Entrepreneur | Zinga Hart

Starting an International Food Business With Founder & CEO of Micah Specialty Foods [Video]

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Zinga H

Being an entrepreneur can be exciting for people who are comfortable risks. Starting Career Champs has been a major learning curve, but it is inspiring hearing from other entrepreneurs building their visions into realities. Nana and Natasha, are the respectively the founder and CEO team that runs Micah Specialty Foods

Nana and Natasha, are the respectively the founder and CEO team that runs Micah Specialty Foods. Their signature dish the Supreme Sauce has been appetizing pallets across Northeast Ohio with its international Ghanian flare.

Hear all about how they take risks in their business, work together across international lines, and use their past experiences to get their business right.

Thanks for viewing! If you are interested in being on career champs, email me at zingahart@gmail.com

One More Move: Sustain Your Momentum

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Zinga H

Agendas, fundraisers, programs, networking and this is just the volunteer work?!?! As a passionate creator that presides over a startup non-profit, #LimitlessAmbition, 2 businesses, a higher ed profession, and a beautiful growing-so-fast family surfing the wave that is seeking success could easily crash, but when we do what we love…love finds a way. As entrepreneurs, we often find ourselves swimming deep in a variety of projects, responsibilities, deadlines, and commitments that could easily have us feeling burned out, overwhelmed or just swamped. Our ambition won’t let us give up and the people we serve rely on us to be leaders, mentors, and overall figures of what our purpose stands for. So how can we ensure we sustain ourselves while completing complex projects and timelines?

Here a three key factors to take into account:

Honesty is a winning policy: Before you embark on any ambitious journey, you need to honestly assess the progress you and your team can capably commit to weekly. If you are already in your journey and are starting to feel buried, share that with your team as well. Voicing frustrations, delays, and setbacks with everyone allows for many minds (including your own) to create a solution. Journal, set up a meeting or group chat to discuss a strategy for success that works for everyone!
Create and celebrate easy wins in your project, early and often: *Secret Alert* I have a little happy dance EVERY TIME I release a post by the end of Monday. I started it in an effort to share what I learned helps individuals craft their own success, so they can contribute to and grow a thriving community! Although it takes some time to complete, it is still a small step towards ensuring that someone will be inspired to boldly take any small step towards building their own success journey.

Harness the power of your tribe! Being held accountable to our goals boosts our sense of commitment. There is something special about someone else knowing about what you want to do and then checking in on you to make sure you completed it! Schedule lunch dates, send a FB msg or text, connect in a Group chat, etc. etc. Find an accountability partner/group and share your goals and progress with them. Need someone to hold you accountable?

What goals are you sustaining in March? Share them in the comments below.

Strive to Build Trust With Social Media

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Zinga H

I joined the Kent Young Professionals leadership council’s marketing committee recently. Of course, having the chance to lend my expertise to building something from start-up phase is an experience I hold dear. What do you jump at the chance to experience?

Knowing what I’ve acquired after many years of promoting, managing, and strategizing for social media growth, I would strongly advise, anyone travelling into the social media marketing journey to put building trust at the center of the strategy.

Social media is like the force, while powerful, when it is used for good it is good, but when it is used for devious purposes it can cast a shadowy, ugly spirit-crushing light for anyone who dared to trust an appealing link or headline. Customers are aware of the stalker-like practices of ads and the false promises of online shopping and services. The quantity available to them is like a tidal wave, and many of us are cutting off our engagement to keep from drowning. On the business end, our potential audience reach is too as rich as the ocean with cohorts of diverse people, personalities, and personas that we can try to attract. Like two waves, a general strategy will only cause a crash of chaos.

So how do you build an online relationship, especially when you are starting from the bottom?

Start with trust.

Like any relationship, we open ourselves up to be vulnerable by relying on someone or something else to provide the value we need. On both the client and business end, we need to be able to identify the value, while validating reliability. Social media benefits when you focus on providing those two metrics.

As a move to incorporate into your trust into your social media success strategy, reflect on these questions:

How is building trust a part of your social media strategy?
What ways are you ensuring people can learn to rely on you (or your business)?
What guarantee can you commit to providing?

Have you ever been burned or betrayed by an online promise? What could they have done to make the exchange go right? (Comment below 🙂

Finding Your Brand Style, Networking, and More with BOStyle.me

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Zinga H

I’m starting, Career Champs, a new Youtube segment. Once a month (for now), where we meet with people who are forging their own career paths by owning their own brand, business, product or service. One of the aspects attached to Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill is that he surveyed 100 men to help formulate his insights. While his advice has been a useful starting point for discussing the nature of success, continuing the process of surveying a diverse pool will help everyone refine the own success.

In this episode, we meet with Braisha Owens, personal stylist and owner of BOStyle.me, she works as a stylist for individuals, professional shoots, and retail. Her recent risk in going out own her own and building her name in a new city, reaches all of us who yearn, to build outside of their hometown.

Find Braisha’s portfolio of work on bostyle.me

What risks have you taken in your career for a better future?

I had a blast interviewing Braisha! Her motivating energy will leave you uplifted. Career Champs premiers the last Friday of every month. Stay tuned to meet co-owners of Micha Specialty Foods!

Share feedback on the new segment!

Rest Works Wonders For Your Leadership

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Zinga H

I run social media for our graduate students on Facebook. From asking our students about their content needs I’ve discovered missing a balance between work, family, school, and other human activities can make them feel over-stressed, overworked, and under-satisfied. While, finding balance goes beyond one remedy or another, there are proactive activitiesthat take us towards our core center of being.

One activity is to balance is our active mind. We’re constantly learning, applying knowledge, and making decisions that can draw away our energy from our core being. While our purpose can fuel our passion, it requires us to expend energy, which can only be balanced out with the other end of the spectrum: rest.

How do you measure a good rest?

Now, you may say, Zinga that’s a bit fluffy. It’s not serious enough to help me achieve success. Or…I’ll rest when I’m dead.

I get it. We feel like more stuff gets done when we’re awake. It’s like a leaders version of FOMO. Yet, if you are feeling low and groggy from a lack of rest, you may find more mistakes are made, relationships take a toll, and your zest for creativity and innovation is dulled. While we make be able to function when we are sleep deprived, we lose focus more often, which takes away our attention from essential tasks.

Finding rest keeps us focused and when we align our focus with our vision we move towards success.

What’s one way you fit rest into your routine?

As a higher ed professional, non-profit leader, entrepreneur, coach and mom, how I stay calm and rested seems like a mystery to some of my friends and colleagues. Sometimes, I’ve wondered what has sustained me for so long? Especially since at the height of my activities, I was also pursuing my master’s degree full-time. Were there days and nights when I was tired? Yes, but for the majority of the time, I was at ease.

Why?

My reliable secret: Taking a daily nap on my lunch breaks in my car. It would range from 5-20 minutes depending on my lunch activities. To wake up I set a really, loud and obnoxious rooster alarm.

It did take some practice to nap well. I did it by starting off with just napping for a minute or two and getting used to getting up and going back to work as soon as the alarm went off. Then the build up to 20 minutes, which took about a week and a half to get used to doing. Now, I nap like a pro.

For me, the obnoxious rooster alarm is a necessity.

If you can wake up to ringing fairy whispers, go for it.

So that’s one more move towards your success. Take some rest.

4 Smart Steps to Keep Your Brand On-Point this Year

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Zinga H

If you are up to date on the latest trends in growing your reach online, whether it is for yourself, business, or passion then you know cultivating your leadership brand means creating content for the web. Content is valuable, purposeful, creations (whether an article, video, comic, podcast, etc.) that attract a particular audience and ultimately drives them to take action.

Yes, all those infographics, quote pics, even random Twitter rants you post are tied to the web of your brand. In a sense, this becomes the pre-impression before the first impression someone might get from meeting you more personally. In a sense it also forms an idea of who you are and a baseline for the value you bring to the table that people can start to believe.

Can you visualize your self-image clearly?

While your integrity is usually tested in real life, your reputation is partially set on the foundation of what you post online. While you don’t have to be a prolific author to write your story, you do need to respect how critical it is to maintain your authenticity, while growing your personal or business brand. Self-authorship is a theory attributed to Baxter Magolda, and is defined as “the internal capacity to define one’s own beliefs” as she wrote in Three Elements of Self-Authorship. This self-definition is at the foundation of developing your personal brand over the course of your success journey. Owning your beliefs takes time because you need to sort out the wealth of information you have absorbed and learned over a lifetime and distill it into your core sense of being. While, not quick task, with simple steps you can begin to dig in deeper, find your internal sage and use that to project and share your brilliant brand with the world in a way everyone can agree upon.

Here are four simple steps to author your self-definition so you can grow and polish it over time.

Journal on what you think you have to do in order to fulfill your dream life: What are the essential things you need to live. Be specific: “Using the bathroom, eat, sleep” are some basics to include, but keep adding until you’ve exhausted your ideas, “own a business, have a family” could all be a part of this list.
Walk away from the list for a day or so and then return. Look over the list and question how this master to-do list aligns to your values, your mission, and your vision. If it doesn’t click, make a note of how the “have to” came into your life. For instance, if you wrote, “own 20-bedroom mansion like Oprah” but your vision is to travel for the rest of your life, then consider Oprah’s role in influencing your personal beliefs.
This working list is for you to return to and to refine over time. Choose the strongest beliefs of the work you have to do to live a full life. Notice what comes up over and over, notice what you are most proud of as you go about your days. Reduce your have to four or five sentences to keep your essentials close.
Own it. Write it out, make it your screensaver, or create a ringtone. Figure out a way to keep your essential commands to yourself a constant in your life.

There are easy steps on the road to self-authorship Of course, there are many more steps on this journey, from vlogging to therapy, but what matters most is getting started. Thanks for walking with me!

For more here’s a Youtube video on the four phases of self-authorship

Want a partner to help you hone in on your self-definition?

Set up a free phone chat with me here!

From Passion to Process: 1st Workshop of the New Year!

Posted on January 9, 2016 by Zinga H

I had a ton of fun today at Scribbles in Kent, OH. I hosted a workshop titled from Passion to Process where we reflected on our passions and then set aside time to build a system towards enacting our passions on an annual, monthly, weekly, and daily basis. It was a blast and such a good feeling to hear it was a helpful session.

northeast ohio passion discovery

Bonus: Scribbles is awesome and I thank them for hosting us! Their wall is lined with books and getting to color on the table tops was a creative feature.

passion discovery worksheet

One part I was particularly proud of was transforming my personal at-home command center into a useful printable for everyone that attended. The full version of the 2016 Command Center is attached below. I condensed it to one-page from them to save on printing costs and paper, so I wanted to share the full-version should there be any visual types out there.

Screenshot 2016-01-09 at 10.09.20 PM

Grab the free full version printable 2016 Command Center today.

Building Your Authentic Self-Definition

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Zinga H

Building your self-definition plays a crucial role in how you lead yourself towards success. The challenge arises when you must sift through the input of others and find the wisdom nuggets you identify with, and with which others can mostly tolerate.

Trust, there is a lot of input.

We can’t help it, we want to see you take action, and so you are offered information to inspire your next moves. In addition, businesses want to envision you your ideal reality and offer you a solution to buy. While this can be useful when needs arise, it can also fill your mental chatter with clutter that distances you from the voice of your Self.

self

self/

noun

a person’s essential being that distinguishes them from others, especially considered as the object of introspection or reflexive action.

“our alienation from our true selves”

This can make communicating with your authentic self feel like the Tower of Babel when the discord first struck. Chaos and confusion as you try to build and yet somehow manage to stagnate or destroy simultaneously.

Yet, you need to envision something and you need feedback to ensure your definition can withstand the test of time.

How can you balance between external inputs and internal controls?

There are many ways, but a reliable method can be borrowed from the business world. Small businesses and enterprises alike benefit from what is called a SWOT analysis. This assessment lists the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that a certain enterprise, team, product, or brand faces. It helps sort a wealth of information so you can turn it into actionable feedback.

To incorporate this practice into your own success path take these simple steps.

Choose a personal goal you are pursuing.
On your own, list what you consider to be your personal strengths that might help you achieve this goal and weaknesses that may inhibit you from achieving this goal.
Next, consider any opportunities you could take of advantage of to reach these goals or any competition that might be in the way. Write these down as well.
Then go around and ask people you trust or your closest circle of acquaintances and ask them the give you the observations from points one and two. What do they think your strengths and weaknesses are? What do they think of your goals and what challenges you might find along the way or what gaps they might hope you fill.
Finally align the feedback notes you got for yourself and from your circle and see if where they align and where they don’t. Are your strengths viewed by your circle the same?
Go over the feedback and use it to determine what you want others to know and how you can get there.

The personal SWOT assessment is a decision making tool to help you unlock possibilities for yourself as you develop her brand.

Click to download the Personal Definition SWOT Assessment

Let’s connect!

Daydream to Boost Your Most Passionate Career Path

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Zinga H

96% of adults daydream. If you are one of those adults, ask yourself: are you using this seemingly random activity to the fullest potential?

Like most successful activities, daydreaming to your favor will take practice, purpose, and persistence and, in this case, we’re going to focus on your career. How can you use daydreams to ensure you are reaching your career path’s most passionate potential? There are simple techniques to do so, but first a short overview of current thoughts around daydreams.

What are daydreams?

Daydreams were discovered when scientists notice neural network activity while participants were not participating in anything at all. This came to the formation of the phrase “stimulus-independent thought,” which are thoughts created sans interaction or engagement with the environment outside of our minds. In this sense, daydreams may seem as if they are out of your control, and they can easily be, but the truth is our mind is a muscle and we work with it as we would most functioning muscles in our body.

So how can we use daydreams to create our best career path?

We must actively practice day dream by engaging in personal discovery sessions. This type of daydreaming is called positive-constructive daydreaming, which is the active reflection on our feelings, thoughts, imaginations, and other personal facets of our life in an open manner. This activity means letting go of any urge to stop yourself from thinking a thought or dreaming a dream. Studies found this type of thinking led to an overall sense of well-being and furthermore it opens you up the possibilities of where you can apply your value.[source]

How can you use this on your career path?

The answer is there are many ways to do it and you mustn’t stop at one! Experiment and continuously reflect on your career path throughout the time that you desire to earn a living for yourself. Two simple ways to incorporate this technique into your life is by:

Take a career quiz

Taking personality quizzes, like this one, or this one, and imagining yourself in the ideal roles that they describe for you. When it comes to career construction, my old mentor, Dr. Mark Savickas, told me they’re only about half right. Yet, this is a safe and simple activity to envision a future you.

Put yourself into the position and research it. Note what excites you and what doesn’t as you explore what the role has to offer.

The closest personality test for your work preference is the Holland Code, a model developed by John Holland and used by the military. My Holland Code was IEAS, most Holland Codes are the first 3 letters, which meant my career preference would be book restorer. NO!!! Don’t let online or even legitimate quizzes decide your career path, in order to find your authentic value you must dream deeper into who you are.

Career Path Dream Land

Asking yourself probing questions and then answering them until you reach a point of profound clarity is a thing. This is what is needed to really unearth the answers of who you are and where you are meant to bring value to the world.

A safe way to do this is what I call a mini-self-retreat. Find a way to get time alone and comfortable: send the roommate or partner out, find a baby or pet sitter, or go to a hotel.

Relinquish yourself from responsibility save for your Self.

Then have a nice thoughtful internal discussion about what you want. Stay with the discussion and record your answers for later use, listen to yourself with openness and innocence, as if within you there is a great warm source of your very own personal all-knowing. It can seem different at first, but this is just a surface level way to find your authentic value from within.

Will daydreaming get you a job? No. Constructive daydreaming and self-discovery will set you on a path to a career you are confident carrying as a part of your life’s legacy. If that’s something you think is worth having, let me know!

Comment and we’ll connect 🙂

No affiliate links in this post.

10 Gifts Your #BossBae Will Appreciate

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Zinga H

This one is for all the partners of entrepreneurs out there. We love you. Thanks for sticking with us through this roller coaster of a journey towards success. For supporting us through all the achievements and for the meetings that land us nowhere. Our vision is clear, but the path before us is mired with uncertain risks. You, dear partner, are a shining light in our journey. So, here are some top gifts, your entrepreneurial partner would appreciate. If you’re a woman who is entrepreneur help your partner out and comment below! Who knows you might just get what you want.

A bit of inspiration – A custom framed word of that motivates them to continue pursuing their passions will revive them every time the glance at it.

2. For all the business cards – Entrepreneurs get and give a ton a business cards. Keep them stylish and impressive with a sleek business card carrying case.

3. To balance the hectic schedule and take a much needed break – Being a boss, leader, and/or entrepreneur can be stressful. Help them find time to destress with this awesome adult coloring book.

4. For all the new ideas, leads, and lists – Entrepreneurs think, a lot. Help them capture the next big move with a book they want to show off.

5. For the entrepreneur who is full of dreams, but not quite sure which to make a reality. You know your #bossbae is poised for something special. Help them discover their purpose and passion with this guided journal.

6. For all the meetings they will attend and keep on schedule…Staying on time while staying stylish, will make their leadership look effortless.

7. …and all the presentations they will give. A portable projector for will take the term elevator pitch to another level.

8. To keep them styling while filing. A durable and sturdy case to keep their papers, projects, and other pieces organized.

9. Because knowledge is power. Wonderfully inspiring book on keeping your entrepreneurial edge.

10. Because at the end of the day the people make all of this worth it

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase through the links you help support zingahart.com at no extra cost to you and keep the site running freely.

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How can you balance between external inputs and internal controls?

To incorporate this practice into your own success path take these simple steps.

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What are daydreams?

So how can we use daydreams to create our best career path?

How can you use this on your career path?

Take a career quiz

Career Path Dream Land

No affiliate links in this post.

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Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase through the links you help support zingahart.com at no extra cost to you and keep the site running freely.

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