great Results , Expert, Creative"
Linda Kleida Romera, author www.purelyholistic.co.uk
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“Zhana has consistently impressed me with her eBook series, radio show, and dedication to sharing information that empowers others. She has been an inspiration to me I expect her to continue to do great things.”
Adrianne George , Founder and Editor , Black Women in Europe Blog http://blog.blackwomenineurope.com/
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“Zhana is a very engaging radio talk show host and a proactive promoter of BLACK SUCCESS around the world. As an author she captures the spirit and pride of our ancestry with specific and deliberate themes that she is able to craftfully weave in her written and on-air products. I find it very refreshing to work with her!”
Joan Gosier, Business Analyst , HBCU kidz, Inc. www.HBCUKidz.com
Welcome to More Black Success Volume 6.
A year has passed since the publication of MBS 5. In that time, we have seen changes that are momentous and profound. For the first time, we have an African American President in the White House.
I am proud to bring you Volume 6, which, as always, celebrates the successes and achievements of people of African heritage. This free e-book is a follow-up to Black Success Stories and contains one success story and two articles.
I trust you will enjoy this e-book and find it educational, inspiring and uplifting.
Peace,
Zhana
The views expressed in this eBook are those of the individual authors and not necessarily the views of the Publisher.
This e-book is copyright © Zhana 2009
Published on Smashwords by Zhana Productions
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No copy or duplication of this e-book or any of its contents may be made without express written permission from the author.
Individual articles remain copyright of the authors.
You have permission to use this ebook for your own benefit and to distribute this e-book freely. You do not have permission to sell it
Click here for the best
African American holiday gifts.
Contents
Finding
Your Purpose.
Diana
Broomfield
asks how you can find your purpose, and what difference this will
make to your life.
Mentoring “At Risk” Youth. Dena Strong tells the deeply moving story of how she set up a mentoring program, and gives 10 tips for mentoring.
Creating
Value:
Larry
Beacham
explores
how you can create true value for your customers.
Articles by Zhana
Resources
About Zhana
Finding Your Purpose
By Diana Broomfield
How do
you find your purpose?
What are you passionate about, what makes you happy? What is it that completes you?
Felicia and I had a discussion a couple of days ago and I shared with her what I feel my purpose is. I did not discover this 50 yrs ago, I discovered it over the last 50 years. I believe it is my purpose to help as many people as I can in as many ways as I can. As I look back over my life, I realize that I have been most fulfilled when I was helping someone, an elder, a child, an individual with a mental condition, a sick person, a mentally disabled person, my family, my friends and total strangers. I have been blessed to be able to put people at ease without even trying. I have had complete strangers tell me the most intimate details about themselves, things that they have never told anyone else, and they say to me, I feel so comfortable with you. I also think my purpose is to educate others, by sharing my knowledge with them. I love it when I see people have their Aha moment.
Ok, you have figured out your purpose, now what? How do you fulfill that purpose?
What is stopping you?
The biggest stumbling block for most everyone is fear, fear of failure or fear of success.
Using Stumbling Blocks as Stepping StonesThere are two ways to look at the world: the benevolent way or the malevolent way. People with a malevolent or negative worldview take a victim stance, seeing life as a continuous succession of problems and a process of unfairness and oppression. They don’t expect a lot and they don’t get much. When things go wrong, they shrug their shoulders and passively accept that this is the way life is and there isn’t anything they can do to make it better.
On the other hand, people with a benevolent or positive worldview see the world around them as filled with opportunities and possibilities. They believe that everything happens as part of a great process designed to make them successful and happy. They approach their lives, their work, and their relationships with optimism, cheerfulness, and a general attitude of positive expectations. They expect a lot and they are seldom disappointed.
Now, here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, imagine that your biggest problem or challenge in life has been sent to you at this moment to help you, to teach you something valuable. What could it be?
Second, be willing to cut your losses and walk away if you have made a mistake or a bad choice. Accept that you are not perfect, you can’t be right all the time, and then get on with your life.
Third, learn from every mistake you make. Write down every lesson it contains. Use your mistakes in the present as stepping stones to great success in the future.
Learn from life’s lessons and use them to help you achieve your goals and live your dreams – Click here for Success Strategies for Black People.
Do you feel you are putting in a lot of effort and getting little result? Does it seem that success is the birthright of certain few people? Are people telling you that you can never achieve anything tangible with your life? Do you believe their lies? It is high time you took charge of your life. Failures will come in life but that should not be the deciding factor of what you make of your life. You owe yourself, and God, the responsibility of shaking every failure and turn every adversity into testimony. If you are still experiencing failure, it is most likely you are being held by any of these stumbling blocks to success.
Are you blaming others for what happens to you? Do you still live in the realm of pushing responsibility to others? Someone said that the difference between witchcraft and medicine is that when a man falls sick, witchcraft makes him ask, “who did this to me” while medicine makes him ask, “what did this to me“. This practice of blaming others account for not only half of people’s failures but also for failure to cash in on failures. When you keep blaming others for whatsoever happens to you, there is no way you can identify the cause of the failure and learn the lesson. As such, you would not be able to prevent the recurrence of this in your life. As long as you do not recognize failure for what it is, you cannot deal with it.
The second stumbling block is blaming oneself…Do you find yourself saying, “Why do I always say the wrong thing”, “Why is it that when it gets to my turn that something else happens”, etc. Then you are guilty of this stumbling block. This is usually a quick and easy way to brush off a failure that probably runs much deeper and requires more consideration than people are willing to admit. Instead of wrestling with the problem behind the failure and resolve it to prevent recurrence, many people blame themselves and let it go at that. This does more harm good. It plants the deep feeling of inferiority and insecurity. Abraham Lincoln failed many times before he became the president but he was far from being a failure. Excessive self-blame opens the door to guilt feelings. You will keep finding fault in whatsoever you do when clearly the actual cause is being left unattended to.
The third stumbling block is having no goal: We all must know where we want to go if we are going to get anywhere. It is easy to drift along when you have no goal. Are you currently going through school as if you are doing your family a favor? Or you are only interested in your salary in your current job? These are signs that you don’t have a goal. You are definitely not aiming for anything. The people who go places and do things make the most of every situation. They are ready for the next thing that comes along on the road to their goal. They know what they want and are willing to go an extra mile. The question now is, “what is your goal?” What are you living for? Think about this and take action today.
Another stumbling block is taking short cut: An electric current will follow the line of least resistance but a bulb glows precisely because there is resistance. Many choose instinctively what seems to be the shortest, easiest, and quickest way to success only to discover that the success was illusory. Too often, the shortcut is responsible for the choice of unsuitable goals which then lead to unsatisfactory success. Refusal to observe established rules of decency and honesty is definitely one major short cut that we all need to watch.
Do you find yourself being held by any of these stumbling blocks, decide to do something today. Take charge of your life and give yourself another option. The ball is in your court. You will succeed.
Diana Broomfield
I have been a nurse for the past 33 years. I love what I do. It is very rewarding to me that I have made a difference in so many people's lives. I am also a mother and a grandmother and my family is very important to me.
I am the eldest of 5 children, which has worked in my favor. It has developed me into a go getter, a trailblazer. I have had to work hard for everything I have accomplished on my own.
I am not afraid to get my hands dirty to obtain what I want from life. Since I reached the age of 30-something, I have been building my own wealth. I am becoming financially independent.
I enjoy meeting people and helping people. Now I am ready to help people in a different way - to increase their incomes and live the lives they desire and deserve to live.
Here are my sites. Please feel free to peruse at your leisure.
Diana’s Space – Gifts You Won’t Want to Give Away
Diana’s Radio Show - Internet Marketers
Mentoring “At Risk” Youth
By Dena Strong
Big Sister/Mentor
In 2002, I became a big-sister/mentor to a young lady I met in my church. At the time, she was failing the 8th grade (for the second time) and her family didn’t quite know what to do. Like a lot of Black youth, she was being raised by a grandmother, had little contact with her biological mother and her father was in jail. I had never done anything like this before, and was quite nervous about it but I wanted to help this young lady. I began by simply talking with her, asking about her likes and dislikes, this turned into trips to the beach, movies and then I started going to parent / teacher conferences (with her grandmothers permission). Soon her grades began to improve and she passed the eighth grade. I stayed in her life for the next four years and watched her go from a scared high school freshman to a graduating senior. Today, I am happy to report; this young lady has completed technical training to become a medical assistant, and was offered her first job in a local clinic. She is dating and looking for her first apartment. Her family often thank me for stepping in and helping her to stay on track, but I don’t take any credit for this. I owe it all to GOD!
Sisters and Brothers of Dignity
Working with this young lady inspired me to reach out to other youth in the Plainfield, NJ area. I went to my pastor and pitched an idea for a “faith-based” mentoring program. She agreed and allocated $300 “seed money” from church funds and our group “Sisters and Brothers of Dignity” was launched. Another church member approached me about the program and we became partners in the process. This gentleman worked for a youth crisis centre and knew the importance of having this program. The two of us recruited adult volunteers to help with the program and for mentors.
Soon, calls began to pour in from the community and church members who wanted to sign their children up for the program. We set up training and orientation for the volunteers and the parents and mentors and monthly activities and trips for the kids. There was a lot of work involved. I began to read everything and anything about mentoring. I wanted our program to not only be a help to the community, but I also wanted to learn all the rules and regulations, to avoid any legal problems. At the height of our program, I estimated us to have about 15 adult mentors and about 20 or more kids on a rotating basis.
We met once a month for group activities. Most of the time, our meetings took place on the church grounds because I never knew from month to month who was going to show up. It was hard to plan outside activities because of that factor along with the transportation and financial difficulties, but we managed to have fun nonetheless. Some of the outside outings we were able to execute successfully included: bowling, a trip to NYC for a taping of a teen video music show called FUSE, and a girls retreat at a local Hotel and a Christmas party.
We had so many plans and desires to do other like camping and trips to the museum and the beach, but never got that chance before the program ended.
Black Success Stories Volume 1 contains a great deal of material to support Black families, education and parenting.
Celebrate people of African Heritage. Learn from the experts! Business, health, media – just some of the areas in which we are succeeding.
Order your copy now. Visit:
http://www.blacksuccess1.com/blacksuccessstories.htm
Our Kids
At the height of things, request after request came in from mothers, aunts, grandmothers looking for mentors. Our program became so well known that the local juvenile judge mandated some of their first time offenders attend our program as an alternative to going into the system. There is one case in particular that I will never forget. A 16yr old young lady was referred to our program through the courts. This young lady was also homeless. Her parents were strung out on drugs and couldn’t take care of her. She was then sent to live with the grandmother who had a stroke. The young lady’s aunt took her in, but was also on drugs and ended up going to jail.
Throughout all of this, this child maintained a straight “A” average in school and worked a part-time job on the weekends. All she needed was a stable place to live and adult supervision. I couldn’t believe how positive and upbeat this girl was despite her home situation. Eventually the courts emancipated her and she was able to live on her own with state help. We also had some very tragic cases such as single HIV positive mothers who needed help.
Ups and Downs
We experienced a lot of ups and downs while running this program. The biggest problem was lack of commitment from the adults. This program was all volunteers; no one was receiving any money (including me). Often times we would have a room full of mentees (kids) and only one or two adult mentors would show. I was also most disappointed with the men in our community. We had almost no support from them. Most, if not all of our volunteers were women. I always felt really sad for the boys in our program. They really needed some male role models.
In my efforts to recruit adults, I would hear the same three excuses over and over again from both the men and women:
“I don’t have time”
“I’m not good with kids”
“I don’t like dealing with other people’s kids”
No matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise, we could never get the adults in the community to join us.
Final Thoughts
We successfully ran our mentoring program for almost two years before eventually closing. Little by little, despite all our recruiting efforts, the adult support dropped off dramatically for different reasons. Some of our adults had personal crisis that kept them from being actively involved while others just lost interest altogether.
Although I’m no longer heading that program, I made a personal commitment to God that I would always mentor in some capacity or another. I’m still in contact with the young lady I mentioned at the beginning of this article and from time to time I see kids that were in our program, some are doing extremely well, while others fell victim to the streets. I wish I could get people to see how mentoring can head off a lot of problems with our youth such as teen pregnancy, criminal activity, school drop out rates, drug use etc.
Any one considering starting a community mentoring program, here are 10 tips for getting started:
Research other mentoring programs and your local and state laws regarding such.
Partner with a local church, community group or organization for help
Let the local juvenile court system know about your organization (they are always looking for alternative programs)
Place flyers all over the neighbourhood to recruit mentors, mentees and volunteers
Secure a safe location for meetings and plan to meet at least twice a month for activities.
Establish rules and regulations that all must follow
Run background checks on all adult volunteers and mentors for the safety of the kids and make parents sign permission contracts.
Provide training for your adult volunteers and mentors on things such as confidentiality, and effective ways to interact with “at risk” children.
Plan fundraisers to raise money or solicit local business for financial support
Start small but grow BIG!!!
Mentoring is a wonderful thing. It gives you a chance to step outside yourself and give to another. Just by spending a little bit of time with a young person, talking and offering advice is all it takes. As the bible says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17)
Dena Strong
Dena began her first private label collection called DRS Designs, Inc. She designed and manufactured apparel for plus-size women from the Apparel Mart in Atlanta, Ga. DRS Designs sold to small boutiques in Georgia, Florida and Alabama until closing in 1996.
Dena has worked for various fashion companies including Urban Brands, Ashley Stewart Division in Secaucus, NJ and the Simplicity Creative Group in NYC. She has taught fashion courses at various schools in NYC. Dena is currently teaching Fashion Merchandising at Kean University, Fashion Design at Burlington County College and Fashion History (online) at McKinley College.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/denastrong
Creating Value: The Uncovered Diamond That Creates Extraordinary Results In Lead Generation For Every Network Marketer
By Larry Beacham
There
isn’t a single network marketer who has enough highly qualified
leads, if they will be honest. I mean, talking to hoards of people on
a daily basis isn’t exactly a “qualified” lead;
it’s essentially someone who happens upon them via the internet
or out in the open air.
The real challenge to most network
marketers begins and ends with a lack of understanding in the area of
what really makes them irresistible. As my coach would say, you have
to be like a piece of chocolate cake to 55 fat kids. Now, that’s
irresistible!
Here’s the point I’m trying to
make. There is a lot of competition for the attention of someone with
respect to looking at opportunities. However, they all start to blend
together when everyone is saying such things as:
-“This
will be the greatest opportunity in the history of the world (yeah,
right…)”
-“My compensation plan pays out better than any of the others (yeah, right…)”
-“Our
products are have no competition so we dominate our market (yeah,
right…)”
Who really listens to all of this
stuff? It comes off as hype and any thinking person will turn away
from this noise without a second thought.
The only thing that
people really respond to is genuine value – that is, the
genuine value in YOU. Pushing comp plans, product lines, company
stats, and all that is helpful on the back end once your value is
established in the mind of your prospect.
One individual that
I know contacted me to buy a retail product offered in his network
marketing business. He wanted me to look at the program and get back
to him. Now, this is an approach that is all too familiar to me
because I’ve seen it a thousand times, and he didn’t
disappoint when I told him that I would be happy to look at it by a
certain date. That wasn’t good enough; he went on to try and
“encourage” me to take immediate action. To make matters
worse, this individual followed up with a message that pointed
directly at what they were after – self gratification. There
was a goal that they were attempting to hit and really only wanted
the volume to make the grade for a higher commission.
How deplorable. Now, had this same
individual cultivated a relationship with an audience of people that
can see their history of giving genuine value, they could have
presented this offer, with the proper explanation of benefits, and
obtained enough sales to meet their goal. There’s nothing wrong
with setting goals and trying to hit them, but it is totally
inappropriate to try and leverage pressure and no value to achieve
it.
Five Free Ways to Promote Your
Black Business
Want to promote your business on the Internet?
Click here for this new ebook.
Here’s
a great measure of whether or not you’ve established value:
Who’s calling YOU about your product, service or opportunity?
Who’s emailing YOU for more information about your next
opportunity meeting? Are you initiating all of the contact, or is
there a great percentage of people initiating that contact to you?
The peddler has to always be in someone’s face about their
goods or services. The professional marketer with established value
has the luxury of having people reach out to them.
When was
the last time the grocery store called you to come in and buy
something? Probably never, because they open their doors, offer
value, and EXPECT that value to be recognized and to obtain
customers. They market the value; they don’t peddle the
products. Get good at marketing value and the checkout line for your
business will always be full of customers.
Larry Beacham
Diamond Cutter Marketing Group
http://lkin.StonecoldMillionaire.com
614-516-9906
Articles by Zhana
For more articles by Zhana to help you explore and achieve your unlimited possibilities,
Click here for articles to Achieve Fabulous Success
Click here for Africa and Africans on Film
About Zhana
I have always been ahead of my time. When I started doing Reiki over 20 years ago, nobody knew what Reiki was, how to pronounce it or even how to spell it!
My work focuses on the healing of humanity and our planet, with a particular focus on the healing of the people of the African continent and Diaspora. Individual and collective healing. Physical, mental and emotional healing. Healing our families and our communities.
To
that aim, I have written several books including Black
Success Stories,
Success
Strategies for Black People
and What
They Don’t Want Us to Know,
and I edit and publish the More
Black Success
free ebooks. I also lead workshops to support the healing of our
communities, the healing of our history, the healing of the legacy of
enslavement and the Maafa.
To do this work, I draw on ancient
traditions as well as modern methods.
By healing our past, we
can move forward into the future we deserve.
I am experienced
in metaphysics and traditional Afrikan American ritual, as well as
Spiritual Response Therapy (SRT) and Creative Communication. I am a
committed Buddhist.
Creative Communication (also known as
Nonviolent Communication/NVC) is the single most effective method I
have found for developing self-love, self-worth and a positive
self-image. To read more about it, visit:
Connecting with Our Feelings and Needs
I recently wrote the choreopoem "Harriet" which celebrates the lives of Harriet Jacobs (author of Incidents in the Lives of a Slave Girl) and Harriet Tubman.
Click here to hear a short audio from my choreopoem.
I
have studied the lives and work of many successful people of African
heritage, and this inspires my own work.
Click
here to order Black
Success Stories.
Click
here to read interviews with me.
Click here to hear audio interviews with me.
Click here for More Black Success Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
Click here for an article on Celebrating Black Heroes and Sheroes
I have written Success Strategies for Black People and Black Success Stories as part of my ongoing commitment to global prosperity and global peace.
For ongoing support and advice, and for information about courses, workshops and radio broadcasts, join
Nurture Success for free at
http://nurturesuccess.multiply.com/
Here’s to your success!