Category: Business

Quotes for Inspiring Greatness

I recently started to think about my presentation from a new perspective. What is it missing? How can I improve my message? I started looking up ways to inspire greatness today and these two resonated with me.

Dale Carnegie:
“Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.”

Ken Kesey:
“You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.”

My husband is often telling the kids what a wonderful mother they have. He compliments me all the time and points out to them the specifics of what makes me great. It often makes me feel uncomfortable (while at the same time I love it)! The discomfort, I believe, comes from my wondering if he really means what he is saying. Or, is it possible, all this time he has been giving me a “fine reputation to live up to”?!! Perhaps it’s a bit of both. Either way, it certainly motivates me to be a better mother and wife so I suppose it’s a win win regardless of how I look at it.

The second quote resonated because while I do a lot of speeches and include a lot of personal anecdotes, I never fully share my personal story with people. When I was rebuilding my website, a friend encouraged me to share more of my story. I’ve been there, done that, seen that with regard to entrepreneurship from a child’s perspective, a spousal perspective and now a personal perspective. I’ve been up. . .  way up and I’ve been down . . . way down. Maybe if I lead by revealing that I’ve gone to “that place” then I will inspire greatness among those who hear my story.

Balance Shmalance: How to cope with work/life pressures

We read about this all the time. 5 tips to greater work/life balance. How to achieve better balance in your life. For those of us who have spouses, kids, households, jobs, laundry, social lives etc. sometimes those terms make us feel like a never ending failure. So is there a secret to “having it all”?

Yes! First of all, stop believing anyone ‘has it all’ all the time. I like to compare work-life balance to an experience we had when my son was 3. He wasn’t thriving. Well, that’s not entirely correct. He was thriving. He was happy and social and active and smart and super duper fun. But he was tiny. He fell off the growth charts. My husband and I aren’t particularly tall, but we’re not super short either. So we were concerned and so was our doctor. He sent us to Stanford for some further analysis. The doctor at Stanford assured us that as long as he continued to progress along the chart, regardless of where he fell (under, above, or right in the middle) he was fine. We went four times over the course of 2 years and, though he was only at the 3rd percentile after our final visit, the doc said all was good. We talked about food intake and he said, “Stop looking at what and how much your son is eating on a daily basis and look at what he is eating throughout the week . . . throughout the month. Is he getting all the nutrients he needs when you look at his intake in chunks of time?”

This is how I look at work-life balance. Some days my family suffers, some days my company suffers, some days I suffer. But from month to month, am I failing at everything or did I give enough to each of my endeavors to keep them happy and moving forward? If so, then I consider it a month well done!Work life balance

What to expect from my 6 session Coaching Practice

My preference is to have my coaching clients commit to at least 6 sessions. Each session may last longer than 1 hour depending on the needs of my clients. The sessions include a significant amount of work outside our discussions from both myself and my clients. Each person will receive their own copy of my workbook.
1. The first component includes:
Talking with each of you individually and creating a vision statement for each of you. This will help me to assess where you are in your personal thoughts and goals for the future before we start to outline a joint vision.
Homework: Complete each of the exercises in the Re-connecting section in the workbook
2. The second component includes:
a. A short individual discussion to review your vision statement and your comfort level with sharing with your partner
b. Discussion about core values and where/how they originated
Homework: Compete the starter questions & Risk tolerance in the Sharing more information section of the workbook
3. The third component includes:
Discussion about how you have decided to share information about the business etc. with each other
Homework: Complete the blueprint (individually and a joint one and the GOAL model for one specific goal. Goal can be for either of you)  in the Shared vision section of the workbook
4. The fourth component includes:
Discussion about your joint goals and your plans to accomplish your goals.
Homework: Complete the 5:1 ratio and love notes in the Deeply appreciating section of the workbook
5. The fifth component includes:
Discussion about how it felt to be truly appreciated, what worked, what didn’t. What made a difference and how did it feel?
Homework: Identify your inner language, and come up with a de-triggering word or phrase
6. The sixth component includes:
Discussion about understanding the way your partner shares information and modeling their mode of communication. Practice de-escalation techniques and ways to express frustration in a more effective and less hurtful manner. Ways to recognize when you are being hurtful and how to apologize/overcome that.
Homework: Complete the other exercises in the workbook. Practice de-escalation and de-triggering words. Join my monthly call. During  date night, use a book like, “My wish for you is _______” to generate discussion topics.
The goal is that by the end of the 6 sessions – you will
1. Have a better idea of more effective ways to communicate with one another
2. Have a clear and direct vision for yourselves as individuals and as a couple looking forward to your future
3. Better understand each others histories which can lead to greater compassion toward perceived flaws and a desire to improve upon said flaws!
4. Have a management tool you can reflect upon when working toward certain future goals.
5. Have a workbook filled with thoughts and ideas that you can re-read whenever you need a refresher.
6. Open the lines of communication regarding a myriad of topics surrounding both personal and business issues.
7. Learn ways to share your thoughts / feelings with your partner in the most compassionate way possible.