Delegate or Die-12 Steps to Delegating Successfully<\/a>\u201d you talk about how our lives are busy and if we don\u2019t learn how to delegate successfully we will burn ourselves out very quickly. Without giving away all of the book\u2019s secrets \u2014 what advice can you give our listeners about delegating, because I find in speaking to women all the time, this seems to be a tough one to get over.<\/p>\nDAWN:<\/strong> Well, one of the things that I think is most important, and the reason that I developed the Primary Colors Personality Test, is first of all, we need to understand who we are and what our strengths, gifts and talents are.<\/strong><\/span> So many women, I find, are concentrating on the wrong things. They are concentrating on their weaknesses. \u201cOh I am so disorganized. Oh I can\u2019t get this done. Or oh that just doesn\u2019t make any sense to me.\u201d And what we need to understand is that we were born with a set of talents. Focus on those, and then find people who were born with the talents that you weren\u2019t born with and work with them and delegate to them what they love and that you don\u2019t love.<\/strong><\/span> One of the magical things is that with a very few people you can accomplish miracles. My team with The Heart Link Network is a group of five women. We have over 220 locations in the United States, Australia and Canada. We just opened in the UK. We sponsored Baby Entrepreneurs, Women in Pakistan, Indonesia and Costa Rica. All five of us have very, very different strengths, and we depend on one another to simply do what each one of us is good at. Because if you will just focus on your strengths, you will be happy, you will be hopeful, you\u2019ll feel competent and never inadequate. And then you\u2019ll be surrounded by people who are picking up the pieces and who love picking up the pieces that you don\u2019t like.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nANITA:<\/strong> I think that is tremendous. That is such good advice and such a good way of looking at it. We also hear a lot from women about this constant struggle and pull between work and life, especially small business women. How do you balance your work and your life?<\/p>\nDAWN:<\/strong> Well now it is so much simpler, because my sons are grown and have gone through college and have their own lives. I can tell you that I feel for the women who are raising their children and attempting to work and attempting to develop and grow a business while raising their children. It can be very, very complicated. One of the things that I did that I am so grateful for, is that I took little plastic rocks that you sometimes use in your yard, and I decorated them with my two son\u2019s [names], and they each had a rock, and we called them \u2018talk rocks.\u2019 And I said, \u201cAny time that you think that mommy is distracted, or you think I\u2019m not hearing you, or you need something from me that you think I\u2019m not available for, you bring me this talk rock \u2014 hand it to me \u2014 and I will know it is time for me to listen deeply and with my heart.\u201d And I\u2019m telling you, that little symbolic rock, oh my goodness, it saved us so much grief! There were times when my older son, Tony, when I was going to school, he really had to be very patient with my studying and all the different things \u2014 I was working while I was going to school \u2014 and he would bring me that rock, and put it in my hand, and he would say, \u201cI want my mommy now.\u201d I want you to stop being a student, or I want you to stop being a businessperson. I want you to be my mommy right now. It was helpful, because we get focused, narrowly focused, and sometimes the things in our periphery, they get blurry. But when your little child brings you this rock and says its time to be mommy right now \u2014 it really brings you home.<\/p>\nANITA:<\/strong> I think that is such a great story. I love that idea, and that way you are able to deal with it, and you know when you see the rock it\u2019s time to get serious about that. That\u2019s very cute. I love that story.
\nI noticed that in 2008, you won a place in the first ever O-White House Leadership Project, which was the partnership between the White House to unite leadership of women in business and politics and the Oprah magazine. That is very exciting to have been selected among 80 women out of over 3000 candidates that is pretty remarkable. From that experience what was it like, and what was the take away from that?<\/p>\nDAWN:<\/strong> I\u2019ll tell you, I was so inspired by a couple of things. I was inspired that there was that much out-of-the-box, amazing creativity now all together. Creativity feeds [off of other\u2019s creativity.] Everyone became even more creative when we got together. The other thing that I was just astonished and excited about, was that out of all of those 80 women, 75 or 80%, came with non-profit ideas. And it confirmed for me what I believed in my heart to be true about women. Women are driven to make a difference.<\/span><\/strong> We are driven to find solutions, solutions to the world\u2019s problems. We are different than men, in the sense that men can sometimes get caught up in power or who has the power. And in that process of hitting the power ball back and forth across the net, they can lose sight of the solutions that need to be found that are sitting on top of that net. Women however, get in a room, no matter what their differences, and they focus on the solutions. And they can do amazing things and come up with extraordinary answers to difficult problems \u2014 and do it on a budget, because women are used to living on a budget.<\/span><\/strong> So it\u2019s very exciting when I think about the things that they were bringing to the table, the ideas that they had and the problems that they were all focused on. It was extraordinary.<\/p>\nANITA:<\/strong> I think that is an incredible opportunity and an amazing event to be a part of. I also see that you do a lot to get the word out about the various organizations that you are involved with or started. You do a lot of social media. How do you decide the best way to get your message out?<\/p>\nDAWN:<\/strong> I think that is a great question. I<\/span>n today\u2019s society, I feel like we have to be two things. We have to be high touch,<\/span><\/strong> which is why we created The Heart Link Network for example. One of the things that I recognized in working with women was that no matter how brilliant you are, no matter what kind of great business plan you have or idea, if you are not connected with other women to help you accomplish this idea, no matter how great is the ideas are, they don\u2019t get accomplished. Things really get accomplished when women are standing heart to heart and marching forward to make whatever they want to happen happen. So we created the Heart Link Network, so that we could put women in a community together, women who wouldn\u2019t naturally know each other, and put them in an environment that is really supportive, encouraging and inspiring. Where they could really be women, where their endocrine systems work. Where they could release oxytocin, the body hormone. Where they can raise their neurotransmitters both serotonin and dopamine. And in that arena, what you do is create relationships that are so fabulous and strong that you feel like together we can do anything. Which is really, really powerful.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s the high touch, but if we\u2019re only high touch, then we\u2019re really lost in today\u2019s society. So we also had to figure out how to be very high tech.<\/span><\/strong> I think that women have to c<\/span>ommunicate high tech-wise in two ways. Social Media<\/span><\/strong>, which is basically a coffee shop online: \u201cHi, how are you doing? Oh my gosh, look at that wonderful photo. Look at this cause, Help me with this. Go here. Learn about this. This is something that we need to pay attention to.\u201d Which is wonderful. And we have a very large Facebook fan page where we use our fan page a little bit differently than some people use theirs. On Wednesdays we have what we call \u201cShare The Love,\u201d which means that we want any woman who knows a woman in business that she loves, admires and trusts, to come and talk about her. Send us her link, tell us why they love her and tell us why she is spectacular. On Fridays we have \u201cShameless Self-Promotion Fridays,\u201d which is wonderful because women are taught their whole lives to not be arrogant or not try to hog all of the attention, and we want them to have a place where, we feel, that they can come and promote what they are passionate about. Tell us what they are up to, what they are doing, the products and services that they represent, the causes that are dear to their hearts. So that is the social media side.<\/p>\nBut then we realized that when people are looking for things, they are looking on the Internet, so if you don\u2019t understand inbound marketing and how to get complete strangers to be able to find you and what you are doing<\/span><\/strong>, then again you are losing a huge opportunity. And that is when we created our directories \u2014 the TROVA Women Business Directory and the TROVA Business Directory. And we are at the top of every search engine. And we help women get found under their products or services. Let\u2019s say I do healthy coffee, and I live in Orange California. Well, my dream would be for someone to type in healthy coffee Orange, California, and there I am in the top 10 of the first page. Or at least on the first three pages because no one goes beyond the first three pages. So we have been very successful at creating a vehicle to really showcase women entrepreneurs and give them the kind of spotlight that they need in order to be successful and be found on the Internet<\/p>\nANITA:<\/strong> I think that sounds great, and it seems like you are getting such great support for it, and women connect with the idea so much.<\/p>\nDAWN:<\/strong> And they do, because I think that women, especially, when they know that you really care about them, then they begin to care about what you are doing. So I think with the Heart Link, the directories, our Facebook, everything shows our heart. That\u2019s why we named it the Heart Link Network. And once women know you care then they are on board.<\/p>\nANITA:<\/strong> That\u2019s great, and with so much going on in your professional life, it certainly sounds all-consuming, what do you do in your down time?<\/p>\nDAWN:<\/strong> In my downtime, I adore my family and any moment that I get to spend with my sons and my husband and my dogs, I simply adore that. We are movie people. My youngest son is a filmmaker who is finishing a documentary right now to help end childhood obesity called, \u201cBite-Size Movie.\u201d And these are young professionals who got out of USC film school, who are incredibly brilliant, who have won all kinds of awards and have no money, no resources, and are flying with the passion that\u2019s in their hearts, sleeping in their cars, doing whatever is necessary in order to accomplish this great, enormous feat, which is to do this extraordinary documentary on how we can help end childhood obesity. So we love movies. We are passionate about movies. So in our down time we love to go and enjoy escaping into those beautiful places that movies can take us.<\/p>\nANITA:<\/strong> That sounds like a great way to spend some free time. Well Dawn, I have so thoroughly enjoyed speaking with you today. It has been enlightening and inspiring, and I look forward to keeping in touch with you.<\/p>\nDAWN:<\/strong> Thank you so much. It has been a privilege and my great honor to speak with you today.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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![\"The](\"http:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/theHeartLinkNetworkLogo.jpg\" "\\"theHeartLinkNetworkLogo\\"")
Let\u2019s start the discussion! Anita Brady, president at 123Print conducted her first interview with Dawn Billings, the CEO and founder of The Heart Link Women\u2019s Network<\/a>. Learn more about Dawn and get some great advice to improve your business \u2014 and your life \u2014 by listening to the interview and reading along below.<\/p>\n![\"Anita](\"http:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Anita-Brady-150x150.gif\" "\\"Anita-Brady\\"")
![\"Dawn](\"http:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Dawn-2012-cropped-150x150.jpg\" "\\"Dawn")