Everyday Bliss For Women In Leadership

Come, join me tomorrow at the Pink Magazine Conference for Women Executives at the San Francisco Marriott in San Francisco, CA  - October 26th, 2007!  If you show up, seek me out! I’ll be greeting people as they arrive. Here is our wonderful lineup of speakers:

MODERATOR Marie C. Wilson, founder and president, The White House Project Marie Wilson founded The White House Project in recognition of the need to build a truly representative democracy – one where women lead alongside men. The White House Project has since led groundbreaking initiatives toward that goal. Wilson is also author of Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World (Penguin, 2006).

 

Karen Ferguson, president of North American operations, Resources Global Professionals In 1996 Karen Ferguson helped found Resources Global Professionals, today a professional services firm with more than 3,900 employees. Ferguson helps manage the company’s global growth and leads business development and services for the firm’s U.S. operations. She also supports the Financial Women’s Association and the Jersey Battered Women’s Service.

Stephanie Gallo, director of marketing, Gallo Family Vineyards Twin Valley Stephanie Gallo is the granddaughter of Ernest Gallo, who along with his brother founded E&J Gallo Winery in 1933. Today she leads all marketing for Gallo Family Vineyards Twin Valley, a $1.8 billion company. She started in the sales department of Romano Brothers Beverage Co., but after completing her master’s degree devoted herself to the family business.

 

Mellody Hobson, president, Ariel Capital Management The subject of PINK’s June.July 2007 cover profile, Mellody Hobson is responsible for management and strategic planning for Ariel Capital Management and was recently elected chairman of the Ariel Mutual Funds board of trustees. She is a contributor on ABC’s Good Morning America and serves on multiple boards, including those of DreamWorks Animation, Estée Lauder and Starbucks.

 

Karen Quintos, VP and general manager, services for the small business segment, Dell Inc. Karen Quintos is responsible for revenue and operating performance for Dell, which she joined in 2000 as director of the Demand/Supply organization in Dell Americas Operations. In 2001, she became vice president of supply chain management and in 2002 assumed a role on the Americas team. Quintos has served on several nonprofit boards.

 

Joanne Smith, SVP, in-flight service and global product development, Delta Air Lines Joanne Smith leads more than 11,000 flight attendants, supervisors and administrative personnel worldwide for Delta Air Lines. Smith previously served as VP of marketing and as president of Song, the airline’s low-fare air service. Prior to joining Delta, Smith was VP of marketing and planning for DHL Airways Inc. in Chicago.

 

My publishter, New Harbinger, sends out a very interesting monthly newsletter. The following is from their onboard promo for David Skibbins’ book Becoming a Life Coach: A Complete Workbook for Therapists and it is very sage advice  - especially for Energy Coaches in training…or at any level of their practice.

As we are studying ethics shortly in the Certified Energy Coach Program, this advice becomes particularly poignant. And those coming into coaching out of any kind of therapy background, do read this book posthaste for it highlights among other subjects, very important shifts in worldframe that therapists must make to be successful as coaches and what our rigorous training prepares us beautifully to coach around.

A "bravo" and two thumbs up to my colleague David Skibbins, PhD, CPCC for a wonderful book and job well done. Highly recommended for Energy Coaches and anyone transiting from any form of therapy or healing work into coaching.

    Maryam Webster
    writing as Director, The Energy Coach Institute

********     ***     ********     ***     ********     ***     ********

From Chapter 1:
CONTRASTING THERAPY & COACHING: DIFFERENT LEVELS OF AUTHORITY

{worthy text which can be read here excised}

Experts Can’t Be Trusted

Many mentally healthy clients distrust therapists. And not unreasonably—all our training in psychology has warped our point of view. We are experts in the assessment and treatment of psychopathology. And so we tend to see it everywhere: everyone is neurotic, corporations are dysfunctional, the government is addicted to power and control. Most people are mentally healthy. Until you wrap your mind around that fact you’ll be re-creating your clinical practice wherever you go. You’ll be unconsciously disempowering your clients by finding problems they need to solve. They’ll sense that you don’t completely trust them, that you regard them as patients. You may get compliance or you may get rebellion—both of which are expressions of dissatisfaction

The Wrong Tool for the Job

It’s inappropriate to apply a therapeutic perspective to most real-life situations, especially work settings. Therapeutic perspectives are well-honed tools that are invaluable in assisting dysfunctional clients to become functional, but they are simply inadequate for addressing the dynamics of already functional environments. Of course, this hasn’t stopped psychodynamic and psychologically based systems theorists from analyzing the workplace. Indeed, these ideas have been elegantly applied to the workplace for years—with no apparent impact on work environments whatsoever. Pointing out the narcissistic qualities of leadership, analyzing top-down communication fl ow patterns, and discoursing on parentifi ed employer-employee relationships have all fallen on deaf ears. Having twenty-three names for snow doesn’t help you much in a jungle—and all that accurate clinical terminology doesn’t translate very well to corporate America. That’s because people at work have work to do and don’t have time for psychological mumbo jumbo. It’s simply the wrong tool for the job.

Functioning companies are intelligent, responsive, complex living systems. To superimpose a paradigm that evolved out of personal, psychological clinical work onto the richness of the minute-to-minute challenges and choices that face a growing corporate entity is absurd. The concepts of an outside expert—especially a clinically trained one—are going to have very little impact on that environment.

The Special Bonus of Therapy: We Know How to Control Ourselves

Therapists are particularly well suited to an egalitarian approach because of our training in self-management. The intensive interpersonal training we’ve gone through also serves to make us outstanding empowerment coaches. We’ve already learned how to moderate our responses in the service of the client’s needs. Other coaches-in-training also have to struggle with selfidentification as a helper and the habit of giving advice, but few of them have gone through the deep, insight-oriented inner work required of a psychotherapist. Thanks to our training as therapists, when we realize the negative impact controlling behavior can have on a client, we can modify our responses to better coach our clients. Once therapists stop trying to sneak therapy into coaching, therapists become outstanding empowerment coaches—primarily because of our self-awareness and our self-management abilities.

GIVING UP AUTHORITY

However, just reading a few paragraphs about authority may not be enough to persuade you to give up years of feeling in charge. So let’s see exactly what’s at stake here:

• What do I enjoy the most about feeling competent and in control as a therapist?
• Where else in my life do I think I need to be the one in charge?
• What might I get from letting go of my authority role when I coach?

Now that you understand how different coaching is from therapy—and why it should be—here’s an exercise to help you fully step into this new perspective:

You can read the rest of this article here.

Come to EduCamp at Stanford University with me! A bunch of educators, both the hoary oldschool types who remember chalkboards and wooden pencils like me and a bunch of the younger high tech variety are gathering to conference over our ideas. 

I’ve been teaching in one format or another since 1979 and most recently in the last seven years, in an online eCampus format. Towards that end I’d like to invite you to join me at StanfordUniversity September 16 - 17 for Educamp, where I am giving a presentation on Successful Leadership in Online Learning Environments: Tips & Tools of the Virtual University.

More info here: http://educamp.pbwiki.com/

EduCamp is collaboratively hosted at Stanford University on Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 11:00 am PT- Sunday, September 16, 2007 at 5:00 pm PT and you can register here:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/70116721

For a look at what I’m doing, here’s the description and syllabus for my presentation:

Successful Leadership In Online Learning Environments:
Tips, Tools and Lessons of the Virtual University

with Maryam Webster, Director of The Energy Coach Institute

Course Summary

Maryam will share her experience of seven years as an online teacher for a specialty coach training institute, and as training director and course writer through the 1990’s for several corporations in different training contexts. We will be discussing the best open source software, audio class -vs- webcasts and how to handle each inexpensively, enhancing student experience through didactic and autodidactic participation, in-class structure, out-of-class semi-structured learning and participation opportunities, skilful initiation and use of the cohort bond, collaborative software as community, ensuring ongoing learning after the course is over.

Syllabus

• The Advantages of Online Learning
• One Model of eCampus Technology - it’s Advantages/Disadvantages
• eCampus Leadership and Community Building
• Collaborative Leadership Of The Cohort Model Online
• Fitting the Syllabus to the Learner: Languaging as an Aid in Learning Styles
• The Power of the Mastermind in Retention and Learning Group Cohesion
• e-Learning Course After-Care

Resources

Online Learning Course Search Network
The Moodle Open Source eCampus software- this is one of the opensource software packages we use and recommend
Online Learning Teacher Clearinghouse
Be a Student For a Day: Take An Online Learning Demo Course
Getting The Most Out Of Online Learning
Are You Ready To Learn Online?- this quiz would be really great…if the scoring system worked!
15 Benefits of Online Learning
More Benefits of eLearning

Thanks to Krishna who tipped me off about putting this at my blog. You can read her sage suggestions here on how to use this research to market your self growth business!

I was recently asked by a client how to remain professional in a contentious situation. Here is something I wrote a long time ago that still applies:

Cultivate that within you that is respectful, self-aware, classy, dignified and grounded in bedrock, and you will have all the professional demeanor you will ever need.

Do you AQ? If not, you might want to. AQ stands for Abundance Quotient and is a system developed by my friend Kim George to e-x-p-a-n-d the potential and possibilites of your life. I loved her newsletter intro of today so much I am reproducing it below as a sterling example of a wonderful Everyday Bliss mindset. Savor this delicious slice of summer savvy and get yourself on over to Kim’s site and sign up for her newsletter and classes today.
 

Kim

It’s rare anymore, but I sometimes get potential clients who wonder why I refer them to other coaches when they say “But it’s YOU I really want to work with!”. Sometimes I feel I’m simply not the best coach for them and that what they really need is to be found with another coach I can refer them to. Sometimes people want coaching, but they really aren’t ready for the kind of intensity such a relationship can generate, or are a wee bit too comfortable in their rut to really work at change. Sometimes a different level of expertise or specialty is called for. And then, there are those who are simply “coachability impaired”.

To correct what may be a widespread assumption, coaches are not obliged to help all and sundry. Though many varieties of coaching exist for the wide variety of clients that exist, coaching by its very nature is a profession that demands one’s highest and best performance. To assure that, coaches are choosy and only work with clients that fit our particular skillsets and energetic bandwidth - just like other service providers. You don’t see a lawyer for a heart transplant. Likewise, a C-level executive seeking snappy, fast-paced high performance coaching wouldn’t employ a creativity, academic or ADD coach. For different needs there are different talents and specialties in the coaching world. That extends also to the personality of client being coached, in what we refer to as “coachability”.

To protect our energies and precious time from being wasted, we all have our red velvet ropes and sets of immutable parameters past which folks who aren’t at a certain level, are not permitted. To attempt to coach people who are resistant to change, aren’t ready for a coaching partnership or are not willing to expand their horizons would be an exercise in frustration and futility for both coach and client. Most experienced coaches can size potential clients like this up in a few heartbeats. It only takes a few to drain you dry before you develop such instincts. And in a nod to Bea, it’s not arrogance or snobbery, but self-preservation and conservation of resources at the heart of the golden restraining posts holding up that red velvet rope.

Thanks and a tippo of the “you said it” hat goes to Seth Godin for his Distinctionary entry below, on “What Coachable Means in Real Life”. You go, my brother.

Coachable

A friend is wrestling with his ability to be coached. For the coachable, “Turn right at the light” is seen as a helpful suggestion for someone lost in a strange town… the advice goes in, is considered and then acted upon. For someone wrestling with coaching, though, it’s like surgery. It’s painful, it has side effects and it might lead to a bad reaction.

Coaching happens all the time. Most often, it’s not from a boss or a professional coach. In fact, the best insights and advice usually come from informal or unexpected sources.

In fluid marketing and organization environments, where the world changes rapidly, coachability is a key factor in evolving and succeeding. Not because all advice is good advice. In fact, most advice is lousy advice. No, the reason coachability is so crucial is that without it, you don’t have the emotional maturity to consider whether the advice is good or not. You reject the process out of hand, and end up stuck.

Symptoms of uncoachability:

* Challenging the credentials of the coach
* Announcing that you’re being unfairly singled out
* Pointing out, angrily, that the last few times, the coach was wrong
* Identifying others who have succeeded without ever being coached
* Resisting a path merely because it was one identified by a coach

Years ago, at the great Bolshoi Ballet, auditions for the troupe were conducted among 8 year old girls. That’s because it took ten years to become great. How did the auditions work? The teachers weren’t looking for the best dancers. They were looking for the dancers who took coaching the best. The rest would come with time.

See the original at Seth Godin’s Blog, and Bea’s post on “Topgrading”.

If you’re reading this blog, then you’re undoubtedly dedicated to the experience of Everyday Bliss. So I KNOW you’ll want to participate in the FREE Teleclass I’m doing TODAY with Ellen Britt, for her Everyday Qi program.

I’ll be sharing the first FIVE Keys to Everyday Bliss from my upcoming Everyday Bliss For Busy Women book, a technique you can use to rev up your energy (even when you are tired, ill or have had a horrible day) and how to use the energy of intention to transform your  limitations into a precious treasure.

Interested? Calendar open at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern TODAY, Wednesday 5/23?

Great!  Sign up here:

http://www.everydayqi.com/signup4webster.html

There are MASSES of goodies included of course,  and you’ll also get to hear LOTS of other fantastic speakers on energy techniques and other health and wellness promotion info that you can really use.

See you there!

Warmly,
Maryam

This is THE Blog for you if you’re a Woman who desires to live a life of  Everyday Bliss. Though that necessarily requires a bit of work on yourself, Bliss also BEGINS with accepting you for WHO YOU ARE.  Your thighs are thin enough. Trust me, my thighs are bigger than yours and it doesn’t keep me up nights. Bliss is knowing that things are okay as they are, you’re just fine, you are living a Guided life, and what needs to change will take care of itself.

TODAY my friend the renowned "Comfort Queen", Jennifer Louden, has declared an international holiday:

May 15, 2007:  Freedom From Self Improvement Day

Self-improvement is a one-way ticket to misery, Jen says. She endorses a path to happiness and fulfillment that starts with acceptance of who and where you are.

As a certified Bliss Booster, I couldn’t agree more.

As we give gratitude for what is good and wonderful in our lives, we need to start with ourselves - WHOMever you are, WHEREever you are and WHATever is going on in your life….is all just fine. 

“Beating ourselves up because our thighs aren’t thin enough, or because we still haven’t perfected the art of ‘positive thinking’ hasn’t made us happier or the world a better place,” says Jen, whose books include The Woman’s Comfort Book and her recently released The Life Organizer: A Woman’s Guide to a Mindful Year.

“Inner peace through endless self-improvement only serves to make us endlessly dissatisfied and disappointed. The biggest paradox in trying to change ourselves is that nothing happens until we embrace who and how we are right now, imperfections, perceived flaws and all.” she says.

I’ll add that it is only then that you can go forward out of what isn’t what you want and engage the Law of Attraction to get what you want. That Gratitude for What Is, is absolutely essential. And it needs to be legitimate gratitude, not merely mouthed insincerely.

My recommendation, if you’re not to the happy place with where you are yet, is to start with the EFT Personal Peace Procedure. Being at peace with yourself is key to Everyday Bliss.

The day will include a number of resources to encourage self-acceptance, ban self-improvement, and have fun while doing it, including a “Declaration of Independence from Self-Improvement,” audio downloads contributed by a host of best-selling authors and spiritual teachers, and suggested activities for celebrating our beautiful, imperfect selves.

To get a comprehensive run-down on what Jen is offering, check her blog out at:

http://freedomfromselfimprovement.com

And drop the shoulda-coulda-woulda’s, don’ts and must-do’s that litter your life and poison personal peace.

Be Kind to You.

Be gentle and compassionate with your dear, precious self. 

To quote Jen: "True change is a result of self-love, not self-hatred.”  You said it, girlfriend.