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One of the things that I remember so well from my last business (The Burnt Pony, Inc.  1974 - 1995) was how little time I took for myself.  Always meeting deadlines, start early, finish late.  Worry about meeting the rent, utilities, etc.  Family responsibilities and committments to church, school, family, friends.  But I never seemed to have time to take care of myself.  Stress.  Then, more stress.  Soon, I was ill all of the time.  No time to be sick, but less time to be well.  Kind of like the “walking dead”.  Sheer “will” kept me going, and if I had known it, the grace of God was in there somewhere.

I had to leave it all behind and take a job in the corporate world.  Then I spent 11.5 years regretting leaving the world of creativity I had been in.  Stress.  More stress.  Finally, I decided to start a business where I could do what I loved most - create.  But this time I wanted my business to help others not make the mistakes I had made.  I wanted a business that was not only creative, but offered mentoring and encouragement to others.  The Small Business Forum grew out of that desire.  And each month with the help of like-minded individuals such as Saan Patterson & Miss Anita R. Smith of Hannah Bea’s Poundcake and More, we reach out to the community.  We have been blessed with outstanding speakers at our forums and this month was no exception. 

Edwina Wasson, an independent associate of Oasis LifeSciences, gave our keynote address:  “REDUCING STRESS - IMPROVING NUTRITION, IMPLEMENTING TECHNIQUES & TOOLS THAT ENERGIZE YOU TO FEEL & PERFORM BETTER”

This is an address no small business should miss:  Click Here To View The Video

The Small Business Forum keynote speaker for September was Don Anderson who is the mentor for the singing group “Cloud 9″. “Cloud 9 Final Concert”. ( You can view their August 12th concert by clicking on the previous highlight.) We asked Don to come to the SBF because this group of young men is outstanding, and we want to be sure that this effort continues. We encourage you to step up and support this group. They fund this effort out of their own pockets. Don would like to create a scholarship program for those who would like to join, but do not have the financial resources to do so. Click here: http://nlemedia.com/DonAndersonWeb.wmv to view the video of our SBF keynote. We also have a webpage on our site dedicated to this group: Cloud 9.htm We hope to have a link to the website these young men are creating in the near future. Check back with us to get that link.

We launched the first of what will be a series of discussions on various forms of fraud in the Internet world. We have been helping a number of small businesses that have been “taken” by hucksters and charlatans. Since January of this year Greg Gordon has been following the topic of “Click-Ad Fraud” and he shared some information at this SBF. Internet Fraud

We have attached several good sources you should make yourself familiar with:

1. http://www.clickforensics.com/about/

2. http://www.benedelman.org/news/040406-1.html

If you have or are planning to have a website we recommend doing research, asking questions and getting everything in writing. Here is a link to a site that will be very helpful on many different levels. We recently joined this group and can say they have a terrific program: http://www.ideacafe.com