This month marks our 7th birthday!  Art of Eloquence has now been in business for over 7 years.  I’m one of those “if one is good, 10 thousand MUST be better” kind of gals!  I love helping folks and I love to give.  Each year I began by asking myself how much more I could give my customers, blog readers, newsletter subscribers, etc.  Unfortunately, in order to support my habit, I’m afraid I had backed myself into a busy corner.

Earlier this year, my dh asked me to slow down the ministry portion of Art of Eloquence.  It was hard for me, but I went from sending out three newsletters a week to just one and writing a weekly Foot in Mouth Man episodes to once a month.  When my good friend and podcast co host had to leave the show, my dh asked me to re evaluate my time.  I love giving, entertaining and teaching so much that I didn’t want to give it up.  It was almost like a high.  I’ve never done drugs, but I hear tell it feels kind of like that.  So I took on the weekly show all by myself saying I’ll just teach a little each week and that way it won’t take up too much of my time to prepare.

You all probably can guess what happened next.  Yup!  I went nutz!  I just can’t do anything half way.  I can’t.  I spent time each week preparing and researching to bring my listeners all the latest and greatest information on that week’s topic.  I brought on guests and solicited experts and spent time sending out email questionnaires in order to get all the information to you that I possibly could.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I didn’t neglect my family, but I did have to sacrifice a great deal to get this done.  You see, I have insomnia.  Which, if you look at the positive, means you have more time to get stuff done!  So at 3am when most other normal human beings are having visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, I was on my computer doing research and writing.  All this extra work, left very little time to write new studies for Art of Eloquence or to revamp our website to reflect all the new studies and events we had to offer.  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to tell a customer that the study they were anxiously waiting for was STILL not done.  In fact, I had a perpetual “To Do” list that never quite seemed to get “To Done”!

Simplification is the word for 2010 and we believe it will not only allow me to have more time to create the products our customers have asked for, but it will also allow me more time to make our website and newsletter easier to navigate and more in tune with our customers’ needs.

To that end beginning this month, “What’s New at Art of Eloquence?” newsletter will go out once a month instead of weekly.  I will continue to give subscribers exclusive offers, freebies and advanced notice of all things Art of Eloquence, but the newsletters will be short and sweet.  Additionally, you may have already noticed that I have gone from daily blogging to three times a week.  Since I will not have to plan out 7 posts a week, it will allow me time to post links to articles and news events as they occur so that this blog will be even more informative.  So the blog may end up having almost as many posts.

Effective January of 2010, I will no longer be podcasting.  I have some great shows planned for the rest of the year with guests I’ve made commitments to on topics I feel are important.  However, time constraint and sheer amount of work involved in hosting a weekly show is just too much for me at this time.   Instead, I will be offering about 10-12 live seminars during the year on various topics.  Do mark your calendar to attend the Communication Comedy Network’s final podcasts.  The audios will come down after the end of the year to make room for the new seminar format.

My heart is to give all I can, but my dh and the Lord have shown me that I cannot keep up this pace without sacrificing other vital things.  I pray that these changes will help Art of Eloquence to be a larger blessing to you in 2010!

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