Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, shared in a speech that no matter how charmed her life looks, every day she falls short of what she had hoped to accomplish. Then she has to consciously stop her brain from beating herself up for her shortcomings.
She ended by telling us to “Let go of the knife you are holding at your throat, the knife of shame, blame, fear and remorse.”
There was a long, deathly silence as her words hit home.
“Be kind to yourself,” she implored, “especially now. You must give yourself unconditional self-friendship.”
The room burst with applause. Gilbert had shared a simple truth we need to hear over and over again.
How much time do you spend comparing yourself to others, to the successes in your past, and to the dreams that never came true? Is there a way you can stop? (more…)
Does fear paralyze you from achieving your goals? Does it stop you in your tracks and make you reconsider what you are doing?
This is especially true for women who are involved in starting up businesses.
Learn tips and tricks to overcome your fear and embrace your power from Shannon Muruli. Shannon created the Fire Her Personal Power Program as well as the DoItAfraid Challenge and the School of Courage. She works with a number of women to help them conquer their fears and achieve their goals.
TECHNICAL NOTE: We use a video meeting and webinar service called ZOOM to bring you – live! – into our weekly talkshow via audio, video and/or chat. To participate you’ll need to download a small applet to your PC. The downloaded app only takes a few seconds to load and is secure. Learn more about Zoom’s security features.
Interested in taking these concepts deeper? Check out our free coaching resources!” and make free coaching resources!
Guide to Women in Leadership
Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
Over the past few months I’ve been hearing from clients and friends who struggle with a vague sense of dissatisfaction in their lives and careers.
In most cases it’s not too tough to ferret out the source of work-life dissatisfaction; we scan our lives and find that we’re happy in life, but we hate our jobs – or vice versa. But not always. When the dissatisfaction feels less clear, it can mean that we like all the individual things we’re choosing to spend our time and energy on, but overall are still left feeling tired, stretched and stressed. As one of my clients put it:
Women’s relationship to power is fascinating. I have instigated several discussions about this subject and find the subject rich and deep for women and men alike.
I see powerful professional women in the following very distinct categories viewing power, leadership and success very differently:
corporate mountain climbers – working their way to the top
entrepreneurial freedom fighters – bound and determined to stay free
rock stars – self actualizing out loud and helping others along the way
military pioneers – succeeding in the ultimate man’s world
I find these distinctions hopeful – for women and men. (more…)
No matter what our endeavor, whether we are in the job we love or seeking new opportunities we all seek to create value for those we serve. And yet, so many people involved with worthy ventures and causes don’t get traction because they struggle to say what those around them need and want to hear. Why are you valuable to me?
We see the world through “frames” that limit and define our perspective. Frames organize and contain information, and we build our narratives on these frames. We develop our frames based on our experiences. Frames help us make sense of the world.
Just as we see the world through our own frames, our value lives in the frames through which people see us. Value is relational. Value always involves exchange. Time, money, energy, emotion. We buy certain logos, go to certain restaurants, or hire certain companies, because we get something in return; we get a feeling. We are friends with certain people because they’re fun. We participate in certain clubs because they give us access to enjoyment, connection, or people who can help. And we’re happy to participate in that exchange because we’re getting something we want. The associations and impressions that others have about us form our personal and organizational brands.
When communicating about ourselves and our work, the challenge is to craft messages that clearly state the value of the exchange. Too often, we speak in List-Speak, lists of products and services as well as adjectives that we think describe what we do. And then we punctuate these lists with stories. While I’m a big believer in storytelling to enhance communication, narratives about happy customers or successes alone don’t help you communicate value. (more…)
The life of an entrepreneur can be thrilling. The rush of a big partnership or client win. An award acknowledging hard work. The freedom to make the choices you think are right. Building a business from a thought sketched on a napkin into a revenue generating company.
At the same time, it can be very lonely.
… you often cannot really talk honestly about your business even to your wife, lover, or significant other. They truly cannot understand the unique frisson of terror that many of us wake to every day as we rise to try to methodically slay our individual business dragons.
Any entrepreneur can relate. It’s difficult to share your entrepreneur story because you don’t think anyone will understand it. And most likely – they won’t.
We all sometimes get stuck in our careers – get a little complacent, sometimes stuck, sometimes we just don’t see a different way to get what we want. Or from a different perspective, we simply forget what we want.
For this discussion, Mary Schaefer will be joining us again to discuss how to set a career intention for the coming year. We’ll be talking about what goes into a career intention, why it’s important, why we all need to reconsider and refresh our views, and how do we make it happen.
Need help setting your career intention? Check out our Career Center for tools and advice!
It’s a fact, Ladies. The most fulfilling experience of our lives – nurturing little beings into wonderful adults – is statistically killing our careers. At least that’s what the data says.
According to a 2010 study by Michelle Budig and Melissa Hodges of the Social and Demographic Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, “There is a penalty for motherhood across the earnings distribution that persists after inclusion of all variables.” In-other-words, moms at all pay levels make less money and get fewer promotions. And the lower income moms – the ones that can least afford it – pay the highest price. (more…)
Stress can be a powerful and healthy resource. Yes, you heard me correctly – a resource. But wait, stress is bad, stress causes health problems, we all should try to diminish the stress in our daily lives… right? Not exactly. Sure, chronic stress can absolutely be harmful to health and well-being. But not always. When stress is viewed as a resource that is helpful to our lives, it can instead have many surprising and healthy benefits.
How Can Stress Be A Resource?
In everyday use being “stressed” has come to refer to a mind-boggling array of life experiences. Daily pressures like a job, school, caring for a child, juggling family schedules, building a business, and performing under pressure are all labeled “stressful.” But so are financial pressures, health problems, and traumatic loss. Undoubtedly eliminating some of these “stressful” difficulties from our lives would be ideal. But here is the thing: wouldn’t you miss many of these challenges? Think about it. Struggle and stress often go hand in hand with the experiences, people, and things you care about the most. (more…)
Meeting early at the Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington DC, we were strategists behind an international organization representing 160 of the biggest companies and Non Governmental Organization (NGO) nonprofits in the world. The Director, on a trip over from his home base in Switzerland to meet with the Chairman of his Board and two experienced consultants, had a most respected European academic institutions funding his effort and he personally exhibited more brain cells than the rest of the room put together.
The four of us discussed the big question for this organization, the issue of how to launch their organization to the global community – accommodating the various interests of their members in the process.
As we talked and explored the strategies of organizational change, I was struck by how this powerful group danced around the edge of powerlessness. The Director and his Chairman – a woman with decades of experience and deep knowledge of the politics and economics of this field – listed on their website some of the most recognized and powerful brands in the world as paying members. And yet, our discussion revolved around the “tyranny of minorities,” two groups whose divergent positions threatened to stalemate the organization – either diluting or halting the launch. (more…)
