The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron, is a non-traditional self help book for anyone who desires more creativity in their life. It isn’t just for writers, painters, and sculptors. It is for anyone who wants to empower their creative side.

The basic tenant of the book is that a person needs to get in touch with themselves in order to be more imaginative. Everyone wants creativity in his or her life. Some of us have just forgotten how to access this inner part. The book helps individuals tap into their inner desires and solutions through writing and other activities.

The writing portion consists of something called “morning pages.” Morning pages are three hand-written pages of whatever comes into your head. Another term would be “brain drain.” These are done first thing in the morning. Morning pages are never shown to anyone, ever. These pages seem silly at first; until you observe the power of them coming into your life.

I am a writer, so of course I expected to see a difference in my writing. This happened as ideas flowed more freely and I became more productive. However, I didn’t expect the morning pages to have an effect on other problems; particularly with managing my time. After writing morning pages for several weeks, it was as if a large log in the stream of my time floated away. I hadn’t even been aware of the log, just that there was a jam somewhere.

Besides morning pages, Julia Cameron uses affirmations, a weekly artist’s date, and other tools to help our artistic souls find their way. She notes at the end of the book that our paths are spiral in nature; like climbing a tall mountain. “As we pursue climbing it, we circle back on the same views, over and over, at slightly different altitudes. ‘I’ve been here before,’ we think, hitting a spell of drought. And, in a sense, we have been. The road is never straight. Growth is a spiral process, doubling back on itself, reassessing and regrouping.” (page 203)

This is a book to confer with over and over again; just like the spiral path. Each time I proceed through its pages I learn more about myself.

Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide is a fabulous, no-nonsense book about marketing that gets results. So many times advertising is like throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping some of it will stick. With this easy-to-read book, the guess work is taken out of advertising. John Jantsch makes a great point at the beginning of the book: “every business is actually a marketing business. . . The failure to grasp this fundamental notion is at the heart of the alarming rate of failure experienced by so many small businesses.”

The book focuses mainly on three things:

1. Help your clients to know you better, so they will trust you. This is done through discovering who your ideal client is, deciding upon your core message, and developing advertising materials that convey this message. This may sound easy, but it takes quite a bit of thought.
2. Help your customers contact you and refer to you more. This is my favorite part of the book because he specifically talks about white papers and customer success stories as great ways of achieving your marketing goal. They are cost-effective and tend to be “sticky.” In other words, white papers and customer success stories stick around longer. They aren’t thrown out like fliers and other advertising items.
3. Discovering what works and doing more of it. John Jantsch discusses the power of positive expectancy as well as goal setting and budgeting as they apply to marketing.

So pick up a book today and learn how to have a “turn-key system for small business marketing – marketing that sticks, every time.!”

The Accounting Game, 2E: Basic Accounting Fresh from the Lemonade Stand
The Accounting Game is a wonderful book for individuals trying to learn basic accounting.  It beautifully explains the equation Assets = Liabilities + Owners Equity.  It illustrates the concepts using a child’s lemonade stand as the model.

I purchased the book to see if it could help me explain some accounting principles to clients.  I use one concept taught by Mullis and Orloff frequently as a way to help clients better understand bookkeeping.  The analogy that turns the light on is: Assets are things a business owns.  Liabilities and equity are who owns them.  It was a very simple explanation that has helped quite a few of my clients.

The book is really fun to read and easy to understand and useful up until about Chapter 7; then it gets a bit convoluted by adding the Cash Statement.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a good understanding of bookkeeping.  If you read the book and start to get confused, just stop after Chapter 6 and you will have a better understanding than most small business owners of Balance Sheets and Income Statements.

Hidden Treasures: Heaven’s Astonishing Help with Your Money Matters
Hidden Treasures, by Leslie Householder, is a fantastic book when you are ready to live your life on your own terms. She expounds on the law of attraction discussed in The Secret. Many people start visualizing what they want, but they don’t understand the rest of the process. A friend of mine, Denise Webster, likens The Secret to an appetizer, while Hidden Treasures is the soup and salad. After I explore the “meat” of the process with Leslie Householder, I’m sure you’ll read about it in my blog.

Leslie’s book has really helped me get my business on track as I  have discovered how much my state of mind affects my actions.

Are you a Red or a Blue? I don’t mean your political party (even though today is election day), I mean your color code. The Color Code is a fascinating book by Taylor Hartman which puts our personalities in perspective and assigns each personality a color code. Besides Red and Blue, there is also White and Yellow.

Reds are productive individuals who are motivated by power. They like to look good to others, are logical, and seek leadership positions. Blues are motivated by altruism. They tend to be emotional, and want to be understood and appreciated. Whites are motivated by peace and other people’s desires. They are both logical and emotional and generally keep a low profile. Yellows are motivated by fun. They are very emotional and want to be popular and part of the action.

So what does knowing about the different colors have to do with writing? Nothing! But it does have an correlation with marketing. Keep in mind that being popular and part of the action is an important consideration when purchasing for people who are Yellow; while Reds seek factual information to justify their purchases. Both emotional and logical buying justifications can be made with a White Paper or in a Case Study. Just include elements of both. Facts about product features and benefits will resonate with Reds and Whites. Personal benefits that appeal to emotions will affect buying decisions of Blues and Yellows. So use your understanding of motivators to increase your sales.