Everyone knows that the lighthouse is there to guide ships safely into the harbor. What many don’t know is that this idea can be applied to people as well. Everyone has a lighthouse in their life. These lighthouses are people who guide us through the storms of life and provide a light for us to follow out of the darkness. They show you how to negotiate the “rocks” and navigate through the fog and severe storms that come along in your life. Without them, we would almost certainly crash on the rocks.

I know I would have.

My lighthouse died on December 18, 2010 at the age of 88. Without her in my life, I wouldn’t be here with you today and would have crashed on the rocks long ago.

Torie gave me a positive direction to walk when I could have so easily taken the wrong path. She came into my life when I was six months old and as the years went by, she showed me where to walk during the storms that came along so I wouldn’t crash on the rocks. She made me laugh when I needed some extra light, and she came to my side when I needed someone to lean on. Then, when my mother died at the age of 58, Torie came to my side and became my second mother.

I have been truly blessed as I have had two mothers. Two strong women who I have loved more than life itself.

I watched Torie as she went through her own trials and tribulations with dignity, love, grace and incredible courage. I have tried to do the same when my own trials come across my path. I could have walked in all sorts of directions in those early formative years, but her light showed me the way. As time went on she guided me through and I have finally made it safely to the harbor.

She was my greatest teacher.

Torie’s light was felt by everyone who met her. As a child, I noticed that when people talked to her their voices softened and their faces relaxed. She had a loving grace about her that you just couldn’t ignore. The love and light just poured out of her and people of all ages were drawn to her.

Her daughter Rose has the same affect on people. Her love and light is so strong that it just seeps out of her, and like her mother, people’s voices soften around her. I like to think that like Rose, I too carry a little of that inside of me. A little bit of Torie that seeps out to everyone I meet.

My lighthouse taught me to love everyone no matter who they were.  She taught me about God and Spirituality.

She taught me that it didn’t matter if a person was black, white or had pink polka dots, it’s what is inside of you that matters.

When I was angry, she taught me that two wrongs don’t make a right and that I was better than that.

Quite simply, she taught me how to love.

She was a lady. She was an earth angel whose internal light filled up the room and everyone inside of it.

Now let’s talk about each one of you. Who were the lighthouses of your life?  How did they help you get across the ocean?  Each one of us has had a lighthouse to guide us through life, and I think it’s important to look back and see them so that we can give them our thanks and our love.

Today, I like to think that I’m a lighthouse. Like Torie and Rose, my life’s work is to guide people safely to their harbors so that they can live a life of peace, love and prosperity. I think everyone should be a lighthouse for someone because the light that you share could change their life forever.

Just like Torie saved mine.

Thank you Torie for being my lighthouse. Thank you for giving me a direction to walk and a light to guide me through. I will carry you in my heart forever.

Godspeed.

About the Author: Katharine Giovanni is an international Concierge Training Expert, Award Winning Author and Consultant and Speaker. She is President and Co-Founder of Triangle Concierge as well as Chairman of the Board and Founder of the International Concierge and Lifestyle Management Association (ICLMA). Katharine is one of the founders of the concierge industry and is the most sought out concierge expert in the world. She has both been interviewed by and appeared on dozens of newspapers, magazines, radio and television shows from around the country. To read a few of Katharine’s free articles, please visit: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Katharine_Giovanni. She can be contacted through her websites at www.katharinegiovanni.com and at www.triangleconcierge.com

by Katharine C. Giovanni, CCS

I’m getting a lot of calls lately asking me about the economy. The main two questions being …

1. How is the global economy affecting the concierge industry?
2. How can I start a business in this economy?

Here’s my answer …

First, yes the economy is absolutely affecting us. I think every industry is being affected by it. The one thing that will never change, however, is that people will still be short on time no matter what happens in the world, and they will always need help.

Here are some facts …

FACT: Corporations are continually adding new benefits to their existing employee benefit packages, especially now as their staff are doing the work of ten people due to layoffs. They’re overworked, tired, sick, stressed and have no time.

FACT: Despite what is going on with the global economy, real estate management companies still need to lure people to buy/rent in their buildings. Businesses around the world are still looking for ways to lure people to their office buildings, condos, neighborhoods, stores, malls and hospitals. Concierge services are one of those lures.

FACT: I know many concierge who have fallen on hard times, I also know of others who are thriving. It depends on who your market is, how you price it, and what your focus is. Are you focusing on the down economy or your prosperous future and how you’re going to get there?

Here are some interesting facts that I pulled off the internet …

• Did you know that General Food and Macy’s both started in 1929?
• Westin Hotels, Neutrogena and Fisher Price began in 1930
• Tyson Foods and Allstate Insurance started in 1931
• Revlon, Nissan Motors and Ethan Allen all started up in 1932.
• More than half of today’s Fortune 500 companies were started in a recession

These are all companies who had the courage to start up a business in the middle of the greatest depression the United States has ever seen. With the crash of the stock market in 1929, the U.S. was thrown into a horrible depression. Food lines were everywhere and unemployment was at an all time high.  It was during this time that these brave companies decided to start a business.

Do you think they focused on the depression around them, or do you think that perhaps they focused on how to move forward and make it work? They all knew the reality of the world around them, they just didn’t pay attention to it.

So to answer the question … can you start a business in this economy?

Allstate Insurance, General Foods, Revlon and Macys would say yes … yes you can.

Do not focus on what is going wrong, focus on what is going right! Focus on your future and concentrate on getting yourself there. Focus on where you want to go and what you want to do. Focus on your success and NOT on your potential failure.

Failure is not an option.

How do I know?

Because failure motivates me. Failure tells me that I need to change direction to get where I want to go.

Actually, now that I think about it, since failure gets me moving in the right direction, have I really failed?

When the going gets tough, I do not simply give up and throw in the towel. Instead, I roll up my sleeves, take a deep breath and do what I need to do to push through to the other side. I might fall, scrape my knee and bleed a bit, but I’ll get there.

If the companies listed above can start a thriving business in the great depression, so can you.

About the Author: Katharine Giovanni is an international Concierge Training Expert, Award Winning Author and Consultant and Speaker. She is President and Co-Founder of Triangle Concierge as well as Chairman of the Board and Founder of the International Concierge and Lifestyle Management Association (ICLMA). Katharine is one of the founders of the concierge industry and is the most sought out concierge expert in the world. She has both been interviewed by and appeared on dozens of newspapers, magazines, radio and television shows from around the country. To read a few of Katharine’s free articles, please visit: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Katharine_Giovanni. She can be contacted through her websites at www.katharinegiovanni.com and at www.triangleconcierge.com

By Katharine C. Giovanni, CCS

When I was a child, I read the old fable about a chicken who believed that the sky was falling. He runs around and tells everyone that the world is ending, and even manages to convince a few, only to get eaten by a clever fox at the end. Our world seems to be going through a similar scenario.

Listen, I know the reality. We’re in a recession. I get it. People are tightening their belts, companies are cutting back and gas prices are exploding.

I also know that there is a universal principle called the Law of Focus that suggests that what you put your attention to … grows.  Therefore, if you put your attention to fear, lack of money, and the sky falling, then your “sky” will fall. It will become your reality.

Here’s another thing I’ve noticed recently, companies are also suffering from the Chicken Little Disease. They’re so focused on the word “recession” that’s it’s all they can see.  They’re cutting expenses, slashing prices, letting employees go … anything to stem the wave that has hit. It’s all they can see … recession, recession, recession. It has become their entire focus.

It all goes back to Newton’s Law of Reciprocal Action: “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” If we put out negative thoughts and actions and constantly focus on the negative, we will ATTRACT negative back to us. It will become our entire world. Conversely, if we put out positive thoughts and try our best to see the positive, then we will attract the positive back, and this will become our world.

As the late Peter Jennings once said in a newscast, “the mind/body connection has become serious science.”

What you decide to focus on, and the direction you decide to go because of this decision, will determine your reality and its direction.

The reality is that your sky does not have to fall if you don’t want it to.

So here is your new game plan … don’t pay attention to what is hitting the fan at the moment.  Instead, pay attention to where you want to go. Focus on your future. Imagine what it will be like!  For example, will it have …

• A full bank account
• Health
• Happy relationship
• Great job or career

Whatever you desire, create it in your imagination first and then daydream about it every day. Stay focused and positive and turn your ears off when people start complaining.

Then do something to make it a reality. Do something positive to make your dream real. For example, you could sit down and create an action plan on how your going to do it, do some research on the internet, call a few friends … something to make your dream a reality.  Want a new car?  Go to the dealership and sit in one. Want a business?  Do research and start putting the tools that you need together.  Cut out some pictures that represent your dream and pin them to the bulletin board over your desk so that you can see them every day.

Listen, you have nothing to lose. Try it. What’s the worst that will happen to you?  You’ll spend a few minutes each day dreaming of living a happy life?  Why is that wrong?

About the Author: Katharine Giovanni is an international Concierge Training Expert, Award Winning Author and Consultant and Speaker. She is President and Co-Founder of Triangle Concierge as well as Chairman of the Board and Founder of the International Concierge and Lifestyle Management Association (ICLMA). Katharine is one of the founders of the concierge industry and is the most sought out concierge expert in the world. She has both been interviewed by and appeared on dozens of newspapers, magazines, radio and television shows from around the country. To read a few of Katharine’s free articles, please visit: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Katharine_Giovanni. She can be contacted through her websites at www.katharinegiovanni.com and at www.triangleconcierge.com

By Katharine C. Giovanni, CCS

Failure leads to change.

If you combine failure with determination and persistence and the attitude that you will do whatever it takes, you will go straight to success.

Listen, if you really want to know the truth, I’ve made thousands of mistakes over the years. In fact, I’ve been knocked down more times than I can count.  The real trick to life is to get up after you’ve been knocked down.

I actually don’t think there is anything wrong with getting knocked down, it happens to all of us at some point. What’s wrong is when you don’t get back up. Sure it hurts and we all hate it, but you learn to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on.

So I’ll say it again …

Failure and mistakes lead to extraordinary change.

I ran across a very interesting blog post yesterday by Bud Bilanich. In his blog he outlines 50 people who failed before they became successful.  Here are a few of my favorites from Bud’s blog …

• Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times.
• The Beetles were rejected by the Decca Recording Company who proclaimed: “‘We don’t like their sound and guitar music is on the way out.
• Early in her career, Oprah was fired from her job as a television reporter because she was “unfit for tv.”
• The manager of the Grand Ole Opry fired Elvis Presley after just one performance telling him, “You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck.”
• In Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the testing director of MGM noted that Astaire, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.”
• Einstein did not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven, causing his teachers and parents to think he was mentally handicapped, slow and anti-social.
• Western Union rejected the telephone when Alexander Graham Bell offered them the rights of manufacture and distribution. They considered the technology as having too many shortcomings.
• A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had no good ideas. After that, Disney started a number of businesses that didn’t last too long and ended with bankruptcy and failure.
• R.H. Macy started seven failed business before finally hitting big with his store in New York City.
• Winston Churchill failed the 6th grade. Churchill was also hounded by periods of manic depression.
• Milton Hershey experienced bankruptcy in his pursuit as the “chocolate king.”
• H.J. Heinz saw his newborn company forced into liquidation.
• Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. His first business called Traf-O-Data failed.

Now let’s take a look at the way a few people have turned around their mistakes:

• Thomas Edison “reportedly tried over 2,000 different experiments before he got the first incandescent light bulb to work. When a reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times he replied, ‘I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process.’”
• Walt Disney once said, “Never forget that all this started with a mouse.”

Now what do all these people have in common?

They trusted their intuition. They KNEW that they would be a success because their intuition told them to not give up and keep going. Your intuition is like a compass that shows you what direction you should be going. They also never gave up. They did whatever it took to be a success, and it worked.

They exhibited the three keys to lasting change …

1.     CHANGE – You must be willing to change

2.     DETERMINATION — NEVER EVER give up, no matter what. Do whatever it takes.

3.     INTUITION — Trust your intuition!  All of the people in the above examples trusted what their intuition was telling them. What if they hadn’t?  Can you imagine a life without Hershey Chocolate?

About the Author: Katharine Giovanni is an international Concierge Training Expert, Award Winning Author and Consultant and Speaker. She is President and Co-Founder of Triangle Concierge as well as Chairman of the Board and Founder of the International Concierge and Lifestyle Management Association (ICLMA). Katharine is one of the founders of the concierge industry and is the most sought out concierge expert in the world. She has both been interviewed by and appeared on dozens of newspapers, magazines, radio and television shows from around the country. To read a few of Katharine’s free articles, please visit: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Katharine_Giovanni. She can be contacted through her websites at www.katharinegiovanni.com and at www.triangleconcierge.com

By Katharine C. Giovanni, CCS

My husband and I were at a restaurant eating dinner when our waiter suddenly asked Ron how old he was. A little startled, Ron replied that he was 53. A few seconds later, one of my teenage son’s offered that I was going to be 50 in May. The waiter looked stunned as he stared at us and said “you two must be very happy people because neither one of you looks a day over 39. Stress really ages you.”

Ok, there’s a good chance he was just trying to get a bigger tip, but it was sure nice of him to say.

That being said … he’s right. Stress does cause you to age quicker. Plus it will lower your immune system and cause you to get sick.

Here are some statistics I found on-line …

• Workplace stress costs more than $300 billion each year in health care, missed work and stress-reduction (American Institute of Stress, NY).
• Stress is linked to physical and mental health, as well as decreased willingness to take on new and creative endeavors. (Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)
• Stress is linked to physical and Job burnout experienced by 25% to 40% of U.S. workers is blamed on stress. (Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)
• 75% of the general population experiences at least “some stress” every two weeks (National Health Interview Survey)

In fact, our concierge workshops attract many attendees who are burned out from their current job in corporate America and are looking to start their own company.

Stress is a nasty thing that will age you faster than you want, plus it can make you incredibly sick.  It’s like a ladder. The more stress you have, the farther down the ladder you are, and before you know it the stress in your life has pounded you all the way to the bottom. You are then forced to look at life from the first rung of the ladder and all sorts of negative thoughts start to consume you.

I should know because I lived like that for years and years. It got so bad that by the end I was getting sick all the time and rarely had a nice thing to say to anyone. I saw negative things all around me. I lived life like I was on the outside looking in. Money was always tight, bills always loomed, and there was never enough.

Nice way to live right?

I turned my life around by looking at the positive things in life. I tried to surround myself with positive people.  Since you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time  with, I decided to surround myself with people who were positive and limit my exposure to the others (especially as their negativity tended to drain me of my energy on a regular basis).

I also changed my thoughts and looked at the future and imagined where I would be in 10 years. Every day I would lie on my bed and imagine  what my life would be.  I saw a life filled with love, laughter and prosperity. I imagined a prosperous company and wonderful clients.

Sure enough, before I knew it I was no longer getting sick and our business started to flow. In fact, I was happier and healthier than I had been in years!

The secret?

I enjoy what I do and I live a positive life.

Studies prove that positive people live longer, are generally healthier, have longer marriages and make more money (you have to love that last one).

The short version here is that I don’t have a lot of  job stress because I simply love what I do for a living.  I enjoy coming to the office and don’t really think of it as work. I also think positively and rarely look at the negative side of life.

So … how do you reduce the stress in your life?

• Work in a career that you love.  Life is just too short to stay in a job that you hate. There is no reason why you can’t get paid to do something you love. Take the chance!

• Surround yourself with positive people. Treat others like you want to be treated …with positive encouragement and thoughts!!!

• TURN OFF THE NEWS as much as possible and try and avoid newspapers. Fear causes stress and anxiety, which is something that I generally try to avoid.

• Write down all the positive things that have happened to you in the last month and post them where you can see them. “See” your life as a success!!!  Don’t “see” your life as a failure!!!  Look at all the positive things that you’ve done!!!

• Put a positive/inspirational poster over your desk. You can also put a “plus” sign, or the words “stay positive” over your desk to remind you to be positive.

• Turn someone else’s negative day into a happy one and help them out! Pass it forward. Smile at every person you meet, even if you don’t want to.

• Turn your electronics off once in a while. Take an hour or a day to yourself without your cell phone and blackberry. Take a breath!  You’re allowed to slow down and take an hour for yourself once in a while.

• Take it one day at a time. When you start to feel overwhelmed, try taking one thing at a time. Make a list of things you need to do and put the most urgent one at the top. Once you have completed it, cross it off and move on to the next one. Soon they’ll all be done!

About the Author: Katharine Giovanni is an international Concierge Training Expert, Award Winning Author and Consultant and Speaker. She is President and Co-Founder of Triangle Concierge as well as Chairman of the Board and Founder of the International Concierge and Lifestyle Management Association (ICLMA). Katharine is one of the founders of the concierge industry and is the most sought out concierge expert in the world. She has both been interviewed by and appeared on dozens of newspapers, magazines, radio and television shows from around the country. To read a few of Katharine’s free articles, please visit: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Katharine_Giovanni. She can be contacted through her websites at www.katharinegiovanni.com and at www.triangleconcierge.com