For years, I operated in high gear, busy-mode, proudly wearing my “busy badge.” Like a martyr, I would tell others about my 80-hour workweeks and how much I accomplished from day to day.

Maybe it’s the plethora of articles available these days on the importance of sleep, or maybe it’s that I’m maturing, but I’ve changed my tune on “go-go-go” mode these days. I am now a big proponent of rest!

Rest can take many forms. Beyond getting good sleep, rest can be going on vacation (I’m writing this from the cabin of my cruise ship, headed for Cuba). It can also be taking a nap, or putting your feet up for a few minutes, or stepping away from work for a bit to gain a new perspective.

Physiological Benefits of Rest (Obvious!)

Rest is obviously a biological need. Lots of important things happen in our brains when we rest. This Fast Company article explains it well. In short, our brain has a system that tidies up things during sleep, sorting and filing information, making sense of things, snipping connections not being used, and reinforcing connections that are being used.

Psychological Benefits of Rest (Not So Obvious)

Rest also has an important psychological impact. I have experienced that when I stop to rest, I seem to quietly acknowledge to Life and to myself that I am safe. Think about it—when we rest, we are not wearing our power suits, we are not in any sort of a power posture, and we are not engaging with others to create or problem-solve.

Instead, we are vulnerable when we rest—we are not on high-alert. Our body posture is passive vs assertive/aggressive. And we are not protecting or defending ourselves in any psychological fashion.

In short, we give the stressors of life a time-out. In fact, you could use REST as an acronym:

Really

Experiencing a

Stress

Time-Out

It’s as though Life insists on us resting, just to remind us that, indeed, all is well…all is working out. When we rest, our world view shifts from a problem/scarcity perspective to an abundance/trust perspective. (Plus, we’re a lot more fun to be around.)

How will you REST today?!

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If you’re working with clients who are in job search mode, they’ll want to be sure to have enough interviews in their pipeline! More interviews mean more options. Too often, people in career transition pin all their hopes on just one interview, thinking their ship has come in, only to see it turn into a sunken dream. If you see clients who are experiencing this scenario, you know it can really take the wind out of their sails. On the other hand, there is nothing more empowering than having options.

To help your clients increase their options, increase their opportunities. Notice the emphasis on opportunities instead of the more common terms, postings or openings. There’s a world of difference between the two. Let’s take a look!

Definition:

Openings: An advertised position soliciting a predefined skill-set to perform specific tasks.

Opportunity: An unadvertised position or situation where a job seeker’s skill-set can contribute to company/shareholder value.

Job Seeker Positioning:

Openings: In openings, the candidate has a tendency to come as a “supplicant” on bended knee, positioned in a role to sell and convince others of his or her worth.

Opportunity: With opportunities, the candidate has the ability to come as a “value proposition,” positioned as a business solution or service.

How Accessed:

Openings: Candidates comb through online postings and print want-ads to apply; human resources then winnows to make the volume of resumes manageable, eventually conducting a formal, structured interrogative interview process.

Opportunity: Candidates target companies, then read, research, and conduct “focused networking” with people who will lead them to conversations with decision makers; needs are uncovered and value-based solutions offered through an informal, fluid inquiry/discovery process.

Materials Needed:

Openings: Traditional resume and cover letter.

Opportunities: Knowledge of company/hiring manager needs and how the candidate’s strengths and brand can deliver a return-on-investment; targeted resume or SOS (solution or service) letter; project proposal.

Quantity:

Openings: Limited and restricted to those companies in hiring mode.

Opportunities: Potentially limitless and unrestricted, as the focus is about building long-term relationships while exploring opportunities and innovations that will benefit the company’s bottom line.

Competition:

Openings: Typically stiff when advertised broadly.

Opportunity: Minimal; the candidate is often competing only with himself/herself.

Who Controls the Process:

Openings: Controlled by human resources; usually a predictable process 2-6 month process.

Opportunity: Controlled by hiring manager and decision makers; less predictable process.

Human Resources:

Openings: Actively soliciting and screening applicants.

Opportunity: The human resources department is often unaware that a “job seeker” is even on the premises.

Connections:

Openings: The candidate is typically anonymous and an unknown commodity.

Opportunities: The candidate builds relationships that lead to being trusted and gaining insider status because of recommendations by colleagues, employees, and/or friends.

What the Employer Looks For:

Openings: Features (an ideal “wish list,” such as number of years of experience, degree, skill set, and so on).

Opportunities: Benefits (solutions or services offered) that will make the company money or save the company money, making the candidate a valuable asset that boosts the bottom line.

Employer’s Preferred Method of Contact:

Openings: Anonymous submission of electronic or paper resume.

Opportunities: Often email or telephone to start, and eventually face-to-face exploration, although it can start with face-to-face in informal business networking or social networking situations.

Understanding and embracing these differences will give your clients an edge in their search! You, as an experienced coach, already know this. The challenge is helping the client be open to this as well.

• Start with some discussion to increase awareness around the difference between openings and opportunities,
• Ask how effective the client has been focusing only on openings (probably not very!),
• Inquire about what an opportunity would look like, and then
• Explore how they can start looking for opportunities, as well as openings.

Clients will see a major shift in their search when they do!

For years, I struggled with the word “creativity.” I thought it was reserved for artists or actors or interior designers. I also felt “less-than” when it came time to express my vision for the companies I owned or the projects I led. In my mind, I just never seemed to be able to see very far into the future.

As I’ve study neuroscience and brain-friendly approaches to coaching, I’ve come to reframe the concept of creativity. Nowadays, I look at creativity from the viewpoint of simply being intentional about what I want, and exploring what part of that I can control or influence.

And, “what I want” can fall into a couple of simple categories:

• How I want to BE
• What I want to DO
• What I want to HAVE

These Be-Do-Have categories are probably familiar to you if you’re a coach. We can play TinkerToys® with them as we approach any task that’s before us. For example:

When heading into an important meeting:

• How do I want to BE?
  Perhaps it’s Curious, or Collaborative, or Assured, or Strategic.
• What do I want to DO?
  Perhaps it’s Ask a strategy question, or Speak up 10% more than I usually do, or Tap into different people’s insights.
• What do I want to HAVE?
  Perhaps it’s 3 new options for addressing a challenge, or a Clear process for moving forward, or Delegation of tasks with clear deliverables and timelines.

Try it yourself for anything that’s on your mind—whether an upcoming meeting, or a difficult relationship, or a project that is due, or a task you’ve been putting off, or a vacation you are planning.

Create means recognizing we have choice in the midst of EVERY circumstance. Choices about how we want to BE, what we want to DO, and what we want to HAVE.

Enjoy your CREATE-IVE juices!

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Positivity. Perseverance. Gratitude. There is much to be said for these traits. They are proven, brain-friendly strategies that boost perspective, resilience, and success. They can shift me from an attitude of “I have to do this” to “I get to do this.”

But, positivity, perseverance, and gratitude can also have a dark side when they are over-used and abused.

For example:

• Positivity Over-Used: When I have 18 hours of work to be accomplished in an 8-hour day, I can warp positivity and think, “I can get this done! I’ll just multitask during that boring meeting that’s coming up at 3pm; I’ll do my conference call when I’m in the car; then I’ll just work a few extra hours after the dinner party I have to attend, and I’ll be able to get it all done.” The end result is that I exhaust myself, never stop to question whether there might be some boundary of delegation issues at play, and all the while reinforce in my mind the necessity of 80-hour-work-weeks to survive.

• Perseverance Abused: When I have a project that is not going smoothly, I might narrow-mindedly continue to apply the same approach and “hammer, hammer, hammer” away at it. In the process, I miss out on the opportunity to collaborate with others on their ideas or try out a new tool.

• Gratitude Gone South: When I have a difficult person in my life, I might amp up gratitude and think of all the reasons I appreciate and admire the person. All the while, I silence my voice and miss the opportunity to address behaviors that need to be addressed.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a place for positivity, perseverance, and gratitude (and many other useful mindset tools). But when they cause me to…

• Stop deepening my thought processes
• Bury my curiosity about different ways to approach challenges, or  
• Avoid conflict and challenging conversations

… I have abused these beautiful tools. Can you relate?

We’ve all heard of the Gremlin/Saboteur – my favorite description is “the Bully in your Brain.” And, as coaches, we watch for this voice in our conversations with clients.

To help your clients, remember these three “S’s” that are often at the root of the “Bully”:

Scarcity – “You don’t have enough (money, time, resources). You will be left wanting.”
Shame – “You are not good enough, perfect enough, talented enough.”
Shunned – “If people knew the real you, they wouldn’t like/accept/respect you.”

Why is it important to be aware of these bully beliefs? Because, no matter how great your strategy, your clients will NOT make progress toward goals if these underlying beliefs are in place. And yet, these can be sensitive topics for clients to explore.

In the Certified Brain-Based Success Coach program, we share a KEY TECHNIQUE that allows you to explore beliefs (for yourself, as well as your clients) without sending people into fight-flight-freeze!

Bottom line: truly transformational breakthroughs.

As a child, I made my decisions about the world quickly and assuredly. I gave things one chance and if it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, I wouldn’t touch it again with a 10-foot pole for years. I once saw a fisherman gut a fish on a pier, which was, as you can imagine, HORRIFYING. I didn’t eat fish and chips for two years after that. Also on my blacklist included the dark, the vacuum cleaner, Chuck E Cheese, and roller coasters. Actually, let me clarify that last one – anything with a slight change in elevation.

Minnie Princesses

Because of this, Disneyland was my family’s choice of theme park. One year, I decided I was old enough to graduate from the kiddy rides to something a little more intense like Pirates of the Caribbean or Indiana Jones. Not quite ready for Space Mountain, but I was stepping up the ladder. My parents decided that my inaugural adult ride should be Indiana Jones. Knowing my history, my parents knew that this would be a very important experience: this moment would either allow all of us to ride something other than the teacups every year or we’d be stuck spinning around with toddlers until I could muster up the courage to try again.

BOOM, the ride takes off. We start jostling to and fro, flying around corners. My mom has locked eye contact with me. I’m staring at her and she can see my mind quickly deciding if I like this adult ride or not. I’m quickly deducing that I definitely DON’T. But before my mind can say NOPE WE DO NOT LIKE THIS and I start crying, my mom throws her hands up in the air and starts laughing.

Laughing.

Errrr, screech. My mind comes to a halt as I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that my mother is laughing! On this very scary ride!…Or is it really a scary ride? Just as quickly, my mindset shifts and suddenly I’m seeing the ride through her eyes. It’s not so scary. It’s kind of fun! It’s kind of silly! I break out into a huge grin and start laughing, too. We laughed past the giant snake, we laughed across the rickety bridge, we even laughed down the huge drop. I got off the ride and declared that I loved it! It was my new favorite ride.

I often think about this memory and now that I’m older, I’m so impressed with how my mom handled that moment. If she wrapped her arms around me and told me it would all be over soon, I would’ve cried the whole ride and written it off completely, but because she laughed and threw her arms up, my mindset shifted. Our brains are so powerful and have the ability to bias us, to make us decide if something is safe or not, good or not, scary or not. As a coach, look for the opportunities to throw your hands up and laugh. You may lead your clients to do so as well.

Thanks, Mom, for making me braver. Happy Mother’s Day.

Check out the first picture, yep, that’s me along with Susan’s daughter having fun on the teacup ride many years ago.

Numerous researchers in the field of positive psychology have learned that gratitude impacts many areas of our lives, as the infographic to the right shows:

• Happy people’s income is roughly 7% higher
• Grateful people on average give 20% more time and dollars.
• Grateful people will have 10% fewer stress-related illnesses, by more physically fit, have blood pressure that is lower by 12%.
• Grateful people are 20% more likely to get “A” grades

For those who coach career changers, I wish there were statistics on how gratitude impacted career changers’ success rates! If there were such stats, I’m confident they would show that grateful job seekers network more easily, get jobs faster, and negotiate bigger salaries (this last one is borne out in the first bullet above, with happy people having incomes 7% higher).

Gratitude ushers in the concept of provision. It causes us to view the world through a lens of possibility instead of problem, to believe “I have everything I need … right now.” The negative emotions of fear, anxiousness, and worry are based in anticipation of not having enough …  not having enough control, time, money, energy, health, protection, resources, wellbeing, wisdom, appreciation, acceptance, trust, ease. Simply put:

• Lack of enough is scarcity.
• Plenty of enough is abundance.

Practical Application

So how do you leverage gratitude when coaching your clients? If you are working with someone who is bummed out over a job loss, be cautious about coming straight out and saying “what are you grateful for?,” because it can sound insensitive.

Instead, first acknowledge the pain. For example:

“I hear the frustration… not what you were hoping for.”

And then, consider saying something like”

“Without denying those feelings, what do you hope this situation will open up for you … make possible for you?”

This is a way of tapping the gratitude emotion without using the word “grateful” or “gratitude.” So, dear colleagues and friends, what do you hope your current situation will open up for you?!

By Rebecca Potts, Academic Services Coordinator

Failure is an ugly word.  It comes equipped with pointy fangs, twisty horns, and a dark cloud around it.  And it probably has really bad breath. Yuck.

But what if I told you you’re not looking deep enough?  What if there is more to failure than meets the eye? That when you pick apart the letters, you see that its fangs really aren’t that sharp, and they’re stuffed with some really fluffy filling called Opportunity.  And when you carefully examine its horns, you notice that they’re beautifully textured with a material called Vision and extend so high into the sky that you know from the top, you can see everything, you just have to start climbing.  And that dark cloud? If you look really closely, you can see a light far off in the distance, and no, it’s not a train. It’s called Hope. And you’ll notice, the more you get to know Failure, the brighter that light becomes.

If you think back to the last time you succeeded, you’ll realize that you probably failed a few times beforehand.  Each time, it may have felt discouraging and frustrating and you might have felt like giving up, but you didn’t. You kept trying.  You learned more, you grew more, and Failure was right beside you the entire time. So why did you succeed?

Because “Failure” taught you how.

So the next time Failure comes knocking at your door, invite it for dinner.  Let it get comfortable and don’t be afraid. It’s about to compassionately teach you a very valuable lesson.

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By Rachel Grima, Client Services Manager

When I was much younger my mom had this habit of putting her keys in a different place each night. Each morning we would be on our way out the door and my mother would exclaim: “I can’t find my keys.” Which led to her running around the house opening cabinets, drawers, looking under the dog’s bed, and everywhere else she could think of. Unable to find her keys she would offer me a quarter if I could find them. At that age, I thought a quarter was a pretty big deal! I had this knack for finding her keys even if she put them in the freezer or the flower pot in the backyard. I just had this sixth sense about where her keys were and usually, I was able to find them in no time at all and we would be on our way.

Already late, I would find myself strapped into the car and my mother launching into one of her great life lessons. Usually, our 30-minute car ride turned into 40 or 45 minutes because she’d be so impassioned in her speech that she would forget where she was going! We’d find ourselves across town and she’d exclaim: “Oh! I needed to turn right 10 blocks back.”

As a child, I promised myself that I would NOT be this way. I would never forget my keys and I definitely would never forget where I was going. Fast forward 15 years to a typical early morning, me frantically running around my apartment yelling at my husband and asking him if he’s seen my keys. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been caught up in a story while I’ve been driving, and you guessed it, found myself across town 15 miles out of the way from where I meant to be.

It’s funny that as a child, in those moments, I focused on the things that didn’t really matter. I failed to see my mother’s wisdom, patience, kindness, and compassion, to name just a few of her amazing qualities. I told myself, “I would NEVER be” rather than, “I can’t wait to be.” This story often reminds me to view things in perspective. To not let fear of the challenge or fear of the unknown blind me from seeing the full story that contains an amazing and beautiful opportunity or experience.

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Throughout life, we never stop growing. I’m not talking about that Christmas cookie weight gain, I’m talking about the brain. Growth can sometimes look a lot like struggle, but it always leads to a stronger and more enlightened you. Let’s take a couple minutes and G.R.O.W. together.

GROW stands for Gratitude, Reach, Oxygenate Your Options, Walk Out the Win.

Gratitude: Did you know that positive emotions kick-start feel-good neurotransmitters? The more positive emotions we have present throughout the day, the easier it is to stretch, reach, and take actions toward success.

Positive thoughts active the prefrontal cortex (area of the brain responsible for making judgments and decisions). Conversely, negative thoughts activate the limbic system (fight/flight/freeze area of the brain that alerts us to danger and keeps us in panic mode).

Reach: Visioning is an important coaching technique that engages the neocortex (the center of higher mental functions in the brain). To vision is to imaginatively project yourself into the future to set goals.

When we picture our goals vividly, our brains reward us with a healthy dose of dopamine. According to Psychology Today, dopamine not only helps us to envision rewards but helps us take the necessary actions to move toward them.

Oxygenate Your Options: Our brains can naturally “see” more options, or even methods for coming up with more options when it’s fueled with oxygen and positive emotion.

Options dismiss and dispel the impression that we have no hope. They quell and quiet the fight-flight-freeze response and put us into possibilities-provision-perseverance mode.

Walk Out the Win: As you grow success in the garden of your brain, it’s really important to translate those thoughts and insights into action-traction… the phase where choices are made that move us forward.

As coaches, we refer to this as “action steps.” So today, I encourage you to treat yourself like you do your best client. Take 5 minutes, and consider your growth opportunities. What action steps can you take to make those come to life?

By Rebecca Potts, Academic Services Coordinator

When I was in school (if I can remember that far back), I had two different types of teachers.  I actually had several different types, but let’s pretend it was just these two. One would open the textbook, read word for word what the author had written and teach me by telling me what someone else thought.  The tests were copies of the sentences we read, convincing us that memorization and critical thinking were one and the same. The other would teach by asking us to challenge what was on the page; to conclude on our own how the writer developed their theories and viewpoints.  They presented material and actually wanted to know our opinions and ideas about it. How would we change it? How would we build upon it? How does it make us feel?

Long story short, I learned a lot more from the teachers who asked me questions than the ones who handed me answers, which is no coincidence.  Humans tend to be very egocentric, meaning that we place the importance of our own beliefs and values above others. If it’s not our idea, it’s much more difficult for us to accept, which is why your kids don’t want to clean their rooms.  It was definitely not their idea. When we are given the opportunity to come to our own conclusions, we not only learn faster and retain more, but we also gain the ability to explain and defend our beliefs, which gives us passion.

So the next time your child has a dirty bedroom, make them think it was their idea to clean it. How? I have absolutely no idea. We’re coaches…you’ll think of the right questions!

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By Rebecca Potts and Susan Britton Whitcomb

Do you remember the days when you sat in class, staring at math problems or a dissected frog, holding your chin in your palms, thinking, “when am I ever gonna use this?”  I learned a lot during childhood that I never ended up using, but something I didn’t learn from school was what my strengths were and how to use them.  If I did, if we ALL did, we could equip our next generation (and ourselves) with the skills to navigate life from a position of confidence and creativity.  Instead we got Calculus.

Much has been written about using strengths for determining career direction or managing teams, but we can do so much more with strengths. For example, using strengths to help us:

Navigate uncertainty
Tackle tough projects  
Resolve conflict
Raise children
Motivate ourselves/others
Deepen relationships
Manage time
Manage health

When you’re faced with a situation that can have many outcomes, rely on your strengths. Choose one of your top strengths, and lean into it. Use it as a strategy to, for example, navigate the uncertainty. It will likely help you choose the correct proverbial door.  One of my top strengths is Learner, and as a result I tend to research a topic tirelessly until I know everything there is to know about it – which means I’m the person at the party who usually brings up something completely out of the blue and unrelated.  But, besides how fun my Learner strength makes me, it can also make me highly prepared to navigate uncertainty.  I can gather information about the situation and make decisions to act based on fundamental knowledge and preparedness.  No Calculus involved.  

Fear can often be a feeling that overwhelms us, or causes us to withdraw, or causes us to become defensive.

What if fear, instead, were a friend. Not a best friend, of course, and not someone you purposefully invite to join you at every appointment of your day. But, what if we framed fear as someone who shows up on occasion—even if unexpected, uninvited, or unwelcome—to offer us a message of insight.

What if you make fear your “friend.” Someone who is there simply to offer information. A piece of data. A clue about how to move forward. In this way, fear can have the ability to protect you, guide you, and be your ally.

Try it yourself. Name a fear you currently have. Next, have some light conversation with the fear. For example:

You: “What are you trying to protect me from?”

Fear: “Failing.”

You: “What strategy would minimize the risk of failure?”

Fear: “Just don’t do anything. That’s safest.”

You: “Thanks for showing up. I will find a more creative, proactive strategy. Bye.”

Or, your conversation might unfold differently, such as:

You: “What are you trying to protect me from?”

Fear: “Failing.”

You: “What strategy would minimize the risk of failure?”

Fear: “You’re not speaking your truth. Say what you need to say. What do you really want to say?”

You: “I want to tell my boss that if I take on another project, I’m afraid the other things I’m working on will suffer.”

Fear: “Take the word ‘afraid’ out and try it again.”

You: “I want to tell my boss that if I take on another project, the other projects will suffer.”

Fear: “Now make it about the bigger picture, instead of about you.”

You: “I want to tell my boss that these projects deserve focused attention to ensure success; taking time from one will slow down progress on the existing projects, and so let’s collaborate on which priorities would give the company the best returns.”

Next time you notice fear—worry, concerns, foreboding, anxious thoughts—try this. First, breathe! Then, give fear a bit of space to be heard, to inform you, to bring clarity about what you really want. Play with questions, such as:

• “What are you trying to protect me from?”
• “How would you guide me through this?”
• “What might you suggest that would prevent this from happening again?”
• “What new or (tried-and-true) strategy would move me forward?”

Enjoy!

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Fascinating research on canines reveals that your dog can tell the difference between being told “good-boy” in a neutral tone vs “good-boy!” with a praising tone. That’s right.

Neuroscientists discovered that the left side of the dogs’ brains lit up in response to the word itself, but when delivered with a praising tone, the right side also lit up.

It took both the words of praise PLUS the intonation to light up the reward center of the brain. Bottom line: your pet knows when you’re truly praising them vs. just going through the motions.(More info: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/dogs-know-saying-people-speech/)

And so do the people around us–clients, employees, bosses, team mates, family members, friends.

The next time it comes time to offer an affirmation, a praise, or a thank you to the people around you, PAUSE FIRST, and physically feel the appreciation, admiration, respect, love, etc. well up inside you.

Then offer your comments. Look people in the eye and smile when you say it … and see if that doesn’t cause greater connection (and some tails to wag)!!

I’ve been both naughty and nice this year, but I imagine that’s the case for every one of us who share 23 pairs of chromosomes!

As I think about what I’d love for Christmas, much comes to mind:

I want LESS:

>> I want to be LESS know-it-all, less always-have-my-act-together, less “right”, less “on”, less always-in-control, less expert, less, less, less.

I also want MORE:

>> I want to be MORE creative, more expansive, more easeful, more in flow, more calm, more safe, more bold, more carefree, more aligned with who I really am, more, more, more.

I can imagine that all of this is already mine, in fullest measure, right here, right now.

Thank you, Santa.

Shame. It’s an ugly word. It’s not something I’ve liked to talk about. But I’ve changed my mind on the topic lately.

These days, I love talking about shame…and credit Brené Brown for bringing this silent saboteur out into the open. (If you aren’t one of the millions who has watched her TED Talk on shame, check it out here.)

Here are three reasons I love talking about shame:

1) Awareness: Shame is the catchall for the silent-but-deadly negative narrative that can play in our heads. You know what that narrative sounds like, “You should have done better at that.” Or, “You didn’t spend your money wisely.” Or, “You over-ate.” Or “You [this]… You [that].” There’s no end to the litany of shaming we do to ourselves.

2) Compassion: Once the shame is brought into the light, we have a choice of what to do with it. Continue the cycle of shame, shame, shame, or put a different frame on it. When we immerse ourselves in compassion, we end the negative dissonance of behaving in ways that don’t align with our values. We begin to see why we’re doing the things we’re doing.

For example, “You over-ate” can shift to “You comforted yourself with food because you over-committed to people. And you over-committed to people because you want to please them.”

Compassion activates the oxytocin-opiate system in our body, according to University of Texas compassion researcher, Kristin Neff.

3) Redirection: Once we recognize the “why” we did something and see that it was likely based in well-meaning intentions (e.g., pleasing people), we can begin to look at alternative behaviors. For example, “next time I notice a tendency to over-commit, I will pause and buy myself some time—next time, I can say ‘let me get back to you on that after I look at my current commitments.’”

As a coach, notice the “shoulds” and the “shame” in your client’s vocabulary. Explore compassion with your client. And see if it doesn’t give your clients a boost when it comes to trying out new behaviors.

Enjoy!

Have you seen the disturbing brain scan of two 3-year-old’s brains side-by-side? Check it out here: https://www.learning-mind.com/child-neglect-effects-brain/

One brain in the picture is significantly larger than the other. The reason for such a difference is that the child with the larger brain was loved and nurtured, while the child with the smaller brain experienced extreme neglect.

The researchers posit that this damage makes it virtually impossible for the child to become a well-adjusted adult. The neglected child will be less intellectually intelligent, less emotionally intelligent, and more prone to addictions or a life of crime.

I have to wonder, however, if there isn’t some hope. What if we, as adults, lavished our own brains with love and nurturing? What if we practiced compassion on ourselves on a regular basis? Would it not result in you having a bigger, healthier brain?

Apply it now! Try starting with this simple statement: “I wish me deep and significant wellbeing.”

How do you practice loving, nurturing thoughts and actions towards YOU?

Enjoy!

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I was sitting on my couch the other night, watching Dancing with the Stars and staring in awe as Sasha lifted Simone high above his head and twirled her around his shoulders.  They worked in perfect synchronicity; never missing a beat and landing safely every time.  It was easy to see that even though she was flying through the air, she was never in any danger of falling. I sat there amazed of their absolute trust and connection with one another.

That kind of trust is what makes any relationship strong and effective, especially when it come to coaches and their clients.  To see real progress in your clients, there must be a foundation of honesty, which will foster a bond of trust. Trust is built when something called “brain-to-brain coupling” happens. This is when the neural processes in one brain are coupled to the neural processes in another brain. Put in simple terms, it’s the place where you feel: “I get you.”

It creates a safe space for your client, allowing your client to feel heard—their hopes, dreams, frustrations, fears, and more. And once our clients know that we “get them,” they will be more open-minded.

If someone feels like they’re not being listened to, or if they feel demeaned or excluded, that places the person into a fight or flight mentality. Whatever you say, even with the best intentions, could be perceived as a threat.

It’s human nature to want to be understood, to be “gotten”, and to want to hear that you are not alone in the difficult circumstances. Someone is with you. You and I can dance in this moment, together.

By: Rebecca Potts, Academic Services Coordinator

Do you remember the last time you were on a plane?  Try not to cringe.  The half an inch of leg room, gluing your arms to your sides so you don’t touch the stranger next to you, eating nothing but incredibly salty peanuts and tasteless pretzels for the next six hours.  Mentally preparing yourself for this wholly unpleasant experience by practicing your contortion skills and willing yourself not to have to use the bathroom for an unnatural amount of time.  Then, it’s time for the safety spiel, and this is the important part.

“In the event of a decompression, an oxygen mask will automatically appear in front of you. To start the flow of oxygen, pull the mask towards you.  If you are travelling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your mask on first, and then assist the other person.”

There.  That’s the important part.  If you’re travelling with someone who needs help, put your mask on first and then help them.  Common sense, right?  But think about this: how many times have you exhausted yourself helping others?… or said yes when you knew you would regret it later?

In school, in coaching, in life, we tend to help others when we haven’t worked on ourselves first, and when you put someone else’s mask on before your own, you’re setting both of you up to fail.  Before you take on another person’s responsibilities, or put their needs before your own, remember this: self-care is not selfish, and it will make you much more capable of doing better for the people you love in the long run.  Put your mask on and breathe.

A coaching colleague recently passed along a reframing technique from Blue Ocean Brain. The technique involves creating “Truth Statements,” which helps reprogram our brains from ruminating on negative thoughts to reflecting on positive thoughts.

One example of a Truth Statement offered by Blue Ocean Brain is this:

“After making a mistake at work you can reframe the situation by saying, ‘I make mistakes because I am constantly experimenting in order to make things better. I learn faster because of my mistakes.’”

Because one of my StrengthsFinder strengths is Maximizer, I couldn’t help but think about tweaking this powerful technique to wring out as much brain-friendly juice as possible. Try on these tweaks:

1. Swap out neutral languaging for any “sad” words. In this case, the word “mistake” may elicit negative emotions such as sadness, frustration, shame, guilt. Replace the sad word with something neutral, such as “this circumstance.”

2. Incorporate your strengths. For example, identify one or two strengths that could be at play, such as creativity or innovation or strategy.

3. Next, add a positive emotion to the statement. For example, gratitude, as in “I’m grateful that…”

4. Experience it. Cue your body to feel the positive emotion. Add the word “feeling” to the statement. Pause to access and experience the feeling as deeply as you can.

Putting these four tweaks in place, the statement now reads (color-coded from the steps above):

I’m feeling grateful that this situation is allowing me
to see how my creativity, innovation, and willingness to experiment
(aka bravery) allows me to learn even more quickly.

Your turn. Think of a negative thought you tell yourself and apply the above ideas. Enjoy!

Do you remember last week when your boss asked you to take on a new project and you doubted your abilities? Or when you let the unhappy client you were working with get you down for the whole day? What about when you had that second piece of cake and totally regretted it?

Negative thoughts can be powerful; powerful enough to distract from the goals at hand and how capable you are in the face of them. But what if we took a different approach to our negative thoughts? What if, instead of ignoring them, we learn to use them to motivate us? To get rid of distractions? To grow?

The goal is not to be rid of negative thoughts, but to learn to use them as an invitation to pivot to positive. To eliminate the power they have when we fear them, and to give them a voice instead. To allow them to spur your creativity to tap into your strengths, to recognize the power and choice that you have, to be on top of the circumstances instead of the circumstances being on top of us. The negative thoughts want to be heard too – so let them be! Eventually, you’ll notice they’re a lot more positive than before.

I binged on TEDx Talks this past weekend. One title really caught my attention:

“The Magic of Not Giving a F***”

My apologies, in advance, if the title is offensive. If it is, replace the unpleasantry with the word “care,” as in “The Magic of Not Caring” But I happened to appreciate the f-word because of its shock value. It wakes me up and makes me pay attention.

And that’s what a lot of us need to do. Pay attention. Pay attention to what we’re caring about, or what we’re not realizing we’re caring about that we really don’t care about. (Could you follow that!?!)

Because when we don’t care about something but we pretend we do care about it, we feel obligated, put upon, frustrated, and out-of-sync with ourselves.

So I made myself a list. Here’s what I don’t want to care about, that I do care about, that I wish I didn’t care about:

– I don’t care if my mother disagrees with me.
– I don’t care if my dear friend thinks I’m not spiritual enough.
– I don’t care if I disappoint a neighbor by saying no to her invitation.
– I don’t care if I offend someone when my comment was made in love/respect/curiosity, with no intention at all to offend.
– I don’t care if I don’t get it right/perfect/A+ 100% of the time.
– I don’t care if I miss a deadline, or two, or three…
– I don’t care if I don’t have all the answers.

The reality is, I’ve probably made up in my own head negative worrisome stories about how other people are thinking that aren’t even accurate!

So how about you?

– What would you like to take off of your “care” list?
– What would you be relieved to say “no thank you” to?!
– What would you do with the extra energy that comes from that sense of relief?

Last month, my boyfriend and I went on a road trip.  He told me about an awesome “shortcut” that we just had to try out, and, sure enough, we ended up 10 miles down a pothole-ridden, dead-end back road with no cell phone service and an extra 45 minutes added to our drive time.  We drove back down the road, bouncing over dips and craters, me fuming in the passenger’s seat because we were late, and him trying to convince me that it didn’t matter.

Life is exactly like that.  Sometimes, you take a wrong turn; a “shortcut” that takes you way off course, and you realize far too late that the right road was in the opposite direction.  It’s possible that you’ll get lucky, and the right and wrong roads will connect at some point, but more often than not, you need to turn around.  When you’re 10 miles down the wrong path with no directions, going back the way you came can also seem like the wrong way.  But remember – every step backwards is one step closer to the right way.  So, take a deep breath, forgive yourself, and start walking.

What are the circumstances/habits/relationships in your life that would benefit from a turn around?

Creating your life is like decorating your house. You look around and think, hmmm, that blank wall needs something…what might look good there? And then you get an idea or start looking around at options and, voila, find something. Sometimes you decide to tweak it. Sometimes it’s just perfect right out of the gate.

In the same way, you decorate your life. You notice what you WANT…you get ideas…you explore options…you make choices…you tweak…you enjoy.

What do you WANT today? In your work? In your leisure time? In your relationships?

Happy decorating!

>> If you are going on a 50-mile journey, do you berate yourself at mile 1, and mile 2, and mile 7, and mile 37 because you’re not there yet?

>> If you have planted a garden, do you shame the plants that have not yet flowered?

>> If you are pregnant (or someone you know is!), do you belittle the little being inside for not being ‘finished’ yet?

Many of us are great at shaming ourselves! When we haven’t made enough money, lost enough weight, followed through on a bright idea, churned out every deliverable on time…we start the negative narrative in our heads that says we aren’t enough, weren’t enough, or didn’t get it right.

The reality is, we are always in process. Always. Always. Always. It is never finished. We are never finished. The people around us—clients, team mates, bosses, family members—are never finished.

That lack of finality can be difficult for our brains to be content with. When you experience this sense of discontent, pause, breathe, and revisit a favorite mantra, such as “Life is a gift, not a test.”

Join me today in the invitation to not beat yourself up … and enjoy the journey.

“I’m just in a bad mood.”

Sometimes you know why. Things didn’t go well at work. Something didn’t turn out the way you’d hoped. Someone said something that didn’t sit well. The boss is in a bad mood. You name it.

Sometimes you don’t know why. You can’t put your finger on it. You just know it’s there.

Either way, the bad mood creeps into your being, seeps into your thoughts, causes you to tense up, be on guard, see the world through a dim and shadowy lens.

We like to think we haven’t chosen this bad mood. We like to think it just happened. We like to point to external circumstances. We can justify the mood: “If you only knew what’s going on in my life, you’d be in a bad mood, too!”

Circumstances are realities. Moods are choices. Yes, we might slip into a bad mood inadvertently. But we don’t have to stay there.

Moods determine our perception of how much control we have.

Recognize that the mood is likely because something in your circumstances is not what you want. You aren’t happy with the “reality” of what’s going on in your world. You have evaluated the circumstances as wrong, bad, scary, unfair, etc.

A negative evaluation invites negative emotions—emotions that will deplete your ability to think strategically, creatively, innovatively, collaboratively. You are now at a disadvantage. The circumstances are now on top of you instead of you being on top of them. Like being on a teeter-totter with a 1,000-pound gorilla, you’re stuck up in the air, powerless to do anything because of the imbalance of weight.

The paradox is that if you choose a different (good) mood, you have greater power, greater weight, greater grounding. And from that good mood, you activate a different part of your brain, your body relaxes, and you engage with the circumstances (and life) with greater ease.

What mood will you choose?

What are your strategies for leaning toward a good mood?

Where are the tensions in your life? How do they show up? Are they masquerading as…

* Relationship conflict (differing opinions, methods, values)?
* Perceived lack of resources (money, time, ideas)?
* External forces (such as bosses or customers) that want you to do things with your time that don’t seem meaningful to you?

Tension is defined as an external force applied to an object to stretch or extend it. If we push against the tensions in our lives (e.g., differing opinions), we contract and shut down. We feel threatened by opinions that are different from ours. We become smaller or quieter in some way…we lose our truest voice.

If we allow the tensions to stretch and shape us, mission accomplished. We are bigger, stronger, deeper, more solid. We are more ok with who we are, and ok with others being who they are.

Move with, and not against, the tensions in your life.

Confession: I just micromanaged a relationship, and it did not end well. Here are some insights from my experience!

What is micromanaging?

It’s insisting on things being done our way because our way makes us feel comfortable, safe, and in control. It makes us feel like we can know what the outcome will be. It’s a way of managing stress, or perceiving that we are managing the stressors of the unknown, ambiguity, risk.

He has gotten where he is because he’s been successful doing it his way. And yet, this is also an opportunity for the micro manager to grow as a leader who knows how to tap other peoples drinks, different from his, to bring something bigger and could be accomplished on his own.

What are the unintended consequences of micromanaging?

When we micromanage, we diminish others. We send a message that says ‘you aren’t smart enough,’ ‘my way is better,’ or ‘I don’t trust you.’ Or, we send a message that says, ‘hierarchically, I am above you, better than you, more powerful than you.’

When we micromanage, we also diminish our options. We see our one way of doing things, which shuts down our creativity, brainstorming, and engagement with others to hear their ideas and solutions.

How to use coaching skills to move forward.

First, apply compassion. The micromanager (whether you or your client) has good reason to micromanage. Our motivations are often bathed in good intentions. We want to help. We want to be thoughtful. Or maybe it’s that we want others to trust us and have confidence in how smart we are.

You may ask, “What if I am older and wiser and more experienced than the person I am trying to micromanage?” In these situations, apply curiosity. Ask the other person, “What are your thoughts about [x]? … How would you approach [y]?”

When coaching a leader who is micromanaging, use active listening. For example:

“I hear some concerns about letting them do it differently than how you want it done … like they’re not respecting you in doing it your way … or it’s not going to be as efficient done their way … and you’ve got these deadlines that you’re juggling.”

Ask several curiosity questions, and leave plenty of silence and space for reflection and answers between the questions. For example:

* Sounds like you want it done your way. …

* What are the risks of having them do it a different way? …

* How would you manage those risks? …

* What message are you wanting to send when you tell them to do it your way …

* And what message do you think they are actually receiving? …

* How is that impacting things?

Letting go of control increases your options, deepens relationships, and empowers the people around you!

Our next Certified Executive & Leadership Development Coach program begins September 7th. Contact Rachel Grima at Rachel@theacademies.com or 559.547.8200 if you are curious to learn more!

How do you handle uncertainty? How do your clients handle uncertainty?

Uncertainty comes in all shapes and sizes:

> Will there be enough paycheck at the end of the month?

> Will we make our financial goals at the office?

> Will so-and-so fly off the handle when I deliver negative feedback to him?

Uncertainty is often fraught with worry, anxiety, and worst-case scenarios. We can project into the future an outcome—usually negative—for how the situation will resolve.

And as we project negative into the situation, we subtly tell our brain to be on the lookout for those negative things. And, voila, the self-fulfilling prophecy takes effect.

In coaching, support your clients to learn how they best manage uncertainty. Here are a few ideas:

> Reframe the uncertainty as “opportunity.”

> Visualize yourself being successful in the various ways the situation might play out.

> Brainstorm how your strengths support you in walking through the uncertainty.

> Use mindfulness and observational techniques, such as “I am curiously noticing that I’m projecting a negative outcome for the future. I am now choosing to envision a positive outcome.”

> Breathe deeply. Breathe again. One more time.

Try on a few of these ideas today for any uncertainty you’re facing. Enjoy!

Do the people you live with, work with, or coach cling to negativity? If so, there may be a few reasons they do. Consider these possibilities:

Payoffs: What are the payoffs of negativity in someone’s life? Perhaps it’s a sense of martyrdom, or maybe the person enjoys being the center of attention because of the drama associated with negativity.

Perceptions: The perception that they won’t receive the empathy or relationship we need from others to feel heard, supported, or significant.

Comfort zones: If negative emotions are the norm, shifting to positive can be uncomfortable and scary. Emotions are part of our human nature, both positive and negative. But elongating negative emotions is a learned behavior, which, thankfully, can be unlearned!

Confusion: We may be confused about how long it’s “acceptable” to experience negative emotions—the bigger the trauma/loss, the longer it can take to recover.

If negative emotions are hanging on too long, be reflective and curious about whether any of the above may be at play. Negative emotions should never be cuddled, cherished, or treasured because they end up draining us of our ability to think clearly, feel good, and take strategic action.

I watched an interesting video by educator Becky Bailey who discusses “three states of the brains” that impact our behavior. She outlines them and their functions as follows:

Survival State: This is the brain in “freeze” of the proverbial fight-flight-freeze response. It is concerned with survival—protection, safety. When we are in survival state, we are not engaging the smartest part of our brain.

Emotional State: This is the brain in the “fight-flight” mode. Our emotions hijack us from thinking clearly in this state. We say and do things that we later regret because emotions have gotten the better of us. We are often thinking of ourselves in this state—preserving our reputation, protecting our financial resources, defending our rights, etc.

Executive State: This is the brain in “flow-flourish” mode. Here, the prefrontal cortex is engaged, such that we think more clearly, creatively, and collaboratively. However, if we do not feel safe or emotionally connected, our executive state kicks into plotting, scheming, and protecting.

With an awareness of these three brain states, we can better understand how to connect with others, whether they be family members, coworkers, bosses, employment interviewers, clients, etc.

To address the Survival State in others, help them feel SAFE:

How do we help someone feel safe? It’s tough, because we cannot control the other person’s thoughts or feelings. But we can use body language, tone of voice, facial expressions that will cue the person to sense that they are safe with us.

To address the Emotional State in others, SERVE:

We serve others by understanding what their needs are… and, to the degree it is appropriate for us to engage, serve them in meeting those needs. For example, if interviewing for a  job, asking the interviewer: “What are your top 3 priorities for this position in the nex 6 months?” or if speaking to an employee, “What resources do you need to complete this project on time?” This conveys that you will add to and not drain the relationship.

To address the Executive State, SOLVE:

We solve by being strategic, collaborative, and action-focused. Strategic involves being curious about the bigger picture, as opposed to having a narrow-minded, myopic view of the situation. Collaborative means to engage others’ strengths in the process—e.g., “Jane, I know you’re great at Intellection—what ideas have you been chewing on about this project?” Action-focused involves taking actions, which can include thinking differently, managing mood better, and/or executing on ideas.

The “negatives” in our lives—negative circumstances, people, thoughts, feelings, habits—are rarely things that we would choose or embrace. And yet, they show up. And the longer we try to ignore them, the longer they tend to stay.

If we flip the negatives upside down and look for the positives in the midst of them, we can diffuse and dissipate the effects of the negative. Here are four ideas to reframe and flip negatives into positives:

Clarification/Motivation

Negative emotions often tell us that something isn’t right or that something is missing that you personally value. For example, if you have a boss who is pressuring you to work a lot of overtime on a regular basis, you can notice your negative emotion of anger or frustration as a flag that says, “wait a minute; I need to set better boundaries for myself because when I don’t, it affects my resilience, creativity, health, etc.”

Evolution/Solution

Maybe you’ve felt the negative emotion of embarrassment or shame from a mistake you made—perhaps you felt you did not do your best or you did not measure up. With the Evolution/Solution idea, the negatives could be an invitation to learn a new skill or try out different behaviors.

Rejection Protection/Course Correction

Many of us have experienced the pain of not getting a job we wanted. This can often be life leading and guiding us toward a different path. For example, if someone does not get a long-hoped-for job promotion, perhaps it will be the impetus to pay attention to another long-held desire, such as starting a business.

Activation/Generation

Negatives can be a reminder, cue, or trigger to activate or generate positive emotions. For example, if you have a coworker who complains a lot, use the person’s negativity as a cue for your own positivity—to feel gratitude, love, pride, etc.

Enjoy!

When our coaching clients feel excluded, or not part of the “in” group, the same region of their brain is activated as when they experience physical pain.

So whether your client bumps her shin into the corner of a coffee table or bumps her ego, the same part of her neocortex—the dorsal anterior cingulate—will light up. So says professor of social neuroscience John T. Cacioppo in his book Loneliness.

That means that when your client doesn’t make the interview short list for her dream job or her boss quietly omits her when it comes to asking for ideas and opinions from the team, your client’s brain will light up with signals that say “I am in real pain.”

What else happens when we experience that feeling of not being accepted? Cacioppo’s research reveals some sobering impacts:

•    Our cognitive capacity diminishes (more so for strategic thinking than for memorization of rote information).
•    Our emotions take a dip (or crash).
•    Our behavior reflects less concern for the future consequences of our actions, and is more interested in immediate gratification.
•    And all of these things actually change the way our DNA is expressed, such that it impacts our immunity and our heart health.

In other studies by sociologist Robert Weiss and social psychologist Roy Baumeister, research participants who were purposefully manipulated to feel disconnected and excluded were:

•    Less willing to donate money to a student fund,
•    Less willing to offer to help a stranger following a mishap staged as part of the experiment,
•    More inclined to take irrational, self-defeating risks,
•    More prone to procrastinate, indulging themselves with pleasurable tasks when they needed to be studying for upcoming tests
•    More apt to over-eat (in a study by Cacioppo, it was discovered that the calories of fat consumed increased by 2.56 percent for each standard deviation increase in loneliness as measured by the UCLA Loneliness Scale

What’s a coach to do? Consider the following:

•    Be that person to your client—be on their side (yet with radical candor); believe in them!
•    Share some of the biochemistry science with your client behind what happens when we don’t have people on our side
•    Explore who the client’s “bone marrow buddies” might be … or how to cultivate them
•    Collaborate on self-compassion exercises the client can use to avoid self-sabotage!

Enjoy!

Which paradigm is your client operating from?

As you know, using a brain-friendly approach in coaching is a passion of mine. I’ve heard from many people in our coach community who report an increase in confidence, competence, and compensation when using the brain-based techniques.

One of my favorites is discovering which paradigm your client is operating from. Is it a paradigm of “Threat” or is a paradigm of “Safety”? The graphic below outlines the differences between Threat and Safety. In Threat/Defend mode we perceive that we don’t have enough, that life is unfair, that things are broken, and more. In Safety/Create mode we perceive that we do have enough

What’s the default for you? For your team? For your clients? For your family members?

Tip: Tap into gratitude to quickly tip the scales from threat to safety!

“How’s your job search going?”

Seems innocuous enough, right? And to be sure, some days it may be a safe question. But more likely, it will elicit a number of emotions and thoughts that can put the client into the Red Zone (that state of fight-flight-freeze-frantic-fearful-frustrated). The question may lead to the client…

> Getting defensive

> Feeling shame

> Berating him/herself

Instead, here’s a suggestion for a different type of question that a colleague of mine at the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business came up with recently:

“How much of an opportunity have you had to focus on your search?”

The question can bypass or alleviate the potential for the defensiveness, shame, or berating. From here, the coach can follow with comments/questions such as:

> You’re in the right place now… let’s look at how to get some traction going.

> What’s worked best so far? … let’s look at how to leverage that and add any other strategies as well.

Enjoy!

Memories can appear from out of nowhere. The brain can bring them up in 1/16th of a second. We may see, smell, hear, think, taste, or feel something and it mysteriously serves up a memory that discourages and derails us.

When that memory is negative, consider this sequence of steps so that it doesn’t undermine you or keep reoccurring:

Greet It
Don’t deny or tamp down the negative memory. Note that “greeting” a memory is very different than “welcoming it with open arms”! Simply be reflective and aware that the memory is there.

Give it a New Label—Positive, Compassionate, Developmental
Relabeling negative memories can help keep them from re-appearing. It’s as if the old memory will stay there until you do label it with something positive, compassionate, and developmental in nature. Perhaps this is because the brain has a positivity bias. If you refuse to re-label the memory as positive, you’re working against your biological nature. Once the label is positive, the memory doesn’t need to keep coming back.

For example, the old label might be: “this situation was embarrassing.” The new label might be: “This situation is where I learned that I was only trying to protect myself by turning to [name the ineffective behavior], which didn’t really give me what I’d hoped for. I now know that I can respond differently if that happens again.”

Giftwrap the Re-labeled Memory
Now that the memory is no longer negative, wrap it or cushion it with a positive emotion, e.g., gratitude, peace, love, etc.

Go to a Strength
Finally, handpick one of your core strengths that you’ll lead with if similar triggers re-appear that originally caused the negative memory. For example, if Strategy is one of your strengths, what will your strategy be for responding to triggers.

Do you have a song that just sends you into the stratosphere?

I have a few…several from Adelle’s latest album…several from Maroon 5…several from Il Divo…and a number of classical pieces. When I cue these up, in a matter of seconds, I’m bouncing, smiling, and soaring.

And now we have scientific evidence of why that’s so.

Researchers at McGill University used a drug that dulls the ‘hedonic’ system of the brain, blocking specific opioid receptors—the same receptors that are excited by heroin.

They then played music to test subjects—pieces that would normally be described as their favorite songs—but with the opioid receptors blocked, the test subjects responded with little emotional reaction. “It’s not doing anything for me,” said one test subject, even though he knew he loved that particular song.

Bottom line: the phrase, “music is my drug,” is true.

So, be responsible and pump up your play list … on your next coffee break, on your commute, as you begin your next team meeting. A happy brain is a brilliant brain!

#ListenResponsibly

I often say “You have everything you need, right now.” Sometimes, that statement can be hard to wrap our heads around because we are so conditioned to look for the MATERIAL evidence that we have what we need. But “everything you need” encompasses more than just the material. It is our thoughts that lead to the creation of the material, so let’s start there.

Think about your STRENGTHS. They are evidence of the ever-present “everything you need” in this world. Strengths are signs that we have what we need already, right in front of us, right here, right now. Strengths give us the tools to create, to strategize, to take action.

Whatever you might be facing today, look to your strengths. One of them will equip you to create the inspiration you need, the ideas you need, the action you need to take.

For example, here’s how a few different StrengthsFinder strengths apply if you are looking to dig yourself out a downward spiral:

>> Connectedness – “one who seeks to unite others through commonality” – Someone with the Connectedness strength could reach out to others to connect, refresh, and recharge.

>> Analytical – “one who requires data and/or proof to make sense of their circumstances” – Someone with the Analytical strength could objectively analyze his circumstances to recognize that one or two set of circumstances should not cause his viewpoint to be “universalized” to all circumstances.

>> Input – “one who is constantly collecting information or objects for future use” – Someone with the Input strength could look up research studies on motivation, optimism, or future-mindedness to jumpstart motivation.

What strength will be your focus today?

I watched one of my favorite foodie movies this weekend, Julie & Julia. Based on Julia Child’s start in cooking and intertwined with blogger Julie Powell’s 2002 challenge to cook all the recipes in Child’s first cookbook.

Several lines in the movie caught my attention:

“Julia Child wasn’t always Julia Child.”

If you’ve been stirred to do something big but think to yourself, “who am I to …” — remember that everyone who is famous today was not born famous (save a few royals or the progeny of a movie stars).

They all started somewhere. When Julia Child got married, she could barely boil an egg, or at least that’s what was portrayed in the movie!

“You have no real talent for cooking.”

This line of dialogue in the movie is attributed to a Mrs. Brassart, the head of the French cooking school Julia attended.

There will always be naysayers in our lives—people who think small, people who are jealous, people who are threatened by you.

When you encounter them, simply recognize the fear and scarcity in their thinking, consider whether their concerns might give you ways to improve, and then move on.

Julia Child loved food. Go do what you love. And you’ll be famous—or at least admired by yourself, as well as those who watch you do what you love.

Universalizing is a process where we take one “bad” situation and allow it to seep into every circumstance. For example,

“I tripped over the dog this morning … the whole day will go badly.”

Or, “My manager was abrupt with me this morning … no one likes me.”

Or, “My team isn’t pulling together … I’m never going to be a great leader.”

If you (or the people you work with) have a tendency to universalize unwelcome circumstances, learn to isolate the situation. If something went “wrong,” name 10 other things that went “right.”

What we focus on grows. Your brain, at this very minute, is engaging in synaptic pruning.”

> The things that are focused on (e.g., the universalizing of all that is wrong) create synaptic connections that are strengthened and added to.

> The things that don’t get focused on (e.g., all the other good things that we don’t articulate or contemplate) get marked by particular proteins—those synpases in the brain are then “pruned.”

You’ve heard that “perception is reality.” Indeed, it is. Because our brains create more beliefs that support what we focus on.

Start universalizing the good, and you’ll experience more good!

“I missed two items on the exam.” I heard this from a coaching student last week. He smiled and went on to say, “the perfectionist in me wanted to get 100%.”

I asked him, “How is missing two even MORE perfect than getting a perfect score?” This led to an interesting conversation that uncovered these possibilities:

> Perfection is present everywhere. Right here. Right now.

> Unexpected or unwanted circumstances cause us to learn, which causes us to grow.

> There is always more growth to be had. If we are not growing, we are stagnant, atrophying, boring.

> Perfection cues our brains to focus on: “I am enough. I have enough. There is always enough.”

> When we focus on the “enough” that surrounds us, we feel safe.

> Feeling safe allows us to feel better, which allows us to think better, which allows us to behave (take action) better, which allows us to get more of what we want.

How are your unexpected or unwanted circumstances actually “perfect” for you today?

I have heard from several coaches recently who say they hesitate to blog or post. Why? Here were their reasons:

> “I don’t have anything new to say.”
> “I’m not as experienced as other people.”
> “There’s so much competition out there.”

At the root of these concerns is a sense that “I am not worthy … I am not enough … I am not needed.”

Seriously? Can you imagine saying those things to a client? You would never! So don’t say them to yourself either!

Get out there and share your message of hope and wisdom. And, if you DO have something to say that’s similar to what others have said, consider this:

> It’s the truth and needs repeated.
> You have a different sphere of readers than your colleagues.
> Your unique experiences shape your perspective, which shapes the way you say things.

I am writing today to repeat something you may already know but need to hear again:

> You are worthy.
> You are enough.
> You are needed.

Now get out there and share what’s on your heart!

When you’re having a coaching conversation with a leader*, notice how many times he or she uses the word BUT. And then, notice how many times you use the word BUT.

When you hear BUT from your coaching client, in essence, that person is saying, “I like my way better.” Or, the underlying message may be “I don’t have time to do this” or “I don’t know how to do this” or “I’m afraid it will impact my reputation if I do this.”

And, when you hear yourself say BUT, in essence, what you are saying to the other person is: “You’re wrong. I want you to think like me. Agree with me. Do it my way.”

And then human nature takes over within the other person, and his/her brain says, “I don’t want to be wrong, or look like I’m wrong, or look like I’m too stupid to think of what you just thought of.”

So instead, try out one of these ideas the next time you get an urge to say “BUT” to one of your coaching clients:

“I hear that the frustration that so many things are getting in the way of achieving this goal of yours. It’s as if 90% of the pie is getting allotted to what’s getting in the way; and 10% of the pie is getting allotted to what you want differently. What might happen if you gave even 10% more to the what-you-want slice of the pie?”

Another coaching technique is to notice whether you, as the coach, are experiencing frustration about the client’s litany of yes-but’s. If so, consider this honest and authentic approach:

“Jane, I hear you. I hear your roadblocks and frustrations. It’s the predominant story-line—the star of the show in this Broadway production of your life. You came to coaching because you had some new goals. I could sit here and remind you of those, and I could hope that those reminders would put your goals back to center stage. That’s where I would personally love to see the storyline go.

“And, perhaps the more important question is, how do YOU remind yourself of what you really want? How do YOU make those goals the star of the show, instead of just an incidental extra?”

Remember: When coaching, never resist the resistance! Instead, be curious about it, explore it, and see what it is masking. It’s often a clue to great progress.

* This technique works regardless of the relationship, whether as a coach coaching a client, a leader leading a team, a manager managing an employee, a facilitator facilitating a workshop, a parent parenting a child, a spouse/friend relating to a spouse/friend, etc.

—Coaches: Join us for the next Certified Executive & Leadership Development Coach training program, starting November 2nd! More info: www.theacademies.com/celdc