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This past year was one of profound change for me. The biggest impact was the loss of my father. If you’ve lost a parent or other loved one, you know what I am talking about. All through his illness, I kept wondering if he would get better as he had so many times before. The doctor told us there was no cure for his condition and it would gradually get worse. It was difficult to talk about and we kept hoping the doctor would be wrong.
It seemed like we were slogging through life, relishing the good times and fearing the times he would be back in the hospital and might not come home. Eventually, his disease got worse and he died. Toward the end, when it was evident his health was not improving, we began to have the conversations about death and dying and what it would be like without Dad. I had many treasured one-on-one conversations with my father about life, death and what happens when we die. Six months later we still miss Dad and life is different without his presence, his wisdom and his gentlemanly manners.
No doubt you’ve been through periods of change and transition as well. Moving for a job or for family reasons, loss of a loved one, loss of a job, divorce or even happy transitions like having a baby or a promotion at work can rock your world.
When I look back over the changes in my life including living in over 20 residences (my husband was in the Air Force,) many jobs, raising a family, living in six states and one foreign country to name a few transitions, I realize that part of going through change has built resilience and optimism about the future in me.
There are two important things to do during change and transition to help you build resilience and a sense of optimism and help you minimize the stress that can accompany transistion:
1. Acknowledge that you will experience all types of feelings. Talk about them with people you trust. If it is uncomfortable to talk about them publicly, then write them down in a journal so you can process them as they occur.
2. Find some quiet time every day to reflect, recharge and reconnect with your inner guidance, whether that is through prayer, meditation, journaling or simply taking a nap.
Whether you welcome the change or it is a transition that you have no choice about, you will increase your ability to stay composed and focused during difficult times in your life with these practices.
Yesterday while I was coaching a group of leaders, a man named Shawn shared part of his inspiring story.
The group was working on a team-building activity that seemed impossible to get done in the time frame that would net them the most points.
Shawn spoke up. “This is doable,” he began. The team wasn’t convinced so he continued. “Until 2009, I only had an eighth-grade education. I’ve learned that if there is something I want, I put my mind to it and focus on on it, I can reach my goals.”
Shawn received his GED two years ago and is continuing to grow in his career, having recently been promoted to a supervisory level. He has his sights set on a position within his company that he would like to achieve.
During a break, I talked to him more about his journey to overcome his difficult circumstances. He said, “There’s so much to the story, so many things I’ve overcome that I didn’t share. I’m not finished yet with what I want to do. Next I want to get my college degree.”
Shawn didn’t start out his career with many of the credentials, tools and abilities that most of us have. He does have spirit, heart, courage and focus and a passionate willingness to learn. And he also asks a lot of questions and is lucky to have mentors to support him.
Shawn believes that what he wants to achieve is doable.
The next time you are faced with a challenge that doesn’t seem like it can be solved according to your parameters and what you think is possible, I encourage you to think of Shawn and remind yourself that it is doable.
Then your job is to ask yourself, “How is this doable?” Be prepared for creative solutions to emerge and forge ahead knowing that a good solution is possible.
As a human being, you most likely want to be happy and love life. Loving your life is a high state from which you can create more opportunities, be healthier and have a greater sense of connection to all those around you. In the natural cycle of life, you will also have times where you are discouraged or unhappy. However, by identifying and focusing on what you value, you can love your life all the time, no matter what the circumstances and bounce back more quickly from the discouraging times.
I’m going to present a shift from a traditional view of values such as honesty, integrity and responsibility to a view of values that can dramatically increase your happiness and your attitude to loving your life.
Take a few minutes to define what you value. These can be behaviors like self-expression or getting things done or attributes like being fair or treating people with respect.
For example, how you treat anybody is how you treat everybody. You can increase your happiness in life by aligning how you think about people with how you treat people (remember you are ‘people’ too) whether it is your employees or co-workers, friends or clients or employees at the grocery store.
To love your life even more, ask yourself, “What do I value?”
This may seem obvious or it may seem like a difficult question to answer, so let’s explore this.
One of the aspects of loving your life is to live congruently with what you value. This type of value often reflects behaviors or attitudes you want to model or move toward. In order to learn what you value, notice what you feel drawn toward over the next week or two. For example, if you’ve always wanted to take art or writing lessons, you probably value creativity and self-expression.
If you volunteer frequently, you probably value contribution, sharing or social connections or all three.
Focus on what is important to you. Make a list of those things you value, like creating value at work for your business or employer, spending time with family and being healthy. Once you start to identify what is important to you and what you value, you will want to have more of those people and activities in your life.
If your inner voice has been nudging you to take writing classes for example, ask yourself why. Is it because you want an outlet to express your creativity or a forum to write your opinions? Either way, by doing more of what you value, you will love your life more.
“Live your values, love your life,” means that you make choices that are in alignment with what you value. When you live in alignment with your personal truth and mindfully incorporate what you value into your life, you give your best in every situation. You leave nothing on the table.
Loving your life comes from aligning your actions with your values, dreams and beliefs. Going against your values, dreams and beliefs causes stress and dissatisfaction. When you focus on what is important to you, you will be more successful, attract more opportunities, be healthier and love your life.
Kathy Garland specializes in translating challenges into opportunities that result in business and personal growth. She speaks frequently on business growth and leadership topics. Join her conversations on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
This week’s tip on communicating your ideas effectively is to talk to your stakeholders and supporters when you want to promote an idea. When web sites first started to be used as a marketing tool, I was a VP of Business Development for a creative firm. My common sense and feeling was that we needed to jump in early to get our name out there as the need for web sites grew.
I remember having a lot of conversations about the strategy and direction of the company. Would people really use web sites and the Internet as much as the media was suggesting? The owners had recently decided to invest a good portion of design time to a multi-media project for a popular art museum so our resources were stretched at the time.
However, I was certain we needed to move into web development and add to the services our company offered. To gain support, I talked to everyone. I talked
Gain agreement for your idea
to the company owners and my peers on the management team. In addition, I visited the creative people and heard their opinions. We talked about this in meetings and I discussed the strategy and approach in individual conversations.
People had varying opinions, however I wouldn’t give up. In general, the people I worked with were very open to new ideas. The web design idea was so new though, we risked putting resources into an area that we didn’t know would work or not.
Fortunately, the company was enough of a risk-taker that we put together a presentation and we talked to anyone who would listen. We were the first design company in town to carve out a position and promote our web design services so quickly our name was in the ring for consideration when companies wanted a web site. Not long after that we were invited to propose our services to one of the largest financial services companies in the country. We won the business!
Taking time to communicate your ideas with your stakeholders and with your supporters will benefit your career and very possibly contribute to the bottom line.
Here are some steps you can take to make this happen:
- Identify your key supporters and those you trust.
- Identify key stakeholders – those involved in the decision area of your idea.
- Have casual, unscheduled conversations.
- Schedule meetings one-on-one to discuss your idea.
- When you feel you are gaining support and interest for your idea, schedule a meeting with the decision-makers to present your idea.
- Be enthusiastic. This helps people tune in to your message.
Kathy Garland specializes in translating business challenges into opportunities that result in business and personal growth. She speaks frequently on business growth and leadership topics. Join her conversations on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Last week I promised you some ideas about communicating your ideas effectively. Over the years, I have presented great ideas poorly and bad ideas enthusiastically. I have slipped brilliant ideas into a conversation so that someone else picked it up and brought it forward (not a habit you want to keep) and other times simple, yet ingenious ideas get implemented immediately.
What’s the secret of getting your ideas across effectively? As in most success habits, there is a formula. And like making a wonderful cake, there are different recipes for success, the points shared in this blog over the next few weeks happen to be ones that have been effective for me.
The point this week is to make sure you schedule or carve out time to present a new idea. Don’t just casually bring up a great idea out of context or it may get lost, someone else may grab it, people won’t understand the significance.
One of the things Steve Jobs does well is present his ideas on a big stage with all the media and the world watching. He makes sure all the stakeholders are present and are ready and excited to hear about his idea.
This YouTube video is a clip of Steve Jobs presentation announcing the original iPhone. Watch how he sets up the grand idea (this is the full version you can watch the first three or four minutes to get the idea.)
This week’s main point is to make sure you have an audience for your idea and ask for or schedule time to present it.
Kathy Garland specializes in translating business challenges into opportunities that result in business and personal growth. She speaks frequently on business growth and leadership topics. Join her conversations on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Are you confidently contributing your ideas?
How often do you contribute an idea for something that could make work life better? Strong leaders make it their business to communicate ideas.
Occasionally a leader will tell me that they when they share ideas, their bosses don’t listen so eventually they quit making suggestions.
This is disheartening. Organizations must move forward with new ideas and new thinking. However, it always takes longer than we want for our ideas to be accepted.
Let’s consider the concept of an idea quotient. Your idea quotient is your score on how many ideas you contribute. A desirable idea quotient is different depending on what field you are in. I worked in a branding and marketing firm for years and we were awarded work based on our ideas, so ideas are rewarded and encouraged.
Some types of work, for example, selling financial services or providing health care, are bound by rules and by the nature of the organizations, it takes longer for ideas to become accepted and work their way through the system. If you doubt that, think about the health care debate that’s gone on for years. People put out new ideas and they get knocked down.
I haven’t created any mathematical models for this (maybe if I had a team of math students…) so this is my theory based on observation and personal experience.
You want your idea quotient high enough so people notice you as a creative and innovative person, but not so high that there are too many ideas to consider and those ideas become a distraction.
One of my strengths is generating ideas. Lots of ideas. It can be a distraction if left unchecked. I have to know when enough ideas are enough and we have what we need to go forward.
When your idea quotient is high, you want to be aware of how you share your ideas and when. In my next post, I will share with you ideas about how to communicate ideas effectively.
Kathy Garland specializes in translating business challenges into opportunities that result in business and personal growth. She speaks frequently on business growth and leadership topics. Join her conversations on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
On Valentine’s Day, we always turn our attention to our hearts and love. Your heart can guide you in ways you would never imagine. Listening to what is in your heart can help you make big leaps in your life and your business.
Trouble is, most people listen to what their heads tell them to do. We’ve learned that for success, it’s best to follow our head.
Yet, the quiet inner voice of our heart can guide us to make better decisions. In the long run, usually we are happier when we listen to and consider what our heart is calling us to do. However, we are so used to listening to our heads and the chatter it creates, that it covers up the powerful voice of our hearts.
Before you think of me as being soft and not logical, the heart actually has its own neurological network, in other words its own brain that creates two-way communication with the brain in your head.
The point is, by listening to your heart’s guidance, you will make stronger connections with people in your network because you’ll not only be a better listener and communicator, you will increase your authenticity and genuine being that connects with people.
You’ll make better decisions if you can listen to your heart’s guidance and then using your hard-wired brain in your head to supply the facts, the decisions, the structure for what’s next.
Here are a few ways I’ve discovered I can distinguish between my head and my heart’s guidance.
When you speak in your head-mode, you are:
- logical
- straightforward
- rational
- factual
- point of view
- judging
- analytical
- and can be fearful
When you are you are speaking from your heart, you are:
- certain
- confident
- warm
- happy
- compassionate
- passionate
- accepting
- able to see a picture of what can be
When you can speak to people with a heart-centered focus, you can hear them much better and they “get” you. Marketing becomes a time of passion and confidence for you.
Go ahead, open up this week and share your passions with someone new, focus on accepting not only yourself, but also those around you.
You’ll be glad you did.
Why should you have a business plan? Your business plan is a strategic blueprint for your business. Even if you are a consultant, a CPA or bookkeeper, an artist or any other type of person marketing yourself and your services, you will benefit from having a business plan.
A business plan is fundamentally a document that outlines how you want to make money and contribute to your clients. If you are looking for funding, you absolutely have to have one.
If you don’t plan on seeking funding, a simpler plan will work fine. It’s important for you to be able to write down exactly what it is you do so you will stay on track. Otherwise, those shiny bright objects will keep appearing and you’ll end up with a lot of distractions instead of focusing on what will bring your business success.
Business plans have a lot of flexibility depending on what you do and offer. The first year you write one it takes a lot more time. Every year after that, you can update and tweak the direction. You’ll also want to update your goals and revenue targets.
It’s most helpful if you start the business planning cycle about October to give you full advantage of time to think through what you want to do the next year. If you haven’t started one for 2011, that’s OK. Get started now and have a goal to complete the plan by the end of February so you can follow it this year.
In your plan, you’ll want to start with outlining
1. What you do
2. How you do what you do
3. Your vision
Your vision is a compelling goal that pulls you into the future. It may not ever be fully accomplished.
Your vision is what you want to affect because you are who you are and you do what you do. It is related to your passions and reflects your heart’s desire, even when it is business-related.
Examples of vision can be related to the change you want to see happen because you do what you do.
Vision can be as simple as one of my client’s whose vision is to make sure her family is in a good financial position when she retires.
Another client’s vision has a vision of changing the integrity of the industry she is in. Her standards are much higher than some others in her field.
You could also have a vision related to the world or children. Your work can support movement toward your vision or it can be a personal vision that drives you because with part of the money you make, you could affect a cause that you are passionate about.
The point is that vision fuels your actions. It’s the overarching intention that keeps you centered and moving forward. You can take action every day toward something related to your vision.
Next week, I’ll share more about what you can do to have a stellar business plan that will support your growth.
Kathy Garland specializes in translating business challenges into opportunities that result in business and personal growth. She speaks frequently on business growth and leadership topics. Join her conversations on Facebook, Twitter, andLinkedIn.
One of the most important assets you have when you market yourself and your services is your reputation and your personal brand.
What do you do to stand out? Are you consistent? That’s an important hallmark in building your personal brand.
Let’s talk about the benefits of having a strong personal brand. When people know you for a specific result, outcome, way of being or their relationship with you, you are more memorable.
Being more memorable gives you an advantage over the many others who are in your same category.
Each person has something unique about who they are or their capabilities. Do you know what is unique about you?
The power in your personal brand is to understand what is different and unique about you that matters to your clients. If you are an expert on food or ancient Greece or social media, it only matters if your desired customers want that or if they have the same interests and passions.
This week, observe people you interact with on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. As you observe them, ask yourself these questions:
- What makes them memorable?
- Is it what they do?
- Is it how they do what they do?
- Is it their personality?
- Is it their client list?
If you find yourself realizing that some people are easily recalled in your memory, ask yourself why that is. What is it about this person that doesn’t stand out.
Be open-minded to what they do to be more memorable or what they don’t do. Find some benchmarks and role models and determine what you can do to be more memorable.
The people who are memorable to me for my business are ones who understand my business opportunities and offer ideas and solutions. They go out of their way to connect me to people and resources that could help.
I’d love for you to join my Market You Mondays community on Facebook and add your comments and ask questions.
Kathy Garland specializes in translating business challenges into opportunities that result in business and personal growth. She speaks frequently on business growth and leadership topics. Join her conversations on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.