16 Big Impact Ways to Give a Gift that Costs You Nothing
If you've been to the grocery store this time of year you know that it is either the holiday season or Armageddon. You're buying things you don't usually use. (When is the last time you bought fresh sage?) You're doing mini makeovers of your home decor. (That old rug never looked so bad.) And you're hoping the discussion at dinner doesn't turn to politics.
I invite you right now to shift your perspective from holiday expectations to what the holiday season is truly about. Love. Yes, Love. Not present giving. Just love. Even at work. It may not be appropriate for you to give a substantively large gift to someone at work. Your time is more valuable than anything you can buy. How will you demonstrate the tenets of love to everyone in your work and personal life? How will you extend compassion, patience, consideration, listening, understanding?
16 Big Impact Ways to Give a Gift that Costs You Nothing
- Offer to help a colleague with a project on which they have been...
Hateful People at Work
I saw this license plate in front of me at a traffic light this morning while I was stopped in front of a church, talking on the phone with my daughter who is experiencing “mean girl” behavior at work. I decided it was a sign and sent her the photo. (Also, it's not often that we see a car from North Dakota in Pittsburgh.)
Happy people don’t hurt one another. Never lose your executive presence and get emotional with hateful people. They hate themselves far more than they hate you. Their internal barometer is far more angry than you could ever feel toward them. Don’t become them. Don’t defend against them. You’ll only look small. Smile and say, “Help me understand what you mean by that” as you give yourself space to remember that you’ve got this.
If you want more executive presence tips here’s a link to my FREE report: 31 Success Practices for Leaders in the High Stakes Corporate World
Your coach,
Mary...
My Special Thanksgiving Message for You - Will she make it?
As you head into the Thanksgiving holiday please remember to take care of yourself. We often set expectations for holidays that set us up for disappointment. Or we’re sad about who won’t be there. Or we tire ourselves striving for perfection making a meal that gets eaten in 30 minutes.
Thanksgiving is a time when we appreciate all that we already have and already are - a sweet kiss to a child that lives out of town, a laugh shared over a family memory, a favorite smell, the touch of a hand that says, “I’m here and I love you.”
Remember to see people as individuals and not part of a scene you’ve prescribed in your head. Don’t let the holiday go by where you’ve not been fully present for at least one individual precious moment with each and every loved one, including your pet. And sometimes just pause, take a deep breath and say to yourself, “I am grateful to feel good!”
All of our six children will be home...
Four Career Guideposts for Women
When I made my journey from welfare to CEO four succinct guideposts became crucial to my transformation. Malcom Gladwell said that to master anything you must do it 10,000 hours. The only problem with that is that if you are doing something that doesn’t work – you’ve just become proficient at being stuck.
Guidepost #1: Seek Your Childhood Innocence.
If we go through our lives expecting one challenge after another, that’s what shows up – life becomes a problem to solve instead of being fun like when you were a child and could play outside all night long, catching fireflies and naming stars. We start to adopt messages from experience as truth when they are nothing but interpretations. Soon life is merely solving one challenging interpretation after another. I know this well because I mastered it with what seemed like 10,000 hours.
I was a stay-at-home mother with four children under seven-years-old living what looked on the outside...
Get Unstuck
You know that head trash that keeps you up at night - I’ll never find the right job - I’m getting old - He doesn’t like me - I am stressed from work - She doesn’t love me - I’m not smart enough? Self-inquiry questions start the journey to clear a path through mind clutter for clarity:
Who am I?
What do I want?
What is my purpose?
How can I serve?
What am I grateful for?
This self-inquiry brings awareness of what is true to you - the open soul, free of assumptions and expectations.
You are not your thoughts, experiences, sensations. You are the observer of them - free of them whether positive or negative.
Don’t fake positive thinking. That is artificial. You’ve undoubtedly seen people trying too hard to be positive. “I can handle this. It will be fine,” when they really feel exhausted and defeated. Pretending only makes you more stressed. Admit and be curious about how you feel without attaching any future or...
Four Key Ways to Have Better Executive Presence
In today’s hiring environment companies are screening not only for experience and attitude but for presence. Competency and grit are not enough. You must also have good internal and external self-awareness and self-regulation. In leadership positions that translates to executive presence.
Executive presence is a sense of being that indicate to others that you know what it takes to lead and be effective. It sends a commanding signal that you know how to harmonize your temperament, confidence, skillset and awareness to get the job done. You know when someone has it. And you know when they don’t. The people who have it are the ones other people look to first.
Can executive presence be developed? Yes - if you have a baseline of self-confidence and a willingness to find ease when dealing with the unpredictable situations at the executive level.
Know What Executive Presence Is
Qualities of Great Executive Presence:
- Curiosity
- Tenacity
- Certainty
- ...
Tips for Women to Bring Value at a Meeting
Women often do two things at meetings:
- Try too hard to be heard and in the process lose their credibility.
- Say nothing and become an nonentity in the conversation.
Both decrease their value. High performing women and men with executive presence have keen self-awareness. They anticipate their emotions, become a third party observer of them and allow them to pass like clouds before the emotions show.
Tips for women at a meeting:
- Watch three YouTube videos of speakers you admire. List what you like about their delivery, presence, voice, intonation, cadence, use of hands.
- Place your phone on a shelf and record yourself speaking. Listen to what you sound like. Observe your presence. Become familiar with what it is to have “certainty” in your voice. Practice using a pause to make a point. Raise intonation on what is important.
- At a meeting know your role and where you bring value.
- Listen first. Process what others have to say.
- Introduce...
Three Top Misconceptions That Halt Our Careers
This was me - utterly exhausted as a homeless welfare single mom of four children under seven-years-old, putting on that everything was ok. I felt judged, tired, and inadequate at almost everything. I was edgy, unhappy and anxious that I wasn’t doing enough or being good enough.
Did I make time to take care of myself or remind myself that I am awesome as is with all my imperfections? No way. No time. I just kept surviving and wearing myself down while pretending I was superwoman. I wore busyness like a badge of honor.
As I look back now I see that this treadmill to nowhere left me not only stuck but exhausted. I already had everything I needed to go from food stamps to where I am today - CEO of a $24 million organization, a mom, employee, friend, leader and wife. I just needed to slow down enough to be gentle with myself. I needed to release my need to be perfect which had become a shield for shame. I began to accept that I deserved all that is good and quit...
Thinking About Death
Since my father died a year+ ago I have thought a lot about death - why are we here, my own mortality, suffering, how to maximize each day with meaning and connection. In the end I’ve realized that life is precious and the only thing we are guaranteed is this very moment. When I was early in my career I used to worry about what people thought. Now I try to pay more attention to my own actions and behaviors. That has built my confidence, and efficacy.
I guess for me the point of life is love. To love and to be loved. At work that means being a servant leader and to be revered. Not to achieve or get anything. When I stay in that perspective I feel what it is to live.
WIshing you a vibrant day today.
If you are ready to get off the treadmill to nowhere and have peace, confidence, executive presence, career advancement and high performance in the face of challenges, personal agendas, cynicism and bureaucracy request a free consultation call to see if coaching is a good...
The #1 Step to Get Unstuck
Having gone from being a single parent of four children on welfare, food stamps and medical assistance, homeless and without an automobile to a CEO of a $24 million organization and married to a wonderful man I know a thing or two about evolving versus repeating old patterns. Both are hard.
The difference is that the with latter, the end of the story is familiar yet you deny the truth and feel like a victim when you get to the last page and already knew the ending. With the former you have no idea where you might go, it scares you to death because you don’t want to believe happiness is attainable yet sustainable for fear of being let down. Then you risk openness and release all the assumptions disguised as excuses you used to grasp onto. Here you realize you deserve all that is good and your tory keeps unfolding.
When we repeat old patterns we are stuck. Most achievers tackle being stuck by getting back on the treadmill to nowhere and working harder only to find that not...