061: Pursuit of Happiness as an Entrepreneur Leads to Increased Performance with Maura Sweeney Cofounder of New Vision Entertainment LLC

What I do all the time is I will check with my internal GPS to say, ‘ok sounds good to the outside world, but how does it feel to me?’ and that feeling position, if I don’t feel happy, if I don’t feel energised, if I don’t feel excited, but if instead I feel heavy like I am going to be taking on work that is going to feel like a heavy load, and not give me joy then I am busy running after the human race instead of following my happiness quotient or my happiness guide from the inside.

#00:01:03-2# Neil : Hello its Neil Ball here, thank you so much for joining me today on the entrepreneur way. The entrepreneur way is about the entrepreneur’s journey, the vision, the mind-set, the commitment, the sacrifice, failures and successes. I am so excited to bring you our special guest today, Maura Sweeney. But before I introduce you to her, I have a little bit of quote for you. Jacqueline Smith said, ‘its not about me, its about my family.’ You do not answer questions for you, but for us. You learn to live beyond yourself; the entrepreneur way asks the questions, so we all get the insight, inspiration, and ideas, to apply in our businesses. Moira, welcome to the show, are you ready to share your version of the entrepreneur way with us?

#00:01:53-5# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : I am.

#00:01:57-9# Neil : Thanks for coming on the show Maura. Maura Sweeney is an author, a podcaster, an international speaker and Huffington Post blogger. Maura Sweeney uplifts and engages with a living happy, inside-out mantra. A frequent media guest and popular lecturer on influence, leadership and personal branding. Maura is a Next Gen thought leader, inspiring others to become their happiest and most authentic self. Turning her vocation in to an entrepreneurial business. She has just released her first e-course entitled Foundations of Happiness. Maura can you provide us with some more insight in to your business and personal life, to allow us to get to know more about what you do, and who you are?

#00:02:45-0# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Sure. You know the best way to describe me is I am involved in a vocational career. Its a lifestyle career, when I was a little girl, I actually made a decision that I was going to grow up in to a happy adult. So when most people were thinking about becoming a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, a teacher, I literally made a choice as a young person, to grow up to be happy and you think, what the heck is happy? Like you can’t work happy. Well after having a career with a corporate background, and also having a company along with my husband, and even serving as a home schooling mom to my daughter, I decided at mid-life that I was going to take all of my previous experience, all of my travels, which now are well over 50 countries, and all of my thoughts, and start curating and cultivating them in to a body of thought. So that I could help empower other people, to live happy lives from the inside out and I use Living Happy, Inside Out as my mantra. So that’s where you could find me in books, in blogs, in over 200 videos, in pod casts, and also as a public speaker and most recently as creator of foundations of happiness e-course. And it is all designed to help empower other people, to really live an integrated life where what they do and who they are, all spring from within rather than trying to conform to everything society tells them they should do without.

#00:04:31-8# Neil : Ok thank you.

#00:04:34-6# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Or on the outside.

#00:04:34-6# Neil : Yeh so Maura, you do a lot of things there, so you make money out of from the things you have talked about there, presumably to make money out of your books, and you make money out of your course, am I right there? Are there other ways you make money?

#00:04:48-2# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Well you know, I am glad you bring this up, when I said to you, this is a vocational career, most entrepreneurs start with this question. They look at a dollar sign or maybe in your case, maybe a Euro sign or a pound sign, and they will say, ‘how do I get this? How do I design a business so that I can get the money?’ In my case, I wanted number one. Influence, I wanted to take my ideas and get them to as many people as possible. So Neil at the beginning, every single thing I did was free, that’s where you could read my blogs, you could watch my videos, listen to my podcast, but from that point forward, I was able to begin building a business from it. So I have various sponsors that were with me on my website, I have embedded links, where people are reading some of my things and they find some of the sponsors that are partnered with me, click on the link and buy. I will get a commission, but over and above that I have since become a public speaker, and a paid for public speaker where I speak here in the country, United States as well as overseas. And so this brings me to a completely different environment and then of course for this new foundations of happiness e-course. So what I did, I work backwards, I started out with an idea that I wanted to give traction to. And then once the traction developed, I was in a position to begin charging.

#00:06:13-3# Neil : Mmm, so its a bit like the Sig Sigler mantra isn’t it? of give people what they want, and you will get what you want, almost.

#00:06:19-5# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : You know I would say so, yes. But you see how its an opposite paradigm?

#00:06:22-2# Neil : Yeh

#00:06:22-2# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : It takes some time but I feel like I have laid a tremendous foundation.

#00:06:30-1# Neil : And what do you enjoy most about what you do? and obviously you are happy all the time now, so.

#00:06:30-1# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : You know what, I am, its been a long time coming. I really like everything I do. I am a creative personality, which means that I get to use my art work. Which seems maybe to some people, like ‘oh what is that?’ but some of the things that I put together, I can incorporate in to my writings. I can take any idea that I have and I can throw it in to a video, write a blog, or put out a podcast. I love all of it and then I love getting out public speaking, travelling, meeting people and then being on shows like yours. I love being around people because I find it energises me. And that’s one of the reasons why I have chosen not to go the traditional coach one-on-one method.

#00:07:18-9# Neil : And what is it that drives you Maura?

#00:07:26-5# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : What drives me is knowing that there is more to life and expecting to see it. You know I am going to go back to something strange, when I graduated high school, you would call it secondary school. I remember everybody saying in our senior year, ‘oh the best years are behind us.’ Now could you imagine being 17 and hearing people say this? I’m like, ‘are you kidding?’ They were thinking ‘oh this is the highlight of our life and after this everything is on a decline.’ And I remember even back then thinking, ‘Are you kidding? I am just starting my life’ and I think that that is the thing that has always propelled me on, I felt like I was starting it after secondary school. Starting a new after college, starting a new after law school. Starting a new after I left my corporate job, starting a new after our daughter went away to college, and I could do what I am doing today. So for me, I am always looking for the more in life, and then obviously, inspiring others to do the same.

#00:08:23-2# Neil : And how do you relax when you are not working in your business?

#00:08:23-2# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : I would say three ways. I socialise, because I really like to be around people. I exercise, which I find is really, really good for me, I put so much mental attention in to what I do. That I really need to get out and exercise and I do all kinds of exercise, and the other is just to get outdoors. Fortunately we live in Florida where its really nice weather, and to be able to go for a walk and on my bicycle. Its just really good for me.

#00:08:57-4# Neil : And do you have any entrepreneurial role models?

#00:09:02-4# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : You know, I am a reader and I don’t always read what everybody else reads. And I have studied and read the books on you know the biggies from the Industrial Revolution and how did they literally change the world and what were the elements that went in to it? So I have read them and I have read several obviously beyond that point, but I don’t think I have one in particular unless I mention to you my husband Jim. Living with this man I have watched him start several companies, and he has many skills that I do not. He sees way outside the box, he’s awesome when it comes to distribution lines. And so as much as I have read about a lot of other people, I happen to live with one that’s a great role model for me.

#00:09:41-3# Neil : That’s handy isn’t it?

#00:09:43-7# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : It is, its very helpful, because with me, I am not really good when it comes to distribution models. So being with him and having him as my business partner really, really helps me.

#00:09:54-1# Neil : Maura can we go back to time before you were an entrepreneur? and can you talk about the difficulties you had to overcome when you started your business?

#00:10:03-1# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Yes, my background was I was always doing what I was told. That was the way I was brought up, that was the way I went to school, that was why I ended up in law school, and ended up leaving because it was not my happy place. But for about a decade, I worked at two corporations, and in the corporate environment, you know everybody talks about the box or in the cubicle. I was in management, where I would manage one or sometimes several branches, but I was part of a big conglomerate. So what that meant for me is that I worked within the box, and stepping out in to entrepreneurship, I had to get out of the mental boxes I was in. Meaning that I had to take an idea that I had, and turn it to reality. turn it in to a business. So I had to think way outside the lines, I had to realise the box was not there, and here is another thing, for anybody who has had a background working in a corporate environment. They know that every time there is some specialty work that needs to be done, you call somebody within the corporation, its in-house expertise. But as an entrepreneur, you know I have learned I have to do it myself, I have to learn to do it myself, and if those two things don’t work, then I pay for it.

#00:11:23-0# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : So those were some of the things I had to do, I had to change my mind-set, to think that there are no boxes and I could just create my own space where ever I chose to take it. And then secondly, I really had to learn how to have my own tool chest rather than being just being expert in one area.

#00:11:41-9# Neil : And did you have any doubts that delayed you starting your business?

#00:11:43-2# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Yes, I would say a couple. I had personal hesitations. What I do right now requires my face, my name and my personality to be on it. Its my website, its Mauraforyou because its my name, my ideas. But in the past, even when I was in corporate management, I would develop people, but I would always be the person behind the scenes, in a sense behind a curtain, as I trained, promoted, developed etc. In story what I do, I actually started with YouTube videos and I would get to be the face on the video with my own name, with my own reflective questions, with my own so-called show. And I tell you, that was a tough thing, it was tough but I will share something else. What I do, is I am a thought leader. And I somehow knew as a young person, that whatever I was going to do, I was not yet ready for, so that meant, you know I spent time in business, I spent time in public advocacy, I spent time helping my husband develop a business. So I had to really wait until my age was right, that I had enough experience, that I had developed sufficient confidence, and then also it was an error where I could get my message out, like now on social media. You know, otherwise I would be looking for people to take me on as a write or a syndicated colonist. This is a completely different error.

#00:13:19-7# Neil : And what mistakes did you make that slowed your journey?

#00:13:23-7# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Good question, the first is I did not ask enough of others. And this is what I mean, I am such a helper, by nature, and I so love to see other people grow and I love to see their dreams turn in to realities, that I would always end up absorbing myself in someone else’s business, in someone else’s pursuit, in someone else’s challenge or question. And I would help them, meanwhile I am in business but I would not call upon them to reciprocate and help me. And I had to learn to undo that behaviour pattern a little bit by saying ‘you know I am happy to help you here but now in exchange, I would like for you to do the following, write me a letter of recommendation. Share me with your tribe group. So that was something I needed to do, and the other thing is I have referenced it a little bit before, is I tend to be inefficient, I do things so much in a personal fashion, I am not like my husband who is this guy who knows how to set up systems. So there are several things in my business that have slowed me down because I did not set up systems to get the word out or to get what I do out to lets say a larger population.

#00:14:45-5# Neil : And I assume you are getting better at that then now are you?

#00:14:48-3# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : I am, well you know what happens? I think this might be the case with anybody, after a while when you feel like your business is running you instead of you running your business, you say to yourself, ‘I am getting knocked out, I need to come up with a new plan. And so however we get there, we eventually get there.

#00:15:02-5# Neil : Yeh, and what are some of the things that you did before you started your business? that would be helpful tips to some of the listeners who have not yet taken the first step on the entrepreneurs way?

#00:15:13-4# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Well I think as I mentioned earlier, I always knew what my passion is and I think this is good for an entrepreneur, know your passion. Know your favourite subject, or the thing that you are most curious about. And that was me, I always was studying, ‘how do we live an authentic life? how do we get to this place where we feel free in our own right?’ The other things I did and I continue to do, Neil, I read a lot. I study things like non-fiction, icons, people that have really transformed culture, transformed business, transformed the way people live. I read up on history, I mentioned earlier, I travel a lot. Not as a typical American, but I travel so that I get in to other people’s culture in history. So you could see what I am doing as an entrepreneur, I spent those early years cultivating my interests so that I would become somewhat expert in my own field. And then beyond that, because I write for a living. I used to do my own journaling so here I was doing small things for myself as a personal journaling, which later grew in to writing blogs and books etc. I am also a big question asker, I have done it all my life, I have used all those questions about life, and I turned them in to podcasts and videos, under my current name. And the other thing I did is I used to promote the work of other people.

#00:16:41-9# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : I loved helping people brand themselves, I would write press releases, I would help position them so even as I was working on all these elements, they helped me for where I am today. They were sort of like a proving ground for a breeding ground, but I would say for any entrepreneur who is on the way, and I think of this all the time, you have to find and connect with what you truly love and what you are passionate about. Because sometimes when you are starting a business, its not like you are going to become an overnight success or an overnight millionaire. And unless you really connect with what you are doing and that you really have a natural love and appreciation for it, you are going to get burnt out, frustrated, and give up and then you won’t even have that same happiness factor in you that will boo you along in the process.

#00:17:31-9# Neil : Yeh that’s very true. Maura can we talk about the entrepreneurial journey a little bit, do you think culture is important from the beginning in a business?

#00:17:42-4# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : You know I always did think so. I used to study American businesses when I was growing up, and then later on when I was a corporate recruiter, I would have to learn the cultures of business. I think a lot of businesses have lost their cultures, and they became only focused on the bottom line, but I would tell you for me, culture is everything. Its everything, everything I do, is designed around the culture of ‘how do I help people to live an authentically happy life from the inside out?’ and so its in the field of everything I do, the vibe of everything I do, the imagery, the personality. I think that the culture within any business is one of those things that’s not easily measured, but it carries a business along something like goodwill would carry a business along. Do you use that word in the UK? Goodwill?

#00:18:41-9# Neil : Yes we do, yes.

#00:18:43-6# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Ok, its the soft side of the business, but its the very piece that helps others connect with it, identify with it, know whether or not they can relate to it. And its also the piece of the business that builds in a lot of customer loyalty, so if people are not sure about their culture, then their customers are not sure about the business that they are running.

#00:19:07-0# Neil : And it also creates staff loyalty as well, doesn’t it?

#00:19:10-0# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Sure yeh.

#00:19:10-0# Neil : Knowing what you know now, is there anything that if you had known it when you started out, would have helped you to shortcut the learning curve?

#00:19:18-2# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Yeh probably and the thing is, I have some thought to this many many times before, because I am one of those people, I would love to do everything right from the beginning, I would love to visualise it, and say ‘ok that’s the plan and I am going to do it.’ but what I have learned is that in creating any new brands lets say, its an evolutionary process. I will tell you when I mention things about being efficient, I will give you one easy thing. I wish that I had learned how to use twitter to elasticise my brand. You know people say often that twitter is a great way of finding new followers. That’s something I am still not good at, I feel like I do it by ones and twos. So that’s something very practical, that I could have learned and I hope to become better at it, but here is another thing that may be anybody storing on their entrepreneurial way, they want to even consider, like in my case I had to decide, alright I have got this business idea, I want to become a thought leader, but who is my demo? My whole thought is around happiness so what does that mean? is my demo – is it university students who do listen to me? Is it leadership groups? who want to know what’s better? yes they follow me. Is it the metaphysical people that are really in to self-help and spiritualality? yeh to a certain degree. Is it mid-life people who are looking for what’s next in life? That was such a hard thing for me Neil.

#00:20:48-6# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : If I was writing, I was being told I needed to nitch down and then to super niche. And then I am thinking, I just don’t know who my people group is. My people group were people that thought a certain way, and so what I found over time is that I am evolutionary. That I am a hyper personality and people find me now, so its like, how do I answer your question when you say, ‘how could I have cut it short?’ I really could not have, I just had to keep doing what I did, remaining faithful to what I did, and ultimately my messaging, my packaging, and my tribe started to connect with me. So some people may need to hear that today.

#0 #00:21:28-6# Neil : So the demographic of the people that you actually talk to now, who are they then?

#00:21:33-8# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : You know what is interesting, it is university students millennials, which is funny because I am a mid-life person right? But there are so many of them, that are at a junction in their life, they are thinking, ‘ok so what do I do to create a career?’ How do I figure out where I want to go? Who am I? What is going to work for me? What’s real for me? and what’s not real for me? So that’s why I ended up speaking at universities, at graduate programmes, but then there’s also leadership groups, people that want to stay at the forefront of what they are doing? They want to be good leaders and I speak a lot on leadership and influence, they follow me, and then there is some more of, you know the thoughtful people? These are the ones that they may be hard charging a business? but they are also reflective about life and their quality of life. And they could be of any age, they could be mid-life people, they could be quite affluent, or they could be people that were doing really well and were affluent, are affluent, and realise they need more in life. And so all of them are part of my demo.

#00:22:39-2# Neil : And how much does gut feeling influence your decisions in your business?

#00:22:43-2# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : In my case, totally. Totally. Yet everything I do, I do by feel, by intuition and by timing and I will give you just one crazy example. You would think typically in a business, you would say, ‘ok I am going to do my podcasts twice a week every single week or I am going to launch my blogs out on Huffington Post twice a month or once a week’. Well it sounds good as a business model, but because everything I do is pretty much intuitive and comes from within me, I cannot always do it. I have to do it when its real for me, and this is a crazy thing, if you go on Huffington Post today, you will not see an article that I will be putting on probably this week. Over the summer, I was travelling in the North East, travelling through many university campuses and I hit the campus of Yell University, One of the Ivy Leagers. And its the home of the skull and bone society, have you ever heard of it?

#0 #00:23:40-0# Neil : No.

#00:23:42-4# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Oh well, you got to read up, but its the place where the Bushes went to school and a lot of our big big, big leaders, and its a secret society, so everybody has got a lot of speculation about it. I end up doing a video, last summer on Yells campus in front of this Skull and Bone Society, and I do not get the impetus or the idea to put together a blog for it until last week. And you think, why is it? Its because I do things by intuition, its almost like the idea comes then there is life to what I am putting out, and the timing is right. And its funny, we happen to be in an air where there are lots of disclosures, you have got the political scene really moving heavily here in America because of the presidential campaigns, and it was like all of a sudden I thought, ‘uh I got to pull out that video, there is a blog waiting.’ So yes for me, gut feeling is a big part of what I do. Now if you are selling vacuum cleaners, I am sure its different, but for me, I am big in to gut feelings.

#00:24:44-1# Neil : Life is made of constant change whether we like it or not, and many say that the only constant is change, how do you try to keep up with change Maura?

#0 #00:24:54-1# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : I am going to tell you, I keep fit every day, but let’s say, yeh it is, its several times a week and I will give you an example, just tonight after we hang up, I will be going in to Tampa, we have a podcasters convention here. So on a routine basis, I will go to what we call e-marketing meetings, you have got a really active group around here, so not only am I learning things on the internet and taking courses and always finding out what’s cutting edge and what’s new technologically or like in a social media space, but I am also going out and I am meeting people and going to classes, and I am always learning what’s new and then how can I employ that in advancing what it is that I am doing?

#00:25:39-4# Neil : And what is your favourite book on entrepreneurialism, business, personal development, leadership, or motivation? and can you tell us why you have chosen it?

#00:25:47-3# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Yeh I am going to give you a more obscure one, its called business success through self-knowledge, its written by William D. Anton, he is a PHD, retired professor, formerly director at University of South Florida. This man is now just directing his attention to leaders in business. And this book Business Success for Self-Knowledge, I love because what it does, is it challenges the reader to see themselves through a bigger lense. It reflects a lot of my beliefs about how we could develop ourselves personally, and it helps us to in this book, to occupy our bigger self. Most of us, will work on through life, whereas actually, when we were little kids, we think the sky’s the limit, we could do anything we want, but then through the course of time, whether its schooling, family, wherever we are, we end up in one small … we do what maybe we get attention from. And this book encourages me as well as other readers, to step outside their comfort zones, to go outside those pre-existing.. and really give place to the bigger person they are. And that means skill-wise, self-development wise, leadership wise etc.

#00:27:12-8# Neil : Everyone, when you have a busy life, listening to audio books is a great way to expand your knowledge, in the time when you may be doing other things. Such as driving or when you are at the gym. We have a special offer for you of a free audio book of your choosing, to choose your free audio book, go to www.freeaudiobookoffer.com. As long as you have not already signed up then you will qualify. Maura, what I would like to do with you now, is to fast-forward a bit and speculate about the future a little bit. What one thing would you do with your business, if you knew that you could not fail?

#00:27:49-2# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : The one thing I would do, is I would give up the social media piece to someone else, but I probably would not do it, because of the possibility of having everything hacked. And so that’s a tough part for me.

#00:28:06-1# Neil : And what skill if you were excellent at it, would help you the most to double your business?

# #00:28:12-1# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : I think I have reflected this several times in this interview. Creating, cataloguing and implementing better systems, so that I could scale up, versus doing a lot of my individual emails and responses. I sound like the old school person, even though I am perfectly new school, but that’s an area I so need to rev up and I am in the process of doing it, even now.

#00:28:35-9# Neil : In five years from now, if a well-known business publication was publishing an article on your business, after talking to your customers and suppliers, what would you like it to say?

#00:28:45-8# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : I would love it to read this, I don’t know if we referenced earlier, I am known as the Ambassador of Happiness. So I would like a headline to read this, Ambassador makes living happy a noble and global profession.

#00:29:03-4# Neil : That’s a nice way of thinking about it. We are now at the part of the show, where you share three golden nuggets with us, so Maura, what is your favourite quote and how have you applied it?

#00:29:14-6# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Do you know its funny, I just released a book on my favourite quotes but out of all the quotes, I am going to give you my own quote. Are you ready? If the human race knew where it was going, wouldn’t we be there by now? Most people are busy running after people who don’t even know the right way out to happiness or the right way to self-development, or self-actualisation. So I always think about the human race running after its own tail. And what I try to do is give people content to inspire them to switch that paradigm. Go on the inside, find out what they love, and pursue their interests from the inside out, rather than running after the rest of the human race.

#00:29:59-1# Neil : And how have you applied that?

#00:30:01-9# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : I have done it my whole life, I have had various times in my life where I have said no to certain things that sound good. That other people may say, ‘oh that’s a lot of, you can make a lot of money or why don’t you take that promotion?’ Well if those changes did not make me happy from within, I would decline them. And there were several like that, so what I do all the time is I will check with my internal GPS to say, ‘ok sounds good to the outside world, but how does it feel to me?’ and that feeling position, if I do not feel happy, if I don’t feel energised, if I don’t feel excited, but if instead I feel heavy, that I am going to be taking on work that’s going to feel like a heavy load and not give me joy. Then I am busy running after the human race instead of following my happiness quotients or my happiness guide from the inside.

#00:30:54-2# Neil : And do you have a favourite online resource that you can share with us?

#00:30:58-5# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : You know I gave some thought to that, I do a lot of research so where am I going to look, I will look on Wikipedia. But the things that I love, because I mention before that I talk a lot about culture, so it could be the middle of the night, I’m in bed and I will be watching YouTube videos, I will be listening to podcasts, and those are places that I can see one thing or hear something, and then all of a sudden I am fed some other idea which brings me on, but it works well for me and the space which I am involved. So YouTube, podcasts and Wikipedia.

#00:31:34-7# Neil : Ok thank you. And what is your best advice to other entrepreneurs?

#00:31:40-6#Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : I referenced this earlier and its a good time to mention it again. Know what you love, know what your curiosities are and know what you are passionate about. Build your business around that model. Because once you have that as your foundation Neil, it will be so much easier to advance yourself. There’s nothing harder, than working in something you do not have an interest in, because when you do not succeed initially at it, you will feel like you are pulling a ton of bricks. But if you love what you are doing, and you don’t see immediate positive results in the business, you will keep at it anyway, and did you know just a little aside, when people are happy pursuing their activities, they can perform up to 50% better. So my goal or my advice to any entrepreneur, pursue something that will make you feel happy in its pursuit and that will help you get further in what you are doing as an entrepreneur.

#00:32:41-2#Neil : Everyone, if you did not manage to get a note of Maura’s favourite resources, or her favourite books, you can find the links on Maura’s show notes page, just go to theentrepreneurway.com or search for Maura or Maura Sweeney, in the search box. Maura is there anything else that you would like to add about your business?

#00:33:02-7# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : You know other than telling your listeners, I hope they find me if they like Huffington Post, look up Maura Sweeney. If they are listeners on podcasts, I am Maura Sweeney living happy inside out. And otherwise the easiest thing, is just go to my website, Maura no. 4 letter U Maura4u.com and I would love for them to just stay tuned to everything I do and find my resources there.

#00:33:26-9# Neil : Ok Maura, thank you for that. Maura its been an honour having you on the show, you have really given us some great ideas of your views on business and you have inspired us all with what you have said, so thank you very much for coming on the show.

#00:33:42-8# Maura Sweeney Cofounder & Owner of New Vision Entertainment LLC : Neil, thanks so much for having me, I have been thrilled to be here.

#00:33:46-2# Neil : You are welcome. Thank you.