Tips From My BIB

We are not out of the woods yet. Many are still under stay-at-home orders, while less-affected areas are returning to work. Wherever you are, my Believers in Business Networking Group can help. A few weeks ago, we put out a document with tips from each member's expertise and personal experience to help survive & thrive through this crisis. I think you'll find these tips useful for your business and family. My own contribution was my tips on the "9 Mistakes in Disinfecting"

Evan Gehman (Gehman Construction) - Tips on overall personal & business health

• Emotional / Family – Focus on what matters most. Cut distractions of sports, TV, busyness. Invest your time with your family & community, go on walks and/or bike rides and visit neighbors along the way (from a distance).
• Spiritual – Reflection and remembrance of God’s faithfulness in past times of difficulty and crisis in the Bible and especially in our own family – More prayer time with the LORD and family – More time to worship together as a family
• Business – Checking with clients to see how they are doing – continuing to care for those relationships – Great opportunity to share the reason for the hope that we have – see if there is a need that can be met - look for new creative ways to adjust business – visioning and have a plan to be ready to go when restrictions are relaxed – Ways to reassure clients of precautions you take for their safety  

Mary Ann Alig (Fox & Roach Realtors) - More tips on overall personal health

• Mental - Learn a new language  Duolingo.com is free, I'm trying to learn Italian.
• Physical - Be active.  I can't get to my gym, set up a small workout space in the attic.  Also, beachbodyondemand.com  has a 3 month membership for $39, but you can get a free 14 day trial under that program.  They offer lots of workout videos.
• Spiritual - Daily email from Rick Warren, which is very inspirational.

Lauren Allegrezza (Marketing to Mission) - Tips on marketing for your business health during this time to help later

• Set up your Google My Business profile. If it's already set up, use this time to ask customers for reviews (& also go and leave reviews for your favorite local & small businesses). If anyone in the group needs help with this, I am more than happy to help for free.
• Make content to use later. Write a blog post of your best tips for your industry. Record a few short videos. Write posts for social media that you can publish later. 
• Learn. There are so many resources out there to help us grow. Many of them are now free. MOZ is now offering most of its courses for free (for example, courses about SEO). Personally, I'm trying to take advantage of resources to grow my skills so that I can serve my clients better.
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Doug Floro (MFB Wealth Management) – Tips on your financial health

• Continue to return the first fruits to God’s local church
• Keep a large liquid reserve (three months – six months living expenses)
• Get out and or stay out of debt - Expenses in the next 12 months such as buying a car, tuition should come from fixed income accounts (savings bonds, bond funds, money markets, etc) If at all possible, do not sell equity funds at these low prices, unless we need to harvest tax losses (I recommend doing some end of the year planning with your tax advisor in November) 
• Continue to add to long-term retirement accounts at these low prices.
• Continue to support those serving Him as they depend on God using us for monthly support (now more than ever) 
• Cut down on luxuries

Pat Kratz (Mary Kay Consultant) – Tips of skin & personal care health – In the "9 Mistakes in Disinfecting" and "Protect Your Family from COVID-19", I gave my tips as a BIB member and the host of this show! Pat adds one tip from her background that's an excellent follow up to mine!

• As we wash our hands over-and-over (following CDC advice) during this pandemic, we strip away our hand's natural moisture. This can cause our hands to get dry, rough, and crack. It's vital to keep your hands moist, soft, and smooth. Pat obviously works with Mary Kay and highly recommends the "Satin Hands" product, which can buff away that dry skin and moisturize to keep your hands soft and smooth.
• It's easy to get out of our routines of healthy skin & personal care. Just because we are home a lot, try to keep up with your routines so you feel better about YOU!
• Pat would like those that don't know about Mary Kay that they have been in business over 56 years and is a leader in skincare and beauty products.  Pat can be reached on her website at .

Bill Downs (Victory Nutrition International) – Tips to boost your immune system (immune competence) – Background on the COVID-19 infection is most serious to those people that already have weakened or somewhat compromised immune systems. That includes everyone that has, or is taking prescription medications to ‘hush’ symptoms of, any chronic inflammatory and degenerative disorders. The virus is even more dangerous to those that have multiple chronic disease conditions (i.e. asthma, allergies, heart, vascular (and any blood disorders), lung (pulmonary), diabetes, any of the multiple forms of arthritis, neurodegenerative diseases, etc.). Therefore, priority number one is to strengthen immune competence!

• This really can’t be done without strengthening the structural constitution of ALL your connective tissues and cell membranes. The weaker your tissues are, the more fragile/frail your immune system will be and the more dangerously virulent the COVID-19 will be. Since you are made ONLY of air, water, sunshine (light) and food, this means eating more organic foods made and packaged by God…NOT by man. You should also start a raw juicing program beginning with apples and parsley. You can add celery, carrots, grapes, etc. later on. Increase your zinc intake (I believe L-OptiZinc® is the best, which you can get from NOW vitamins); increase your vitamin D3 intake; and add Quercetin to your supplement regimen to strengthen connective tissues.
• Keep in mind that nutrients don’t “diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any disease. They DO nourish and strengthen the body’s ability to stay strong and protect itself better than any drug. I do have to recommend VNI's Prodovite, PerformLyte, and N-Sorb to dramatically boost immune competence. They represent a systems biology approach as opposed to a single-item attempted magic bullet approach (aka ‘reductionist’ paradigm). Good nutrition is where “the orchestra of nutrition plays the symphony of biology.” But, the nutrition must be able to be absorbed, which is what the VNI products have been shown to do in 5 minutes!
• Other than that, eat food that is made and packaged by God (in the following order), 1. that grows out of the ground and is unprocessed by human hands, 2. Swims in water and has fins and scales, 3. Flies and/or has feathered wings (like chicken, turkey, duck, etc.), and 4. Walks on the ground, i.e. lamb, beef, pork, etc. in decreasing abundance as you move to the right.