Accelerate Your Search™ Now

Summer is in full swing.   If you are ready to move to the next level, now is the time.  Life is ready for you — it always has been.

Enjoy the weeks of summer.  Be ready to jump into fall, spend a few minutes this week setting the stage for your personal transformation.

Transformation only happens when you are truly ready to shift and take action.  

Here are three steps that will help you be ready for your personal transformation in the months ahead:

1. Listen to yourself.  Listen carefully to what you want and what you feel, then write it down.
2. Jot down your concerns about what is next for you.
3. Be truthful with yourself about each of your concerns.  Did you note all your concerns?  Did you note the real concern(s)?  Don’t stop with the surface issues and concerns.

Review your notes.  Reflect on the data.  For example, if you want a new job and you are concerned about the salary, make sure this is your real concern or your only concern.

Then ask yourself, “What can I do to address the salary of the job I really want?”  Often the limits people initially see are easily overcome.

These steps can help you accelerate your transformation to the life and career you want.

If you want to create personal transformation faster you can partner with a coach, a trusted advisor or mentor.

Try the three steps and share you comments below.

The phone rang and the question was, “Why do they hate me?”

The person asking is a member of team I’ve worked with for some time.  This team leader set an intention to impact the team’s service at all levels before his retirement.  As a person, and a leader, he is legendary for his service focus.

The caller is always professional, liked by all new customers and those who casually interact with him.  He provides adequate service and has solid enough performance to maintain a place on the team.  However, he is seen by the team as a person unaware of several of his BIG blind spots.

We ALL have blind spots and this team knows that well.  In fact, all team members except the caller have identified many personal blind spots.  By doing so, they impacted results, fulfillment and increased their personal satisfaction, adding fun and joy to their work.

As the leader’s retirement approached, the team was deeply involved in hiring his replacement — interviews had even occurred earlier that day.

I confirmed the “they” he referred to was the team.  Then, knowing the team as I do, my reply was a question, “How do you know they hate you?”

I was immediately met with resistance and defiance (“No one is going to fire me or make me quit!”).  Then the caller hung up.

His resistance hung in the air around my desk for a bit.

The caller was stuck.  The story was spoken, believed and holding the caller in place.

What questions are you asking?  What stories are you telling?

Is your story creating resistance to satisfaction and fulfillment?

Have you created resistance that is holding you in place?  Share your thoughts below.

Ready to align awesome?

Contact me to discuss how the power of questions and coaching can transform your life, your results and your impact in the world.

Doing the work you love, living your purpose and having impact is fun and amazing!

“Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.” ~Brene Brown

This is an amazing time of year.  As the year is drawing to a close there is a unique spirit in the air.

Business focus shifts. People smile and care in a little different way.  In this season, giving flows with ease.

How do you give and receive?

How does your team give and receive?

When I watch how people give and receive I see joy, purpose and connection.  I also see awkwardness, discomfort, and sadness.

The latter observation is why I started this post with Brene Brown’s quote.  My view is there is a very interesting connection between the willingness to receive and what is given to you by the universe and people.

I have to admit it, I have always been a better giver than receiver.

Once, years ago, I yelled at a girlfriend for putting food on my plate in a restaurant.  The food was given with love and care, yet I could not accept it.  After a scene, raised voices, and hurt feelings, my friend who had graciously shared her food with me, pointed out how selfish I was in her view. Her scolding has stuck with me.  The sorrow and hurt look in my girlfriend’s eyes are, to this day, a visual reminder that receiving is an art and skill.

Being open to receiving shapes who we are, how others care for us and what comes to us.    That day I learned my giving set the stage for others to be open to giving.  Minutes later, when I lacked the ability to receive, I experienced another shift.

We are often taught the art and skill of giving as a child and thus have much practice at it.  Cultivating the skill and art of receiving can be much more challenging.  It was and is for me — it is not a skill I began practicing in earnest until I was in my twenties.

Have you cultivated the skill of receiving gifts, feedback, and compliments?

Will you open your heart and demonstrate your receiving skills?

What might be the impact if you receive as well as you give?

Are you open to the opportunities receiving might bring?

Thank you for reading and receiving this post.

Doing the work you love, living your purpose, and having impact is fun and amazing!

Ready to align awesome?

Contact me to discuss how the power of questions and coaching can transform your life, your results, and your impact in the world.

If you read my blog regularly you may recall a recent post about “drift.”  Over the last year I have discovered much about the impact of drift in my own life.

This year one of my coaches, Laura Clark, has helped my explore my personal drift on a much deeper level.  One discovery in my work with Laura has been the power of experiencing the drift like the wind on my face.  I am also learning to use my own strengths in new and different ways — including asking powerful, and tough, questions.

Most people who know me, including my clients, will tell you I ask tough questions . . . and now I’m learning how to use them to help others who are experiencing drift.

If you are seeking more satisfaction, meaning and fulfillment from your career, it could be time for you to ask the tough questions, too.

WARNING:  Tough questions can cause discomfort, uncertainty, and doubt.

Before you blow by and quickly answer each question just to move on to the next task, I challenge you to pause.  Pause and feel the wind on your face.  If you are inside, pause and feel the temperature of the air in the room on your face.

Here are a few very powerful questions:

• Who am I?
• Where am I?
• Why am I here?

Do you feel the wind or temperature?

During the last year as I have focused on each of these questions in a new and deeper manner, I have rediscovered the power each question truly holds — and, the edge and discomfort of each question.

Whether you are on the edge of transition or transformation, these questions may be all you need to launch you to the next level.

This week, pause and answer these questions.  Answer them as they call to you.

Have a comment, share it below.  If the questions will serve someone you know, share this post.

Do you want to discuss your answers and how they impact your career, business and work?  Let’s talk. I  am happy to schedule a career chat with you.

Doing the work you love, living your purpose, and having impact is fun and amazing!

Ready to align awesome?

Contact me to discuss how the power of questions and coaching can transform your life, your results and your impact in the world.

Do you believe you are special?  Talented?  Different?  Unique?  Better than someone else?

“Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.” – Gandhi

The job search can be the toughest job you will ever have.  Sometimes despite “positive thinking,” great marketing, resolve, determination, focus on your goals and vision, doubts jump into your thoughts.  Go ahead, admit it.

Pause and think about how you FEEL about building, connecting and interacting with your network.  Those feelings dictates how your network grows, how fast you have an impact and your growth to the next level.

Sometimes when you reach for the phone or start to type an email your inner voice of doubt begins to chatter.  It asks, “Why would this person be interested in hearing from me, we’ve not talked in years?” or “What will this person think of me?”  You don’t want to be known as “underemployed and begging for help” or “that person that needs help to make it.”

When inner doubt shows up it can change how you feel.  The way we feel directly impacts the actions we take.  Especially in marketing ourselves, our value, and with whom we are willing to share information.

What you choose to do (or not to do) will determine the opportunities you have and those you will find.  Actions directly impact the results you achieve, your income and your success.  The choice of what to do will also impact how you FEEL and ACT this afternoon and tomorrow.

Discover how you feel.  Decide if you like it or not.   Decide if you want to change it or not.

How you feel shows up in how you THINK and ACT.  If you feel bad, do you what that to continue?

What would be different if, as Gandhi suggests in the quote above, you grow into the faith that connecting or re-connecting with each person will bring good things to you and to them?

Intellectually, you and I already know you have significant value to offer.  Why not grow the value you offer by sharing it with the world or at least your network?

Have the courage to BELIEVE the results you achieve are indeed coming from your feelings, thoughts and actions.  Be a magnet for success and prosperity in your search.  FEEL confident about your value and be willing to ACT.  You must be aware of your feelings and take action or your will miss the opportunities available within your network.

Assess your network.  Take inventory of the people you know.  As in any business, inventory is an asset and will impact your bottom line.

The network of people you know is a component of your social and business capital.  Who are your critical connections?  Who are the critical connections you need to add to your network?

Create a plan to connect and stay connected.  Who knows you?  Who likes you?  Who trusts you?  Who will you connect with this week?  How will you stay connected?

Share your feelings and thoughts below.  Do you need help with your networking plan?  Give Cindy a call.

“You can trust people, trust them to be exactly who they are every time” – Mastin Kipp

Do you trust yourself?  Why not?

The quote above has become a favorite of mine.  I like the truth in it.

I think it was Kerri Konik who first introduced me to this Mastin Kipp quote.  Thanks Kerri!

People are who they are.  People are worthy, funny and insightful.

All people have gifts and talents unique to them.  People are resilient, graceful, and caring.  People are amazing!  All people have an essence unique to them.

Yes, this is my point-of-view and I realize it is often not a popular point of view.  Over time, many have shared with me how wrong I am on this point.  Others protest and disagree with me, stating they cannot support my point of view.  I understand.

The world is full of different points-of-view, so much so that often people begin to believe that just being themselves is not enough.

Yes, there are days when I am not focused and not aware of the essence of every person around me.  Yet, I do trust that I can pause and, with a moment of focus, am able to capture a person’s essence and, usually, the person’s unique gifts.

People are flexible and adapt.  Some people work hard to change, adapt, and adjust who they are for various reasons, needs or concerns.  Some people move away from their essence if they feel they need to do so to survive or maintain the status quo.  Some people live in the present, being who they are in a conscious manner.

Perhaps those who disagree with me view people differently.  That is okay.  Seeing who people are, at least for me, requires being present and trusting myself first.  Then I can see and trust people for who they believe they are now.

What circumstances, thoughts or beliefs shape your trust of others?  Of yourself?  What needs shape your trust when you look in the mirror each morning?

Do you trust yourself?

Do you communicate trust in yourself?

Trust is critical in hiring and finding a job.  People hire and do business with people they know, like and trust.

Does your brand allow you to build and to shape your know, like and trust factor?