by Guest Author | Oct 22, 2014 | Coaching Advice, Personal Mastery
Details! Details! Sometimes rising in the ranks – to work with leaders and BE a leader – is a fine balance between understanding details and letting them go. Mary helps us walk this line by looking at world-class leaders, and at herself. – InPower Editors
[Tweet “Details matter. It’s worth waiting to get it right.-Steve Jobs”]
I know nothing about cars. When I bought my first car at 40, I went to buy a car like I buy everything else – I started my search online, just to browse. I called one of my friends who knows a lot about cars and asked him which brands should I look at if I wanted a high-quality, moderately priced new or used car. I continued searching online to see what was available. I talked to some friends who owned Mini Coopers and Volkswagens, and luckily got to drive a Ford Focus as a rental to get experience with it.
I found a used car online that I liked – a little red Mini Cooper Convertible. At the dealer, I test drove the car, liked the experience, and then purchased. I didn’t really know what I was looking for in a car. I based my decision on looks, quality, guarantees and warranties.
About 6 months later I had a problem with my engine. What should have cost $5,000 cost me only $500 because I bought a Pre-owned Certified Mini Cooper and the extended warranty. Sure, the problem probably could have been avoided if I knew more about how cars worked and looked under the hood before I bought it, but I knew that I had no car knowledge, so I had to compensate for that by getting a quality product with guarantees.
Any time I make a decision that involves money – personal or work-related – I try to fully understand what I am getting into, which means that I need to understand the details.
And if I don’t understand the details – or don’t have time to learn what they are – I either:
- trust someone’s advice
- make decisions that cover my lack of knowledge
[Tweet “Is leadership is about having vision & letting go of the details? v @mfbrodie”]
We have been led to believe that leadership is about having a vision and letting the team get into the details. But if you don’t understand how something works, how can you decide to change it? How can you make the best decisions to make a difference? How do you make your vision real if you don’t understand how things work?
The irony is that some of the most successful leaders of our time were obsessive about the details to the point they were considered micromanagers. Steve Jobs is an example. In his New York Times article “What Makes Steve Jobs Great,” Joe Nocera detailed not only Jobs’ visionary genius but also his quest for perfection. The iPhone glass story is a great example of a visionary leader getting into the details to make success. Steve tested the phone to see how it worked for daily use and found that the plastic was getting scratched. He found that unacceptable. He demanded the face be changed to glass to make it a better product experience.
Sure, one could say he was being a stickler for details. You could also say he was obsessed with quality. However, you could say that he was obsessed with the details because he wanted his product to succeed. If he didn’t use that iPhone and didn’t get into the details of the glass face and the manufacturing, he wouldn’t have made that decision to use glass. Subsequently, the iPhone design wouldn’t have dominated the market as it has today.
Perfection can hinder a business, especially if a team gets too caught up in process details. However, there is a different type of perfection and detailed understanding that leaders need to have intuitively to run an effective team – and that’s the ability to know how to get to the right information to make the right decisions for success.
Lesser known Robert Nardelli, CEO at XLR-8, has similar views. He said:
In fact, it’s the details that help you do what you do! I am extremely detail oriented, with an almost childlike level of inquisitiveness, and those traits have served me well. The practice has allowed me to not just accept the 40,000-foot response to a 1-foot question. Don’t Give Me the High Points. I Want the Details.
I think there has been confusion about executives not wanting to hear the details and just getting a high-level picture. I have often been asked question that are very detailed by executives who want to understand how something really works. I think most executives just want your recommendations with facts to back them up. They want—and need—your counsel because they can’t dig into all of the details all of the time by themselves. And they understand that they can’t make accurate decisions without having all of the facts.
And it makes sense—how do you know which steps to take if you don’t fully understand the situation you are facing?
You don’t need to know everything personally—I didn’t know much about cars to get a car that was reliable and stylish—but I needed to know enough to ask people questions, know how to research, know my weaknesses, and find ways to cover them. Steve Jobs did that with the iPhone. I’m sure Robert at XLR-8 does that as well. That is getting into the details—and that’s key to making any decision.
by Guest Author | Oct 21, 2014 | Across Generations
How many times do you react without thinking and wish you’d had the ability to stop and choose your response more intentionally? Don’t feel alone if you said “too many times!” Sameer gives some great advice and perspective on this all-too-common challenge to developing your personal power in the world. – InPower Editor
One of the great gifts of my training as a martial artist has been the cultivation of conscious choice. By this I mean my ability to choose my response in a given situation versus react to it. This is one of the hardest and most rewarding disciplines to develop both on and off the mat. We all have physical and mental habits that we’ve developed over a lifetime that are triggered when faced with a particular stimulus. Martial artists spend years developing the awareness and subsequent physical response to choose how they respond to an attack rather than react to it. A typical reaction when faced with an attack would be to tense-up, hold your breath, and resist. This is normal. Our body’s fight or flight response of the sympathetic nervous system kicks in to keep us alive. We are hard wired to do this in cases of extreme life or death situations like when our cavemen ancestors had to fend off a hungry saber toothed tiger. I can’t remember the last time I had to fend off a saber-toothed tiger, but circumstances in our daily lives seem to get the best of us and cause these same survival instincts to hijack our ability to choose. So if a part of us is hard wired to react as a survival mechanism, then how do we override this?
First, realize that you always have a choice. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Vicktor Frankl states that, “everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”[1] Whether I counter my opponent’s punch with a throw, or my contractor’s tardiness with rebuke, I can always choose. Sometimes my choices in the moment aren’t the most effective. I could have used my attacker’s force to throw him rather than hold my ground and get hit. Had I asked my contractor why he was late, I would have found out that he was in the hospital with his father who is terminally ill. Instead, I chose to be angry with him and dismiss him as irresponsible. In these situations, I didn’t choose. I reacted. So what’s the difference?
Personal Power Tip: How to Respond Instead of React – Click To Tweet
To me, the fundamental difference between a reaction and a response is a conscious choice. A reaction is a reflex born out of habit. A response is a conscious choice born out of being present and aware in the moment. In his book, Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power, Peter Ralston eloquently describes this difference:
A response is born of calm mind and sensitive awareness. It is accurate and emerges from a state of equilibrium and balance. It is not locked or forced and occurs spontaneously with no fear, desire or consideration, but with great intelligence and “in-tunement”. What is needed and appropriate simply occurs.
A reaction is born of urges and tendencies, and of unconsciousness, separative viewpoint, and unstable mind. It is oppressed by fears, desires, and considerations prior to and following its appearance. When it occurs, it is a blind thrashing of the unconscious tendency toward protection. Reaction is contractive in nature. It is a withdrawal of sensitivity and relational awareness to act, often in a negative fashion, in an attempt to solve or end (destroy) the apparent source of immediate danger or dilemma. There is no participation in or responsibility for that act, and no real sense of what is appropriate.[2]
The somatic results of a reaction and a response are also different. When we respond to a situation with the qualities that Ralston describes above, we are calm, centered, aware, and open. Our breathing is natural, full and deep. Our muscles are relaxed and supple and our skeletal structure is in alignment. Our body is not fighting with gravity to keep it aligned and balanced. The body can move with ease and generate power with effective motion as needed. Ironically, the appropriate action or answer “simply occurs”. This is synonymous to what artists and athletes refer to as “flow” or being “in the zone”. Spontaneous, creative and appropriate action arises because we get out of our own way.
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Recall a time when you were able to truly respond to a situation. This may be difficult because you did it with such ease that it seemed natural and un-impressive; almost forgettable. Such is the feeling of a genuine response. It’s done with such ease and spontaneity that it seems too easy. It may even leave you surprised by your own ability. Your response allowed the appropriate action or outcome to arise. When we react, the body feels and moves differently. Muscular tension, shallow breathing, physical discomfort and even pain can arise, and are usually driven by the emotions of fear and anger. We have to physically and mentally work harder to produce, ironically, a less than optimal result. This is the exact opposite of flow or being in the zone.
The body doesn’t lie. It is a tool to understanding our thoughts, and emotions that motivate out actions. The next time you catch yourself reacting, look for the physical clues. They will all refer to your reactive behavior. In that moment, STOP and BREATHE! When you truly respond, you realize that there is no saber-toothed tiger to fight.
Check out the resources in the InPower Coaching EQ at Work and Soft Skills Research Index.
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[1] Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 3rd ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1984), 75
[2] Peter Ralston, Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power, 2nd ed. (Berkley, California: Blue Snake Books, 1999), 47
My experience as a martial artist, yogi, and athlete has made me not only a more effective businessman, but also a better person in other areas of my life. From the first day I stepped foot in the Aikido dojo or on my yoga mat to now, I have witnessed a profound change in myself. Over 20 years, the fearful, self-doubting, stressed-out, defensive, and egotistical me was kicked, punched, thrown, stretched, and bent into a more fearless, confident, calm, centered, and empowered person. Have I arrived? Am I a self-actualized being with no more fear, worry, doubt, and anger? Absolutely not! Like you, I face these challenges every day. But my training and experience has shown me a better way to face these challenges and achieve my goals. Visit Sameer’s website.
by Dana Theus | Oct 16, 2014 | Across Generations, Career Development, InPower Women Blog, Work-Life Blend
No matter how much “flexibility” we get in our office, we all struggle to get it all done in our worklife. This cross generational video discussion takes a look at the realities of worklife “blending” from the employee’s and employer’s point of view, and gives us all some tips. Join the conversation in comments! – InPower Editors
Last month, I moderated a great video discussion with Anne Loehr, leadership consultant, and Jasmine Watts, Editor of Miss Millenia Magazine about the reality of worklife blending across generations. It was a great discussion! Watch below and if you’d like to join in our next conversations about Women and Negotiation and Women in Leadership, register for the series!
Here are a few highlights from our discussion:
- There are generational differences in how we manage our worklife, but there are – maybe more importantly – differences in how we define “success”.
[Tweet ” The beauty of being an adult is doing what you want when you want. via @missmillmag”]
- We all owe some gratitude to the millennial generation for helping make “purpose” a definition of success.
- Trust and integrity are the keys to making worklife blending effective.
- Expanded definitions of worklife blended success make it more “ok” not to climb the ladder and still be seen as successful.
- Companies should start small and grow, don’t go all or nothing when it comes to flex policies. (But companies like Virgin and Netflix are taking it all the way “no vacation policy!”)
- Tips for managing worklife blending: communicate, let go of guilt, meet your deadlines, master your calendar.
A few things we didn’t get to talk about – leave your thoughts in comments:
- Is there a downside to worklife blending when it comes to climbing the ladder?
- What kind of metrics should matter for companies implementing flexibility policies?
- Is technology helping or hurting?
Register for the series to receive reminders to join us live for future broadcasts!
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center as well as the InPower Coaching EQ at Work and Soft Skills Research Index.
by Guest Author | Oct 15, 2014 | Coaching Advice, Personal Mastery, Work-Life Blend
No more midlife crisis! In Power Women’s series, “Finding Purpose in Your Fabulous 40’s” will get you unstuck and loving life. In this second video, Carin Rockind, founder of #ThisIs40, the movement for women to feel free and fabulous, unveils her 4 step process to live your unique purpose. It all gets down the the #1 key about language and then the 4 steps: NNCC. Watch this to “find” your purpose and finally live it!
by Dana Theus | Sep 24, 2014 | Coaching Advice, Personal Mastery, Work-Life Blend
Sometimes we feel yanked around by our work—our life—or both. We can’t get on top of the pile. We can’t even stop to catch our breath. The list of stuff we’re not doing crushes the list of stuff we’ve accomplished. We can’t breathe and feel helpless and out of control. All this means is that we’ve forgotten to deploy the basic process of control: plan, do, adjust, review, repeat.
Remember when you learned to ride a bike? That first hill was terrifying until you went down it, practiced using the breaks and stopped to rest and look back up the hill when you were done. Then you wanted to do it again!
Being in control is an illusion and we all know this, but that first bike ride taught us how to maintain a practical sense of control that can keep us from getting overwhelmed. (more…)
by Dana Theus | Sep 11, 2014 | Career Development
We all have those times where we feel out of control and overwhelmed. Instead of getting upset about it, and even more anxious, Dana reminds us that some simple lessons we learned as a kid can help us get back on top of our schedule and—more importantly—our energy. – InPower Editors
Sometimes we feel yanked around by our work—our life—or both. We can’t get on top of the pile. We can’t even stop to catch our breath. The list of stuff we’re not doing crushes the list of stuff we’ve accomplished. We can’t breathe and feel helpless and out of control. All this means is that we’ve forgotten to deploy the basic process of control: plan, do, adjust, review, repeat.
Remember when you learned to ride a bike? That first hill was terrifying until you went down it, practiced using the breaks and stopped to rest and look back up the hill when you were done. Then you wanted to do it again!
Control is an illusion and we all know this, but that first bike ride taught us how to maintain a practical sense of control that can keep us from getting overwhelmed.
- PLAN: You stood at the top of the hill and planned your path down the hill to avoid the potholes you could see. You imagined what you’d do when you got near the pothole you knew about, reminding yourself to use the breaks along the way.
- DO: You actually road down the hill.
- ADJUST: You practiced using the breaks softly and a bit harder and adjusted your path again when you saw a new pothole you didn’t expect.
- REVIEW: At the bottom, you looked back up the hill to enjoy your accomplishment and decided to try it with fewer breaks the next time while steering even further away from the potholes.
- REPEAT: You walked your bike back up the hill and did it again!
Pretty soon riding a bike was a piece of cake and you never felt out of control again on the hills.
Nowadays, when you feel overwhelmed and out of control in your life or your work, you’re just zipping down the hill without stopping to plan your route, use your breaks or adjust along the way.
So pull over.
Take the time to get perspective.
Give some work to others.
Make an appointment with yourself to review your results and get perspective again. Do it daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually and you’ll wonder how you ever let yourself get so overwhelmed before.
No one can ride your life for you and learn to master the hills coming on your journey, except you.
INVITATION: One of the most important skills to keeping from becoming overwhelmed is to learn to delegate, which is this month’s InPower Coffee Break topic. Join us! Register or login.
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
by Guest Author | Sep 10, 2014 | Emotional Intelligence at Work, People Skills, Women in Leadership, Working Moms
Mastering Self-Efficacy Helps Smooth Out the Bumps in Life
“Self-efficacy: The belief that one has mastery over the events of one’s life and can meet challenges as they come up”
Self-efficacy is the most important part of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) that a Working Mom needs to master. Let me give you a scenario. You have your career plan. You mapped out the milestones you’ll reach. You are in the race and keeping a pace where you are pushing yourself slightly out of your comfort zone, but you feel good. You’re doing great. Then you become a Working Mom. You had heard stories about mommy tracking and opting out but you have a plan. You are in a leadership role because of it. You are the breadwinner–abandoning the plan is not an option.
So your life starts to get a bit bumpy. You feel a bit shaken from choices that you are forced to make, like choosing work over family and vice versa. However, you have faith in your career plan and stick to it. Then it starts to get really bumpy. This wasn’t something that you had planned or predicted. You want to stick to the plan you love so much but you need help. You need something you can rely on so that you can have self-efficacy. Once you have mastered self-efficacy, the bumps are manageable. You have your tremendous support system and your awesome plan but what else can you depend on?
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Understanding Emotional Intelligence and learning how to strengthen it is your way to self-efficacy. From Daniel Goleman’s book, “Emotional Intelligence Why It Can matter More Than IQ”, here’s what Emotional Intelligence is all about:
- Knowing your emotions
- Managing your emotions
- Motivating yourself
- Recognizing emotions in others
- Handling relationships
Stick to the Plan By Using Emotional Intelligence
Once you become a mother you are blindsided with many intense emotions. Yes, your priorities change, but your values do not. A part of your core being created your values and when you were your #1 priority you created your awesome career plan. So how you combine two “loves” in your life depends on how well you use your Emotional Intelligence.
Using Emotional Intelligence will lead to your career success and happiness about life in general. Although life is a bit bumpy as a Working Mom it will serve you well, and the people around you, to focus on your emotions and others. People, meaning co-workers and children, want a leader who has their life together; who are making it work. Practicing Emotional Intelligence will make you a great leader and Mother.
5 Tips to Strengthen Your Emotional Intelligence
To help you get started today on strengthening your Emotional here are 5 tips:
- Name emotions when you feel them. There is no sweeping emotions under the rug for the sake of time and/or efficiency. At some point your emotions will surface again so it’s better to deal with them by naming them in the present moment than letting them build up and affect your mood and performance later.
- To manage your emotions ask yourself “Is it true?” Byron Katie’s book titled, “Loving What Is” asks four questions to help deal with reality. Asking “Is it true?” helps you see what is the true reality. The things we worry about may not be based on reality. Instead it’s based on our thoughts about reality. The other three questions are: “Can you absolutely know that it’s true?”, “How do you react when you think that thought?”, and “Who would you be without this thought.”
- Believe in hope! You will figure things out and then when you do your road will smooth out. The occasional bump in the road won’t always send you off course and you will stay the course. Being optimistic attracts people, including your children. When our emotions are not out of control you feel hopeful. You are able to think clearly. When you believe that you can travel this path, challenges become less and less.
- Be aware of other people’s bumpy journeys. Everyone has battles of their own that we are unaware of. By practicing empathy, toward co-workers, managers, children, significant others, daycare providers, people will remember how you made them feel not the words you said. This builds trust, informal networks, a stronger community and family.
- Get out and get social. Take time to invest in your relationships. We grow by connecting with others. Our social calendar can suffer the busier we get with our family and professional responsibilities. It’s very easy for friendships to go by the wayside both personally and professionally, especially when dealing with bumpy roads. This is a time when you should reach out, not go within. Remember others have their own challenges and you can help by being social.
Self-Efficacy Is the Goal
Strengthening your Emotional Intelligence will build up your self-efficacy. The more responsibilities that pile up the more important self-efficacy becomes. As a bonus, Emotional Intelligence will not only help you with your co-workers, upper management, and customers, but it will help with managing the relationships within your own family, especially your children. Lead by example to teach your children Emotional Intelligence. It will make them smarter than any IQ or SAT test can prove.
Now we’d love to hear from you! How do you think Emotional Intelligence could prevent you from going off course and keep you going with your goals and dreams? Leave a comment below.
BIO: Liz is a Certified Professional Coach who coaches Working Moms to ignite their Mommy Energy as well as overcome their Motherhood Transition Challenges (MTC). Liz’s love for writing, creativity, and helping others fueled her passion to be an author. Liz first book, “Igniting Mommy Energy”, came out on the first day of summer in 2014.
Curious to learn more about Emotional Intelligence (EQ)? Check out the resources in the InPower Coaching EQ at Work and Soft Skills Research Index.
by Guest Author | Sep 2, 2014 | Leadership
Are you leading a great organization? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Christy gives some great advice about mission statements in this post. They’re more important than you might think! – InPower Editors
Throughout my career I’ve had the privilege of working with several companies and organizations. While each has been a unique experience, there is one thing they all had in common… each wanted to excel. Not just exist, not strive for mediocrity, but to be excellent. I’ve never heard a CEO say, “We should strive to be in the middle of the pack for our industry.” No entrepreneur ever said, “I hope I am okay at this business.” Everyone wants to be excellent! So if excellence is the universal goal why do so few achieve it? What makes an organization excellent and, more importantly, how can you add your organization to the Excellence List?
Before we discuss the traits, let’s quickly define organizational excellence. Most organizations measure success, aka the excellence ruler, in two terms, financial excellence and mission statement excellence. Financial excellence simply means they make a lot more money than they spend. Okay, that is an oversimplification, but you get the idea.
Mission statement excellence means that the organization is meeting or exceeding its stated mission. Seems easy right? Make a lot of money and meet your goals in the process? Well, as my grandmother always said, “If it were easy everyone would do it.” Having had the benefit of working with some excellent and some not so excellent organizations, I’ve learned that the excellent ones share five essential traits.
The first trait is a well understood and accepted mission statement. I am often shocked by the number of employees at every level of an organization who have no idea what the mission of that company is. Most people know what is expected of them, “I turn widget A and push button B,” but they have no idea why or how that affects the larger goal of the organization.
We’ve all heard statements like, “If you don’t know where you’re going you won’t know when you arrive.” Employees make decisions every day that ultimately affect the success or failure of an organization, but how are they going to make decisions that get you closer to your mission (closer to becoming an excellent organization) if they don’t know what that mission is? What possible criteria will they use to determine what choices to make if they don’t know where they should be headed?
The most successful organization I’ve ever been a part of started each meeting with reciting the mission. It reminded us why we were there, what we were trying to achieve, provided a ruler to measure our success, and was the final deciding factor when making decisions (will doing A or B get us closer to our mission?).
[Tweet “The mission statement is the “X” on the treasure map. via @ChristysIdeas”]
Excellent Organizations are full of employees who not only know their mission statement, but incorporate it into their daily professional lives. Other than starting meetings with the mission statement, what else can you do to help your employees act with the mission statement in mind?
- Print the mission statement at the top of each performance appraisal and make sure each factor being evaluated relates to the mission.
- Include the mission statement on every job description and link each duty to part of the mission statement.
- At the end of each meeting review the decisions made and discuss how that decision supports the mission statement.
- Start a “Mission Statement Moment” wall and let employees acknowledge times they saw their co-workers act with the mission statement in mind.
The mission statement is the “X” on the treasure map. The better your employees understand what that X is and how their day to day work affects the organization’s movement towards X, the better they can help the organization achieve excellence. While we prepare to discuss the next trait of Excellent Organizations, please share some of your mission statement stories. What experiences have you had with a highly successful, well understood mission? What downsides have you noticed when either the mission isn’t clear or the work of each position don’t’ support that mission?
View my upcoming posts for the next 4 traits of an excellent organization.
by Guest Author | Aug 27, 2014 | Coaching Advice, Work-Life Blend
We don’t think of ourselves as frogs in boiling water very often, but Andria reminds us how often this is the case. Take care of yourself, my friends. Read this to remember why life balance is so very important to you. – InPower Editors
After spending 20 years in the work world, I am still trying to crack the nut on having a balanced life. Not specifically “work-life” balance but overall life balance. Work is a part of life so, in my opinion, you can’t really separate it or create specific balance between work and the rest of your life. In my opinion it’s about living a fully integrated life, where you are giving enough time and energy to all the important areas of your life: family, self, career (work), friends, community, and so on. I believe this is an issue that both men and women grapple with but I tend to hear about it more from women. Maybe that’s because we talk about it more or maybe it’s because we are simply trying to “do it all”.
Many clients I work with struggle with creating balance. They spend the majority of their time and energy on their career and the rest of it on family commitments. They don’t feel any sense of balance but instead feel like they are barely keeping up with all their responsibilities. Their priorities constantly shift so some days, weeks and months are more family focused and some are more career focused. But the bottom line is, there is little time for anything else and a common feeling of rushing or trying to keep up with all they have to do. They do not experience many moments of feeling balanced.
I too can be a victim of this. I find myself rushing from one commitment to the next and before I know it another week as gone by and I am still behind on work, connecting with friends, making doctor’s appointments, etc. For many of us, often times this imbalance comes from forgetting the most important piece of the entire “balance” puzzle – you. We are so busy doing and giving ourselves to others and all our commitments that we forget to take time for self-care; that is the missing piece of creating a balanced life.
[Tweet “You’re probably reading this thinking, “I don’t have time for self-care” via @AndriaCorso”]
You’re probably reading this thinking, “I don’t have time for self-care,” and yet this is when it is most essential. We are not designed to work ourselves into the ground or become acclimated to a chaotic environment – our bodies and our minds are not designed to operate this way. I’m sure you’re familiar the experiment that was done a very long time ago with a frog in boiling water? If you put a frog in boiling water it will immediately jump out but if you put it in room temperature water and slowly increase the heat, it will cook to death. That’s what we do to ourselves. We acclimate ourselves to highly intense rushed lives so that becomes the norm – until we get a wake up call of some sorts.
[Tweet “My friends, you don’t have time to not nurture yourself. via @AndriaCorso”]
It is when we are busiest that we need to take time to nurture ourselves. My friends, you don’t have time to not nurture yourself. If you are depleted, how can you give to anyone else? You would be amazed at how a 15-30 minute walk per day or even 15 minutes of journaling or meditating can renew your spirit and recharge your batteries. When you do this for yourself, you approach everything else on your list of things to do with a greater sense of calm and better energy. Self-care is what takes the chaotic rushed feeling out of your days. If you take time for self-nurturing you then approach your to-do list with different energy and actually feel more in control of all you’ve got going on. Self-care gives you back your sense of calm and creates more balance in your life because you are approaching all your commitments with calmer energy; that alone creates more balance in all areas of your life. This is the missing piece to creating the balanced life we all strive for; it’s not about finding time to fit in all your work and “other life” commitments but is about caring for yourself and giving to yourself so you can approach those commitments as a balanced person.
What do you do for self-care? What can you do to take 15-30 min per day to renew your spirit? Try it for two weeks and see if your life feels more balanced; I bet you it will because you, the missing piece, will be more balanced.
by Guest Author | Aug 26, 2014 | Career Development
We tend to think of gratitude as a personal and spiritual practice, not something that belongs at the office. Mary sets us straight and shows us how important being grateful – often and audibly – is to leading collaboratively. Thanks, Mary! – InPower Editors
It was day 2 of helping my friend, Judith, pack for her move. I was going through a lot of changes myself in my work and personal life, and felt defeated. I figured helping her would serve 2 purposes—help her in general and help me get my mind off things.
Judith’s son, Miles, followed her to the door to greet me before we started packing activities. I asked him how he was doing and he responded with complete enthusiasm, “I’m just happy to be alive!” Miles has an extreme form of autism and multiple other health complications. He has been in and out of hospitals since he was three, sometimes his health improving, sometimes declining.
In that moment, I realized I was at Judith’s house for another purpose—Miles taught me what it means to feel gratitude.
World religions and philosophical teachings encourage us to be thankful for what we have in our lives, rather than always asking for more. In the US, we even celebrate gratitude at Thanksgiving. However, the day after Thanksgiving, we immediately jump to think about presents, Christmas and what else we could get in our lives: a new job, a bonus, a promotion.
Shortly after the lesson from Miles, I started reading The Magic. It’s the 3rd installment of The Secret series and it’s about gratitude. Reading it has opened my eyes about the power of gratitude and being thankful for what I already have—and I have experienced how gratitude is the force that builds relationships.
After some reflection, I realized that my life was honestly pretty good, even with all of the current—and past—challenges. I decided to share my gratitude for everyone who has contributed to my life on Facebook. The results were not at all what I expected.
I received comments from people I haven’t talked to in years! I shared with some how hey contributed in a positive way to making my life better. Strained relationships were revisited and turned around in less than 24 hours. I was open and naked online—and it was very well received!
That was when I realized that gratitude isn’t about just giving thanks.
I see [gratitude] as a relationship-strengthening emotion because it requires us to see how we’ve been supported and affirmed by other people.
–Robert Emmons, Greater Good
Gratitude is a gift—an emotional gift that comes from your heart and is sent directly to another’s heart, sometimes coming back to you as a shared gift. It is like an emotional string that ties people together. It’s about sharing your abundant, positive feelings about your dependence, realizing that you are part of a rich, helpful community. Sometimes, you are thankful for people just for being themselves.
It is counterintuitive to practice gratitude at work. We are encouraged by business articles to constantly ask for more—ask for the raise, show what we are worth, assert our personal power. One could say that Western work environments are pretty much ego-driven, focused on individual achievement rather than teamwork. I think this is ironic given that most work environments today are focused on teams dynamics rather than the more traditional individual superstar contributor.
Gratitude goes hand-in-hand with collaborative environments. It’s hard to collaborate with others who don’t value your contributions and you don’t value theirs.
Without my team devoted to getting things done I wouldn’t be able to do anything. My colleagues will often say that it is my leadership skills guiding the team to achieve, but without a group of people with can-do personalities and over-achieving attitudes, achievement wouldn’t happen. I try to tell my team often how grateful I am for their contributions because otherwise, I’d be sitting around, devising strategies and making a lot of sketches and plans that sit on a shelf, getting dusty.
By sharing my gratitude, I am adding emotions to work. Humans are emotional beings and unfortunately at work we tend to check that part of ourselves at the door. We believe work is about achievement, doing, and producing, and emotions are pushed aside because they are about being. But we are human beings. We sometimes underestimate the power of emotions and don’t realize how a small act of gratitude can engage someone’s heart, encouraging someone to achieve the impossible. Some small acts of gratitude could be:
- Giving a complement or providing positive feedback
- Covering work for a sick teammate
- Asking a colleague who is good at something for his or her advice
- Asking the team how to get something done rather than putting a teammate on the spot to do a task
Actions like these build emotional bonds, and bring a team together. It builds trust and creates the foundation for a team to be open and collaborative. It goes beyond engaging individual minds to work towards a goal. Through gratitude, a group will collaborate to create a plan that leverages everyone’s strengths to achieve the goal – there is less of a focus on roles and what someone should do. It’s about possibility of what can be done.
Without gratitude, individuals will still work to achieve a goal, but each person has his own agenda and focuses on roles—or being prescriptive for how people should contribute. It’s less compassionate, less emotional and less productive—it’s about what should happen, tracking the facts.
Gratitude is about sharing and connecting deeply with others and creating bonds that bring individuals together. Shared goals engage people’s minds; gratitude engages hearts. This shift will transform you and the people with whom you share gratitude. Maybe this is why religions and the founding fathers (or was it Lincoln? It’s a little unclear even for Wikipedia) found value in practicing gratitude—at least one day per year, right?
And I almost forgot—Thank you, Miles! I wasn’t the same after you taught me what it means to be grateful.
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