Everyday Bliss For Women In Leadership

My buddy Donna Steinhorn, of the Association of Coaching Excellence just tapped me to reply to a post she made over at her blog on what we do to give away our power and how we can get it back. I’m happy to oblige with a few thoughts on the matter…good question!

Hey Donna, Donna!  For giving away power, I’ll have to go with you and say it’s getting dragged *back* into things that I had already found support on…then found support staff wasn’t doing what I needed them to. I’ve made out reams of instructions, spent personal time, taught them how to teach/create/whatever, and even set up a support help desk.

Yet, when the salami hits the fan, my students and customers complain directly to me as the buck really does stop here, on my desk. Sometimes though, no matter how much I gently redirect their complaints to the help desk, or counsel with an employee how to deal with the complaint on their own, I still occasionally, find myself embroiled in the thick of things.

This is a liminal time. Liminal, in the sense that it represents both a challenge and an opportunity. An opportunity, that comes to me in the form of empowering others to deal with things on their own that I have told the Universe I do not wish to deal with anymore. And by golly, it’s working, and the staff do their jobs really well for the most part. A challenge though, to shape gently and minimally, letting others do their own work without the temptation to become re-involved.

I stand on the threshold of two doorways, a hallmark of liminality.

One doorway, holds the new life I have affirmed over and over and over (and over…) that I want to lead. Not doing the "busy" in my job, but handing it off to others who are so much better at it. Not doing the main bulk of teaching in the post-graduate program I created, but hiring brilliant and qualified teachers from my own pool of graduates. Not coding every webpage and shopping cart item in my online store, but jobbing it out to the nicest VA’s in the world, who also run my help desk with polish and elan.

Life is good through this beautiful doorway. Life is as I want it to be. With this support system in place, I now have the time to create again that I badly needed, to cause my business and life mission (the two are indivisible really) to take off and truly fly. And lo and behold, it has.

But annoyingly sometimes, there is that other doorway. Rimmed in flame, in my imagination. The doorway through which previously ingrained pattern behavior wants to pull me backwards into the mental maelstrom of "no one can do it as good as I can!"  and "it takes me as long to teach them to do it as it would be for me to do it myself!".  Cue energy and power flowing away and down the drain.

That way lies insanity. Here there be Dragons.

While I have strayed back through the Flaming Door a few times in the past few months, such jaunts are becoming rarer and rarer. And it’s really okay if some folks think I’m a bitch because I don’t continually give and give and give to them of my time, expertise and energy, asking them instead to deal with the appropriate staff member. That nearly always happens when you make a shift like this. (watch for it…) And it’s okay if the staff doesn’t do it perfect, doesn’t get it right the first time or makes a spelling mistake (aaaaggh!!! pet-peeve-o-rama!) in official correspondence. Really, it is.

How I’ve made trips to the past in terms of pattern behavior dwindle to nothing is first by doing energy work, such as NLP processes, EFT, ZPoint Process or others on the patterns I know sabotage and weaken me. That done, I focus entirely on feeling good, to quote Wayne Dyer and Abraham-Hicks. Taking a page from Dr. Andrew Weil, I eschew the news more and more for reading things that educate and make me feel better and take also his prescription of a deep belly-laugh at least one a day…but you never can chuckle just once, can you?

And I take a leaf out of my own book on Bliss in slowing down, way down, no matter what. It’s a lifesaving move, and one you’ll thank yourself for. I remember Kim George’s sage quote: that nothing which is meant for me can be lost, and I reflect that I have all the time in the world, all I’ll ever need. That is a richness of reserve that keeps me looking towards the beautiful door, that keeps me going through it every day when I wake up, with singleminded intensity. 

Andy Andrews said that to truly succeed at anything, we must persist without exception. I choose to be happy every day. I choose to go through the beautiful door and live in the life I am dreaming into being. I choose to persist without exception in these things. That’s how I do it. There’s no "Secret" to it, there’s no magic other than consistently persisting in making these pivotal choices.

So how about you, dear reader? How do YOU give your power away and what do you do about it when you notice your energy going down the tubes to a power drain?

Leave a comment and let Donna and I know! 

And…I’d like to tag Krishna De, Jasmine White, Tara Katchaturoff, Suzanne Falter-Barns, Andy Wibbels, Jennifer Louden and Ellen Britt! Tag, you’re it!

Do you Yoga? Yin Yoga and power sessions of Vinyasa Flow keep me unstressed and working in the top level of my capabilities most days. I don’t get colds anymore - I credit yoga among other self-care methods with keeping me healthy.  And it helps us ladies of a certain age to keep limber, prevent joint and back pain and keep the body fit and flexible

And others in business have found yoga to be their secret stress-busting weapon. Just listen to these professionals:

_“If you asked him a couple years ago whether he’d be doing yoga, Eddy Kelly would have called you crazy.

"My thing, for exercise, was to lift weights, go for a run, maybe play hockey in the fall and winter - but no thoughts of yoga," the 36-year-old said.

To the untrained eye, yoga looks more like the stretching you do before exercising than the actual exercise itself. It’s the warmup, not the muscle burner.

"I won’t say I thought of it as feminine at the time, but certainly not the type of workout where I would get in shape - not that strenuous thing I look to do twice a week," Kelly said. "But my opinion’s changed.

"It looks like you are stretching, but 10 minutes in, you are sweating."

"(Yoga) balances your day," Brenda Brown said. An executive assistant at a Bayers Lake-based company, she came up with the idea of holding the class. Yoga was offered at her previous job, and when she moved to Halifax, she made it her mission to introduce yoga at work.

"You have stressful things going on outside the office, inside the office, and if you just take an hour of your day, it really is productive. You can go back to your desk and tackle what you have to," she said.

Every Tuesday, about a dozen - mostly women - of the more than 100 employees get together in the cafeteria, push back tables, and roll out their yoga mats._”

Read the whole article here.

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.

 

Okay, so the Autumnal Equinox was a week ago, but you can still have yourself a merry litle spa break at this time of the year when the energies are changing like mad, crazy swirls of leaves caught up in a merry dance with the North Wind. Blow some clean air through your hair - open all the windows even if it’s cold  and let your home and office air out completely from morning to night. And…

Try this five minute complete System Recharge to jump up your energy a bit at a time when the earth’s energies are winding down, going deeper, pulsing slower. This practice, which invokes the basic elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, purifies the subtle energy system and invigorates all of your sensate organs. Spend but a minute or two on each of the four areas:

Earth: Facing North, look down at the ground and feel gravity, pulling your body downward. Palms facing the ground, breathe both in and out through your nose while feeling the soles of your feet as they touch the earth. Breathe in through your soles of your feet and the palms of your hands.

Water: Turning to face the West, lean your neck backward looking upward and allow your lips to part. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Imagine that you are standing in a shallow mountain stream with water raining down upon you. Water rolls off of your body, drips down into the stream and flows away, taking all that doesn’t belong in or on you, with it.

Fire: Facing South, stand erect with your elbows bent and hands raised to shoulder level, facing the front of your body. Breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose. As you breathe in, feel the breath stoking your internal fire or "dan tien" in your solar plexus. As you breathe out imagine you are sending the light of that fire outward, into a protective and energizing sphere which surrounds you.

Air: Facing East, allow your entire body to relax and soften. Feel yourself becoming less solid and more permeable. Your arms hang loosely with the palms facing to the front of you. As you breathe in and out through your mouth, feel the air flowing into and out of your body through the very pores in your skin.

Old circle-junkies among the reading audience might notice this goes in a counter-clockwise (or counter-sunwise if you will) circle. Yes. At this time of the year, the energies of the natural environment that surround us are moving more in these counter-sunwise spirals as the light of the sun itself grows less intense and weaker. This is one way to make a counter-sunwise spiral work for you, to energize and purify. Enjoy!

A little late on the ball, but in response to biz-buddy Krishna’s tag in her post: 8 random things about me

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.

Last year the National Institute of Health published a study that said echinacea, or purple coneflower (at right - isn’t she pretty?), does nothing to help or cure the common cold. (Hundreds of years of pioneer and native American experience to the contrary). Now, the British Journal Lancet has published a counter study that says granny was right. From USA Today Health:

A new study published today in the British journal The Lancet: Infectious Diseases  finds that the popular herbal supplement echinacea cuts the chance of catching a cold by 58% and can reduce the duration of colds by about a day and a half.

This directly contradicts a major study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine which found that echinacea doesn’t work.

The Lancet study looked at the results of 14 previous clinical trials that investigated echinacea’s effects on the common cold. Those trials involved a total of over 1,600 patients.

The analysis was done by Craig Coleman, a professor of pharmacy at the University of Connecticut, and colleagues. Meta-analyses combine the findings of large numbers of studies to tease out trends that might not be visible individually.

Coleman and his colleagues looked at all the randomized, placebo-controlled, peer-reviewed studies available and by combining their data, found that echinacea reduced the incidence of contracting the common cold and its duration.

And they wonder why the herb grannies sometimes cast a jaundiced eye at ‘that newfangled doctorin". While science has its place, you’ve got to wonder sometimes why hundreds of years of anecdotal evidence is often pooh-poohed. Perhaps because big pharma can’t lay patent to what is essentially a weed?  Full article here 

Seth Godin recently blogged about being lonely, saying "People spend money..and invest time and enormous energy to solve this problem…"  Loneliness can be a big problem, but it doesn’t have to cost you money to solve. In working with clients from busy moms to corporate executives, I find every one of them is lonely at some point in time. Many are lonely for long stretches, and are even lonely in the midst of a pack of third-graders clamoring for juice, busy board meetings or even hanging out with friends, family or colleagues. Either they’re not making time in their day for fulfilling relationships, looking for ideal people that just aren’t in their environment, or looking for something that doesn’t exist.

Sometimes these women reveal fantasy to be at the heart of their dreams of curing loneliness. We often want what we can’t have - the unobtainable popular or wealthy person to be a comfort, those dear ones who are long dead, or comrades who look like the close-knit group of friends from a favorite television show. These busy, successful women are not lonely hermits, but people with friends, communities and loving families. They sometimes feel their burdens are too great to impose upon the time of those families and friends. Or they have other unrealistic beliefs that limit their ability to reach out.

One of the best things about lonely is that its easily curable once unrealistic expectations are surpassed.

If you are lonely, don’t sit at home or in the office feeling sorry for yourself. Here are a few pro-active steps to take, and one security precaution you need to know about and below that, my All-Time Best Anti-Lonliness Tip:

• If your workmates go out at lunch or after work, contrive to be included - EVEN IF they aren’t the "ideal" people you want to hang out with.

• If you meet other moms at the park, make a point of speaking to them and getting to know them better. Invite them for coffee or play dates with your kids EVEN IF they aren’t of your religion, educational background or social strata.

• If  you have a home office, make a date with another home worker to meet at a coffee shop a few times a week and plug your laptop into the coffee shop’s wireless system to get your admin work done.

• And if you’re concerned about security using a coffeeshop’s wireless system, try the comprehensive JiWire WiFi Hotspot locator, email enabler and WiFi security system here: http://www.jiwire.com/hotspot-helper.htm

You’ll widen your world when you take these proactive steps. And if those immediately surrounding you aren’t 100% your cup of tea, by at least making the effort, you’re telling the Universe that you’re open to meeting new people. As long as you keep focusing your mind on exactly who you want to meet and tell those you’re with, sooner or later you will. Plant seeds of ideas in those around you like this: "Say, I’d like to meet some other Green Party vegetarians - do you know any?" Your workmates might not, but for sure they’ll remember you when their aunt mentions her neighbor, the eco-friendly vegan woman. And they’ll mention it to you. Such are connections formed, that end loneliness.

Now, The Number One Tip For Curing Loneliness:

Be In Service To Others

Focusing on those who are in the most need will help you make lonliness a thing of the past. Visit, help out or volunteer your time with the elderly and/or with children. If the idea of being with seniors makes you roll your eyes, look in the mirror sunshine - you’ll be there soon yourself. Make friends with the inevitable and know that today’s older folks aren’t the older folks of your childhood. If your remembrance of relatives in warehouse homes is keeping you away, it shouldn’t. Seniors today are peppier far longer into their golden years than they used to be. Those that are living in communal housing environments or nursing homes are dying for want of just a little bit of company - either a one time visit or an ongoing gig. What about going hiking or on a visit to the local gardens with an elder who has no family to visit them? 

Increasingly, seniors are leading active lives well into their 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.

One thing’s sure, you’ll be curing two people’s loneliness at least ,and learn a whole lot into the bargain. Our world’s greatest repository of wisdom lies in the still-active hearts and minds of our elderly, and they’re a hoot to hang out with. It may not be the ideal relationship you’re looking for, but being with the elderly broadens your life in ways you cannot any other way.

If you have a special skill, like teaching yoga, self-defense or something more stationary like making candles, soap or paper, writing a novel, advice on stock trading or real estate investing - elders in your community would love to learn, and you would stand the chance of alleviating the lonliness of many more than just one. Check your local community college senior section and city senior care programs. Good karma goes a long way in alleviating your own lonliness.

Children Need You Too
If you’re not a parent, you probably don’t know that in America, our public school systems are in deep trouble. Teachers are having to purchase notebooks and pencils - textbooks in some places. I won’t go on a political rant here, but the situation is dire indeed. If you want to cure your loneliness, volunteer at your local elementary school, junior high or high school. Many schools don’t ask for a constant commitment and are pleased as punch if you want to come in just an hour or two a week or on a one time basis to share your special skill or talents. Conact your local schools to learn more or go through your local area’s volunteer programs. A tip: Younger children tend to be more appreciative of your time than older ones, but the need is prevalent at all levels. If you crave attention and appreciation however, the little ones are you best bet…but the older kids need you just as much, sometimes more.

Cultivation of Everyday Bliss without giveback is little more than selfish pampering. If you’re not giving back and sharing your life, time and talents with others, you’re not truly living. And the Law of Tenfold Return  "what you give out returns to you tenfold" is true. Whether you’re lonely or not, go forth and give back, so that you may receive.

Yesterday I went to see my wonderful friend Jasmine for a tui-na and tuning forks massage. (if you don’t know what tui-na is, it’s the best thing since sliced tekka) Afterward, I went to the large Asian shopping center on Wolfe Road in San Jose, to the HK Potsticker for takeout. On the way I stopped at the adjacent Ten-Ren for a jasmine peal tea and a bag of tea eggs - mmm, delicious. While I don’t eat potstickers anymore (no gluten for me!) I had their yummy minced shrimp in lettuce cups, always a crowd pleaser.

I sat outside under the walkway roof and admired the fine day and local wildlife while sipping tea and waiting for my takeout order. A small young finch, taking his first steps out of the nest caught my eye in the rafters above me. His entire little body was quivering with nerves and every fluffed feather trembled. Cheeping constantly, he took one hop after the other and finally flittered up to the rafter above, where his mother chirped her congratulations.

“Good boy!” I called out in encouragement. “Way to go!” His siblings in the nest put up an angry, squabbling chorus. As the little finch looked back at them, he seemed to sag, trembling all the harder - I fancied they were not being very supportive.

Mombird flew a few rafters off to a higher beam, turned around, cocked her head and chirped, fixing her offspring with a beady eye. Looking back at his nest-mates, the little fellow trembled even harder and his cheeping entreaties increased in urgency. He made several false starts and I cheered him again, joined by the hostess from the restaurant and a passerby who stopped to see what the commotion was about. I was cheering in English, they in Mandarin. We were all saying the same thing though: “Go on little guy, you can do it!”.

The young’n looked first to his mother, then to the three of us standing on the sidewalk cheering him on. Finally, with a huge cheep, swelled breast and fluttering of tiny wings, he flapped unsteadily but successfully, up to the higher beam.

Mombird clucked over her baby and preened his feathers by way of comfort. The two ladies and I laughed delightedly, called our congratulations, and shook hands before going our separate ways.

This Brave Little Bird reminded me again to pay attention only to those who cheer me in life and ignore those whose sour grapes attitude wastes time and energy with displays of anger, jealousy or attempts to bring us down.

He reminded me to look for and pay attention to those who are supportive, even if they don’t know I can do something, but simply believe I can. And who are willing to give the gift of their Belief to me freely, just for the joy of doing so. This is a gift that is best enjoyed by passing it on. Let others know you believe in them, cheer them on to success! That’s like money in the bank, for when you need someone to cheer you, they’ll be there.

It also reminds me of Abraham-Hicks saying that we are blessed with an “emotional self-guidance system”. When we go for what is purely pleasurable and blissful to us, we will always succeed and attract what is highest and best for us. The Brave Little Bird needed to push through his fear and learn how to fly. While I can only imagine, to quote Jonathan Livingston Seagull, flight is the most purely enjoyable thing for a bird, it’s their reason for being. “I Fly, therefore I Live.”

What is YOUR “flight” - your reason for living? Do you get enough of that in your everyday life? Let’s talk about it. Comment here, below….