This morning’s email reminded me of  my last blog post so I thought I would do a mini blog post just to share it with you because I really love the message it presents.

Try to learn something new this week. This keeps our energy active which affects not only us, but those around us too.

The whole article is called The Mind Follows No Timeline and you can find it here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

I have taken big courses like my Internet Marketing VA certification and my Social Media Specialist certification, but I am always on the lookout for those mini-courses or bits of information as well as teleseminars and webinars that are relevant to the work I do with my clients.

Some of my favourite people (and places) to learn from are (d’uh) VAClassroom, VANetworking, CVAC, Erin Blaskie, AutoBurstWebs … just to name a few. They each have a way of delivering great information in an easy to understand format, and it’s always all relevant to my business.

It has been some time since I have had the time to look for these events, much less attend them. That is my next phase focus, as I brush up on my skills in a few areas. But it’s more than improving my skill set, really. It’s about studying the new features of the programs that I currently use on a daily basis and being able to suggest new and exciting ways for my clients to benefit from these tools.

I specialize in using 1ShoppingCart, Aweber and WordPress as software, and of course I also use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Ning for social media. These companies are constantly updating and upgrading their products, and it is really important to keep on top of their latest features.

I’ll keep you posted with anything new that I learn!

This week I have picked it up again and I am definitely finding it hard to put it down. It’s not the first of Jim’s books that I have read – I read “The Leader’s Digest” many years ago. I love Jim’s style in this new  book – it is a combination of classical and modern quotations, stories, ‘wise words’, anecdotes and practical applications to help incorporate change into your life, and to help you deal with the uncertainty that can come along with that change.

It is such great timing for me to be reading this again and I am finding great nuggets about focus and positive thinking and attitude that are really helping me through this transition in my business.

I have learned that of the three types of people Jim describes – the wallower, the follower, the leader, that I am a leader (I kinda knew that already, but it’s nice to read it!).

“The Wallower curses the wind. The Follower waits for it to change.
The Leader adjusts the sails.” ~ Jim Clemmer

The book is so full of information but the format make it really easy to read. I look forward to keeping it right on my desk bookshelf for easy reference!

Nothing like picking up a bit of confidence and mixing it with some positive thinking when you’re trying to grow your business!

I love taking courses through VA classroom. The ones I take are self-paced, which means that you do them on your own schedule. This can be very helpful for people like me who have a full schedule of client work and a busy family life.

I am in perpetual learning mode. I love to learn new things, and I am constantly seeking out places to learn things about my business.

However, if there is a course, seminar or event online that doesn’t offer a self-paced element (or if a follow up mp3 or document can not be sent to me after the live event has taken place), I won’t sign up for it.   At times I have found myself logged in at 2 a.m. just because it suited my schedule, so, for me, self-paced learning really is the way to go.

Of course, self paced learning is not a new concept – the option of taking correspondence courses was available when I went to high school many years ago.

In fact, my girlfriend took a correspondence French course while we were in high school. She was not great in French, but I used to help her through her lessons, as I plugged away at a similar curriculum in our high school. She studied mainly business courses like informatics and accounting in high school, and I stayed with the mainstream academic stuff, so she took her French elective via correspondence.

Long story short, she got her French credits and it was a good thing she did, as she moved away after high school and worked for the Disney chain, and she was able to go to France to help open EuroDisney. Now she lives in Holland with her husband and two boys, and runs her own business.

So for many years self-paced learning has been beneficial for people like my friend, but now with the internet, this form of learning can really help you enhance anyone’s personal life or business.

The concept is simple: someone puts together some training materials in the form of PDFs or PowerPoint presentations along with audio files or video files with the training instructions on them, and there is the course. You sign up for them and you are able to study when it’sconvenient for you.

So whether you call them correspondence, self-paced, home study or long-distance learning courses, the concept of taking someone’s prepared materials and learning at your own pace, is a great way to continue to improve your education and tending to your busy life.

It can give you the edge over competitors online, by helping you to stay current with the changing trends of the internet. I highly recommend to find a place like VAclassroom that offers programs on subjects that interest you, and get learning!