Don't Fake that It's Ok
Positivity is a powerful concept but not a strategy. Pretending that you have a positive attitude when it is inauthentic is exhausting. And it doesn’t work. When you can’t get think positive and sustain it even though everyone tells you to be positive you feel worse - another failure.
Honor the hurt. Go deeper with it. Own it. Name it. Blame all you want. Realize the shame. Write about it. Journal about it. Tell someone. Get it out. We can release what we own. When you own your feelings, you can purposely RELEASE the negativity. Otherwise it keeps hanging around.
Next, name what you feel you DESERVE - happiness, career, opportunity, love, friendships, etc.
Open yourself with vulnerability to ACCEPT all that is good and that you deserve. It means releasing the expectation that failure and negativity will continue. Be curious about the process. Yes, it’s scary not knowing how the story will end. But so is a life of negativity.
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This is Attractive
Interview candidates and relationship builders please keep this image message in mind. Show hiring managers genuineness. Demonstrate how you are kind in stories. Give examples of how your loyalty led to a good decision. Talk about the respect you have for a former boss.
Hiring managers and businesses hire for experience and cultural fit. Your character matters but they can’t see the character as easily as they see your experience. You have to allow them to see a glimpse of your soul - what matters to you and how you think.
Show don’t tell. Don’t tell people you’re loyal - that’s your opinion. Show them through a story of how struggled with something then ultimately made a conscious choice. Let them draw their own opinion.
If you like these tips, here's a link to my new FREE eBook - 31 Executive Presence Practices for Leaders in the High Stakes Corporate World >>> https://www.maryleegannon.com/31-success-practices-for-leaders
If...
I Just Want to Be Alone
Recently we took my grandson who was visiting from out of town to the zoo. It gave me the opportunity to witness the simplicity of basic interaction. As humans the very nature of our existence is to interact. Our interconnectedness is crucial to our happiness and well-being. Sometimes I just want to be alone and not have to deal with the bureaucracy, power struggles and personal agendas of work and life. But it is not helpful to feel that way most of the time.
My awareness tells me that in those moments I’m withdrawing because I’ve projected a previous experience on the situation along with my bias. Every moment is a new moment. I’m happier and more effective when I choose to be surprised by what happens. This leaves me completely vulnerable. It’s a little scary not knowing what might occur as opposed to armoring up against my projected outcome. It is uncharted territory to not control how I’ll respond. But it’s more fun to smile than...
16 Big Impact Ways to Give a Gift that Costs You Nothing
If you've been to the grocery store this time of year you know that it is either the holiday season or Armageddon. You're buying things you don't usually use. (When is the last time you bought fresh sage?) You're doing mini makeovers of your home decor. (That old rug never looked so bad.) And you're hoping the discussion at dinner doesn't turn to politics.
I invite you right now to shift your perspective from holiday expectations to what the holiday season is truly about. Love. Yes, Love. Not present giving. Just love. Even at work. It may not be appropriate for you to give a substantively large gift to someone at work. Your time is more valuable than anything you can buy. How will you demonstrate the tenets of love to everyone in your work and personal life? How will you extend compassion, patience, consideration, listening, understanding?
16 Big Impact Ways to Give a Gift that Costs You Nothing
- Offer to help a colleague with a project on which they have been...
Four Career Guideposts for Women
When I made my journey from welfare to CEO four succinct guideposts became crucial to my transformation. Malcom Gladwell said that to master anything you must do it 10,000 hours. The only problem with that is that if you are doing something that doesn’t work – you’ve just become proficient at being stuck.
Guidepost #1: Seek Your Childhood Innocence.
If we go through our lives expecting one challenge after another, that’s what shows up – life becomes a problem to solve instead of being fun like when you were a child and could play outside all night long, catching fireflies and naming stars. We start to adopt messages from experience as truth when they are nothing but interpretations. Soon life is merely solving one challenging interpretation after another. I know this well because I mastered it with what seemed like 10,000 hours.
I was a stay-at-home mother with four children under seven-years-old living what looked on the outside...
Four Key Ways to Have Better Executive Presence
In today’s hiring environment companies are screening not only for experience and attitude but for presence. Competency and grit are not enough. You must also have good internal and external self-awareness and self-regulation. In leadership positions that translates to executive presence.
Executive presence is a sense of being that indicate to others that you know what it takes to lead and be effective. It sends a commanding signal that you know how to harmonize your temperament, confidence, skillset and awareness to get the job done. You know when someone has it. And you know when they don’t. The people who have it are the ones other people look to first.
Can executive presence be developed? Yes - if you have a baseline of self-confidence and a willingness to find ease when dealing with the unpredictable situations at the executive level.
Know What Executive Presence Is
Qualities of Great Executive Presence:
- Curiosity
- Tenacity
- Certainty
- ...
Tips for Women to Bring Value at a Meeting
Women often do two things at meetings:
- Try too hard to be heard and in the process lose their credibility.
- Say nothing and become an nonentity in the conversation.
Both decrease their value. High performing women and men with executive presence have keen self-awareness. They anticipate their emotions, become a third party observer of them and allow them to pass like clouds before the emotions show.
Tips for women at a meeting:
- Watch three YouTube videos of speakers you admire. List what you like about their delivery, presence, voice, intonation, cadence, use of hands.
- Place your phone on a shelf and record yourself speaking. Listen to what you sound like. Observe your presence. Become familiar with what it is to have “certainty” in your voice. Practice using a pause to make a point. Raise intonation on what is important.
- At a meeting know your role and where you bring value.
- Listen first. Process what others have to say.
- Introduce...
Three Top Misconceptions That Halt Our Careers
This was me - utterly exhausted as a homeless welfare single mom of four children under seven-years-old, putting on that everything was ok. I felt judged, tired, and inadequate at almost everything. I was edgy, unhappy and anxious that I wasn’t doing enough or being good enough.
Did I make time to take care of myself or remind myself that I am awesome as is with all my imperfections? No way. No time. I just kept surviving and wearing myself down while pretending I was superwoman. I wore busyness like a badge of honor.
As I look back now I see that this treadmill to nowhere left me not only stuck but exhausted. I already had everything I needed to go from food stamps to where I am today - CEO of a $24 million organization, a mom, employee, friend, leader and wife. I just needed to slow down enough to be gentle with myself. I needed to release my need to be perfect which had become a shield for shame. I began to accept that I deserved all that is good and quit...
Thinking About Death
Since my father died a year+ ago I have thought a lot about death - why are we here, my own mortality, suffering, how to maximize each day with meaning and connection. In the end I’ve realized that life is precious and the only thing we are guaranteed is this very moment. When I was early in my career I used to worry about what people thought. Now I try to pay more attention to my own actions and behaviors. That has built my confidence, and efficacy.
I guess for me the point of life is love. To love and to be loved. At work that means being a servant leader and to be revered. Not to achieve or get anything. When I stay in that perspective I feel what it is to live.
WIshing you a vibrant day today.
If you are ready to get off the treadmill to nowhere and have peace, confidence, executive presence, career advancement and high performance in the face of challenges, personal agendas, cynicism and bureaucracy request a free consultation call to see if coaching is a good...
The #1 Step to Get Unstuck
Having gone from being a single parent of four children on welfare, food stamps and medical assistance, homeless and without an automobile to a CEO of a $24 million organization and married to a wonderful man I know a thing or two about evolving versus repeating old patterns. Both are hard.
The difference is that the with latter, the end of the story is familiar yet you deny the truth and feel like a victim when you get to the last page and already knew the ending. With the former you have no idea where you might go, it scares you to death because you don’t want to believe happiness is attainable yet sustainable for fear of being let down. Then you risk openness and release all the assumptions disguised as excuses you used to grasp onto. Here you realize you deserve all that is good and your tory keeps unfolding.
When we repeat old patterns we are stuck. Most achievers tackle being stuck by getting back on the treadmill to nowhere and working harder only to find that not...