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Tag: relationships

Draft your dream team

As the coach of your life, be sure these players are on your team:

The Mentor – This is a person you respect and admire, someone who’s “been there.” You see their life and think “That’s what I want.” These people remind you to look at the big picture.

An Advisee – Someone you mentor. They are eager to learn from you and respect your work. Your willingness to teach them and spend time with them reaffirms your own knowledge and skills, even reminding you where you’ve come from and lessons you’ve learned along the way.

Your Advocate – No matter what circumstance you find yourself in, you need people who fight for you and honor what you stand for.

Supporting Star – You challenge each other to become the best you can be. You compare notes, support each other, and get competitive when it’s beneficial. This could be a colleague or friend, someone you feel comfortable delegating work to or can trust to help when you unexpectedly head out of town.

A Neutral – This is someone who can provide an outside perspective when needed, a person with no direct investment in your life or work.

The Wildcard – The Wildcard is just that, wild. Someone in an industry completely different than your own, an energy that keeps you on your toes and brings you new ideas and experiences.

The people around you can make the difference between pushing beyond your limits and settling for less. Find those who motivate, inspire, and encourage you to do better.

Modified from this post, March 2013.

You can teach one thing. What is it?

This question is a favorite at dinners. My answer is always the same: Empathy.

“Empathic connection is an understanding of the heart in which we see the beauty in the other person, the divine energy in the other person, the life that’s alive in them.” —Marshall Rosenberg

What is empathy?

Now, more than ever, empathy is an essential teaching. Empathy is:

  • The capacity to consider another’s perspective
  • Learning about another’s worldview to better understand their behavior and intentions
  • Recognizing perspectives and experiences different from your own
  • Trying to minimize the distance between self and other
  • Choosing to “put yourself in their shoes”
  • A prelude to compassion
  • Essential for collaboration, understanding, effective discussions, and conflict resolution

It is our duty to find ways to listen, to converse, and to respond in ways that are respectful of the person sitting across from us. Trouble begins when we are unable to see us in them.

What do you need to practice empathy?

Empathy is NOT sympathy or pity.

We need empathy. We need it in our schools, our relationships, our governments, our businesses. The ability to connect reminds us of our shared humanity. Empathy requires:

  • Self awareness
  • Confidence
  • Openness
  • The ability to listen
  • Communication skills
  • Patience

When empathy is involved, relationships can flourish. Conversations become more meaningful, and solutions focus on what really matters.

Empathic intention influences those around us.

How can you bring empathy into your daily interactions?

Modified from original post Empathy 101.

Assigning meaning

Perspective keeps coming up in Positive Talk sessions. From media articles to family conversations, the meanings we assign to situations, reactions, and words can weigh significantly on our perception and interpretation of the world around us.

This is important for three reasons.

One, we get to choose how we want to interpret a given situation.

Two, we get to decide how important any situation will become.

Three, our choices dramatically impact the way we feel.

Now, more than ever, the definitions we use to understand ourselves, our communities, our cultures, and our world are open to interpretation. Though many of us are “stuck” physically, our minds are free to roam.

Perspective can be the flashlight needed to navigate uncertain, challenging circumstances.

It’s worth taking time to review your own assigned meanings. (And yes, it is possible to edit the meanings we have assigned to ourselves, to others, and to the ways in which we perceive what is happening around — and to — us.)

Each day, we make a series of decisions.

Decisions of worry or freedom. Creation or inaction. Calm or frenzy. Patience or frustration.

Take time to reconsider the meanings you assign.

2 weeks, 30-minute conversations, good things only

Every day for the next two weeks I am committing to one thirty-minute conversation focused only on Good Things.

Good Things include: Goals, ideas, projects, dreams, successes, accomplishments, moments that bring satisfaction and contentment, creation, acts of kindness.

Call it pro-bono coaching, but this is as much for me as it might be for you.

Interested? Sign up here.

Fear, regret, and bonus questions (grab a pen)

I was writing every day. Every morning. And I stopped.

Why?

I was afraid.

(Yep! Me. Afraid! Little known fact: I constantly battle a thin hum of anxiety. But that’s a different story, a different post. Back to writing.)

I was afraid I wasn’t good enough.

I was afraid my writing was missing the mark. I’d let a few rejections from publishers mute my enthusiasm. And I got tired. Other things because More Important. (Though what can be more important than telling your truth, I am not sure. Certainly not work. Or YouTube yoga videos.)

So in 2020: I’m coming back. I’m owning myself and my time like never before. I’m ready to take up more space. I’m ready to shove fear in its rightful place, even if it needs some coddling to move. This year, I’m not going to let anxiety drive the car. Not anymore.

Your turn: (Here’s where your pen comes in.) Tell me…

What are you returning to this year?

What are you letting go of?

What will you keep?

What mistakes have you made? I’m asking not to make you feel bad, in fact, I want you to celebrate them. Mistakes mean you’re going for it! Have regrets? Even better! Celebrate! You’re LIVING LIFE.

What will you move away from in 2020? What don’t you want?

Now. Get ready.

Celebrate what you’re going to create.

The projects you’re going to put into the world. The dreams that will manifest. The big move. The relationships you will nourish and cherish. A new business.

This time next year what will you be proud of?

And celebrate. Celebrate all of these things as if they have already happened. Imagine your enthusiasm and accomplishment. And rejoice.

Rejoice at this life you are living. Rejoice in who you are.

Rejoice in what you love and what excites you and what keeps you curious.

Rejoice in all of it, the ups and the downs.

Happy New Year.