Recently, I attended a Webinar presented by Matt Malouf in conjunction with AusMumpreneurs – on the topic of The Best Year You Will Ever Have – Is The Year You Plan.

“It’s a must,” said Matt.  “If there is no change in what you do, there will be no change in your results. The key is determining: are you reactive or do you plan the work you have to do?”

The keys he said are “research, enquiry, list and plan.  The Planner will always finish first.”

Slow Down To Speed Up

The environment is always perfect for business. Why?  Uncertainty is always there.  You cannot control the environment – the business environment.

What you can control is how you think about it and how you plan to implement our business.

To achieve your goals, you must:

• Take ownership
• Be Accountable
• Be Responsible

What will defeat you is if you

• Blame others
• Make excuses
• Live in a state of denial about the reasons you are not achieving your goals.

The Power Of Planning and Written Goals

The power of having written goals cannot be overstated, according to Matt.  70% of business people have no specific verbal or written goals; 27% have verbalised their goals but not written them down, so they can be reviewed regularly.

3% have detailed written goals and, according to Matt, achieve 98% of the wealth derived from business.  The message is clear: wealth goes hand in hand with written goals.

Matt said his KEY point is having a STRATEGY to achieve your goals, once they are written, but being committed to the strategy is more important than the strategy itself.

(Author’s note: commitment and action will build momentum)

What is a strategy?  It is a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.

(Author’s note: Strategies will be amended, redefined and changed as the year progresses and various results make themselves apparent or opportunities present themselves.)

The First Step Is To Decide On Your Top Three Business Goals,  For The Next Twelve Months.

The reason it is so important to commit to the STRATEGY is because people overestimate what you can do in one year – but under-estimate what you can do in five.  Being committed to a strategy means you can learn to ride the wave, as your business builds momentum.

Habits: control us – so we need to choose to implement good habits.

Discipline: is doing the harder of two things, only one of which will move you closer to your goals.

(Authors note: For me, my three top business goals, for the next twelve months, are:

To be generating $80,000 of income each year from my businesses by the end of twelve months.

Build Stories My Nana Tells to a premium subscriber list of 700 by the end of twelve month

Start recording stories as podcasts.

Remember this, the next time you consider doing something pleasant and recreational – is it moving you closer to your goals?)

Your Net Worth Follows Your Calendar

The more planned you are, the most success you will achieve in meeting your business goals.

To set up your plan, following Matt’s guidelines, you will do the following:

1. Use a YEARLY planning folder
2. Start by organizing at least ONE full day to complete your plan for the year
3. Put your holidays and time out into your yearly plan FIRST.
4. Make a decision – this will be your best year EVER.

Time Planning

We are all familiar with the story of how much you can get into a jar or glass – using rocks, pebbles, sand. Put the BIG ROCKS in first – your holidays, your time out with family or for yourself.  This gets your priorities in the right order and lets you have personal time to which you can look forward.

The pebbles – the important business tasks will fit in between the rocks (your personal time out) and the sand (whatever you have to do to achieve your goals) will flow over everything else, to take up whatever time you have in your life.

Matt made the point that if you have to learn something new, to achieve your business goals, be prepared for that to take time to learn but that it gets easier as you do it more often.  For him, it has been learning to present Webinars – like the one from which these notes are drawn.

Clarity

Be clear about what you want – not just in $$$ terms, but in other measurable results.

Be super clear on what you want for yourself – more than just $$$ but in terms of life style.

• By How Much
• By When
• By How Often

Are You Not Seeing Success, To Date?

FEAR holds us back.

False

Expectations

Appearing

Real

Most of our fears are not even real – we make them up and then allow them to hold us back.  We must move out of our comfort zone and when we look back, we will see the fears have evaporated, because they never were a real threat to our success – unless we allow them to be so.

Do A Yearly Planner – And Choose Your Time Slots For The BIG Actions – To Achieve The Big Results.

To do this, set out themes for your Quarters, depending on your type of business.  Do you need to theme around the seasons?  If you are a gardener, that makes perfect sense.

If your business is sports related, your themes might be

• Pre-season
• Playing season
• Finals season
• Post-season

(Author’s Note: Teachers and educators theme around semesters; fashion gurus will following the seasons, but six months ahead and accountants and financial planners have their themes and events set for them by regular monetary events.

If your business is online, plan your themes around building momentum for a new eBook; a series of new blog posts on a particular topic; the release of a new product; think ahead, rather than just having a bright idea and launching it without any planning or buildup.  Create a theme – develop anticipation – deliver with clout.)

Theme your Quarters with specific targets:  Money, Goals, Numbers.  Keep moving towards your overall yearly goals with every action.

Your planning has to be for next week, next 90 days and for a year.  Build momentum – every week.

Weekly Planning – Theme Your Weeks

Start with a blank weekly planner each week and your week can start any day of the week that suits you.  Just be consistent.

Decide what activities you need to undertake each week on a regular basis and set a theme style for the week.

• Marketing Mondays
• Scheduling Facebook and Twitter posts Tuesdays
• Networking Wednesdays
• Selling Thursdays
• Blogging, podcasting, webinars Fridays

are just suggestions on how you might want to theme a week, so you can plan your tasks, appointments and meetings (face-to-face or online) to maximize your working time. Get some structure around your week and don’t over commit, in the beginning.  If you over commit and fail to meet your schedule, you are less likely to try again.

First write it up in pencil and when you are happy with your planning for the week, copy it across to Outlook – so that it will come up and set you up for the day, every day.

(Author’s Note: or whatever daily calendar you use, but it needs to be something that is going to remind you during the day of what tasks you have set for the day)

Check in regularly, that you are moving towards your goals.  Moving towards……… you may get there before the year is up – it may take a little longer – but you need to be moving towards your goals all the time.

Daily Action Sheet

Daily Commitment

Each day you need to commit to completing the following:

• Writing down your Gratitudes
• Speaking your Affirmations
• Completing your set Tasks
• Reviewing your Planning

Discipline and Control Your Mind.

Discipline is a learned habit and the sooner we learn to exercise discipline, the easier it becomes because we see the results, by achieving our goals; our written goals.

Daily Action Sheet

Matt set out a strategy of using a Daily Action Sheet, where specific results are recorded every day. You can click on the picture above, for a bigger view.

• Achieved today (three specific results from completing tasks)
• Productivity – % (your estimation of how productive your day has been, in moving you towards your own goals
• Want to achieve tomorrow (three specific results from completing tasks)
• Grateful for today (five specific declarations of gratitude for your experience of the day)
• Major Goals  (three specific major goals for the next twelve months)

Next, write up your Day Planner for the next day – listing no more than twelve tasks for the day; prioritize them in order of their Decision Making Importance and then by priority.

Shifting Your Focus – Stay In The Zone – Manage Your Energy

A KEY part of planning your tasks; creating your themes and keeping in touch with how well you are moving towards your goals is to align your focus with the zone in which you are most productive and where you achieve the most for the energy you expend.

Matt says until you have achieved $1M (yes, $1,000,000) in turnover – 50% of your activity should be in Sales and Marketing.

The relative values of Decision Making Importance cannot be overstated, according to Matt.

Major decisions are life changing decisions = 85% of your decision making time and energy, when they are needed – but you don’t make them every day.

Medium decisions are business goals          = 50% of your decision making time and energy – but once set, these should not need big changes until you do a yearly review.

Minor decisions are the tasks you need to complete to achieve your goals = 25% of your decision making time and energy.

They are minor decisions, because they are simply the steps you have to take to achieve your business goals.  They don’t require much decision making – they are part of the strategy.  Instead, spend the time prioritizing them, as A, B, or C tasks.

Don’t procrastinate on minor decisions which will not have a major impact on your life. Filter out what is not necessary for you to do.  Think about “What do I need to start saying “No” to, instead of saying “Yes”, when it does not fit my strategy and will not move me towards my goals.

Work From Your Centre Of Genius

Imagine your working time as a target – and the bull’s eye is your planning. Your Zone, where you do your best work.

The next ring is Demand – what you know is both “Urgent and Important”

The next ring is Delusion – what you imagine is urgent but is, in fact, not important.

The final ring is Distraction – what is neither urgent nor important but which distracts you from being in the Zone.

You must remove the “bricks” – little things that distract you from being in the zone.  Get a PA and leverage your time and your skills.   Make a list of the things you WILL NOT do and outsource them.

Manage Your Energy – NOT Your Time

According to Matt, one hour of inspired work is better than six hours of static work.

Use Your Timer!!

Do 50 minute Sprints.

Be totally focused on ONE task for 50 minutes.

• Turn off your email
• Turn off your Facebook and Twitter
• Turn off your phone
• Turn on some background music
• Sprint!!

STOP at 50 minutes. Take a 10 minute break.

THEN decide IF you will continue on the same task.

You will be amazed at how your productivity will increase, doing 50 minute sprints. Because what is on your task list no longer requires any decision making to start doing them, you will burn through your task list like never before.

Start with one 50 minute sprint in a week and then build up to one or two a day, in the defined format – absolutely no outside distractions; just doing the job!

Summary

1. Overcome your reluctance to get things done by committing to the strategy
2. Work from your centre of genius
3. Theme your days and quarters
4. Manage your energy.

With thanks to Matt Malouf – who provided the material for this blog post

(with Author’s notes in italics)This article took five fifty minute sprints – and four ten minute breaks – to write from the notes taken during the Webinar. At each break, I decided to continue until it was finished, because 50 minute sprints are now a key part of my productivity.  I include at least two every day, in my planning.

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The stories we read as children stay with us, all our lives. Especially when we get to be 7 or 8 and into our Pre-Teens.

Every story has a moment that will have your child say “wow, I didn’t know that, Mum!” That’s why we write them. So you can share another “wow” moment with your child.

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As I walked out the back door in the early evening a few years ago, a hissing cough drew my attention to the banksia tree by Burt’s cage. It was my old friend, the brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) and she was disturbed to see me.

The Possum Pole – used by everyone, day and night.

I looked around and to my delight further down the “sliding pole” that brings every one to the feeding tray I saw another possum. She had a new baby clinging to her back and these three are almost certainly mother and daughter – with a new granddaughter enjoying the balmy night. It’s an occasional tit-bit of apple or banana that they love; to supplement their original food of choice –oats. The oats in the bird seed mix that the pink and grey galahs refuse to eat.  As do the magpies, bronze wing pigeons, ravens and almost everyone else who came to “Dewar’s Drop In Feeding Tray”

Only the possums liked the oats.  And the mice, which frequented the floor of the large cage on the other side of the big banksia tree, happily eating Burt’s discards.

Burt’s cage – with the lookout on top

During the day, Burt flew freely about calling in the other pink and grey galahs, so he could eyeball them through the front of his cage or to talk with them as they sat on top of the small cage that was fitted to his roof like a penthouse.

Now, he sat tucked up in his back corner, beak under wing, warm and safe, while the possums scampered up and down the banksia and the pole that leant against it, jumping to and from the feeding platform.

I clicked my tongue at the mother, who was half way down the pole with her baby and quietly went back into the kitchen.

She sat waiting and I approached from the long way around, waving the limp over ripe banana like some prize of war, talking softly them all the time. Her baby’s eyes followed my every move as I came so very close, but mum did not move. Back at the kitchen door, I watched the three of them come down on to the food tray and considered how lucky we were to have them come to visit. They were certainly not tame and treated me with caution. I have spent more than one summer’s evening sitting on the back lawn waiting for someone who only came after I had gone inside – proven in the morning by the disappearance of the offering.

On their menu, we are but a delicacy – not the main event.

About four years before that night, a possum showed me her highway through the sky and I am sure she was the elder lady sitting at the top of the banksia, hissing at me. She had come through the treetops, loudly rustling the leaves (instead of her usual silent approach), down the banksia to the platform, just a few feet away from where I was standing, watching her.

When she was finished eating, instead of going back the way she came she showed me the greatest trust.

Down the pole she came, right on to the ground and she walked across to the base of a large red gum about six or seven feet away.  Up its trunk she went, arms stretched out and claws grabbing as she shinnied her way up the tree.

Splinter – caught lurking behind the possum tree in the night.- years later.

She stopped several times, to make sure I was still watching her.  When she got to the leafy branches at the top, she leapt across a small open space to the tree next door, and with lots of rustling and threats of falling she scrambled away into the top of the branches and out of sight. I was entranced, as well I might have been.

Because in less than five minutes time, she was back and she wandered down the banksia as if nothing had happened at all.  On to the platform she went, in the usual way, but when she finished this time, she went back as all the possums usually do – up the banksia tree and into the treetops.

It was a very special moment – between my possum and me.  Our possums came and went of their own choosing, for over twenty years and the marks on the red gum show they use their highway in the sky often, when they were unobserved.

A major change in their local habitat (in 2004) meant they needed more environmental support now.

The closure of the Dept of Agriculture Research Station in Stoneville (just across the road) was a major loss of habitat and bio-system that possums and other wildlife had enjoyed for decades.  Acres of fruit trees offered a widely varying food source, both on the branch and on the ground.  With a huge dam and regular irrigation, the whole area was a consistent source of food and shelter for many generations of possums and others – until the fruit trees were suddenly ripped from the landscape and the land subdivided for new homes. Even though five acre lots were maintained, there was an enormous loss of food sources.

One night, about the same time, I was lucky enough to find a Western ringtail possum (Pseudocheirus occidentalis) in my shade house.  It came to visit for three or four nights in succession – but that was the only time that I saw it. Loss of habitat probably drove it to me.

Any wholesale destruction of habitat, whether of native or introduced plants, has a devastating effect on local wildlife and needs active, planned rehabilitation programmes to compensate and sustain its displaced inhabitants.

The later loss of my large banksia near the corner of Burt’s cage, by the feeding platform, paled into insignificance, by comparison.

When we look at the “bush”, there are very few areas left, which can reasonably be described as original vegetation – unadulterated with weeds or plants grown from seeds that have blown in from somewhere else. There maybe residual plantings of ‘native’ plants that have been introduced into the landscape from other areas of Australia or wholesale clearing to create pasture.

Choosing the right kind of native plants, shrubs and trees to rehabilitate this (or any other land) which can be considered as in various stages of environmental decline is an interesting concept and raises challenging questions. Can introduced plants ever become ‘native’ by virtue of the length of time they have grown in an area? The possums would certainly have regarded the fruit trees as native, by now.

How big is a habitat area, when we consider ‘indigenous’ plants? Ten acres, a hundred, a thousand?

Should we use ‘native’ plants that we really like, that look good,  smell good, flower beautifully, provide food sources  and that we know to be wildlife friendly in terms of food and shelter, even though they might not naturally occur in our neighbourhood?

Are bottlebrushes and grevillea just ‘native’ or truly ‘indigenous’ where you live?  Which plants are the best to create the desired outcome and whose outcome? The new owners? The possums? The community? The final size of mature plants and their longevity are also critical considerations.   The Government site, Invasive Weeds is an excellent referral source, along with lots of other useful information about how and where and what to plant.

If you are in Perth, Zanthorrea Nursery in Maida Vale is an excellent starting point to getting the right plants. Talk to your local Council. Ring “The Men from the Trees.”

Teng Sing Tung – My beautiful Tonkinese

The possum on my pillow?  If this was daytime, my beautiful Tonkinese cat, Teng Sing Tung would have been lying in front of Burt’s cage, waiting for a mouse to scuttle through the wire.  Instead, he was tightly curled up, nose to tail, playing possum on my pillow while he waited for me to come to bed.

Goodnight, possums!

—–Original Message—–
From: Annette Butchart
Sent: 5 March 1999 4:06
To: Mum
Subject: your last message

Hi Mum,

I have tried to open the last message you sent but although I have loaded
the software package I still don’t have that particular access as we have
limited acces to the internet – due to unscrupulous staff members doing
naughty things etc!!!!! One month they downloaded a whole load of “trash”
and ran up a bill of $2k needless to say that even we senior staff have to
suffer.

Anyway, how has your short week been? I always seem to work twice as hard
on a short week to try and catch up!! As hard as they are I still enjoy
those short weeks though because we get that lovely long weekend. Take the
good with the bad!

Warren Lisa Gordon and I went to Rockingham last weekend for the Sunday
night and then went to Penguin Island for the day on Monday. Really lovely
- excellent snorkeling, the best since Thailand. We did see 1 dolphin on
the way over and although we didn’t see any – I will send more info later I
have a client waiting for me in reception. I’ll send this now and sent the
rest later

Bye xx

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Rose Bryant of Women In Business WA

Lesley Dewar is an author and publisher of Stories My Nana Tells. She was one of some leading Perth career women to participate in Mentoring sessions for Year 12 Girls from Penrhos College, Perth, on February 12, 2013, in conjunction with Women In Business WA.

This blog was written half way through her chemo treatment for breast cancer, at a time when she was experiencing “chemo wall” from time to time.   Before the event, she proclaimed “I am getting my Mojo back!” She was adamant that by not opting out of the event, but writing her notes and giving it her best shot,  it reminded her of her achievements and there is still much more to come.

It was several months later (by the end of April 2013) that she could really say she had her Mojo back – but this is a very interesting blog post about a woman who continues to inspire and lead.

 These notes are a summary of what was used for the table discussion – which allowed the girls to ask many questions about choosing a career.

• Lesley’s background :
  • Well, I now I am 69, fighting triple negative cancer and building a new business called Stories My Nana Tells.  I have been married twice, divorced once and I was widowed ten years ago.  I have two married sons and my daughter died when she was thirty four.  Today is my granddaughters birthday.  Jade is  28 today.

• Career pathways and progression since leaving school.
  • I was trained as a shorthand / typist and did lots of secretarial work until I married. Once I became a single parent, I had to earn as much as a man – so I specifically demanded equal pay for equal work, which was pretty well unheard of, at the time in the 70’s.
  • I chose to go into careers that men usually did (especially in selling cars – I was the first woman in Australia to sell cars – and into financial services, where I was an industry leader for twenty six years.)

• How did you choose your different careers?
  • Selling cars?  After I became the first woman stock controller for GMH in Australia, and then PD Manager, I watched the men on the showroom floor and figured if I couldn’t do better than most of them, I would go “she”, as they say.  So, I applied to become a car salesman and got my license.  I was very successful at selling cars, both at Metro Motors and Peter Webster Holden (now Goldie Motors) in Midland.
  • But I wanted a career where you didn’t start off from scratch every 1^st of the month – something with substance and ongoing income, so after a short time as a secretary in a real estate developer’s office,  I became a life insurance agent and then, within a year, one of the first financial planners in Australia.
  • I created, implemented and managed the Challenge Bank’s Financial Planning Service in 1986.  I was the first woman to get a company car.  A red one!
  • After I left the Bank, I helped establish Financial Wisdom in Perth and then went into private practice as a financial planner.

• Overview of your current business.
  • I sold my financial planning business in May 2009 and decided to create Stories My Nana Tells.  I love writing;  I love the internet;  I love being creative and my short stories were being regularly published in a quality magazine.
  • With professional help, we set up a website and I started writing stories for which parents could subscribe – 26 stories (one a fortnight) for $AU99.90 per year. Less than the price of a cup of coffee a week.

• What skills or background have you needed?
  • I am a good writer; I take all my own photographs; I can (mostly) manage my own website;  I have some sales skills; I have done a lot of networking.

•  How did you go about setting it up?
  • I wrote the first six stories and added them to the site; I joined Facebook (hmmm – spend too much time on social media, it’s very distracting); I spent a lot of time “promoting” the site in my networking groups and online.

•  What did you have to take into consideration – personal commitments and considerations, competition, how to organize finance etc?
  • Because I have few family commitments (other than two aged parents, house-sitting regularly for my son in Stoneville and caring for four cats), I figured I would have plenty of time to write and develop the business.
  • The costs were expected to be minimal, because it is primarily an internet based business.
  • I write for the 7 to 12 yo children’s market – which is not highly serviced.  There is enormous competition in the <6yo market and in the young adult market.  >12.
  • Also, my stories are very well researched and included lots of quirky information that appeals to kids in that age group.
  • School teachers love the stories because they have lots of interested facts about science, history and geography.

• Did you do any market research, analysis?
  •  Yes, we looked into what was available online; target markets such as FIFO parents, single parents, school teachers, etc.

•  What is the structure of the business?
  • I am a sole trader.

• What did you include in your business plan?
  • I have to admit, I never have done a business plan. I have scribbled on the back of an envelope. I have done lots of spreadsheets with projections, income and expenses etc, but never a formal business plan.

• What have been the pros and cons?
  • The pros are that I am doing what I want to do in business and loving it.  I actually went to Los Angeles to launch the business to the overseas market at a women’s conference (that wasn’t initially in the budget).
  • I still write for the Swan Magazine and occasionally blog for other websites.
  • The cons are that the past three and a half years have been very difficult for me, health wise.  I had a frozen shoulder for fifteen months (consequence of an accident while I was working on an environmental project);  a hernia operation that had been needed for the previous two years and which kept dropping me like a sack of potatoes when I got busy, physically;  emergency surgery in Darwin for a huge ovarian cyst, when I was on my way to Melbourne and actually in Darwin to promote my business and finally, now, triple negative breast cancer.
  • I have two more rounds of chemotherapy to do in the next five weeks and that should be the end of it.  So, my five year window of opportunity to build my business has compressed down to about fifteen months.
  • The biggest con is that I have spent too much time networking with the wrong people – I should have spent far more time with parents, who were networking as parents, not as professional employees and business owners.  This is a new category of people for me and I have to learn how to better relate to them, as parents.  Sounds a bit odd, but it’s a fact.
  • Secondly, I have spent a great deal of time campaigning on environmental issues, which have to some degree distracted me from my “real” business of writing.
  • Thirdly, deciding to build an internet based business takes a lot of personal discipline and an understanding of how time consuming the internet can be:  IT doesn’t necessarily save time.

• What advice would you have for anyone seeking to do likewise?
  • I recommend you get a mentor, a business coach or an accountability buddy – where you will have to answer to someone else about what you have done; how you have done it and whether it is part of your plan.

Since participating in the Mentoring sessions with the students, Lesley Dewar had continued to build her strength, write Stories My Nana Tells and has completed her chemotherapy treatment with great success.

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It was quite an experience to watch the frogs emerge, as the early morning sun cleared the tree tops and lit up the pond. They cared nothing for Ten Sing Tung, who loved to wander among their habitat, curious but only ever looking. They were quite used to him by now and the tinkling bell on his collar let them know where he might be, in their overgrown world.

Eight, ten or even fifteen frogs had already positioned themselves on the veranda rafters in preparation for the day. Deep brown with black spots or bronzed with the green of verdigris of aged copper, they had tucked themselves up, nose to nose in a row. 40 degrees Celsius? Who cares! They sit with their backs less than an inch under the tin roof, waiting for the sun to begin to beat down. How they do not cook every day, we still do not know.

Photo by email – courtesy of Liswar

In the shadehouse, amidst the staghorn fern, five or six brilliant green motorcycle frogs had settled themselves in the leaves, pointing outwards so they had the best view of the garden and the world. About six or eight frogs were already in clear view on the philodendron leaves; having coloured themselves soft green, with brown spots, they blended well with their background.

What if you stood very, very still, by the side of the pond? The pond was lush with water grasses. In a few minutes, you would see a pointy nose emerge from the duckweed. Two jewel eyes followed.

Don’t move!

Slowly the long, slender toes stretched to their fullness and the lovely, green body followed. Clambering somewhat inelegantly up through the weeds on to a grass stem, the frog takes up its position in the morning sun. Gems of pool water fall from its back, making little droplets of rainbows on the weedy carpet over the water. Its emergence was a statement of confidence.

Noses and toes, clothed with duck weed, began to appear in several directions at once. On to the rocks; up the stem of the water hyacinths; straddling the thick, clumpy groups of water grass stalks with bulbous eyes ever alert for the slightest disturbance.

A Kookaburra laughs. Splash, splash, plop!! The morning confidence evaporated like a spring morning mist. The early risers jumped too, without a moment’s hesitation.

Swish and ripple. Goldfish scooted amongst the muscular legs that propelled brown and green torpedoes back to the sanctuary of the water and the weeds.

Behind the pond was a jungle of spiky, spider plants, bracken, flowering bulbs, ferns and philodendron. They hung over the edge of the water, reflected in the water where the duckweed had drifted away. Soon, there was a soft rustle and the spider plants became alive with little bodies, as they forced themselves to the top of the striped, green and white fronds. Fishbone ferns waved to and fro, like pendulums, with the sudden weight of their acrobatic passengers. The frogs had swum across the pond underwater and used the shelter of the leaves to leave their swamp in their irresistible search for the sun.

Up the leaves they scrambled, sometimes one over the top of another, seeking the platform of the broad leaves which swayed gently in the morning breeze. Five, six, eight fat bodies and the leaf could support no more. The next flotilla docked itself on the leaf next door; those who were too slow or less practiced took up their positions on the stems. A quiet, contented grrrrk, grrrrk murmured somewhere from the back of the pond, as the warmth of the morning sun fell gently on green and brown stippled backs.

With a book in my lap, Teng Sing Tung winding himself around my ankles and the sun on my back, I was content to idle away my time in my frog world.

Perhaps we haven’t shared the news with you recently, but I am very happy to let you know I am just that – a breast cancer survivor. After five months of surgery and chemotherapy, I am now (March 2013) on three monthly reviews and feel absolutely fabulous!

Not everyone is this lucky, I know, and I am very grateful for the help, support and medical care I have had, in the past six months.

It was my support network, particularly on Facebook, which really helped me get through some of the worst days – and shared my best days, too. It has changed how Stories My Nana Tells exists! We are now building a community here at Stories My Nana Tells and in a Member’s Group on Facebook, too.

I didn’t lose my hair from the chemo – but I did have a head shave, for charity. So, now, I am wearing lots of turban style hats, while my hair grows back.

I have had amazing support from Facebook friends and through our page at Stories My Nana Tells

 A Cancer Survivor’s Blog

I have been asked many times to blog about my cancer journey and about being a cancer survivor.

For now, this is what it would be:

* be focussed around having a great support network (mine is Facebook);

* being positive about your personal survival (even with Triple Negative Cancer, I never thought for a moment I would die);

* totally trust your medical team (they genuinely want you to get well);

* stay away from all the scams that prey on your fears (I mean to say, how much bi-carb water can you drink in a day? your body sets its own pH levels for different parts of you and half a lemon is not going to change anything); if anyone hassles you about using marijuana or other stuff and it’s not for you, tell them in no uncertain terms you are not interested and you know what you are doing (the amount of misinformation and scams there are on the internet is just disgusting, frightening and downright criminal)

* have a great plan for getting on with life, as soon as you can (mine is completely changing Stories My Nana Tells so it is focussed on our readers and building a community)

* be prepared for some dreadful days if you are doing chemo or radiation (OMG – you start to wonder if the cure is worse than the complaint);

* have deep and genuine GRATITUDE for everything in your life that is good and trust your instincts

* don’t become your cancer (it is not you, it is just something that is happening to your body, right now)

I know that not everyone is as lucky as I am – many beautiful women (and men) will not survive or get through their treatment as quickly as I did. I just happened to have a breast cancer that was much more easily dealt with through my surgery than anyone, the surgeon included, expected.

My blog would be all about being GRATEFUL, eating and sleeping well, having great friends and loving life, whatever it brings you. Every day above the ground is a GREAT day.

Warmest regards, Lesley

About Snippets….

 If you like our Snippets, join us online, get your first premium story FREE and get regular updates of new postings.

Get started here, today.

Our premium stories are written for 7 to 12 year old children, so your eight year old is just fine.

For a five year old, you can start them on Snippets – which are free, on the website and they are a great way for kids to start to love to reading “read stories”. Some of our Mums read them aloud and I we will be converting them into PDFs as well, so they can be printed more easily.

I suggest you join up, get the first story for free and then you can see how it works. Join our Asking Nana group too, on Facebook. It will be fun to have you there.

Warmest regards
Lesley Dewar

How Much Will I Pay For Stories My Nana Tells, If I Don’t Live In Australia?

A yearly subscription is $AU99.90 (that’s twelve months for the price of ten) and it’s a great saving.  You can join with a monthly payment of $AU9.99, as well.

You can look at current Exchange rates here – Currency Converter – just as a guide - although we use PayPal and they are slightly different.

The rates will vary from time to time, depending on how much your currency is valued against the Australian dollar. Please see the note about bank and card charges, too.

We offer a 30 day money back, guarantee  if you decide within 30 days of joining as a premium subscriber that you want to stop reading any more stories with your children.

There’s lots more about the great value of  Stories My Nana Tells here: See Plans and Pricing

When buying online in another currency, your bank (or card issuer) will always charge you a slightly different rate to the interbank rates quoted here and rates may change over time.

Spectacular picture of a Cactus Flower At Night

Click on the picture of the cactus flower – to see it in its full glory

    The cactus had just recently flowered – being one of those seductive creatures which thrusts    forward its large, swollen flower cases to burst open in the dark of night, for only a few rapturous minutes. Great creamy, lustrous white petals surround the heart of its voluptuous centre, where a succulent yellow stamen rests against yellow tinged petals. An exotic fragrance draws all manner of night beetles and moths into its luscious depths.

About Snippets….

 If you like our Snippets, join us online, get your first premium story FREE and get regular updates of new postings.

Get started here, today.