When Things Are Out of Your Control
It’s human nature to look in the mirror and compare ourselves to the images our culture throws at us every day. Being young, successful, body beautiful and wealthy are what our society thrives on, reminding us of what we should aspire to be. And so, we invest in expensive products, clothes, gym memberships, degrees, makeup, youth enhancements and the like grasping to experience what these images project - happiness. Yet the U.S. remains the most depressed and overmedicated nation in the world.
When we look outside ourselves for acceptance and don’t find it we reach for control as a lever of hope. A plethora of industries are happy to take your money to feed your need to belong among ‘the pretty people’ yet after you buy the Prada handbag, MBA, Rolex watch and Mercedes as a solution to the void you feel and the initial thrill subsides you are still left with the same feeling of not being enough. More purchases of the same only leave the hole emptier. So, then...
Seven Tips to Find the Right Industry and Position for Your Next Career Move
Don’t have an accidental life or career. Often more planning goes into a summer vacation than a 40-year career or 90-year life. Spend purposeful time creating an actionable plan for your next career move and you can trade the treadmill to nowhere for fulfilment.
- Know Your Values
If you are considering making a career change and aren’t sure where to start, start with what you know best. Nobody knows you better than YOU. Recommit to your values – your principles or standards on what is so important such that living these values makes you more fulfilled than anything else.
Values are principles or standards of behavior – your judgment on what matters most in life. Examples of values include: Balance, Autonomy, Freedom. Creativity, Listening, Humor, Family etc. Write down your values.
- List Your Transferable Skills
Transferable skills fall into the three categories: 1.) Communication - speaking effectively, writing concisely,...
How to Let Go When Youā€™ve Tried Everything Else
By nature we home into a negative bias. It’s how we’ve evolved as a species and not become extinct - by keeping ourselves safe. We are very good at noticing danger - so good that our ‘danger antenna’ is primed more than our ‘happiness antenna.’
So how do we break through this false-prison-comfort-zone we trap ourselves in?
Certainly not by pressing down the gas peddle on more of the same - complaining, blaming, victimizing, playing it safe. These are the very thoughts we need to let go of to take the risks that bring growth.
Deal with the things you run from. It is the only way to let them go. Yes, it’s hard. But if we don’t admit what feeling is at the root of our pain it will bubble up each time that feeling you haven’t accepted is triggered. You may have felt abandoned, rejected, dismissed, hurt. Whatever it is examine it. Don’t turn away. “I feel dismissed and it hurt.” Get...
How to Keep Your Cool When Someone Threatens You at a Meeting
Dear {{first_name}},
Have you ever been in a high stakes meeting or in a conversation where someone challenges your position and you immediately start to feel the world closing in on you? Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl describes that moment this way ~ “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
It’s important to have actionable strategies when our thoughts take over and rule our actions. You are not your thoughts.
The Pause Café
When you feel anxious or aggravated practice what my clients and I call “The Pause Café.” It starts with a deep breath where you ask yourself, “What is going on with me?” Invite in the tension by being curious to it, not turning away. What we run from chases us down until we deal with it. Identify where the tension sits in your body. You may...
The Tool to Narrow the Gap in the Equation of Career Happiness
Throughout my years as an executive coach I have seen people triumph over immense hardship while others falter over minutiae. I’ve seen a sense of urgency spearhead achievement while chronic victimization hamstring progress. I’ve been party to personal transformations because people risk vulnerability with great courage and I’ve seen stagnation be the end-product of complaining about unmet expectations. Most often the underachievers carry self-doubt that they don’t know how to convert to confidence.
It’s pretty clear to me what makes people happy and empowered to create the life they want and what does not. It’s a simple equation.
The Golden Rule of Happiness
The shorter the distance between what you want and where you are the happier you will be and the more risks you will take.
You Want a Better Job
Let’s say you want to move up in your career, possibly changing companies. And right now you are in a miserable role. There...
How to Deal with that Difficult Employee Who is Poisoning Your Culture
Here is advice I recently gave to a client who just had two staff members explode at a meeting. Managing bad behavior starts with drawing healthy boundaries.
Boundaries: The invisible line between what you will and will not allow.
Difficult Employees: People who don’t take ownership of their own behavior and spew their dissatisfaction with their perceived powerlessness, victimization and lack of self-worth on others.
Dealing with Difficult Employees: Affirm their unhappiness. Affirm how they must be feeling. Ask them what they want. Then every time they act insubordinately ask them how that is getting them closer to what they want.
When Difficult Employees are Out of Control: Get the values of the company in hand, show them how their behavior is insubordinate of the values, put them on a Performance Improvement Plan, establish the specific measurable threshold they need to meet, tell them your goal is to help them meet it and revisit in 30 days. That’s a boundary.
...Holding a Hand for the First Time
Last summer my father passed away. It was a difficult time for me as I know it is for any of you who have a dying parent or who have lost a loved one. I did a lot of journaling during that time and I share the passage below with you in hope that it inspires you to embrace the difficult feelings of grief. My wish is that you may process and won the feelings you turn away from - that you allow them to flow through you - not get struck inside you and fester. That is how we have freedom. Namaste.
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Last night I held a hand for the first time. Indeed throughout my life I have held many hands - extending myself to help, reaching for comfort, joining in an act of love. But last night I held the hand of a man who knows he is dying and it felt like we were the only two people in the world.
My father is the epitome of grace, leadership, and strength. At the end of his life all of these qualities still stand in spite of a failing body. I coach and train on mindfulness, the...
Holiday Weekend Aha Moment
This past holiday weekend held a moment where I realized that with all we work so hard to achieve and how we strive for perfect experiences that the greatest feelings in life come when your hair is down and no one is watching. Fortunately for me my daughter was watching and captured this one with my grandson. Love on the Chesapeake.
With work, with family and with just about any situation we can get stuck projecting what we want the situation to be like to suit our needs. I used to do this a lot with family get togethers. As leaders we repeat this blind habit because we think our almighty discernment is always necessary. My life is so much more peaceful and rewarding when I don't have to direct it like a movie but when I can watch it like entertainment. Believe me - there are plenty of comical moments. When I think back to how often I wanted things to be on my terms and how really silly I was to think I could actually make that happen it makes me chuckle. Insight is...
The Five Biggest Mistakes People Make When Looking for a New Job
- They apply for jobs online with mass production speed, using the same resume.
Slow down. Recruiters and talent acquisition professionals get an overwhelming number of applicants for each open position and must eliminate most of them. Your resume only stands out from the slush pile as a keeper when the hiring manager can 1) tell you understand the mission and goals of their organization, 2) have aligned your past experience with the role at hand and 3) have positioned at least one distinct “It-Factor” that intrigues them. Fashion your resume with the detail of a fine tailor. Reference organizational qualities you’ve learned from the website. Site news on the company or industry that you’ve researched online. Position internal contacts you’ve developed on LinkedIn and elsewhere as advocates to give you insight into the culture and to open a door for you.
- They limit their search to the same industry and same size company....
Three Ways to Manage Up When You Have a Bad Boss
One of the tests of being a leader is knowing how to navigate a boss who doesn’t score highly as a leader him/herself.
Mapping a Course to Manage a Difficult Boss
- Manage Yourself
Start from the perspective that the disconnect might be a miscommunication. “I want to make sure I understand what you need from me.” Then clarify.
If you internalize a bad boss’s anger, insecurity or lack of skill you could allow your weaknesses to show instead of your strengths to shine. Their lack of confidence, disorganization or lack of inclusiveness is about them. Not you. Don’t mirror their insecurity. Be self-aware. Who are you when under fire? How do you demonstrate grace and grit – executive presence? If your work life were a movie who would play you and what would he/she do in your situation?
Be a mindful third-party observer of your own thoughts and feelings. Ask yourself what is really going on with you? What are you afraid...