Why You Should Know Your Strengths

Third Article in the Series: Passions, Strengths & Values As referenced in the Valentine’s Day message, strengths complement passions in that they help you perform with ease what is necessary to live out your passions. You are given all the tools you need to fulfill your passions; you just have to discover them and learn how to use them. Our human tendency is to focus on what we don’t do so well; perhaps it’s that …

Stating Your Passions

Second Article in the Series: Passions, Strengths & Values If you were asked the question, “What are you passionate about?” how would you answer? Most of us have a difficult time answering the question quickly and coherently. Perhaps you answer “my family” or “my faith” or “my spouse.” Or perhaps it’s golf, wine or another hobby or interest. Stating our passions is challenging for a couple of reasons: (1) most of us haven’t invested the …

Valentine’s Day – A Day for Passion

First Article in the Series: Passions, Strengths & Values Let’s talk about your passions! Or at least begin the conversation. You are now ready to embark on the next step in creating the life of your dreams. In this next series of messages, you will uncover your passions, get to know your strengths and identify your values. These three things – passions, strengths and values – undergird all that we do. Unfortunately, we don’t give …

Anticipation

2012 is wrapped up with a pretty bow now that you have reflected on the year. What did you learn from that reflection? How will it inspire your 2013? This time of year brings about much talk around goal setting, resolutions, year-end planning and strategy sessions. Companies on a calendar year wanted our budget requests months ago. Those in a business development or sales position are being asked for production goals for next year. As …

Disappointed — But Not Defeated

Things don’t always go the way we would like. As the election results rolled in on November 6th, I went to bed with high hopes that the newscasters would be proven wrong in their projections. Alas, it was not so. Generally a happy person, I spent most of Wednesday in dismay that the next four years would look much the same as the previous. As a small business owner, I have great concern over the …

He’s Back!

Usache returned home to Solstice Farms on October 8th after his intensive training with Dan Keen near Round Top, Texas. For new readers, Usache is an 11 year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding horse and he and I train in the sport of Dressage. Earlier this year, it became apparent that Usache and I need training outside of our discipline of dressage. Usache lacked confidence and I was not skilled enough in horsemanship to re-instill that confidence …

Inspired Thinking

I’ve been sharing with you some of my Thinking Strategically. We all know we should make time for this on a regular basis, but how does it come to be? How do you unwrap some of your best thinking “on-demand”? How about not thinking about it at all? Let’s see what we can draw from a recent experience. I had the grand privilege to travel with my Mom to Italy for 19 days in September. …

Thinking Strategically

Recent messages have focused on the need to identify our purpose and establish priorities to better manage our time and move toward our objectives and goals. Yet if we haven’t defined our purpose, it is challenging to set priorities! So here’s a peek into how I approach the process. I recently invested about 3 hours to clarify my thoughts, i.e., my purpose, around my business. Below is a photo of the beginnings of the process. …

Tools to Uncover your Purpose

Last week’s message attempted to make the case that knowing your purpose in life is key to winning the time management battle. Time management is challenging for most of us as we have not identified our purpose and priorities. How can we expect then to make the best use of our time if we don’t know what is most important to us? Step away from your everyday life and invest time in knowing your purpose. …

No Horse, No Course

Have you noticed?  There haven’t been too many stories of the horse in recent months.  Regular readers have come to know my horse Usache and the life lessons I learn in my attempts to become a better rider and horse owner. For Usache and me to continue our progress up the levels of dressage, we needed some instruction beyond just dressage.  Much like our lives, if we are too focused on one element, the rest …

Ties That Bind

A recent message dealt with letting go of the past and a sentimental tie to a pitcher we had received as a wedding gift and had never used.  We faced a much greater obstacle when resolving what to do with the baby grand piano that occupied a significant portion of our living area.  Not only was the obstacle physically large, it had significant family ties.  Could we let go of it? The piano had been …

Acceptance or Action?

An actionable idea on deleting a toleration may be choosing to do nothing about it.  Does that surprise you?  Just because we are putting up with something does not mean that we have to take action.  Awareness and acknowledgement of the toleration may be all that is needed for its influence to diminish. Other tolerations are simply a fact of life, so while we may be limited in the action we can take, we do …

Deleting Tolerations

So how many tolerations did you end up with on your list?  5, 10, 50, 100 or more? When I first began the work of identifying my tolerations, the list was short…only 4.  I wasn’t used to looking for tolerations and I had a difficult time seeing them.  I lacked awareness and had an attitude that I did not put up with much.  Me, tolerate something?  Never!  I deal with things and move on.  Yes, …

Tolerating Tolerations

A more elegant word for the focus of last week’s newsletter, What Are You Putting Up With? is “tolerations”. A toleration is a condition that is allowed to exist even though it drains our energy. Think about the things that you put up with:  a wardrobe that doesn’t fit or complement; children who do not pick up toys or clothes; a spouse who insults or ignores you; a job you hate. Put up with these …

What Are You Putting Up With?

Last week’s newsletter addressed the face of change and how the pace of it can be much more gradual than reality TV portrays. The same applies to our realization that something in our lives needs to change. At times, it is a “slap in the face”; a wake-up call that something has got to change and change now. At other times, it is like the frog placed in a pot of warm water that is …

The Face of Change

After peering in our mirror and realizing we are the agent for change in our life, what does change look like? We are all familiar with the face of dramatic change. It peers at us every night from our flat screen TV’s. Hmmm…isn’t it interesting how televisions are becoming more like mirrors? Reality TV has brought dramatic change to our living room, and with it, the possibility that our lives can undergo such a radical transformation …

Know Your Own Strength

This series of messages started in late February with True to You.  In that message, I shared that many of us have not yet figured out who we are and our contribution to the world.  Instead our head is full of “what other people think”.  As you explore being True to You, you will find different tools are helpful at various times in the process.  Here is another for your consideration. Most of us find …

Getting Lucky

The informational interviews were some of the most important work that I did in exploring career options in Tokyo.  It wasn’t just the volume of notes that I took, or the things that family and friends shared.  It was me, learning about me, practicing and trying on new roles, verbalizing my experience and strengths in the informational interviews I conducted. As a result of one of the letters I wrote, my father-in-law arranged an introduction …

Preparation and Opportunity

Last week I wrote about informational interviews of two kinds:  (1) with professionals whom you admire and respect for their career endeavors and (2) with people close to you about what you do exceptionally well.  For a variety of reasons, people tend to dismiss the importance of each of these types of interviews.  Let me make the case for both. In 1994, my husband and I relocated to Tokyo for his position.  Given that Tokyo …

Is It Time For You To Choose A Coach?

You continue to hear about friends and colleagues enlisting the support of a coach to help grow their businesses, enhance careers or make a change in their personal lives.  What is all this talk about?  What is coaching and how could a coach help you?  Where do you find a coach?  This article will help answer these questions and provide an outline on what to look for in a coach, as well as resources to …