The newspapers and money magazines overflow with advice for "The best stock choices for 2008" at this time of the year.

Since I am no financial guru, my contribution to your New Year is of a more personal nature. Instead, I want to focus on the investment of your personal and professional assets of time and energy.

So without further ado, here are my Top Seven Investment picks for 2008:

1. Make time to reflect and plan
   
   In the chaos of frantically busy workdays, followed by high-paced "catch-up weekends", it is near impossible to step aside for a moment and see your own life clearly. "What do you really want out of your job and your life?" becomes an almost laughable question.
   Some of my most productive and creative thoughts have come during long operas. Don't chuckle - I go to the opera because my husband loves it, most operas are very long, and I have 3 and sometimes 4 hours of uninterrupted thinking time! Perhaps there's something about that music that gets my creative juices flowing.....
   
   *** Resolve to be a Time Sentinel - find AND guard a block of time to reflect on what did and didn't work for you in 2007, and to create a plan for 2008 that is feasible enough that you can actually commit to it.
   
   
2. Organize your workspace
   
   I get a profound sense of accomplishment after a day like yesterday, devoted in part to "deep cleansing". Going through our closets, organizing, sending donations to our charity, throwing out clutter, and generally lightening the load of "stuff" in our house and my office -- what a special sense of calm it induced right at the start of the New Year!
   
   *** Resolve to be a Space Preserver - cherish the possessions that matter and protect your environment from overwhelm.
   
   
3. Get control over your calendar
   
   Whether you use a day planner, smart phone, online calendar or mental checklist of appointments and meetings, there seems to be a widespread whine of "never enough time". Some of the whining is mine!
   I will state, however, that since getting trained to use many of the previously ignored features of my Outlook calendar (using a wonderful home-study program called Outlook for Entrepreneurs), I have been way better at managing my time. I realized that every minute I enter onto the day's schedule represents an opportunity to say "yes" or "no" -- and I am getting better at that all the time. 
   
   *** Resolve to be an Appointment Warrior - fight for how you spend your time and NEVER give it away without your consent.
   
   
4. Surround yourself with success stories
   
   Did you observe how down you felt after nursing a cocktail at the holiday party with all your depressed colleagues? There isn't much joy amongst many of our physician friends these days.
   One of the great pleasures of my business is to interview successful physician entrepreneurs for podcasts (I promise that the podcasts will be more "weekly" after the holidays!). I am always uplifted by the stories of perseverance, big dreams and high hopes as told to me in these interviews.
   
   *** Resolve to be a Student of Success - hang out with and draw inspiration from people who are energetic, hopeful, and accomplishing something significant personally or professionally.
   
   
5. Nurture your network
   
   Given what we know about human nature, the current explosion of social networks in cyberspace comes as no surprise. Even introverts are getting connected!
   As Keith Ferrazzi writes in a favorite book of mine "Never Eat Alone" :
   "To achieve your goals in life, I realized, it matters less how smart you are, how much innate talent you are born with, or even, most eye-opening to me, where you are from and how much you started out with. Sure these are all important, but they mean little if you don't understand one thing. You can't get there alone. In fact, you can't get very far at all."
   
   *** Resolve to be a Memorable Mentsch - abide by a code of abundance, give of yourself and your talents as hard as you can, and nurture the relationships in your network.
   
   
6. Select a "thought partner" who will challenge your assumptions
   
   I am blessed with several people who are willing to be sounding boards for my ideas, my writing and my decision-making. My husband, who is a physician of the surgical persuasion and therefore much more pragmatic and concrete than I, is a wonderfully blunt commentator on things that don't make sense to him. My Mastermind Groups (I belong to two very different ones) are filled with smart, insightful people who both support AND contest my thinking at varying times. And my own business coach is the ultimate caring challenger!
   
   *** Resolve to be a Question Seeker - find those fearless but loving people who will ask you the tough questions, and be sure to appreciate the value of their contributions to your personal and professional development.
   
   
7. Choose with intention, rather than by default
   
   This final investment is the most esoteric and intangible, but has the opportunity for the highest payoffs once you "get" it.
   Too often, we pass through our days unconsciously - getting up, going to work, maintaining a hellish pace all day, returning to a routine at home, and finally collapsing in front of the TV or computer for another couple of mindless hours.
   All the sages and masterful meditators keep reminding us to "live in the moment". Not so easy, I argue, when our lives are so full and frantic.
   However, I've noticed that if I ask myself one simple question when deciding how to use my time or what to focus on next, I experience a shift in mood and productivity. I try to find the right answer to this question: "Will what I am about to do help me accomplish something useful or meaningful?" 
   
   *** Resolve to be an Attentive Decisionmaker - actively choose the Who, When, Where, Why, What and How. This will have a huge impact on the quality of your friendships, time, work, and expereince of life.

Wishing you a 2008 in which the ROIs (returns on investments) of ALL your resources yield huge dividends!

Kids' leagues and amateurs can get away with dad coaches and ringside advice, but no self-respecting professional will try to go it alone in the quest for gold - correct?

Likewise, no matter how independently-minded physician entrepreneurs may be, they need a good team behind them for any serious business venture.

Even if you are determined to be a micro-practice with no staff, or a one-person consulting gig, you'll still need a support team to provide the business expertise that no single human being can possess.

Here then are some suggestions for whom to invite to play on your winning team:

1. A supportive significant other or family member. Entrepreneurship is tough enough, but attempting to start and run a business venture without the emotional, and sometimes financial, support of family or close friends makes the effort seem monumental.
   Find yourself at least one raving fan - someone who will cheer you on from the sidelines when you're cramping up and ready to run from the field.
   
   
2. A business attorney. The mistake many early entrepreneurs make is to turn to Aunt Sally, the one family member who made it through law school, to iron out the details of contracts, patent applications, trademark protection and business entity formation. That bargain dollar outlay may just land up being one of your most expensive mistakes.
   Ask for recommendations from other successful business owners, and then interview and hire an attorney who is knowledgeable about small business. Forge a long-term relationship with this person, place them in your "trusted advisor" category, use them effectively, and they will spare you endless grief.
   
   
3. An accountant who knows small business. The same goes for the tax advice you'll need as you launch your business. In order to come up with sound financial projections for your business plans, and to give Uncle Sam (or your country's equivalent) only what is genuinely due once you have taken all the deductions you can, you need to be willing to pay good money for great advice.
   You may want to use the services of a bookkeeper as well, if keeping track of your books is not your strength.
   Just remember - if you use your accountant well, he or she may land up knowing more about you than your spouse!
   
   
4. A financial planner. And I am not talking stock broker. I mean yet another trusted advisor who understands your goals for your business, where it fits into your overall plan for generating revenues, and what impact it will have on your savings and investments, as well as your retirement.
   
   
5. An estate planning attorney. Again, not Aunt Sally unless this happens to be her forte! Your business will be a part of your estate, and it's wise to have a long-term relationship with someone who can help you understand how your business evaluation and exit strategy will impact your estate.
   
   
6. An insurance agent. Most agents have specialized offerings, and your business needs sound advice and good insurance instruments designed to protect your personal and business assets. A smart and honest insurance agent will sit down with you, discover what your business involves and explore your goals. He or she will then recommend the necessary policies - general business liability, business interruption insurance, key person insurance, Errors and Omissions Insurance, Directors' and Officers' Insurance, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance for workers, personal disability, health insurance etc. -- the list is scarily long! The trick is to balance your needs, your risk tolerance and what you can afford.
   
   
7. A business mentor or advisor. Starting a medical practice or business involves a lot of knowledge that they forgot to share with us in medical school or residency. The final member of your team should be a person with business expedience, who can serve as a reality check, a cheerleader, a seemingly bottomless pit of resources and wisdom, and a network hub. The right person can identify and refer you to every other person on the list above. And he or she is the one who should be given the privilege of asking the toughest questions that you haven't dared ask yourself!

Last month I wrote about the biggest mistake you can make with your marketing, but a very recent experience showed me that there are a few other doozies as well.

Short personal story....

I mentioned I was going on vacation last week. Well, as I and my family walked into the Puerto Vallarta airport lounge in Mexico, we were directed to our prepaid transportation desk.

Being both polite and naive, I listened to the transportation desk attendant delivering an admittedly earnest and compelling sales pitch about special offers available to customers using their taxi service. I understood the offer to be for free tickets to some fun local attractions (that we were planning on doing) in exchange for having breakfast at another hotel the next morning, and being shown the property for possible future visits - it would be 90 minutes of our time in all.

I don't know what I was thinking - greed was probably a factor - but we said "yes" and duly showed up for our ride to the hotel at the appointed time the following morning.

Breakfast went well - we ate while a pleasant gentleman regaled us with the wonders of their timeshare program (why didn't I figure out earlier that this was a timeshare hustle?) My husband immediately cautioned him that we were not impulse buyers with big financial decisions, and the guy expressed his sympathetic understanding.

Time stretched on and the 90 minutes became two hours, and my 5-year old daughter grew impatient. "Only 5 more minutes" we were promised.

Not to belabor the story, at the two-and-a-half hour mark and under heavy pressure from the implacable salesman and his virulent female sidekick who kept sweetening the pot, my daughter was sobbing in frustration at being fobbed off with "5 more minutes", I felt both guilty and angry, and these sales people were impervious to our distress. They were demanding a decision that day. And now I was damned if I was going home without my "goodies" for all our trouble!

This is where the big mistake was made. Irrespective of how irresistible the offer had become, one fundamental error undid all its attraction. The sales people forgot who they were speaking to. They were so locked into their pitch that they ignored the humans at whom it was directed! They failed to see two angry, guilty parents on the other side of the table.

Effective marketing and selling - be it your medical practice services, your new whiz-bang tech tool or your consulting - are all about relationships, and connection.

Yes, you will need to practice and even perfect your "pitch", which may be about how to stay healthy or how to solve the XYZ problem your customers are experiencing. But when your pitch becomes a pedantic lecture, or an exercise in bullying, you will undermine all your effectiveness and persuasiveness. You will sever your precious connection with your audience.

One secret to getting all the business you want, that this vacation experience reminded me of, is to remember that people value feeling valued. Your sensitivity to their mood or situation will score big points - it shows you are truly paying attention!

PS: the second error, which you may have spotted, was the lie. The false expectation that we would spend only 90 minutes of our valuable vacation time exploring what was in fact an attractive future vacation offer. We were furious at being lied to about how much time this would really take. So, remember ..... no false promises either!

Here's another much more beautiful way to share a "better way to market" tip, thanks to this delightful short video sent yesterday by Robert Middleton.

To my readers

I wish you, your families, your support team and your fans a festive season of peace, repose, reflection and celebration.

Whether this is your holiday or not, I believe we can all find joy in the spirit of giving, sharing and community that prevails at this time of the year.

May it be our precious charge to embrace our roles in promoting the good will at all other times of the year!

Thank you for your support. 

With my warmest wishes

Philippa

Think it's hard picking the name of your next precious child?

Try a business.

One of the early challenges you'll face as a business owner is selecting the name for your company or practice that has just the right cadence and evokes the correct visual imagery. It also feels enormously personal.

My first venture into naming my earlier company yielded Oya Consulting - Oya being an African goddess of change and transformation. Fun to me to grab as an identity, since I was an African woman with big aspirations, but it took a lot of explaining!

So how should you go about naming your company or business? Should it be:

• Your own name? Such as "Sam Smith MD" or "drjoe.com".
  
• Something that describes what you do (a process name)? Such as "El Primo Window Washers" or "sallydogwalker.com".
  
• Something that describes what the client will get if they buy from you (a benefits name)? Such as "Peak Health Medical" or "agelessboomerbeauty.com".
  
• Something that describes your ideal client? Such as "The Entrepreneurial MD" or "kidswithADHD.com"?
  
• Something that is wacky or unrelated? Such as "Yahoo" or apple.com

Here are two sites that offer an array of tools to get your creative naming juices going:

1. Business Name and Tagline Generator
   
2. What's my name?

Have fun!

PS: Please excuse my absence next week - I'll be away on vacation. And back the following week, refreshed and brimming with ideas