HOW TO GROW AS AN ENTREPRENEUR WITH AURORASA SIMA Part I

Episode 6 — Raising Awareness among Women; Pass the baton on to Aspiring Entrepreneurs!

Hello Everyone. It’s been a while I published my favorite stories on inspiring women leaders, self starters, influencers and entrepreneurs.

Losing a friend or someone close to you in life is a challenging phase for anyone to go through in life. The important thing I learnt is life moves on. Period. No matter what, so if we sit back and pause our lives from doing what we love we will be among the forgotten.

One of the best ways to honor a loved one is living life twice the amount of what you normally would have. Changing lives and Creating impact on the way!

The “Raising Awareness among Women” series is looking forward to your support on bringing to light many Inspirational Stories!

Inspiring Women are a Celebration to the World Every Single Day.

Women are empowering themselves with learning using various platforms to make a difference in their own lives and in the lives of other people using their life experiences.

To all the women in the world who embrace or encourage the mantra

“To Be Able,” I say to you: Every day is the day I celebrate you!

Inspired by the response to my article, Challenges for Women Entrepreneurs and How to Overcome Them. I initiated the series called “How to grow as an entrepreneur?”

Who is an Entrepreneur? “An entrepreneur is a starter. An entrepreneur is an initiator, a challenger and a driver. Someone that creates something new, either an initiative, a business or a company.” — Quote source ( entrepreneur.com)

For 2019 first post, I share the journey and story of Aurorasa Sima, an experienced Emotional Intelligence trainer and coach.

She specializes in the development of Enhanced Leadership skills, Mindfulness and improved levels of Life Satisfaction.

She is a certified Marshall Goldsmith Leadership Coach, Emotional Intelligence Specialist for the The Goulston Group, partner of Mike Bosworth Leadership and founder of Aurorasa Coaching.

Aurorasa has worked extensively in both enterprise and personal venues. She has traveled quite a bit and worked in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.

Thank you, Aurorasa for being a part of this entrepreneur series.

A couple of questions on your journey to inspire Women to take up the baton!

1. Do you agree we need to pass the baton on and why?

I agree that it’s time that everyone has an equal chance, irrelevant of gender, age, or race. “Share” would be a term I could better identify with than “passing on.”

2. What helped you kick start your entrepreneur journey?

I feel the term “entrepreneur” is too ambitious of a description. I am self-employed and never took a real financial risk.

My aim was to help. Throughout my life, I saw so many people that could use my support. This was my motivation to start Aurorasa Coaching.

The journey is easy if you have such a rewarding plan.

3. Anyone with the drive,a initiator, a challenger is an entrepreneur!

Aurorasa, what got you interested in EI? What was your aha moment to know this is what I am going to do for the rest of my life?

I had to climb the career ladder from the bottom. From data typist over office assistant and secretary to management assistant. I scored a sophisticated, high-paid sales job results from a “me too” story. I was an assistant to an MD who was under pressure because he didn’t deliver the numbers the British headquarter wanted to see. That was in 1994.

When he felt I was not “nice” to him, he made me “Senior Account Manager” overnight. The start of my career has been a death sentence and I was a pawn sacrifice. I didn’t speak English, knew nothing about management consulting, IT or anything involved in my job — like how sales works. I didn’t even see my comfort zone from where I stood.

The manager sent to act against the MD and hire new staff thought I had great potential and we became friends.

He decided that England will pay for training me. One was Solution Selling by Mike Bosworth. He also recommended I should leave after the training because they will sack the MD and the salespeople over the next weeks.

The training was in London and I purchased a little red book at Heathrow Airport. I figured I should try to learn some English before the plane lands as the training was in English.

The title of the book is: “Emotional Intelligence” by a female author. While I read it, the parts I understood made my brain scream “Truth!” “Truth!” “Truth!”

Saying the training was rough would be an understatement. The other participants were experienced English salespeople, and they mocked me, laughed and disrespected me. I was also the first female account manager the company ever had.

So I tried, applied what I learned.

Back home one of the external consultants I worked on a project at the German Stock Exchange connected me with the MD of a company specializing in data mining projects. He hired me and that was when I became fascinated with neural networks for the second time in a week, first with the real ones and next with the artificial.

I read personal development books since I am 13.

But experiencing the power of Emotional Intelligence was my aha moment.

It gave me mental strengths and the ability to stay in control of my mind.

That made clear: Emotional Intelligence can help solve all the problems humanity is facing.

It can make everyone happier and more successful.

Keep in mind, that was in 1994, four years before Daniel Goleman came out with definition. That little red book and the definition of the author whose name I sadly can’t recall impacted and influenced me.

4. Wow! Your resilience and strength is something I admire very much and thank you for sharing this with us.

You heard me say, Inspiring women are a celebration to the world every single day, yet why do you think that women take a step back most of the time?

That is an excellent question! It involves our culture, society, and how our parents train us. As daughters, we learn that particular character traits are expected of us and that others are ok for men but not women. They direct us to be afraid. Afraid not to find a husband because we’re too old or too bold and so on.

Doesn’t the society judge women harsher than males? I know I may be biased. I expect women to be better people. Looking around and seeing who commits physical violence, domestic abuse, rapes, or starts wars makes you wonder if they are.

They teach competitiveness to little boys from an early age. Boys play with plastic swords and we play with barbies. They train men to“be a winner” and women are taught the importance of compliance.

Even if you’re a feminist: “I am the super ninja influencer” has a different connotation depending on who posted it. We perceive women as aggressive and men as assertive.

The silliness of that statement aside, when it’s said by a woman its different. Even if you think “I appreciate how rebellious she is” or “I love the confidence”, it means you do not consider it to be the norm. So far, only women booked my self-confidence training. Women are more likely to reflect and admit weakness. I know a few women step back because they are more aware of what matters to them, their limitations and what they want in life.

Certain jobs, for instance, CEO of a public company requires you to change in a way that might or might not allow you to be happy. Thinking otherwise would be delusional.

5. What’s your advice to women who are aspiring to start their own business?

Most new businesses fail. Forbes says that 8 out of 10 new firms never make it past the first 90 days. Here is how you can make sure you’re one of the two

1) Define a higher goal.

“Success” or “money” is too abstract and not powerful enough to keep you going when the first motivation fades. Envision what you want to achieve with the money or whom you want to help with your service. A goal like this has the power to fuel your engine.

2) Make sure you start a business with an offering that fulfills a need or vision. And that you chose something people buy.

The simple question: “Would I pay for this?” could save many entrepreneurs from a failed business.

When you write out your target group and buyer persona, put yourself in their position. Defining their age, gender and what problem or dreams they have is not enough. Crawl into their brain to find the exact wording that speaks to them.

Unless you’re selling pizza, it’s unlikely your offer will appeal to everyone. Create a laser targeted message for your niche. Many new entrepreneurs try to cover too much, attempt to win over everyone and end up convincing no one.

3) When you are starting out, you will meet two kinds of people. Those who tell/sell they offer the magic formula, a shortcut to success; and those who tell/sell you need many things. (a great logo, a huge following on social media, SEO, personal branding.)

Your most precious possession as a new entrepreneur is time.

Until a few weeks ago, Seth Godin, one of the most impactful thought leaders and influencers (in the real, old-fashioned definition) had the ugliest website you can imagine. He didn’t sit at home creating his “personal brand.” He devoted his time to creating value. Offering incredible value in his very own personal style IS his brand.

You know shortcuts to success don’t exist. Most people who try to sell you one never made money by using their shortcut. They make money selling their idea to the 86% that fail.

4) Don’t be self-centered. If your focused on what you want and not what potential buyers need, you will fail in your business. In that case, the career path “influencer” (in the 2018 definition) might be better for you.

Be a servant. Your potential buyers will want to see how you can make them richer, younger, prettier and more successful.

Your messaging and the way you treat your clients will give away your intention and mindset.

5) Find the right mix of positive thinking and paranoia. Positivity will help you see opportunities and people who will support you. Paranoia can help to avoid costly mistakes.

6) Spend an hour a day on learning no matter how busy you are. You will uncover mistakes you nearly made, gain new ideas, and grow.

7) No 5 applies also when you are running against walls. And this will happen. Even if you have an offer benefiting your audience greatly, it’s unlikely (but possible) that they will run after you with their checkbooks. It is crucial to know when it’s time to keep pushing. It is as important to realize when you are on the wrong track and should adjust your goal.

Mistakes become more costly, the longer you continue making them. If you notice that your idea is not good enough, make a clean cut and start again.

How can you tell one from the other? 2 helps you to find that out.

8) Have fun.

Thank you to Aurorasa for sharing these fantastic tips and sharing your journey with us. I’ll publish part II on your interview in the series soon.

One thing I learn from every person I interview on the series is that, it is a challenging journey and to find your true calling and do what you are passionate about - We must be authentic and ready to learn no matter what.

The challenge is to be authentic and engage people with your actions and words. Ambition, adaptability, and resilience are key factors of entrepreneurial success. Failure is an inevitable journey to success. We must all learn to be confident and realize that failure is just a learning curve.

About me -I am a brand ambassador for beBee Inc, an ardent reader, a Purpose-Driven Strategist and Recruitment Manager with a natural flair for developing and expanding businesses.

My passion is to help create a purpose-driven world around me. I encourage women and men worldwide to recognize and embrace their true potential as Entrepreneurs/Self-Starters and believe in themselves.

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