1. business and industrial

02.2014
Vol.18 Issue 02
Essentials
of Life Leadership
PRESENTED BY
Part of Your Plan and Performance System
03101229
How to Reach Your
Goals
Noah St. John
And do it twice as fast
with half the effort.
Thought Leadership
Denise Brosseau
Start taking these
seven steps.
Toxic Loops
Karl Albrecht
Free yourself and
enjoy peace.
An Inspiring Rise to
Success
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Interviews
Starbucks CEO.
HOW TO REACH YOUR
GOALS
Noah St. John
02.2014
Vol.18 Issue 02
Essentials
of Life Leadership
PRESENTED BY
Part of Your Plan and Performance System
03101229
Features
How to Reach Your
Goals
Noah St. John
And do it twice as fast
with half the effort.
Thought Leadership
Denise Brosseau
Start taking these
seven steps.
Toxic Loops
Karl Albrecht
How to Reach Your Goals
Free yourself and
enjoy peace.
And do it twice as fast with half the effort.
You want to be more successful—to have more time, more energy, happier
relationships, and more money. PG.03
3 How to Reach Your Goals
And do it twice as fast with
half the effort. - Noah St. John
5 Happiness Calendar
Stay happy throughout the
year. - Henry S. Miller
6 Love’s About Little Things
Practice 10 rituals that bring
you closer. - Brent Bradley and
James Furrow
7 People Tools
13 Thinking Agility
14 Health and Well-being
Release the walls around your
heart. - Bradley Nelson
16 Image Excellence
Avoid excess, or
overindulging. - Marla Tomazin
17 Is Your Diet Killing You?
Build better relationships.
Alan C. Fox
Jane Birch
9 Meaningful Friendships
18 New-Age Professional
10 Thought Leadership
19 Market Your Potential
Start taking these seven steps.
Denise Brosseau
12 Toxic Loops
Free yourself and enjoy peace.
Karl Albrecht
Stop having those sleepless
nights.
Ann Herrmann-Nehdi
It’s a question worthy of your
consideration.
Three ways to develop more
of them. - Dawna Hetzler
21 Financial Planning
Use the best tool—your brain.
John Vento
22 Happiness Calendar
20 Course Correction
Your invisible competitive
advantage. - Marlene Chism
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Interviews
Starbucks CEO.
29 An Inspiring Rise to
Success
Oprah Interviews Starbucks
CEO Howard Schultz.
Oprah Winfrey with Howard
Schultz
Yes, you have the resources.
Robert Cantrall
30 Mindful Living
Welcome to an awakened life.
24 Countering Setbacks
Jack Kornfield
Try five simple daily practices.
Vinay Nadig
25 Giving, and Teaching,
Thanks
Instill an Attitude of
Gratitude in children.
REposition, REstrategize,
Reinvent. - R Kay Green
Change how you see the
marketplace. - Karen Armon
An Inspiring Rise to
Success
Princess Ivana Pignatelli
Aragona Cortes
26 Happy Thanks-living
Cultivate a spirit of gratitude
daily.
Todd Patkin
28 Be Like a Marine
You can do it in four ways.
Eric Wentz
31 Spiritual Stretching
Create authentic
personal power.
Gary Zukav and Linda Francis
32 Closet Words
What is God telling you?
Kim Hilton
How to Reach Your Goals
And do it twice as fast with half the effort.
By Noah St. John
Vol.18 Issue. 02
Personal Excellence Essentials
is published monthly by HR.com,
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You want to be more successful—to have more time, more energy, happier relationships, and
more money. Yet you may also feel overwhelmed, stressed out, and scared because you lack the
proper tools to live a more abundant lifestyle—as I once did.
You see, back on April 23, 1997, I was a broke college student with less than $800 to my name,
when one night I looked at the long list of positive statements I’d written over and over: I am happy,
I am wealthy, I am rich…
And I finally admitted that even though I’d been writing these positive statements for years, I
simply didn’t believe them. The next morning I got in the shower and asked myself, “Why are you
trying to change your life saying statements you don’t believe?”
That’s when I realized that the human mind automatically responds to something even more
powerful—an empowering question. That’s when I invented a method I named Afformations® and
began teaching it.
An affirmation is a statement of something you want to be true in your life. An Afformation,
however, is an empowering question that immediately changes your subconscious thought patterns
from negative to positive. For example, a classic affirmation is, “I am rich.” Yet when most people
say that statement, their next thought is, “Yeah, right!” How It Works
When you are trying to change your life—whether you want to improve your health, your finances, your relationships, or your business—what you’re really trying to do is create a new reality
for yourself. You want to go from your current reality to a new reality. Here’s how it works…
1. Right now, you are living in your Current Perceived Reality (CPR). In your CPR, you
have what you have, you know what you know, you do what you do, and you are what you are. To
you, your CPR is reality. It is your own little universe.
2. What you want is to be someplace else—your New Desired Reality (NDR). For example,
you may want to grow your profits, improve your health, increase your sphere of influence, or any
number of other things.
3. Between your CPR and your NDR lies your Belief Gap. That is the space between where
3
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personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
How to Reach Your Goals
you perceive you are right now (your CPR) and what it will be like
when you arrive someplace else (your NDR). Here’s what it looks like…
How big is your Belief Gap? That depends on how long you’ve been
in your CPR, how hard you think it will be to get to your NDR, how
many of your friends tell you “It’s impossible,” when you tell them
your dreams, and so on.
Video
You are struggling because you haven’t yet bridged your Belief
Gap for the specific results you want. To bridge your Belief Gap and
to change your thought patterns from negative to positive, use Afformations—because Afformations have been proven to be the missing
piece for people who wanted to live healthier, wealthier, happier lives.
Apply These 10 Tips
Here are 10 tips for using Afformations to reach your goals twice
as fast with half the effort:
1. Take 100% responsibility for your life. The word responsibility
is comprised of response and ability, meaning “the ability to respond”.
When you take responsibility for your life, you are telling yourself
and the universe, “I am not a victim.” This is the first step to true,
lasting change.
2. Ask yourself what you really want. You can’t get where you’re
going if you don’t know where that is. You might say, “But I don’t
know what I want!” Ask yourself, “If time and money were no object,
what would I love to be, do, or have?” If the answer doesn’t frighten
you a little, you may not be asking big enough!
3. Ask empowering questions. Remember, Afformations are empowering questions that immediately change your subconscious thought
patterns from negative to positive. Most people are unconsciously
asking themselves disempowering questions like, Why can’t I do anything
right? or Why can’t I ever get ahead? When you ask disempowering questions, your mind will find the answers. Change your disempowering
questions to empowering questions like, Why am I good enough? and
Why does everything work out for the best for me?
4. Stop blaming others. Blaming others leads to the emotional block
of resentment, meaning to feel again. Focusing on past hurts and slights
may give you a feeling of control, but it’s a false feeling—because the
past is gone. The quality of your life depends on just two things: the
quality of your communication with the world inside of you, and the
quality of your communication with the world outside of you. Use
Afformations to improve the quality of communication with both
worlds that you live in.
5. Stop blaming yourself. This is the flip side of blaming others.
Blaming yourself leads to the emotional block of guilt, which is resentment turned inward. Just like focusing on how others hurt you
in the past, focusing on your own mistakes only intensifies feelings
of inadequacy. Talk to yourself as you would talk with a friend who
is hurting. Would you tell your friends that they are stupid or not
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
good enough? Of course not! Then don’t say these things to yourself.
6. Give yourself permission to succeed. Most people are driving
down the road of life with one foot on the brake. As much as you
want change—more money, less weight, healthier habits, better relationships—your brain is hardwired to keep doing the things you’ve
been doing. That’s why you must give yourself permission to accept the
good things in life, even if it’s been years since you’ve done anything
nice for yourself.
7. Challenge your assumptions. You are continually forming assumptions about life and your relationship to it, but most of them are
unconscious and disempowering. If you assume negative things like I’m
not good enough or It’s too hard or I probably can’t do it—your actions
will tend to be tentative, fearful, and anticipating failure. Challenge
your assumptions about failure. Fail is a verb that all highly successful
people have done many, many times. But the difference is that they
persist in the face of temporary failure. Just because you’ve failed in the
past does not make you a failure. You are far stronger than you think.
8. Take out your head trash. Most people are constantly focused
on what they lack, what they don’t have, and who they are not. I call
this your head trash. Most of us could hardly count the number of
negative thoughts we’ve had about ourselves. Imagine if every negative
thought you had was a piece of trash in your home. Now imagine
that you never took out the trash. Your home would be disgusting,
wouldn’t it? Take out your head trash and you’ll find that it’s a lot
easier to breathe—literally!
9. Keep a Daily Action Journal. When you wake up in the morning,
write down 5 things you want to do that day. I call this your Daily
Action Journal. The key is to make them things you can control. For
example, in business “Make 10 phone calls” is something you can
control. “Get 10 sales” is not. Similarly, in life you can control “Drink
8 glasses of water”, but you can’t control “Lose 10 pounds.” The key to
happiness is to realize what you have control over and what you don’t.
10. Keep a Daily Gratitude Journal. Every night before bed, write
down five things you are grateful for. This is your Daily Gratitude
Journal. When I started this practice in 2007, I was $40,000 in debt,
had no friends, and was working out of my parents’ basement. 24
months later, I had a six-figure book deal, a beautiful home in the
Midwest, was 100% debt-free, and married the love of my life.
I’m not suggesting that problems magically fix themselves. However,
asking empowering questions and taking focused action will change
your life in ways you probably can’t imagine. So, start using Afformations now, even if you’ve been asking yourself negative questions for
years. Change your questions, challenge your assumptions, and watch
your life change in miraculous ways! PE
Noah St. John is the inventor of Afformations®, speaker, trainer, and author
of The Book of AFFORMATIONS®: Discovering The Missing Piece to
Abundant Health, Wealth, Love, and Happiness (Hay House).
Listen to John’s podcast
“Just a Simple Adjustment”
4
Happiness Calendar
Interactive
Stay happy throughout the year.
Read Henry’s blog article
“Determine Your Destiny”
“Find Your Calling To Find
Lasting Happiness”
By Henry S. Miller
skills and abilities to their max. This month, begin a daily fitness
Amp up your happiness every month of the year by intentionally regimen (check with your doctor first)—even if it’s only walking.
focusing on 12 strategies that the science of happiness and well being
has proven can increase your feelings of happiness and satisfaction. As
you add these actions to your life, your feelings of increased positive
emotion can last for days, weeks, and even months!
If you decide to get serious about adding happiness that lasts to
your life, make these 12 happiness suggestions work for you:
January: Month of Hope and Plans. The beginning of the year
is traditionally about new years’ resolutions. This year, write one
positive goal you have for the coming year down on your calendar
each morning of each day of January. Also write your plan to make
it a reality. Then, resolve that you will intentionally invest your time
and energy to work on your resolutions during the year and to live
a happier life by implementing these 12 happiness strategies—one
each month. February: Month of Gratitude. Gratitude is the antidote to greed,
envy, and jealously. We feel much happier when we are being grateful
for what we have, rather than envious of what we don’t. Remember,
no one has everything! This month, each night before going to bed,
take a daily gratitude inventory. Write down three things you are
grateful for about your life—your relationships, your work, your
character, your family, your country, the world around you, your life. March: Month of Kindness. Plato said, “Be kind, for everyone
you meet is fighting a hard battle.” And, if you look around, it’s still
true today. This month, find one opportunity each and every day to
perform some kind act for someone else—even the simplest act of
holding a door open for another will do. And, each day, after your act
of kindness, enjoy the feeling that, for at least one shining moment,
you are the personification of all that is good about the human race.
April: Month of Optimism. Each day this month, be more conscious of your negative thoughts—if you have any. And every time
you do, immediately dispute it by intentionally replacing the negative
thought with a positive one. Do this each time you think a negative
thought for a month, and notice how your thinking might change.
May: Month of Friendship. Close relationships are one of the
longest-lasting of happiness-increasing strategies. But, sometimes,
we take our friends for granted—or are “too busy” to see them. This
month, at least one time per week, reach out to a friend and spend
time with them. This can be as simple as a walk, a meal, coffee,
drinks—whatever you choose. Find the time to visit with your friends
face-to-face this month.
June: Month of Love. Traditionally, June is a month of weddings
– and love is all around us. Each day this month, call, write, or email
someone you love or care deeply about—one per day—and tell them
how much they mean to you, and how happy you are that they are
a part of your life, even if you haven’t been the best communicator
up to now. Notice reactions—yours and theirs. July: Month of Spirituality. People who have spirituality in their
lives—whether it’s their own secular belief system, their own faith, or
some organized religion—are happier, because of the fellowship of a
caring group of like-thinking folks, and the spiritual beliefs themselves. This month, spend some moments each day—perhaps during
lunch—repeating to yourself at least one prayer or belief you hold.
August: Month of Health, Fitness, Skill. Summer is a great time
to focus on increasing your health and fitness—and on using your
5
Also, make a list of your top skills, talents, and abilities and assess
if you are using them to their fullest. If not, take one step per day
to begin doing so.
September: Month of Contribution. Make a meaningful contribution to make the planet a better place. What are you contributing?
Decide what difference you’d like to make in the world. Spend a
few minutes each day at lunchtime and write down ideas about how
you can make a positive difference in the world. At the end of the
month, decide on a plan of action—and begin! The world needs you
and your contribution! October: Month of Savoring. Fall is a season to enjoy the changing foliage in many parts of the world. Consciously spend at least five
minutes each day focusing your attention exclusively on something
of beauty outside—changing leaves, trees, clouds, sky—something.
Five minutes of complete attention to savor the beauty of life around
you—each day, every day.
November: Month of Forgiveness. Forgiveness is a powerful happiness strategy. We forgive others to make us feel better. This month,
examine your life and see if there are any lingering resentments you
are holding on to that are holding you back from joy. If so, do two
things: First, write the apology letter you would have liked to have
received from the person who has wronged you. Second, rise above
your desire for revenge, and write your letter of forgiveness to them.
No need to mail it, just recall the hurt or violation, write about your
feelings. End the letter with your statement of forgiveness. This simple
act of writing a forgiveness letter can often grant you freedom from
your negative thoughts and give you increased happiness.
December: Month of Generosity. The end of the year is a time
for giving—a time to donate your time, your money if you can,
your skills, your positive energy, your attention—to others to help
make their life a little better. Each day, find one opportunity to give
something of yourself to help another—and notice your feelings.
Remind yourself of each month’s happiness strategy by adding these
topics to your calendar—every day of each month. Then, each day of
the year, find creative ways to act on these strategies—and enjoy your
reactions and your increased feelings of happiness. These feelings will
last far longer than the happiness you feel from just partaking of the
pleasures of life—and will be more meaningful to you.
No matter what your situation, remain hopeful about increasing
your happiness. No one is ever out of the game when it comes to
living a happier and more fulfilling life! As the months of this year
unfold, continue all 12 strategies that work best for you. If you do,
a year of happiness can be yours. PE
Henry S. Miller is a speaker, trainer, consultant and author of The Serious
Pursuit of Happiness: Everything You Need to Know to Flourish and Thrive,
creator of Get SERIOUS About Your Happiness, former consultant for the
Tom Peters Company and President of The Henry Miller Group
(www.millergroup.com).
Download Book
Book
Book
Download a pdf of Henry’s
ebook “Inspiration”
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Love’s About Little Things
Interactive
Practice 10 rituals that bring you closer.
“Make the Joyful
Journey”
By Brent Bradley and James Furrow
Simple rituals hold relationships together. Yes, big milestones and
grand gestures make for great memories. Yet in terms of creating
togetherness, they pale in comparison to the little moments repeated
over and over again. Weaving these rituals into your daily lives can
increase emotional connection.Couples need shared activities to create
memories, stories, and experiences. Whether it’s a regular date night
or a weekly meal made together, such repeated events can provide
a deeper sense of unity, mark what’s unique about you as a couple,
and give meaning to your relationship. So, make time for rituals.
Many rituals take very little time. You just need to be intentional
and commit to them.
Here are 10 examples of rituals:
1. Say hello and goodbye. Greeting rituals can be a way of communicating love and dedication to your partner. These repeated gestures
can be as simple as a hug, kiss, special word or phrase used when saying
hello or goodbye. Some couples develop more elaborate or distinctive
ways that signal to one another that they’re special. Make the gestures
are consistent—until they become part of your own language of love
and a unique sign of your mutual affection.
2. Schedule regular date nights. If you’re busy or fallen into a
routine that’s all about work and family, having regular night out—for
just the two of you—can ease the demands of a time-starved relationship. Making an appointment for your relationship means you’re
giving it priority. Keeping your date means keeping your relationship
a priority. After you schedule your date night, talk about what would
make the time special. Think about your most memorable dates.
Finding examples from the past may give you new ideas for future
dates. Being intentional about sharing expectations keeps you tuned
into the needs and desires of your partner.
3. Set aside time to talk. Couples with small children or limited
resources often find it difficult to get away for a date night. Setting
aside 15 minutes to talk regularly may be more realistic for you. If so,
find a consistent time and set boundaries—for example: No interruptions. No electronic devices. No discussions of work or children. Keep
the time focused on each other. Keep the time manageable but also
meaningful. If you wonder what to talk about, start with quantity,
and trust that the quality will show up. For some couples, just 10
minutes in the same space without stress and demands reminds them
of what’s good in life.
4. Put it in writing. Writing a note or sending a card tells your
partner that he or she is important to you and on your mind. Whether
it’s a text message, e-mail, or handwritten note, written expressions of
affection show your partner that they count. These notes often mean
more when you’re separated by time or distance. When you tuck a
note into your partner’s suitcase before they head out on a business
trip, it can be a welcome surprise. It shows that you’re intentional and
thinking about them. This simple action can trigger feelings of love and
affection. These notes don’t have to be long—they just personal. Let
your partner know something that you’re thankful for or appreciate.
5. Learn something new together. Take golf or music lessons or a
university class together. Talk about what you learn. Learning a new
activity or skill gives you something to focus on together. You will find
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
“Relationship Problems?
Creating Safety May be the
Answer”
“Need Couples Therapy?
Top 10 Warning Signs”
the process of learning together rewarding. Learning and growing as a
couple helps partners bring new energy and ideas to their relationship.
Learning together can deepen a couple’s shared sense of accomplishment and the pride that goes along with it. Learning also involves
taking risks, and that’s a good thing. Taking chances, failing, and
succeeding brings couples together as they practice ways to support
and celebrate personal challenges and shared successes.
6. Invest in relationship activities. Couples who have strong
dedication are more likely to be happier, more open, have less conflict, and take steps to improve and sacrifice for their relationship.
Intentionally addressing your relationship makes space to invest in
the commitment you share. Reading a book on relationships can
spark new ideas for growth. Sharing these ideas and participating in
exercises provide practical resources for growing a stronger bond. Or
you might attend workshops and retreats for couples to get away and
focus on each other. Some couples spend one weekend a year discussing their relationship, making plans and important decisions. Give
yourself an annual relationship checkup, giving each person time to
talk about his or her joys, concerns, and needs.
6
Love’s About Little Things
7. Celebrate milestones—even if that’s not your thing. Planning
and remembering special days, like anniversaries and birthdays, mark
the importance of people and relationships. Expressing appreciation
for your partner communicates how important they are in your life
and strengthens your bond. If you grew up in a family that didn’t
celebrate milestones, don’t assume the same is true of your partner.
Partners bring different family experiences—and expectations—to
relationships. A missed birthday or anniversary can be seen as a lack
of care or concern. Discussing your different experiences and sharing
expectations can help you avoid hurt feelings.
8. Find an interest you can share. Familiarity and boredom are
intimacy killers. Securely attached couples find time to play together.
Attachment rituals should be life-giving to both of you. If not, it’s
time to find a new ritual. Vital couples find fun activities to share.
Having fun together is a source of renewal and refreshment for them.
For example, physical activity can be energizing and enable you to stay
fit and healthy. Hiking, dancing, walking, or sharing a sport offers
you a chance to organize around activities that combine leisure time
and companionship. Other couples organize around common artistic
interests such as movies, concerts, cooking together, trying new restaurants, or popular books. Others involve being fans of sports teams.
9. Serve others. Taking time to help others or give to those in need
offers unique opportunities to invest in your relationship. Serving a
common goal helps you find a deeper sense of unity by transcending
personal interests. When you decide to dedicate your time or resources
to others, you make a joint expression of your values. You can find
many ways to serve—from caring for the environment to improving the community. Volunteering as a couple expresses a common
People Tools
purpose that others see and affirm. Many couples share in religious
and spiritual activities that include serving others, enabling them to
be faithful to deeply held values.
10. Make time for hugs, handholding, and sex. Sexual contact in
a relationship of care, trust, and vulnerability communicates a deep
intimacy. Couples who keep a focus on each other and expressions of
sexual affection find a greater meaning in these rituals than those who
focus mostly on their sexual needs. Keeping romance in sex requires
couples to find ways of being intentional about expressing both their
physical and emotional desires. Of course, you don’t always have to
have sex to show affection. Everyday moments of sharing physical
affection, like hugging, kissing, and holding hands, show partners
that they’re important and special. Deliberate acts of affection are
effective reminders of care and kindness.
Rituals need to happen regularly. It’s better to postpone or reschedule
than it is to skip your ritual. Inconsistency breaks the power of ritual,
but flexibility is necessary to make consistency a reality. PE
Brent Bradley, PhD, is president of The Couple Zone (www.couplezone.org),
a center for counseling, counselor training, and research.
James Furrow, Ph.D., is professor of marital and family therapy at the Fuller
Graduate School of Psychology and executive director of the LA Center for
EFT. They are coauthors of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy For Dummies®
(Wiley).
Video
Build better relationships.
By Alan C. Fox
Interactive
In classrooms, we teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, but
leave solutions to the universal problems of human relations to be discovered, if at all, by trial and error. During the past 40 years, my life
has improved in all areas because I tried to learn and use People Tools
to build fulfilling relationships. They are useful for self-management,
and in managing others to help us solve problems—from coping with
anger and building self-esteem to enhancing communication with
colleagues, friends, and family.
Thriving in life requires that you find and apply the best people
tools. Here are 12 of my favorites:
1. Judge actions. Great football running backs can fake with their
heads, their eyes, and knees, but not with their waist. Wherever
their belt buckle is going, that’s where they’re going. Judge people,
including yourself, by actions rather than words.
2. See patterns. Patterns persist. Persistent patterns persist
persistently. Recognize your patterns, and expect them to repeat
themselves. If you like the pattern, embrace it. If you dislike the
consequences of the pattern, avoid the area entirely (don’t go to a
casino if you lose more money than you can afford), work around
it (don’t go to restaurants with buffets if you overeat at them), or
intentionally try to change it. By the same token, recognize patterns
7
of behavior in others and expect them to recur.
3. Prefer a positive self-fulfilling prophecy. Few of us want to be
wrong, and it is easier to fail than to succeed. Hence, if you predict
failure, you are likely to be right. But, the real question is: Which
prophecy will help you succeed more often? Since prophecies tend
to be self-fulfilling, infuse them with optimism.
4. Target practice. A life goal is a target, and I approach this
form of archery by expanding my target—instead of using a miniscule bull’s eye, I aim at a target big as an IMAX screen. Rather
than maintaining a long list of criteria for your life partner, look for
someone who makes you happy and treats you well.
5. Shrink the glass. They say an optimist sees the glass as half
full, while the pessimist sees the glass as half empty. My approach is
to shrink the glass! Life is a succession of experiences. Our task is to
make those experiences as pleasant as we possibly can. Experiences
are what they are, but your reaction to them is subjective and largely
within your control.
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
People Tools
6. Forget sunk cost. Sometimes, our decisions are influenced by
the investment we’ve already made—whether financial or emotional.
However, if your investment is now insolvent, forget about the time
or money that you’ve spent—it’s a sunk cost you can’t retrieve. If
there is a better alternative for the future, pursue it.
7. Seek the 80% solution. No one is perfect, and you can fruitlessly chase an ideal. Instead, ask a better question: are they good
enough? Think of a person’s strengths and weaknesses and decide
if they meet at least 80% of your ideal. Yes, the 80% is subjective,
but pick a number and make a decision.
8. Catch them being good. I once thought the best way to get
people, especially children, to change their behavior was to correct
their mistakes. Then I was given an assignment for psychology class.
For a week, each time someone (including me) performed a behavior
I wanted repeated, I would say, “That’s great, I really like that.” At
the end of the week, I got three of my favorite dinners and countless
kisses from my wife. Positive reinforcement works!
9. Give more in ‘equal’ relationship. Every good relationship
must be perceived as approximately equal by both parties most of
the time. to achieve mutual sustained satisfaction, you have to give
as good as you get, and get as good as you give. When I felt I wasn’t
getting enough out of a relationship, I used to give less, but found
that my relationship diminished. If it’s important to you to get
more, then give more.
10. Help me help you. When I was involved in management, I
learned to ask people to put their request in writing. This yielded two
benefits. First, I no longer had to take notes. Second, 95% of the
time, I heard nothing more. I figured it wasn’t important enough for
me to notice, or the other person to put it in writing, then it wasn’t
important enough to spend money on. If you want me to help you,
then you must help me first. Another example—when one of my
children would ask, “How do you spell this word?” I would say,
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
“Good question. What letter do you think the word starts with?”
11. Apologize. In my experience, an intent to learn, which may
end in an apology, leads to an agreement and good feelings between
people. By contrast, an intent to defend leaves the other person feeling
shut out and angry. There’s never been a downside when I have apologized, and seldom been an upside when I should have but didn’t.
12. Leverage: I believe in using whatever you have now to get
whatever you want, as effectively as possible. My 16-year-old daughter
wants to borrow my car? Hmmm. Do you think she’ll be willing
to clean her room first?
Successful relationships are the bedrock of successful careers,
families, and friendships, which in turn are hallmarks of a
successful and enjoyable life. Much of my success comes from
deploying an expanding array of People Tools. The potential supply
of People Tools is unlimited. You can easily invent your own set of
Tools, selecting ones that work best for you and eliminating those
that are not helpful. PE
Alan C. Fox, is a real estate entrepreneur, editor and publisher of Rattle,
and author of PEOPLE TOOLS: 54 Strategies for Building Relationships,
Creating Joy, and Embracing Prosperity (SelectBooks), from which this
article is adapted with permission. Visit www.peopletoolsbook.com
“Solve It Forward”
“Catch the Up
Elevator”
8
Meaningful Friendships
Interactive
Three ways to develop more of them.
By Dawna Hetzler
Most people (75 percent!) are not satisfied with their friendships;
63 percent lack confidence in even their closest friends; and half of
us would choose to have deeper friendships rather than more friends.
Those are the findings of a new study, The State of Friendship in America
2013, by Lifeboat Friends at Their Best and Sea Change Strategies
and Edge Research.
Strong, trusting friendships are crucial to our sense of peace, happiness and well-being, but many of us, women in particular, build so
many walls around our hearts to protect ourselves, we can never open
ourselves to all the possible relationships we could have. Or, we do
allow some people in, but we keep them at arm’s length.
Strong friendships do make us happier, according to the new
study: 49 percent of people with seven or more close friends strongly
agreed that they feel happy most of the time, while only 24 percent
of people with just one good friend and 19 percent with no friends,
could say the same.
Video
You have to know and trust a person before you allow them into
your heart, because when you open yourself up, you become vulnerable. We all build walls to protect ourselves from hurt, fear, rejection,
disapproval and other painful emotions, and that’s natural. Some
walls are healthy. But the invisible walls we’re often not even aware of
prevent us from experiencing the honest, real relationships that can
benefit us in many ways.
Here I share three lessons that I learned by working with Jericho’s
Girls—the women’s group that I founded to focus on dismantling
unhealthy walls around our hearts that inhibit our relationships. I
wrote Walls of Warriors based on my experiences.
• First, identify the walls you have. We build walls in response to
many things—real and perceived threats, fears, conditioning, rejection.
Many of us put up walls to hide our weaknesses; if you have trouble
asking for help, this may be you! Jericho’s Girls members learned that
acknowledging and being honest about their weaknesses allowed them
to grow stronger. And that asking for help from friends offers those
friends the gratification of giving. Making a list of your walls and
understanding why they’re there is a good place to start the process.
• If the wall is unhealthy, identify the steps necessary to dismantle it. Sometimes we erect walls to protect ourselves from ourselves.
One of my walls revolved around being needed too much. I tend to
take on a lot, and then exhaust myself getting it all done. I realized
9
that I built a wall to prevent people from seeing that I really can’t
do it all, and pushed away those I feared might demand too much
of my time and energy. I dealt with that wall by setting limits with
myself and others. I say no when I need to, which enables me to build
friendships instead of pushing people away.
• Arm yourself with words of inspiration. Powerful words help
when we need positive reinforcement or reassurance when the way
ahead looks scary. I have found that calling upon a quotation that I
believe in provides both. Write down the quotes, Bible verses or other
inspiration that have great meaning for you. Each day, read one, reflect
upon the meaning, pray or meditate, and contemplate the message it
holds for you. These words will stick with you, and you’ll have them
to call upon when you need them.
Creating deeper, honest friendships begins with opening our hearts
to others. When you begin taking down the walls, you’ll be more at
peace with yourself. And that allows you to develop the wonderful
relationships that come from trust and sharing. PE
Dawna Hetzler owns a real estate firm and is a speaker, mentor, teacher and
author of Walls of a Warrior: Conquering the Fears of Our Hearts.
Visit www.DawnaHetzler.com.
“Mile Marker 23, The
Known Path”
Art the Banker
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Thought Leadership
Interactive
Start taking these seven steps.
By Denise Brosseau
Are you ready to bring your ideas to the world, have an impact
on an issue you care about, and leave a meaningful legacy? Over the
years, I’ve developed a seven-step process to help people transition
from leader to thought leader. Here’s what it takes:
Step 1: Find your driving passion. Thought leadership starts with
focus and passion. When you align your time, energy, and resources
around one niche where your interests, expertise, credibility, and
commitment align—your thought leadership intersection point—you’ll
have far greater impact and influence and gather much greater attention to your topic, idea, or cause. What is your niche?
Next, craft a clear “What If? Future” (WIF)—a possible future that
you are committed to bring about. A WIF is a single, simple, striking description or image of the future you want to see. All thought
leaders need a WIF. They may not yet be sure how to get there, but
an inspiring WIF can attract followers and galvanize them to take
action. Your WIF may be a highly aspirational future, but it is no less
worthy of a goal to work towards. What WIF will you work to achieve?
To gain momentum, identify and align with emerging or existing
trends. This will help you overcome the natural resistance to change.
When you ride close behind another bicyclist, you don’t have to work
as hard, because the bicyclist in front of you serves as a windbreak,
reducing your air resistance. Experienced bicyclists take advantage
of this effect—drafting off each other. How can you draft off the
momentum of others?
Step 2: Build your ripples of influence. Being an effective changemaker requires that you build an expanding circles of followers for your
ideas—engaging others to think, act, and see the world differently.
To bring about the What If? Future you envision, start by testing your
ideas with your inner circle of knowledgeable stakeholders—with
colleagues, mentors, and friends. Gather their input and continually
refine your thinking.
By listening to what resonates, you will distill many different
points of view into the kernel of a transformative idea that not only
engages others but will give you a starting point for your efforts to
bring about your WIF. Those conversations will also inform how
you should position and leverage your message to tell a bigger story
that gets others on board. Who are the first followers for the change
you are bringing about?
Step 3: Activate your advocates. Once you build momentum
around your efforts for change with your team or organization,
expand your influence by attracting supporters and well-connected
advocates—community leaders, industry spokespeople, analysts,
journalists, research groups, or national partners—who can champion your product, program, initiative, or idea to a much broader
set of audiences.
To activate these advocates, articulate what’s in it for them to get
on board. What might motivate others to join your efforts? Do they
share your point of view about the WIF you are trying to bring about?
Will they align with your efforts because of the innovation you have
underway, or are they more interested in building their social capital,
credibility, or reputation? Are you in their trust circle—are you a
known quantity with many shared connections? Identifying and
capitalizing on these links will help you more quickly align others
to the efforts you have underway. What’s in it for those you want to
engage with your ideas?
Step 4: Put your ‘I’ on the line. To build sustainable momentum
for a new idea is not exclusively about catalyzing conversations,
building new initiatives, and securing buy-in from champions and
allies. It is also an internal dialogue, one that often requires some
soul-searching and Putting Your ‘I’ on the Line—stepping into the
spotlight as the person who is ready to lead the way. This requires
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
7 Roadblocks to Thought
Leadership–and How to
Overcome Them
Book
Ready to be a Thought Leader?:
How to Increase your Influence,
Impact and Success
overcoming any self-imposed limits to standing front and center
and risking your reputation to espouse a new direction or vision of
the future, often long before others agree with your point of view.
To do this, find your imperative—face your responsibilities to your own
gifts, and to your community and organization and the world. Along
the way, this may require facing your fears, fostering your resilience,
and asking for help. Who will help you this year to overcome any fears
that might hold you back?
Step 5: Codify your lessons learned. Every year many people with
amazing ideas create bold initiatives, programs, and products, and
gain a following for their ideas. But to build true momentum for new
ways of thinking, to reframe an industry, catalyze real transformation,
pioneer sustained evolutionary or revolutionary change—to become
a true thought leader—you need to document what you know into
a system, method, process, protocol, or guiding principles so others
can easily understand, get on board, and help you replicate your
ideas. Clarifying lessons learned and standardizing and systematizing
a repeatable process into intellectual property is the step that most
separates the thought leaders whose ideas are sustained from those
whose are not. How can you document your intellectual property this year?
Step 6: Put yourself on SHOUT. To increase your credibility,
strategic visibility, and reputation and gain recognition as a thought
leader, you’ll have to get the word out about your activities, efforts,
and lessons learned. You’re not a thought leader if no one knows
anything about you or what you’ve accomplished. You need to be
discoverable—through LinkedIn or a personal website, through
Tweeting or speaking, writing a blog, telling your story through the
press or convening others in your community or ecosystem. Don’t
try to do it all—practice strategic ubiquity: identify the two or three
platforms where your audience lives or where you can have the most
impact with your message, and stick to those. How can you connect
with a far-reaching network of friends, fans, and followers that will spread
the word about your activities?
Step 7: Incite (R)Evolution. Thought leadership is not just grabbing
people’s attention or getting your ideas heard. You also need to work
together with those already committed to the same WIF—to encourage them to add their actions to yours to create broader evolutionary
and revolutionary change. When you gather these change-makers into
a community and encourage them to carry your ideas forward, and
even empower them to build their own communities to spread your
ideas and innovations, that’s when real transformation will happen.
How can you build a community around your ideas?
To know your efforts are gaining wider traction, audit your progress—and use tools like Google alerts, Newsle or Klout to gain a
bird’s-eye view of what others are doing and talking about. This will
help you stay current and enable you to engage with them and invite
them to join your ever-expanding community. Is the transformation
you’ve envisioned and worked towards beginning to take hold?
Following these seven steps will help you accelerate and amplify
your voice, increase your influence, expand your impact, and build
a sustainable community of followers that will carry forward your
efforts. PE
Denise Brosseau is CEO of Thought Leadership Lab, building the visibility
and credibility of thought leaders, and author of Ready to be a Thought
Leader?: How to Increase your Influence, Impact and Success (Jossey-Bass).
Visit: http://www.thoughtleadershiplab.com
“Thought Leader or
Expert? You Decide!”
10
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Toxic Loops
Interactive
Free yourself and enjoy peace.
By Karl Albrecht
Book
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the famous comedy duo, made a
priceless film in 1927, portraying themselves as entrepreneurs trying
to sell Christmas trees door-to-door in Los Angeles. At their first stop,
they were rudely rejected by a curmudgeonly resident. Offended by
his attitude, they repeatedly rang his doorbell and re-solicited his
business. Finally, in frustration, he grabbed the tree they were offering and threw it into the street.
Outraged, they tore off his porch light. Reciprocally outraged, he
rushed out to the street and ripped off the headlight from their truck.
Things quickly escalated. At each cycle, they did something more
damaging to his house, to which he responded by perpetrating further
violence on their truck. Soon they had trashed his house, and he had
turned their truck into a pile of wreckage. The police got involved,
and—well, you’d have to see it to appreciate it.
This little 15-minute drama captures one of the oldest, most painful
dynamics of the human experience: the escalating tit-for-tat conflict
in which each of the protagonists believes him- or herself to be the
aggrieved party. I call it the toxic loop. After showing the Laurel and
Hardy film in my workshops on social intelligence, I like to ask two
questions: 1) Who started it? and 2) Who won?
Toxic loops are remarkably common in human interactions. The
dissatisfied customer says something sarcastic, to which the service
employee reacts in kind. A simple conversation between a husband and
wife hits a snag and turns into a bitter argument—often over nothing
of consequence. An aggressively expressed political opinion triggers
a heated debate, with the exchange of increasing personal insults. A
supervisor points out some shortfall in job performance, the employee
responds aggressively, and they fall into a cycle of trading accusations.
Each of us, as an individual, has the option to stay out of these
crazy-making loops, or to exit from them once our inner observer
alerts us that we’ve fallen into one. Of course, if you enjoy conflict,
confrontation, and argumentation, this premise probably doesn’t apply.
Years ago I decided to stop arguing with people. It was one of the
most valuable decisions I’ve ever made. It has freed me from stress,
negative feelings, and the compulsive need to be right. I didn’t give
up on influencing other people, or inviting them to change their
minds—I just acknowledged the futility of trying to bully them into
agreeing with me. Yes, the simple decision to stop arguing with people
can set you free.
It’s unrealistic to hope to avoid all conflicts—there are too many
circumstances in which the purposes of the parties are not aligned.
But I’ve often wondered how many of the smaller, everyday negative
loops we fall into could be prevented or aborted.
We have at least two options for freeing ourselves from toxic
loops, and preserving our peace of mind: 1) see them coming, and
refuse to be baited into participating; and 2) become aware that we’ve
fallen into them, and simply stop participating. Both require a certain
degree of mindfulness, a concept that’s very appealing to enlightened
people these days.
The first option might be easy, once we turn on our loop detector.
By staying alert for the provocative statement, the sarcastic comment,
the accusation—implied or overt--- the intolerant or bigoted diatribe,
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
“Added Value
Negotiating”
Assessment
“Are You ‘Toxic’ or
‘Nourishing?’ “
“How to Talk to a
‘Lousy Listener’ ”
we can make wise choices about how we will reply. As the Dalai Lama
said: “Sometimes silence is the best answer.”
Breaking out of toxic loops once we have fallen into them requires
the ability to self-observe while engaged with a situation. Our inner
voice, the observing self, can tell us when we’re in a loop with someone,
and remind us that it’s going nowhere. Even if the other party or
parties are unaware of their imprisonment in the loop, we always
have the option of individually opting out. For example, you might
say, “Well, I’ve said everything I have to say,” and just fall silent. Or,
“I would like to be excused from this conversation.” Or, “Could we
change the topic? I’m not finding this conversation very fruitful.” You
might conjure up much more imaginative replies than these examples.
Our ideas and attitudes about toxic loops reflect our psychic needs
related to conflict, doing battle, and winning or losing. Once we
let go of the need to be right, we can recall and redirect the psychic
energy we allow others to pull from us. We have more options, more
possibilities, and more ways to stay centered and use our energy for
our own best purposes. As Alex Noble said: “There is a quality in a
few unique individuals which I can only best describe as acceptance.
In the presence of such persons, I feel safe, at home, and eager to
share and learn. Their attitude toward life is gentle, affirming, and
this brings out the best and the deepest in me, and makes me feel
capable of all the good I have ever hoped to accomplish.” And, as the
Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, credited with writing The Way of Life,
said, “The greatest victor wins without the battle.” PE
Karl Albrecht, Ph.D., is a management consultant, speaker, and author
of more than 20 books, including Social Intelligence: The New Science of
Success, Practical Intelligence: the Art and Science of Common Sense, and the
Mindex Thinking Style Profile. He studies cognitive styles and advanced
thinking skills. Visit www.KarlAlbrecht.com
12
Thinking Agility
Interactive
Use the best tool—your brain.
By Ann Herrmann-Nehdi
If aliens landed on earth and wanted you to explain what today’s business environment is like, perhaps one of the best ways to
demonstrate it would be to ask them to schedule a meeting with you
and a few colleagues.
How many times have you rearranged your schedule lately? Scheduled a meeting? Moved a meeting? Cancelled a meeting? Tried to
coordinate calendars with people across time zones or even continents? Apologized profusely as you shifted yet another phone call
and shuffled yet another competing priority or project?
For most people today, the schedule dance is part of the job, and
it’s emblematic of the broader picture—a landscape of change, velocity, complexity and pressures. The need for greater flexibility, focus
and speed keeps growing. It’s no wonder the biggest buzzword of the
decade seems to be agility.
Video
So how do you get more agile? I’m reminded of Ned Herrmann’s
advice: If you want to rise to the occasion, you already have the best
tool available — the brain.
You can’t control most of these external factors (and your calendars
may feel increasingly out of control), but one thing you always have
control over is how you use your thinking and apply your attention.
How we prefer to think impacts everything we do, but we can adapt
our thinking to be more productive in a chaotic environment. Using
thinking as the catalyst for greater agility provides a framework for
deconstructing the complexity around us and taking advantage of
the right mental resources for the situation. This thinking foundation
makes it easier to handle the business of managing today, including
being able to:
• simultaneously push tasks and initiatives through to completion
while deftly handling rapid-fire changes
• process and deliver information efficiently, and manage time
effectively so problems can be solved faster and decisions can be
made with confidence
• optimize relationships up, down and across the organization
to ensure engagement, collaboration and alignment with business
objectives and customer needs
• take advantage of the diverse ideas, strengths and approaches of
different individuals, functions, teams and departments to reinforce
a culture of innovation
13
Here are three think-centered agility tips for increasing effectiveness:
1. Stop and think about others’ thinking: How someone thinks
impacts how they will look at a problem, make decisions, communicate
with people, and even select tools and resources. By understanding and
adapting to the thinking of others—including the boss, employees,
peers, customers, shareholders, and other increasingly multicultural
and multi-generational groups—you can quickly optimize the way
work gets done.
2. Diagnose the mental demands of the task at hand: Being able
to size up the mental demands of a given problem, project or task
allows more efficient prioritization and helps you put together the
right processes, people and tools for the job. In the midst of a noisy,
complicated and continually evolving workplace, a foundation of
thinking preferences provides the structure to quickly make sense of
the situation.
3. Be diverse by design: In an era in which new ideas, innovative
solutions and diverse perspectives can spell the difference between
individuals and teams that win and those that stagnate (or worse),
recognizing and leveraging the full range of thinking available is critical. Those who understand the importance of cognitive diversity are
the ones encouraging people to bring their best thinking to work. PE
Ann Herrmann-Nehdi is CEO of Herrmann International.
Email [email protected]
White Paper
Navigating in an Unpredictable and Complex World
“Ten Steps to Developing
Agile Thinkers in a Complex
World”
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Health and Well-being
Interactive
Release the walls around your heart.
By Bradley Nelson
February is American Heart Month, and we keep hearing about
new breakthroughs in heart research. For instance, researchers have
discovered a clear physical link between emotions and heart health,
finding that having either depression or anxiety may make it more
likely that you will have a heart attack or heart failure in the future.
As a holistic physician, I know how negative emotions harm the
heart and physical health. The heart is a second brain that greatly influences our health and well-being. Your heart generates 60 to 1,000
times more power and electromagnetic energy than your brain, easily
making it the most powerful organ in your body. When you were in
the womb, your heart was formed first, before your brain. Your heart
beats about 100,000 times a day, 40 million times a year, and if its
connection to your brain is severed, it will keep right on beating.
The heart has an elaborate nervous system, a discovery that has led
to the creation of a branch of medicine called neurocardiology. The
brain in your head is obeying messages sent by the brain in your heart.
Your heart is constantly sending information to your body. Every beat
carries critical messages that affect your emotional and physical health.
When you feel love and affection for someone, your heart is sending
a powerful electromagnetic signal to that person that will make your
heartbeat detectable in their brain waves! The same beneficial effect
occurs in your body when love and appreciation are broadcast toward
you from another person. This phenomenon is strongest when two
people are touching or are in close proximity but is measurable at a
distance as well.
I’m not surprised that we are discovering clear links between anxiety,
depression and heart disease. All of us at one time have experienced
deep emotional hurt (heartache). If left unresolved, these negative emotions can become trapped in the body and cause anxiety, depression,
phobias, panic attacks and other emotional problems that contribute
to heart disease. Grief, hurt or loss can actually assault the deepest
part of our being, our hearts. These feelings of heartbreak can be so
uncomfortable, so difficult to deal with, that they often result in the
formation of an energetic wall that surrounds the heart in an effort
to protect it from these negative emotions.
I find that most people suffer from this disabling problem. HeartWalls™ are present in cases of anxiety, phobias, panic attacks and eating
disorders such as bulimia. Heart-Walls™ Heart-Walls™ are implicated
in the failure of many relationships, resulting in much loneliness
and sadness. Depression, the leading cause of disability in American
women, is another common side effect of trapped emotions. By releasing trapped emotions and removing Heart-Walls™, I’ve seen cases
of severe depression eliminated, marriages saved, abuse stopped, lives
turned around, loving relationships begun, better choices made, and
peace restored. Profound and lasting changes occur when Heart-Walls™
are dismantled.
Is a wall around your heart contributing to physical illness or
disease for you or a loved one? Is your Heart-Wall™ hampering your
ability to give and receive love? Is it interfering with your ability to
feel good emotions, or contributing to your feelings of isolation? Is
it creating depression, anxiety or self-sabotage? Is it interfering with
your ability to succeed?
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
The most important thing you can do to improve your health,
your love life and your longevity is to remove your trapped emotions
and get rid of the walls around your heart.
Your emotional baggage consists of the energies of the intense emotions you have experienced that were left behind after traumatic or
difficult events. Each emotion has its own energetic vibration or
frequency of energy. Anger is a different frequency than frustration
or grief. During times of emotional stress, the energy of the negative
emotion that we experience can become trapped in the body. Trapped
emotions are balls of energy, and wherever they lodge, they distort the
normal energy field of the body, causing physical pain. Since these
trapped emotions often cause physical pain, by releasing your trapped
emotions, you will often release your pain as well.
In our experience, at least 90 percent of the physical pain that people
experience is due to their trapped emotions from past arguments, losses,
deaths in the family, betrayals of trust and broken relationships. When
these trapped emotional energies are released, the pain dissipates—or
disappears! Powerful healing occurs when they’re released.
Video
What emotional baggage are you dragging around? How can you
heal yourself from emotional wounds of the past? Most physical pain,
disease and mental and emotional problems are rooted in emotional
baggage from negative past experiences. Along with physical pain,
these repressed emotions inhibit relationships and sabotage professional
success. Many people fail to perform up to their ability because of the
weight of the drag created by their emotional baggage.
To break the cycle of stress, become aware of unresolved emotions.
These are responsible for guiding (or misguiding) your choices. For
example, if you have a trapped emotion of anger, you’ll be more likely
to become angry when future situations arise that upset you. Your body
is already resonating with anger, and it’s just waiting for someone or
something to light the fuse.
Listen to your body. Don’t volunteer to take on an additional task
if it interferes with your health, your family or your stress level—it
won’t be worth it.
Exercise daily. Find a way to work exercise into your day. Challenge yourself to do some sort of physical exercise every day, no matter
what it is, or for how long you do it. Stick with it. Eat right. When you go out to eat with friends, be prepared to tell
14
Health and Well-being
stories so you talk more, and eat more slowly. Eat your salad first so
you fill up on live food.
Take a breather. If you find people you are with are making you
feel stressed, go outside to get some fresh air. Ask yourself if you’re
overreacting. Recognize your feelings and analyze what the other
person meant to say. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt.
If you aren’t sure, ask for clarification, then react with kindness, love
and forgiveness.
Shrug off stress: Stress is also caused by nagging messages about
unfinished business in the back of your mind that pop up at inopportune moments when you’re not in a position to act—commitments
that you’ve made and not kept, people that you’ve yet to forgive, and
looming deadlines. Renegotiate commitments if needed, and don’t
forget to plan your days.
Find peace through forgiveness: If someone has hurt or wronged
you in some way, and you haven’t forgiven them, your stress level will
naturally be higher. Strive for a state of acceptance and understanding, despite their negative behavior or difficult nature. And go easy
on yourself too.
Overcome emotions that damage the immune system. Stress
weakens the immune system. As you get rid of the unresolved emotional baggage from the past, you strengthen your immune system.
Practice choosing more positive emotions when you feel resistance to
situations that arise in your life. Strive to be at peace with the universe
and with yourself.
Lose weight. A secret key to losing weight—and keeping it off—is
to release your trapped emotions. To find the causes for overeating,
15
identify triggers. You could be protecting yourself by being overweight.
If your goal is to lose 20 pounds, what plan do you need to make
it happen? Set a completion date. Break it into smaller milestones
by month, week and day. The biggest reason for emotional eating
is emotional baggage. When you get stressed, you tend to overeat.
The next time you feel sadness, anger or frustration, remember that
you have control over your emotional state. Emotions don’t choose
you—you chose your emotions in every situation—and you can unchoose them. PE
Bradley Nelson is a holistic chiropractic physician, speaker, and author of
The Emotion Code.
Visit www.DrBradleyNelson.com and TheEmotionCode.com
Email [email protected]
“Emotions and
Heart Health”
“Whole-Person
Health”
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Image Excellence
Interactive
Avoid excess, or overindulging.
By Marla Tomazin
Is your physical image important to you? If so, I invite you to
seek external revitalization that mirrors your internal development.
As an experienced image consultant, I focus on the entire bodymind-spirit connection, knowing that balance looks and feels different to everyone. So, in working with clients, I evaluate body shape,
movement, and coloring as well as synthesizing optimal cuts, lines,
colors, and textures. This results in balance and proportion that accentuate attributes and conceal flaws. But obesity is hard to cover up.
I find that most of us tend to overindulge when we’re busy cooking,
socializing, eating, or traveling to the next event on the calendar. Yes,
we mean well when we cram our time so full of activities and obligations: We want to have fun. We want to spend time with loved ones.
We want to celebrate, eat good food, and look our best while doing
it. But often, we end up overdoing it. We tend to operate on the belief
that more is better. In many areas, it’s easy to inadvertently cross the line
from excellence (healthy) to excess (overindulgence) leaving ourselves
inadequate margins of time and energy and finding ourselves irritable,
stressed, and exhausted as we fall more behind on our to-do lists.
There’s no magic formula for staying within healthy boundaries. That’s why you need to monitor several key areas as you move
through the week. Yes, going overboard might be tempting and easy
to rationalize, but not at the expense of your well-being. When you
stay focused on honoring your needs and values, you stand the best
chance of creating a fulfilling lifestyle—and of remaining in a good
place, physically and mentally.
To create a balanced, healthy lifestyle, you need to avoid overindulging in these seven key areas:
Calendar crunch. Cocktail parties. Potlucks. Gift exchanges.
Company celebrations. Concerts. Fundraisers. These events are supposed to be enjoyable. And they can be, if you curate your schedule.
Avoid going to too many events or attending the wrong ones. As you
pencil things in on your calendar, ask yourself: How much time do I
need to recharge between events? How much time should I set aside to
complete personal tasks? Will spending time with certain groups of people
energize me or drain me?”
Parade of requests. Since events don’t plan themselves, chances are
you’ll be asked to pitch in with your time, talents, energy, and money.
As the requests come rolling in, resist the urge to automatically say yes
to everything. You don’t have to plan your company’s party or stay up
till 2 a.m. baking cookies for your child’s class. You don’t have to host
every member of your extended family for a dinner. Keep your limits in
mind and practice saying no. Don’t give away so much of your energy
that you have none left to enjoy your closest friends and family life!
Caught up in the commercial frenzy. Gifts. Clothes. Food. Travel.
Decorations. A million and one things keep us spending money. The
problem is, as you walk through crowded malls and watch endless
streams of commercials, it’s easy to get carried away with your wallet.
No purchase is worth the anxiety that a larger-than-expected credit
card bill can bring. Be wary of overspending on clothing, shoes,
handbags, and other items that are on sale, but that you don’t need.
When shopping for clothes, look at the garment first and the price
second. The best memories won’t involve stuff. Instead, they feature the
people you love. So don’t be afraid to create a budget and stick to it.
Decking out the home. Many of us have mistakenly gotten the
impression that our homes need to look like Martha Stewart paid a
visit. We go overboard on expensive home furnishings, decorations,
elaborate lights, exquisite crafts, etc. As you deck out your home, ask
yourself, Am I doing this because I’ll really enjoy these decorations, or am
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Video
I doing it so that other people will be impressed? Remember, the most
important thing is that you enjoy being in your home.
Buffets, potlucks, and finger foods. The holidays are known for
good food, good drink, and lots of it. It’s tempting to partake until
you’re stuffed, and then continue partaking regardless. You’ll feel better
physically and emotionally if you limit your intake to a reasonable level.
Be sure to drink lots of water, eat healthy foods, and avoid gorging on
treats at every opportunity. I also recommend getting in some light
exercise, even if you can work in only a short walk a few days a week.
Daydreams of perfection. Every year, you say to yourself, This year
everything will be perfect—no arguments, no disagreements, no awkward
silences. But then, Uncle Tim makes inappropriate remarks at the dinner
table, your teenage niece storms away from the table in a huff, and you
can see your spouse’s blood pressure rise as your mother makes critical
comments. Ultimately, you’re unreasonably disappointed. Don’t put
up with blatantly bad behavior, but do manage your expectations.
You’ll be happier if you don’t ask your imperfect—but valued—loved
ones to reenact a Hallmark commercial.
Virtual reality. During the holidays, the impulse to share every
little moment with your social networks might be even greater than
normal. But before you update your status or post a photo for the
749th time, take a moment to consider whether the Internet really
needs to know what you’re sharing. You don’t want to run the risk
of missing out on real life because you’re so focused on your virtual
one. Experiencing some things with your family and friends without
screens and keyboards is important.
I hope you’ll take a step back and intentionally design a lifestyle that
is meaningful to you. Remember, there is no right way to celebrate
and live life. Don’t feel bound by what your friends, the media, or
our consumer culture tells you that you should be doing. The good
life is about love, fellowship, faith, and values. If you’re focusing on
those things, you’ll stand the best chance of having a life that’s truly
filled with joy. PE
Marla Tomazin is a Certified Image Consultant and CEO of her own image
consulting business, helping clients identify an authentic image and develop
its effective expression. Visit www.marlatomazin.com.
“Three Questions to Ask
Yourself in 2014”
“Fashion and Health”
16
Is Your Diet Killing You?
Interactive
It’s a question worthy of your consideration.
By Jane Birch
Do you want to avoid illness, maintain your ideal weight and
reach your highest potential, both physically and spiritually? If so,
what’s the answer? You may be surprised to find the best answer in
a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) diet.
Whole-food means food the way it is grown: the whole apple, squash,
bean, or wheat, relatively unprocessed and unrefined. Whole food
contains all of the natural nutrients. Some processing is inevitable
and even helpful, but extended processing robs the food of nutrients.
Plant-based means meals based on plant rather than animal foods
(meat, dairy, and eggs). It includes four food groups: vegetables, fruits,
legumes (beans and lentils), and whole grains. Whole plants are foods
packaged as nature designed them.
WFPB diets are proven to prevent and cure chronic disease, help
you achieve your maximum physical potential, and make it easy to
reach and maintain your ideal weight. Moreover, what you eat and
drink is intimately connected to your mental, emotional and spiritual
well-being.
I discovered all this on Saturday, August 20, 2011, when I woke
up early and tuned in to CNN. Dr. Sanjay Gupta was previewing a
program called “The Last Heart Attack.” I dismissed his “heart-attack
proof ” diet initially, thinking it was impossible. But that very morning
I started researching the WFPB diet and found solid, compelling
evidence in favor of the diet, demonstrating that a WFPB diet doesn’t
just reduce our chance of getting heart disease, but actually eliminates
it. This impressed me.
It isn’t easy to make big lifestyle changes, and I don’t feel motivated
when it only reduces my chances of having problems. However, eliminating my chances of getting a disease, especially the #1 killer, felt
very motivating to me.
I soon learned that the recommended diet does more than make us
“heart-attack proof.” By eating a WFPD diet, we can also drastically
reduce or (in many cases) eliminate risk of ever having to deal with
most other chronic problems: strokes, diabetes, many cancers, kidney
disease, arthritis, diverticulitis, obesity, and more.
I once assumed I would end up with a chronic disease at some
point—poor health seemed inevitable. But now the thought of living
life with only a slight chance of getting any of these diseases sounded
good. I considered what lifestyle change would NOT be worth these
results. I evaluated what good health is worth to me. Within hours,
I concluded that I would change my way of eating. In fact, for lunch
that day I began eating a WFPB diet. I immediately began to lose
weight and over the next few months not only did the extra pounds
disappear, so did every one of my health issues!
Many people are confused about what to eat. We often don’t
realize how much our lack of knowledge, personal preferences, and
cultural traditions impact our understanding and evaluation of the
nutritional options and opinions of our day.
In societies where people consume a largely WFPB diet founded on
grains as the staff of life, they suffer from few of the chronic illnesses
that plague our society (more than 90 million Americans live with
chronic illnesses, accounting for 70 percent of deaths and 75 percent
of the medical care costs). While genes play a role in disease, they
17
are not the primary cause: genes load the gun, but diet pulls the trigger.
The most difficult part of adopting a WFPB diet is the social
aspect. Food is integral to who we are, as individuals and as a community. Food is a social event, and when we eat differently than others,
it can be awkward and uncomfortable.
I have experienced this awkwardness, as I find my new diet sometimes sets me apart from other people. This is an issue that every
person who changes his or her diet must negotiate. For many of
these food pioneers, facing these challenges is not easy. Their family
and friends may not understand or approve of what they are doing.
Some may scold or mock. Others may just feel uncomfortable. Even
in a supportive environment, it can be difficult to eat differently, if
for logistical reasons alone.
Before stumbling on to the WFPB diet, I had no desire to become
a pioneer or change how I ate. I did not have serious health issues. So,
finding this diet was an answer to a question I did not have. But for
many reasons, it resonated with me. I was convinced that this is the
diet we humans are supposed to be eating.
I also felt full of desire to share my conviction with other people.
I didn’t think anyone else would give up their fat-saturated, sweet,
scrumptious food, but I was wrong. As I share this diet, people are
very receptive. It seems to resonate with them as well.
However, it can be challenging to switch to a WFPB diet. Big
change is usually difficult, and we should expect it to require dedication, persistence, a willingness to suffer some temporary discomfort,
and a determination not to give up until we succeed.
Most things in life that are worthwhile take effort. Eating wisely
is one of the important tasks of life and essential to our well-being,
both physically and spiritually.
Trying to figure this out is worthwhile, even if it takes some struggle
and trial and error. Once you are convinced that a WFPB diet is worth
a try, you will face three challenges: giving up certain foods, figuring
out what to eat, and dealing with other people.
Not every person faces all three challenges, but most do. Each challenge is difficult, and each takes time and effort to work through, but
all can be overcome if you are willing to do what it takes to make it
work. PE
Jane Birch, Ph.D., is Asst. Director of Faculty Development at Brigham
Young University and author of Discovering the Word of Wisdom.
Email [email protected]
Visit www.discoveringthewordofwisdom.com.
“Whole-Food Plant-Based
Diet Made Easy”
“Whole-Food Plant-Based
Diet Guidelines”
“How to Overcome
Challenges?”
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
New-Age Professional
Interactive
REposition, REstrategize, Reinvent.
“What Is the True Meaning
of Inspiration?”
By R Kay Green
Yes, the world is changing. Every day, new developments in
technology and society rewrite the guidelines for how we interact
with our families, our colleagues, and our customers. The world
gets smaller with each new development. With that shrinking of
the global market comes a new sense and celebration of diversity,
individuality, and the evolution of the New-Age Professional. They
are climbing the corporate ladder and achieving greatness by way of
their startup companies.
As a New-Age professional, you need to understand that your
customer’s needs are constantly changing. And, if you’re employed
in business, you have to understand that in order to move up, you
have to keep evolving as an employee. Your competitors are working
hard to innovate the next big thing every day.
As you begin your strategic planning for the year 2014, consider
your relevance and value in your respective market. To avoid becoming obsolete, you must consistently offer variations of your products,
services, and/or personal brand. If you’re not evolving, you’re fading.
Maintaining success is a long-term investment. With that in mind,
consider the following tips as you create your strategy:
Tip 1. Set attainable goals. Some goals are long term, others
short term. The same is true of the steps that encompass each goal.
For this reason, it is important that you assess and assign your goals/
steps based on a reasonable and measurable timeframe in which they
might be achieved.
Tip 2. Find your niche. Think about the people who have reached
the top of their industries. They all got there--almost without exception--because they refused to dance to someone else’s tune. They
carved their own paths and followed their own beliefs unabashedly.
The result was the kind of authenticity and commitment it takes to
excel in business and in life. These people were not afraid to be different. They weren’t afraid to be themselves. They understood the
power of themselves. Remember to always be different, authentic,
and genuine. Be you. Find and become your niche.
Tip 3. Understand the power of you; Sell your brand. Don’t
attempt to build your brand like anyone else. Be authentic. If you
can be open and honest with yourself about your personal value, you
won’t need to fudge facts on your brand. Focus on your passions.
Determine what it is that you’re inherently good at, what value you
bring to the table, and how you can make an impact in your chosen
market.
Tip 4. Dress for the career you want—not for the one you have.
Internalizing and making personal your goals starts and ends with
dressing for the job you want. Sometimes it can be easy for bright
and motivated professionals to begin to feel entitled to success. We
begin to think that we’re so brilliant that we don’t have to go the
extra mile to get noticed. But that is simply not true. You have to
be the whole package if you’re going to get where you want to go.
Tip 5. Reposition, Reinvent, Re-strategize. At some point in
every person’s life, one of the Three R’s becomes necessary: Reposition,
Reinvent, and Re-strategize. Remember is that you’re not the first person
to have to revise your brand, your strategy, or even yourself. Keep
that in mind when it comes time to go back to the drawing board
and you will be in better position to make the honest, accurate, and
appropriate decisions that will lead to greater success in the future.
Tip 6. Be relentless in your pursuit. Finding success has a direct
correlation with the unwillingness to let the word “no” become a
setback. Be relentless. Live a life free of stagnation and align yourself
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
with the path of consistent upward movement. Your milestones will
pass by quicker than you could ever imagine. Through your 110%
effort, you will become more powerful than you ever thought possible. Before you know it, you will have reached your ultimate goal.
Tip 7. Build the right network. With that right network at hand,
you are ready to begin putting all of your plans into action. The people
worthy of your “right” network--especially those people who wind
up in your inner circle--need to demonstrate results both in the past
and present. If they are experts in the field you’re pursuing, that is the
ideal. Most of all, they must be people you can trust and rely upon.
Tip 8. Strategy and implementation are symbiotic. The business
world is full of stories about genius ideas that didn’t become reality
because the innovator didn’t properly strategize. For every failure-instrategy story, there is an equal number of failure-in-implementation
stories. The common theme in all of them was that there just wasn’t
enough attention paid to one or the other. If you look across the
landscape of the hundreds of thousands of successful businesses in
this country, you will find one common theme: strategy and implementation were symbiotic. It’s essential to devise a strategy and then
implement the necessary steps to make the vision into a reality.
Tip 9. Create your own Blue Ocean. When creating your own
blue ocean, in order to succeed (in order to attract customers; in order
to land that big promotion), you must always concentrate on delivering value. Always. While your competition continues to spend all of
their time and effort trying to figure out how to be better than you,
you’ll be trying to figure out how to maximize the value you bring
to the table. They will be worried about your performance; you’ll be
worried only about how to better yourself. In the end, it will be this
factor above all others--your concentration on yourself and the value
you have to offer--that will lead to success.
Tip 10. Follow the path to self-actualization. Like you--and like
millions of other professionals-- you continue to work on achieving
comfort with your self-esteem, achievement, confidence, respect of
others, and respect from others. In the Self-Actualization phase--a
phase to which we should all aspire-- you achieve expert control of
your creativity, spontaneity, and problem solving skills. You have
assumed a comfortable and sensible morality. You operate with the
ability to separate fact from fiction while eliminating prejudice. It
is, in its own way, the clearest definition of what it means to be enlightened as a person and as an entrepreneur. Everything begins to
make perfect sense, and everything begins to come easier.
Life is a constant and ever-evolving journey. Work hard and
achieve, and be sure to enjoy your success along the way. Celebrate
your successes, but always look toward the future, never give up on
your dreams, and realize your ultimate vision. PE
R Kay Green, Ph.D., is CEO/President of RKG Marketing Solutions.
Call(716) 867-5014, Visit www.drkaygreen.com.
Email [email protected]
“13 Rules for the New Age
Professional Woman”
“Corporate America vs.
Entrepreneurship? Which
Path Is Right for You?”
18
Market Your Potential
Interactive
Change how you see the marketplace.
By Karen Armon
I consult with C-level executives who want to brand themselves
and move forward in their careers—either up or out. Hence, my game
plan focuses on executive-readiness for effectively marketing your
top-level capabilities. My system is designed to determine your real
executive value, define your leadership story, generate opportunities,
and take you to the next level in your career.
Using my approach, I take the blinders off and zero in on four
areas: direction: bring a market perspective to your career; recognition: provide economic insights into your executive value; game plan:
focus on strategies that fit your goals; and leverage: ensure success in
maximizing your options.
I know what leaders must do to find the top position they want and
deserve and provide a guide for moving into top roles and developing robust careers by effectively marketing and selling your top-level
capabilities.
Executives who desire to make their next career move must do the
introspective work that causes them to be a Thought Leader. To position yourself as a Thought Leader means that you must understand
your potential within these concepts rather than recite your past as if
it was special. Your past may be great, but it is in the past!
Many leaders and would-be leaders are under-prepared for the
Global Digital Economy. We now find ourselves in it, and it is not
going away! Those that have done little to think, learn, write and
develop social networks find themselves wanting in opportunities.
Organizations need Thought Leaders who can guide an organization
though the global economic changes.
These same leaders are over-experienced in an economy that is quickly
becoming off-shored; therefore, the skills they have developed are
handed off to less-expensive workforces who are ready to grab their
work.
The Global Digital Economy requires that companies find talented
Thought Leaders. However, most executives are focusing in on their
current work responsibilities. Most executives haven’t thought about
their potential in leading as a Thought Leader. Therefore, they miss
out on the opportunity to make a lasting impact on their companies
and industries. The 21st Century Organization is looking for Thought
Leaders as it shifts into this new Global Digital Economy.
To underscore my point, Harvard’s Balanced Scorecard gives us a
peek into what these two economic models mean for leaders today. In
The Demise of Cost and Profit Centers, Robert S. Kaplan observes that
a whole new way of looking at organization units is needed. Specifically, Kaplan says, the distinctions between cost and profit centers
are no longer significant. Every unit, by contributing to effective
strategy execution, has the opportunity to support and create profit.
This capability has important implications for specifying objectives
and evaluating the performance of all organizational units.
Thus, the executive’s challenge is to see the distinctions between
the two economic models and understand that the difference isn’t in
the functional role itself, but in the context in which the company
sees its future.
As the Industrial Economy transcended into the Global Digital
19
Economy, I was taken off guard. My experience as a coach for career
executives suddenly shifted. I realized changes were taking place but
did not totally understand this new Global Digital Economy and its
impact on executives. I decided to pull back to come up with the
answers. My research and analysis caused me to have a better understanding of the value of the Thought Leader. I changed everything,
including my business name, website, and message, and rebranded
myself for the Global Digit Economy. This personal shift has caused
me to notice that many talented executives are frustrated because they
are not looking at today’s organic economy. It’s more than a good
paying job. It is about defining your value as a Thought Leader and
making a lasting impact.
Potential is a matter of perception and language. Thought Leaders
look for potential and perceptions that you are strategic in your
thinking, connecting the dots between where the industry has been
and where it needs to go. Perceptions are built on solid evidence, not
superficial spin or personality. Honestly, it doesn’t take long to find
pretenders! Strategic language is the ability to string together macro
economic factors that apply to your industry and support your experiential opinions. Here is where your biases point to your decisiveness
when others dither trying to find order in chaos.
Top decision-makers are hungry for opinion-leaders—Thought
Leaders, who can lead with them rather than for them. PE
Karen Armon is CEO of MarketOne Executive, executive coach, speaker and
author of Market Your Potential, Not Your Past.
Email [email protected], or call +1-303-932-8700
“How You Can Market Your
Potential and Successfully
Advance Your Career”
“What is ‘Potential,’
Really?”
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Course Correction
Interactive
Your invisible competitive advantage.
By Marlene Chism
The ability to course-correct quickly provides a distinct competitive advantage that protects you and your brand, increases productivity,
and eliminates the threat of media scandal.
Most of us only think of course-correction when we make a (visible)
mistake, but the higher skill is the ability to discern when you are
only 5 degrees off course and make a correction instead of making
the course-correction when you are 90 degrees off course. This ability
to see the deviation takes character and discipline, thus making this
ability an invisible competitive advantage.
Take a common example of course-correcting your diet once you
notice your clothes fitting more tightly. The choice to get back on
track to healthy eating immediately is a more powerful choice than
waiting until you are a candidate for diabetes or heart disease.
However, your motivation to course correct quickly may not be as
strong because your efforts and progress will be virtually invisible.
Getting back on track sooner isn’t exciting or dramatic. You won’t win
any awards, and you won’t be asked to compete on The Biggest Loser.
Preventative behavior is never as glamorous as corrective
action. Your wise, preventative behavior will, however, save unnecessary drama—and that is why learning how to course-correct quicker
is an invisible weapon and advantage.
In your life and business, correcting your course as a matter of
responsible choice and ethics is more powerful than correcting course
when you are forced to do something after getting caught doing
something unethical, illegal or immoral. Our news is full of cases
where a little course-correction early could have prevented much
drama (even death) later.
Enlightened Self-Leadership
Changing times call for enlightened self and team leadership. For
example in the news now is the scandal with the Miami Dolphins,
where defensive lineman Jonathan Martin left the team due to
harassment by teammate Richie Incognito. The harassment was so
intolerable by Martin that he gave up his NFL career.
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Video
There are many questions to be asked and facts to be determined.
How long had this situation been going on? Was there any attempt
by Martin to talk to management? How does culture impact our
ability to have difficult conversations and make difficult decisions?
Personally, I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that after the scandal
broke the Miami Dolphins lost a game to Tampa Bay, who was on
a losing streak. When asked about their performance, the Dolphins
said they were not impacted by the drama of the scandal.
I disagree. Drama is always a barrier to high performance, and
if not corrected immediately drama is bad for your brand.
Four Self-Leadership Lessons
Here are four simple but powerful self-leadership lessons:
1. Course-correcting sooner rather than later provides you with
an invisible competitive advantage. Why? Most people procrastinate
detecting, addressing, and making a course correction until they are
forced to do so.
2. Drama is always disruptive—to your reputation, your energy,
your performance and your brand. Why? Your mind is distracted and
your energy dissipated.
3. There’s no hiding your weaknesses when you are 90 degrees
off course. By then, your weaknesses are on Big Brother due to social
media.
4. You are wise to course-correct when you are only 5 degrees off
course, rather than wait until you are 90 degrees off course. The earlier
you detect and correct course deviations, the better.
Don’t drown in the deep and dangerous river of Denial. Awake
to your course deviations now, in private, and make needed course
corrections, before you are embroiled in drama or forced to confess
and correct very public and expensive mistakes. PE
Marlene Chism is a consultant, speaker and author of Stop Workplace Drama
(Wiley). Visit www.marlenechism.com or www.stopworkplacedrama.com,
Email [email protected]
“Fourteen Things You
Don’t Need in 2014”
“Drama is Bad for Your
Brand”
20
Financial Planning
Interactive
Stop having those sleepless nights.
By John Vento
Chances are you’ve spent several sleepless nights worrying about
money: Have I saved enough for retirement? How will we pay for the
kids’ college? Do I need life insurance? If so, how much?
The best way to ease your anxiety and worry about money is to
work with a trusted financial planner who can help you paint a
bright financial future. To ease your money worries, improve your
financial picture. If you rely on the person who got you to this point
(you), you’re making a big mistake. You need a good financial planner.
You may think that you don’t have enough money to merit using
a financial planner—or that you’re wealthy and can get by on advice
from your stockbroker or tax attorney. You are wrong. You need a
trusted financial planner—an advisor whose primary goal is to help
you achieve your long-term financial goals. He or she can analyze
your financial status and assist you in setting up and implementing
a financial program to achieve financial independence—the point at
which you can stop working for your money and your money starts
working for you (Point X). With the right plan and a commitment
to making the necessary life changes, you can reach your Point X.
21
Video
Here are six tips on how to get the most out of working with a
financial planner:
1. Develop a speed-dial relationship. The better your financial
advisor knows you, the more effective she’ll be at managing your wealth
and helping you reach your Point X. See your financial planner as
a trusted advisor and feel comfortable sharing personal information
with her. She needs to have a clear picture of your financial goals and
dreams as they develop and evolve. If you don’t now have a financial
planner, ask your friends and family if they can recommend a trusted
advisor. You’ll also need to ‘click’ in person to some extent. Otherwise,
you won’t feel comfortable sharing personal details. Ideally, to get the
most out of the relationship, meet with your advisor several times a
year, especially if your financial situation or outlook changes.
2. Know what to ask. When meeting with or choosing a financial
planner, be prepared to ask the right questions so that you can be
assured that your advisor is qualified and suited to meet your needs.
Select a qualified advisor whom you also like and trust. Consider
these key questions: What are this advisor’s qualifications, areas of
expertise, and approach to risk taking? Does this line up with my
needs and comfort levels? Are this advisor’s services fee-based, hourly,
or based on commission? To what standard of care will this advisor be
held: fiduciary or suitability? Will the financial decision making be
customized to me, or does the advisor take a one-size-fits-all approach?
Does this advisor offer tax advisory services, such as tax planning and
preparation, and integrate them into my financial planning? Will I
be dealing directly with this advisor or sometimes see a junior team
member? Do I have confidence in the person who referred me? What
education and credentials does this advisor hold to make him or her
qualified to advise me? Does this advisor make me comfortable? The
more research and preparation you can do before choosing a financial
planner, the better.
3. Know what qualifications to look for. There are more than 100
designations, or credentials, in the financial services industry. Common
examples include Certified Financial Planner (CFP®), Certified Public
Accountant (CPA), Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA), stockbrokers, insurance agents, and tax attorneys. Learn the basic differences between these designations to ensure that the members of your
wealth management team are the most qualified and suited to meet
your needs. Before meeting with financial planners, research their
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Financial Planning
backgrounds, education and relevant credentials. Visit their websites,
and the licensing board website for whatever credentials they hold.
4. Think of it as an investment, not an expense. Yes, it’s easy to look
at the fee or commission your financial planner charges and think, Is
this really worth it? I really don’t need yet another expense in my life. Yes,
the services cost you some money up front, but over time, the value
of a trusted financial planner will far outweigh the cost. Don’t view
accounting and legal fees as an expense. If the professional services
provided are not saving you many times the cost of the fee, look for
a new advisor to help you build your wealth and prevent you from
making costly decisions.
5. Know the difference between suitability and fiduciary standards. Learn the difference between those terms—it can save you
money and improve your relationship with your advisor. The suitability
standard requires a client to receive recommendations suitable to his
circumstances, but under it, financial professionals aren’t required to
put his best interests first or disclose conflicts of interest. The fiduciary
standard is more rigorous, requiring advisors to always act in the client’s
best interests and disclose conflicts of interest. Work with an advisor
held to the fiduciary standard to maximize your savings and earnings.
It will also help you to trust your advisor more fully.
6. Beware of certain red flags. Unfortunately, honesty isn’t universal—people sometimes take advantage of others for personal gain;
corners are cut for convenience. So, keep your eyes open for certain
red flags when choosing and working with a financial planner. For
example, does your advisor make decisions customized to you, or take
a one-size-fits-all approach? If it’s the latter, watch out: A 30-year-old’s
goals and risk tolerance are much different from those of a 70-year-old.
Listen to your intuition. If your advisor keeps trying to talk you into
a financial move that you’re not comfortable with, move on. You need
to trust a professional’s ability and vision for your financial future.
7. Be open to taking advice. Once you find a qualified financial
planner whom you like and trust, give serious consideration to taking
her advice. Simply agreeing that her recommendations are sound
isn’t enough—you must implement them to maximize your financial
future. Raise questions and objections if you have them, and don’t
do anything you’re not comfortable with. Many people have lost
thousands—even hundreds of thousands—of dollars in potential
earnings because they didn’t act on my advice. Many people know
that saving for the future is smart, but keep coming up with excuses
to wait. If that’s your strategy, don’t blame your advisor when you
don’t meet your goals.
8. Use your financial planner to build a wealth management
team. After finding a financial planner who is a good fit for you,
build a team of financial professionals whose expertise can help you
achieve your goals and reach Point X. Ask your financial planner to
recommend other professionals and help you build a wealth management team. You might also want to work with a CPA to handle your
taxes, a stockbroker to invest on your behalf, an insurance agent, and
more. If you’re ever in need of a tax attorney or estate attorney, your
financial planner should make those recommendations
Waiting to get your finances in order won’t bring you any peace of
mind or help you build a brighter financial future. But working with
a financial planner certainly can. Don’t waste another second—you
simply can’t afford it. PE
You Can Do It!
from having experiencing challenges and those who are diminished
by them is the possession of resources. Were not for the countless
resources at my disposal and my willingness to pursue and accept
those resources, I would not be writing this article. Loved ones,
friends, strangers who became friends, and books are just a few of
those resources. I discovered that I was never alone and that there
was no point in recreating the wheel. These lessons enabled me to
move from a place of want to a place of abundance.
I was once asked how I “bounced back” from such a devastating
series of events. I then realized I did not “bounce back” at all—I
slowly, methodically, one baby step at a time crawled back, often
taking two steps forward, one step back. But the important this is
not whether I bounced, crawled or rolled, what matters most is how
I transformed from feeling cursed to feeling blessed, how I came to
be grateful for every challenge that stretched me and changed my
perspective from that of a victim to creator of my own destiny. This
shift in mind set was developed by realizing I needed help, accepting
help, and using the information I was given.
I utilize the resource of books heavily. When someone recommends
a book to me, I check it out. Many times a book came into my life
at just the right time to tell me just what I needed to know. I have
even acquired books that I shelved because I never made the time
Yes, you have the resources.
Interactive
By Robert Cantrall
The slogan used in the retail sector to describe the odds of success
is Location, Location, Location. In 2008 I lost my job, retirement,
home, boat and car. I soon discovered the secret to my success was
Resources, Resources, Resources.
This experience taught me that no one escapes challenges. Natural
disasters, cancer, war, and substance abuse are but a few of the many
life-changing events that we are all touched by at some point, directly
or indirectly through a loved one.
The financial crisis of 2008 touched millions of people, directly
and indirectly, in ways that most thought they were immune to.
Challenges like these carry with them the potential to destroy people,
families, companies, countries, and cultures. From my vantage
point, the only difference between those who became better people
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
John J. Vento is president of a New York City-based CPA firm and Certified
Financial Planning firm, Comprehensive Wealth Management LTD, and
author of Financial Independence (Getting to Point X) (Wiley),
Visit www.ventocpa.com.
Estimate answers to common
financial questions with these
Financial Calculators
Determine Your Financial
Starting Position
22
You Can Do It!
But the most valuable resource available to mankind, I learned is
mankind itself. I have come to believe that I was created to needpeople.
I am convinced we all are, but that is your personal journey, so I
leave that up to you. All I know is that I’ve seen the mighty power
of terminal uniqueness topple many people. Fortunately, throughout
my journey I remembered the importance of true friendship in the
development of my thinking, choices, and actions. We learned from
each other and held each other accountable. It was this support that
helped me understand that my life was out of balance. This was how I
kept my head on straight, how I got the most out of life—by participating in it with other people who were trying to do the same thing.
In my lowest moments, God began to show me that he was in
charge and that his resources were limitless. This has been my
primary life lesson from this journey. All abundance and prosperity are of God. It rains on the just and unjust alike. God continues
to place this message in front of my wondering, weary eyes from
Jeremiah 29:11. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the
Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope
and a future.’”
Everyone has resources. No matter who you are or what position
you are in, you have resources. Admitting that you need resources,
knowing that you have resources, and utilizing them is the difference
between hopelessness and hope. You may be feeling hopeless, but
you are not helpless. Ask for help—and be amazed. I did, and I was.
What I did with these three primary resources was as important
as knowing I needed them and seeking them out. Through these
resources I faced fears, anxiety and depression that had me stuck
in negative-thinking patterns and self-defeating behaviors. This
grueling work of self-reflection on past issues in my development
by being willing to view people and events differently produced
enabled me to remake what had been reruns of perspectives that I
once held as reality. By learning how to use new tools, I secured a
job that was created just for me and my greatest gifts, working for
the ideal boss, with the ideal co-workers in the ideal culture that I
had predetermined for myself.
The primary theme of my journey is that if I can do it, anyone can
do it, and if anyone can do it, that means you can do it. As for me, I
know that where I am right now I am the best Bob I have ever been,
and that is good enough for me today. PE
Robert Cantrall has worked in financial services for 16 years—and 15 years
in eight other industries. He has lost his job nine times including when WaMu
failed in 2008. He is the author of The Fall of My Life.
Visit www.bobcantrall.com.
to read them. Then, at just the right time, the urge prompts me to
read them, and they turn out to be just what I need at that time.
Countless times I was in a particular emotional place, and someone
recommended a helpful book.
Another valuable resource for me was professional help. From the
divorce lawyer to the bankruptcy attorney to the doctor, each played
an invaluable role in leading me through my personal journey. My
experience taught me that as much as my ego did not want to have
to rely on outside sources, certain specialists that knew a lot more
than I did about what choices I had. Again, too many John Wayne
movies make it an extraordinary decision process for the male to
solicit help, get directions, or read the manual. I have witnessed men
younger than me die prematurely because they could not or would
not see a doctor.
23
“Hayhouse Radio
Interview”
“How to Differentiate
Yourself”
“Feed Your Mind”
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Countering Setbacks
Interactive
Try five simple daily practices.
By Vinay Nadig
In my executive coaching, speaking and writing, I talk about
21 core Leadership Secrets; but if someone asked me to name only
one that can make an immediate impact, I would pick the behaviors
to counter setbacks.
All of us have some professional setbacks—prospects breaking off
at the last moment after a seemingly agreeable interaction, clients
refusing to renew, etc. While these examples are specific to my
situation, we all face setbacks frequently as we strive to achieve our
transformational goals. It may be in our personal or professional
lives, but setbacks and obstacles are here to stay with us. How does
an effective leader react and respond to setbacks? While I can’t say
that I am totally immune to the vagaries of rejection and setbacks,
here are five simple and quick daily practices I use that have helped
me and can help you as well:
Video
1. Budget discrete time for disappointment. While I believe
in positive psychology, I don’t really believe in ignoring reality. I
acknowledge the sinking feeling I get in my stomach when negative
events occur! I know that it will make me feel discouraged and disappointed. What I have taught (and am constantly teaching) myself is
to put a discrete timeline in my mind and tell myself that I will stop
ruminating over the event after that arbitrary limit. Where you set
that limit is up to you. The sooner the better, obviously. But you’ll
get better at it as you practice this behavior.
2. Go back to your Personal Mission Statement. The personal
mission statement is one of my centering tools, and I especially go
back to it when I have setbacks. Do the “whys” still hold true? Am I
doing what I am doing for the right reasons? Do they align with my
personal and professional themes for the year/future? This exercise
serves to firm up my spine and point me back in the direction I should
head. Do you have a personal mission statement?
3. Rapidly accelerate. I shift up my “MPH,” my “magnificent
performance horsepower” to a different gear and focus intensely on
my activity plans. I have found that nothing accelerates outcomes
better than positive action. The time after a setback is the second-best
time to accelerate (the best being when you succeed, more about that
in a future chapter), so focus on action more than ever before. It is
quite common to have doubts, of course, especially after a setback,
which is why it is important to have a framework for action. I prefer
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
to practice a weekly leadership ritual that gives me a discrete foundation for action. What about you?
4. Find and finish. I pick an outcome in a space that I have
influence over (current project, personal project, personal life) and
finish it! It is important to me at this point to gain the feeling of
achievement and credibility I get by successfully getting to a notable
outcome. This is also the time to go after that one activity you have
been procrastinating about. The best way to build your core back up
is based on achievement and credibility.
5. Surround yourself with the right people. This is exactly the
wrong time to hang around people who don’t understand your
goals and vision. Unfortunately, many of those whom you consider close may fall into this category. It is simply best not to solicit
any feedback from folks who say things like, “Well, it was always
going to be tough to do that,” or “This is why I didn’t try to do
that – I could have if I wanted to,” or the best one of them all –
“I told you so!” Understand that you don’t have to react to this
unsolicited feedback. Practice the art of selective hearing! It’s very
important to seek support from a group of people who are positively
inclined and striving toward transformation, just as you are. PE
Vinay Nadig is a consultant, speaker, and author of Leadership IS for Everyone: 20 Leadership Secrets for Exceptional Outcomes and Fulfillment
at Work. Visit, www.vinay-nadig.com and www.leadershipdharma.com.
Assessment
“H.E.A.T. up Your
Leadership!”
“How to Be a Leader
Regardless of Your Job
Position”
24
Giving, and Teaching, Thanks
Interactive
Instill an Attitude of Gratitude in children.
By Princess Ivana Pignatelli Aragona Cortes
While I’m a modern-day princess, I come from modest means. I
met my Italian Prince Charming (Adriano Pignatelli Aragona Cortes,
Prince of the Holy Roman Empire) while on scholarship at Pepperdine.
I didn’t wait for his kiss to save me, though—I forged a career of my
own. Our two fabulous kids are the latest additions to a 1,000-year
lineage that includes kings of Sicily and Spain, Catherine of Aragon,
a pope, and a saint.
For 20 years, I’ve worked with children, and keenly sense the need
to teach them the art of expressing daily gratitude. What mother hasn’t
looked on with horror as her child blurted out a variant of “I don’t
like this! It’s not what I wanted for my birthday!” or worried that her
kids took the many blessings and privileges in their lives for granted?
While it’s fairly easy to drill polite responses (like saying “thank
you”) into youngsters, instilling a true sense of gratitude in them can
be considerably more difficult.
Your children aren’t destined to become entitled, self-centered
members of the “Me Generation.” You can instill an attitude of
gratitude in your children. Gratitude boosts your kids’ personal happiness and perspective, and helps them develop positive, authentic
relationships with others. Being truly thankful is one of the best ways
to combat selfishness and the gimmes. A daily practice of gratitude also
encourages better health, sleep, emotional well-being, and academic
performance. Moreover, it helps us appreciate the good things in the
world and prompts us to remember that we are all interconnected.
Here are seven tactics to help you transform gratitude from an
abstract concept to a reality that your children live in and appreciate:
1. Share your gratitude out loud. For young children, the concept
of feeling gratitude (as opposed to simply saying “thank you” when
prompted) can be a difficult one to grasp. Youngsters will better connect
to thankfulness when you explain what you’re grateful for and why.
Look for teachable moments and narrate them often. For example:
“I’m really thankful that there’s a grocery store so close to our house,
because it allows me to prepare fresh, healthy meals for our family.”
“I’m so grateful for my bed, because a good night’s sleep helps me to
enjoy the next day.” “I love going to the library. Aren’t we lucky to
be able to check out so many good books and read them together?”
“Openly expressing your gratitude and encouraging your children to
do the same will cultivate a daily habit of focusing on the good things
in all of your lives. In turn, seeing the world through a thankful lens
will create more positive attitudes and outcomes.
2. Explain that you can be thankful for people as well as things. If
your children are young, they may not instinctively realize that gratitude can be felt for people as well as things. Make sure you model this
concept daily. For example: “I’m so thankful for your dad—he loves
all of us so much!” “I’m thankful for your preschool teacher because
she is teaching you such interesting things!” You want to get your kids
into the habit of valuing other people for who they are and what they
do. And don’t forget to express gratitude for your kids! I often tell my
children that I’m so grateful to be their mother, and I thank them for
everything from their hugs and kisses to their willingness to share toys
with each other. Such praise helps them develop positive self-esteem
25
Video
and do things for the right reasons.
3. Make gratitude a daily habit. All habits are formed through
repetition. So, designate a time each day to name a few things you’re
thankful for. Ask your kids to participate, too. Dinner and bedtime
are both good opportunities for the family to talk about their day and
to name things they were thankful for. This addition to your family’s routine might spark some interesting conversations. You may be
surprised by what your kids are thinking about and appreciative of!
Be sure to make room for silliness and fun. Don’t prompt your child
to get serious if he says he’s thankful for his Spiderman action figure.
Remember, both gratitude and laughter are best expressed out loud!
Another way to infuse gratitude into your daily routine is to name
something you’re grateful for every time a disappointment occurs.
Find the silver lining, if possible.
4. Say “thank you” as often as possible. Tell others when you’re
thankful for something they’ve done. Let your kids see you saying
“thank you” to the cashier who rang you up and bagged your groceries, to the sales associate who helped you find the light bulb you
were looking for at the hardware store, and to your spouse when he
reaches a box of pasta on the top shelf. Saying ‘thank you’ in everyday
situations is a great way to teach your kids to live their gratitude.
Explain that saying ‘thank you’ makes the other person feel good about
themselves—and knowing that you’ve made someone else’s day better
boosts your mood, too. Verbalizing gratitude also helps your children
to build productive and meaningful relationships.
5. Help the thank-you note make a comeback. According to some
cynics, the thank-you note is a dying art—but that doesn’t have to
be the case in your family. Buy a pack or two of generic thank-you
notes or blank cards (they don’t have to be fancy!) and encourage
your children to use them when they receive a gift or when they want
to express appreciation for something another person has done. For
instance, your child might write a thank-you note to her soccer coach
at the end of the season or to her babysitter for giving extra homework
help. You can allow younger kids to dictate while you write, and then
help them sign their names (or doodle) at the end of the note.
6. Don’t give in to the “I wannas.” You’ve heard them: “I want this!
I want that!” And you’ve noticed that the more you give in to them,
the more you encounter them. Yes, it’s fine to buy your kids the latest
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Giving, and Teaching, Thanks
fashions, top-of-the-line electronics, and the toys they most want—as
long as you do it sometimes and not all of the time. Sometimes the
best word you can say is no to teach your children to value and respect
the things they do have and appreciate every blessing in their lives.
Whenever possible, tie rewards to effort so your child understands
the meaning and pride of a job well done. If things come too easily,
he won’t feel or understand true gratitude.
7. Encourage teamwork and community involvement. Pitch
in! Volunteer on community projects for those in need. Find a way
your whole family can give back: volunteering at a nursing home,
collecting items for food drives, or helping to prepare dinners for the
homeless. When children use their time, energy, and talents to help
make the world a better place, they feel more connected to all that is
around them. Service encourages selflessness, empathy, and a broader
worldview. When they see others who are in need of help and receive
gratitude from others, they learn about the beautiful daisy chain of
give and take. My family used to sing carols at a nursing home every
Christmas. We also distributed food in poor neighborhoods. Some of
my happiest memories involve sharing my family’s good fortune with
others. The values that prompted those traditions are still with me in
how I live my life. I want to pass them on to my children.
Most faiths emphasize service, generosity, and love. Caring for others
connects us to people outside of our normal circles. Using your time,
energy, and talents to make the world a better place No matter what
your family’s beliefs, do something together that will help another
person. Find something that’s age-appropriate for your kids and con-
nects to their interests. Service activities remind everyone that it is
better to give than to receive.
Keep a stack of thank-you notes on hand so that you and they can
promptly express gratitude, and look for teachable moments to reinforce
values that are important to your family. Whether you are caroling
to shut-ins, writing thank-you notes, or inviting your extended
family over for a meal, narrate to your kids why you’re participating
in various holiday activities and rituals. For example, you might say,
“Singing songs to people who aren’t able to leave their homes makes
them feel valued and appreciated.” Connect your actions with their
underlying meaning.
Think about how gratitude might look in action for your family.
Raising grateful children is one of the best ways to create a brighter
tomorrow. PE
Happy Thanks-living
1. Realize why gratitude is a key element of happiness. Why
cultivate an attitude of gratitude? Consistent thankfulness makes you
happier and healthier. Thanks-living can lower your blood pressure,
help weight loss, alleviate stress, and prevent depression. Personally,
I noticed a huge difference in my life after making gratitude a bigger
part of it. Being thankful for your blessings helps you to be present
now, instead of rehashing the past or worrying about the future.
Choosing to focus on positive things improves your mental, emotional,
and physical health. Acknowledging your many blessings with thanks
will help you to attract fulfilling relationships. And the humility that
comes from knowing you owe so much to so many others will spur
you to give back more often to those less fortunate than yourself.
Cultivate a spirit of gratitude daily.
By Todd Patkin
Interactive
Most of us focus our gratitude on grand statements made only on
special occasions: I’m thankful for my family, my friends, my country, my
health, etc. I’m all for appreciating your biggest blessings. But when
you don’t take time to value the big and small things, all year round,
you miss out on potential happiness.
I encourage you to cultivate rituals of gratitude: go around the
dinner table and discuss with your family what you’re grateful for,
write down objects of gratitude on slips of paper to be read aloud
later, tell friends and family members how important they are. These
are all great ways to engage in the year-round practice of thanks-living.
Having experienced a nervous breakdown at age 36, I’m now
something of a self-made expert on happiness. I call my breakdown
my breakthrough, because it prompted me to embark on an ongoing
happiness journey. My goal is to learn about the true nature of happiness: what it is, what causes it, and how we can invite more of it
into our lives.
This much I know for sure: If you’re waiting for the stars to align,
for the path to be totally smooth, and for happiness to come to you,
you’ll be waiting forever. Happiness is the culmination of all the little
actions, choices, and habits that fill your day. And the choice to be
grateful is a very important part of that equation.
Here’s how you can hardwire thanks-living into your daily life:
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Princess Ivana Pignatelli Aragona Cortes is author of the award-winning
book A Simple Guide to Pregnancy & Baby’s First Year, (Don’t Sweat It Media)
co-written with her mother, Magdalene Smith, and sister, Marisa Smith.
Visit www.princessivana.com.
“Failure is Crucial to
Success”
“How to Grow What
Makes You Great”
Video
2. Look at your life through gratitude glasses. It’s easy to get
caught up in the hectic pace of life: bills to pay, deadlines to meet,
carpools to drive, and homework to be done. It’s also easy to focus
on the negative aspects of those everyday moments: The chores seem
26
Happy Thanks-living
endless. The bills keep piling up. Your kids misbehave, the dog makes
a mess, and you can never, ever seem to find time to do anything
for yourself. Still, there are many things that you can (and should)
be grateful for in these mundane moments. You just have to look at
those things through the lens of gratitude. After all, you have a house
to clean, when others may have none. You have bills to pay for things
that keep you comfortable, like your heat and electricity. You have
children who are healthy and full of life and a fun-loving pet that puts
a smile on everyone’s face. When you shift your perspective, you’ll
feel less overwhelmed and have a healthier, more positive outlook.
3. Gratitude (and happiness) are often about the little things. To
make habitual gratitude a part of your everyday life, start by making
a list each day. Carry a small notepad and pen with you and jot down
the small things that you feel grateful for as they occur to you (or type
them into a list on your smartphone!). Recording them will help you
to think about each moment of gratitude. As this becomes a habit,
you’ll no longer need an actual list to remind you to be grateful—
and you’ll also be surprised by how many little things you notice! For
example, I’m grateful for such little things as a hot cup of coffee, clean
sheets on my bed, a phone call with an old friend, the smell of my
favorite dinner cooking in the kitchen, a great talk with my son. Your
list doesn’t have to be profound. Sure, at times, it may be, depending
on life and circumstances. But life isn’t always profound. It ebbs and
flows. And when we can learn to be grateful for little things each day,
27
no matter what circumstances life gives us, we’ll discover one key to
living a much happier life.
Make a promise to yourself and to your family: to be grateful each
day. When you feel and express thanks every day, you’ll experience
an amazing shift in perspective. You’ll notice the negatives less, and
the positives more. And, you’ll be a happier person.
Your kids develop their mindsets, attitudes, and habits based on
yours. So realize that engaging in thanks-living isn’t just something
that you’re doing for yourself—it’s a gift you’re giving to your children,
and to their children after them. PE
Todd Patkin, author of Finding Happiness: One Man’s Quest to Beat
Depression and Anxiety and—Finally—Let the Sunshine In, (StepWise Press).
Visit www.findinghappinessthebook.com.
“Finding Happiness”
Book
“The Well-Being Workout:
Twelve Exercises for Getting
(Mentally) Fit”
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Be Like a Marine
Interactive
You can do it in four ways.
By Eric Wentz
They’re called “The Few. The Proud;” does that mean the many
Americans who admire the U.S. Marines never hope to become more
like them? Yes. Citizens appreciate and admire the character of those
protecting them.
For many, the Marines embody all that the men and women of
the US military stand for, which includes a principled lifestyle that
ultimately serves to defend the democratic values espoused in our
constitution, and our love for freedom
Yes, there are bad actors throughout the world who want nothing
more than to destroy our civilization—all that was built by our founding fathers and continued throughout the generations—to be replaced
by a foreign ideology. The Marines are often the first to prevent that
from happening.
Here are four defining characteristics of Marines that you can
emulate:
• Adherence to honor and integrity – Semper Fidelis: The translation of the famous Latin phrase is always faithful—faithful to the
present mission, to fellow Marines and to the United States, no matter
what. Recruits who enter into basic training undergo a transformation that lasts a lifetime. Once a Marine, always a Marine, expected to
forever live by the ethics and values of the Corps: an aversion to lying,
cheating and stealing; an uncompromising code of personal integrity;
a love for accountability, self-reliance and discipline. Honor, courage
and commitment are the bedrock of a Marine’s values. Similar codes
can be found throughout history, including the chivalry of Medieval
knighthood and codes found among other fabled warriors, including
the Spartans and Trojans.
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Video
• A commitment to physical fitness: Part and parcel to a code of
values is the commitment to physical fitness. Marines are warriors who
must be able to overcome all manner of physical obstacles. Sadly, for
many Americans, a serious physical challenge is fitting into an airplane
coach-class seat. With such a small percentage of Americans making
up our military, less than 1 percent, compared to a high percentage
of overweight citizens, it’s easier to see why Marines are viewed with
high esteem. Physical fitness is the outward reflection of the inner
character demanded of these warriors.
• Willingness to serve and sacrifice: Military members fighting
in wars are routinely asked to make the ultimate sacrifice by putting
one’s life on the line to complete a mission. If a life isn’t lost, a Marine’s
limbs or mental and emotional well-being may be. Sacrifice also means
doing several tours in a war zone, half a world away from family, to
exist in a hostile environment. Many individuals forgo a comfortable
and profitable life at home in order to fight for the greater good of
all Americans.
• Fear of commitment is not an option: A Marine recruit simply
cannot pussy-foot his or her commitments; you cannot be a runaway
bride or an uncertain, hand-wringing groom. Marines must be gung
ho in the face of adversity. They are individuals of action and consequence, and there can be no debate with a superior when asked to
risk one’s life for the good of the mission. Luckily, civilians rarely face
such demands. However, if they demonstrate such commitment to
integrity in finances, health, business, civic and personal obligations,
they’ll also do their part in contributing to the strength and defense
of the nation. PE
Eric Wentz is a 26-year veteran of the U.S. Navy, a highly decorated military
intelligence officer, interrogator and linguist, and author of Killing Sharks: De
Profundis. Visit www.ericwentz.com.
Listen to Eric Wentz’ interview with Kevin
McDermott
“Service to Country”
28
An Inspiring Rise to Success
Oprah Interviews Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.
Six Key Ingredients
of
Interactive
Effective Mentoring
By Oprah Winfrey with Howard Schultz Oprah Winfrey sat down with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz
in one of his most personal interviews ever on “Super Soul Sunday”
(Oprah Winfrey Network). Schultz shares the story of his inspiring rise
from the housing projects in Brooklyn, New York, to his current role
as a global thought leader and innovator. Schultz shares the leadership
lessons he learned while guiding this iconic brand for three decades,
discussing how an emphasis on ethics, authenticity and a people-beforeprofit philosophy helped to grow and sustain his company. Reflecting
on his #1 New York Times bestseller, Onward: How Starbucks Fought
for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul, Schultz recounts the story behind
the global coffee company’s comeback in 2008, when he returned
as the CEO to help restore Starbucks’ core values and mission to
inspire and nurture the human spirit “one person, one cup, and one
neighborhood at a time.”
Video
On Not Being Threatened By Smart People
OPRAH: I know that you’re guided by your own values and set
of principles. There are four that you talk about that I love: Don’t be
threatened by people smarter than you.
HOWARD: You can’t build any kind of organization if you don’t
surround yourself with people who have experience and skill base
beyond your own and have like-minded values.
OPRAH: That is the key to starting anything.
HOWARD: That’s the key. And when you discover perhaps that
some of these people do not share those values, you have to have a
very quick conversation. And they need to demonstrate behavior
aligned with the values—not everyone deserves to be on the team.
OPRAH: Compromise anything but your core values. That’s what
you say.
HOWARD: Short-term success is not going to build long-term
value for anyone. And we live in an age where everything is based
on the short term.
OPRAH: You had to fight that in your own culture.
HOWARD: Yes, we did. And it’s hard to do.
On Finding Starbucks at a “Spiritual Crisis”
OPRAH: Would you say that Starbucks was in a spiritual crisis
in 2008?
HOWARD: Yes, I would. And I would also say that most of the
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problems we had were self-induced mistakes. And I stood in front of
the entire employee base of the company, our partners, and said—
apologized for, as leaders—that we had let them and their families
down. But we would return the company back to its glory days.
OPRAH: Okay. So in those days when you knew the company had
lost its way—was in its own spiritual crisis—did you debate whether
or not you should jump back in or not? HOWARD: First, I never planned to come back to Starbucks.
I had stepped down as CEO. But, again, this is about love. This is
about passion. This is about responsibility. And it’s about leadership.
And there was no second thought whatsoever. I came back to lead
the company back. But I also needed help from others. And I needed
people to believe. And we started doing things that were quite unorthodox, uncharacteristic of a company that was in trouble, especially
during the financial crisis.
On Being Vulnerable
OPRAH: You say it’s important as a leader to be vulnerable. Where
did you learn that?
HOWARD: Well, when I stood up in front of people and I apologized and started crying that first week.
OPRAH: Which is not what CEOs do.
HOWARD: Especially men. We’re taught as men to not show our
vulnerability, but I think vulnerability is transparency. And the currency of leadership is transparency. You’ve got to be truthful. I don’t
think you should be vulnerable every day. But there are moments
where you’ve got to share your soul and your conscience with people
and show them who you are and not be afraid of it. PE
Oprah Winfrey hosts Super Soul Sunday, the award-winning daytime series that delivers a timely
thought-provoking, eye-opening and inspiring programming designed to help viewers awaken to
their best selves. Visit www.oprah.com.
Howard D. Schultz is best known as the chairman and CEO of Starbucks and a former owner
of the Seattle SuperSonics. He was the Board of Directors at Square INC. Schultz co-founded
Maveron, an investment group, in 1998 with Dan Levitan.
Book
Read an excerpt from
Howard’s book “Onward”
“Service Above Self”
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Mindful Living
Interactive
Welcome to an awakened life.
“A Mind Like Sky”
By Jack Kornfield My spiritual explorations have taken me around the world. After
graduating from Dartmouth in 1967, I joined the Peace Corps and
was sent to northeastern Thailand where I sought training as a Buddhist monk. After leading a monastic life for five years, I made the
conscious choice to return to the U.S., eager to share what I’d learned
with the West and integrate the ancient teachings of Buddhism with
the modern world.
Video
I have since taught worldwide and led International Buddhist Teacher
meetings with the Dalai Lama. I co-founded the Insight Meditation
Society in Massachusetts, and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre,
California, where I now live and teach. Buddhism started with the teachings of the Buddha, and then for
some people it became a religion—a big world religion. But, as the
Dalai Lama says, it’s primarily a science of mind. The teachings of
Buddhism don’t ask anybody to become a Buddhist, or believe in
Buddhism. In fact, you can be Christian or Jewish and use Buddhist
practices to live a more awakened life.
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
“Meditation On
Lovingkindness”
To live an awakened life is to be here in the reality of the present, in
the now, which is all we have, and to recognize that thoughts about
the future are just thoughts. You can use them. But you don’t have to
believe them because half the time they don’t come true. And thoughts
about the past are gone. The past you can learn from. But to be awake
is to live here so that when you are with the person you love, you’re
really present. Or with your dog. Or with the work that you devote
yourself to. Or your creative life. Or whether you listen to your heart
and realize that you can be caught in fear and confusion. The poet
Hafiz says “Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I’d like to see you
in better living conditions.”
One way to live in better conditions is to make your heart a zone
of peace. In years of teaching people, I find that it helps to have some
time each day where you take deliberately 10, 15, or 20 minutes just to
be with yourself and quiet your mind and tend to your heart. Because
we get so caught up that we lose touch with ourselves and that can be
sitting outside in nature, as we are in some beautiful place. Or it can
be finding some very simple meditation practice that uses the quality
of loving awareness to your body.
There you can ask yourself: Is my heart a zone of peace? By making your
heart a zone of peace, you affect for good everybody you touch—the
clerk who’s checking you out at the store, the people you’re driving
around. They all catch it. It’s communicated somehow through your
being. PE
Jack Kornfield is one of the leading Buddhist teachers in America. His
interview with Oprah aired on “Super Soul Sunday” December 15 on OWN:
Oprah Winfrey Network. This article was adapted from Jack’s interview with
Oprah on Super Soul Sunday, presenting an array of perspectives. Visit www.oprah.com/findown.
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Spiritual Stretching
Interactive
Create authentic personal power.
By Gary Zukav and Linda Francis
Creating authentic spiritual power requires stretching yourself.
It can be no other way. Authentic power is the ability to speak and
act with love no matter what is happening inside you and no matter
what is happening outside you.
Frightened parts of your personality speak and act in fear. If they
are not challenged, your life remain unchanged—still angry, jealous,
revengeful, dissatisfied. When you challenge these frightened parts—
when you choose not to act on them when rage roars through you,
jealousy eats at you, thoughts of vengeance engulf you, or sex, alcohol,
food, pornography, or gambling magnetically attract you—your life
changes.
This is the stretch that changes you. It is the act of creating authentic personal power—the moment of consciously moving beyond the
control of your fear. Doing this repeatedly creates authentic power.
You stretch yourself again and again, and eventually the control of
the frightened parts of your personality over you diminishes. Then it
disappears. Experiences of fear—anger, jealousy, despair, rage—may
31
Video
return, but they do not affect you as deeply. They run off you, like
water off the feathers of a duck.
As you create this authentic personal power, your life fills with
purpose and meaning. You begin to give the gifts that you were born
to give—gifts that you cannot give while fear controls your deeds
and words. Your commitment to spiritual growth and the courage
to experience your fears consciously enable you to stretch yourself
beyond them, and stretching yourself beyond the control of your
fears allows joy and fulfillment.
Linda and I support you in stretching beyond the control of your
fears and nurturing yourself with the joy of creating with love.
Commitment Stretch
Committing to something new, constructive and healthy—and
sticking to it—always entails a stretch. For example, suppose you
commit to a life of integrity. How do you stay in integrity without
being insensitive to others at times?
There are degrees of commitment, and each new degree is a stretch. It
is as though you are practicing yoga. As you stretch you become more
limber, but you are always at the edge of what you can do. Individuals
who come into our Authentic Power Learning Community may think
that they are committed to creating authentic power and feel that
they are committed, and yet as they begin to experience the depth of
the personal transformation that occurs as they develop emotional
awareness and apply responsible choice, they discover that they are
required to commit yet again.
Having a child is a commitment, and as the child grows, parents
begin to understand in more fullness the demands of parenthood;
and as they do, their commitment either deepens or they fall into
despair. As the child grows into adulthood, the commitment of the
parents must deepen yet again to provide the love and wisdom they
want to share in ways they are at the same time learning and learning
how to share.
It is the same with creating authentic power. The more you enter
your life consciously, the more challenges and opportunities appear
in equal measure. The more difficulties and tumultuous emotions you
experience consciously and challenge, the more potential for freedom
from fear and the spaciousness of joy appear. The more you stretch
yourself, the more you gain. And you gain nothing when you do not
stretch yourself. Creating authentic power is stretching yourself in
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
Spiritual Stretching
every way that counts.
Stretching and Grace (Linda Francis) When Gary and I were in Corvallis Oregon to see our granddaughter
play volleyball for OSU, we looked out our hotel window and were
surprised to see hundreds of big burly men and some women on motorcycles streaming into a parking lot by the football stadium. Most
were carrying American flags. By the time we walked to the volleyball
game, the streets were lined with these cyclists. Most seemed peaceful;
however, I decided to walk the long way around to avoid them. After
the game, even more of them were lining the streets.
That is when I saw a couple walking away from the large gathering
toward our hotel. I was curious, and asked why they and all the other
cyclists were in town. They told me that they had come for a memorial
service in honor of a young soldier who had been killed in Afghanistan
and to shield his family from the congregants of an intolerant church
who had come to disrupt the service. They and hundreds of others
had come to surround the boy’s family while they were there and keep
them from the hateful activities of a few insensitive people who were
controlled by frightened parts of their personalities.
I was then touched that so many had come to this small town in
Oregon, including the burly bikers, to shield the grieving family and
enable them to have the most loving ceremony and memorial for
their son.
Although I don’t know the intentions of all the people who lined
the streets that day, I felt a loving and supportive energy. Watching
hundreds of burly bikers on a mission of love made me examine the
judgments of frightened parts of my personality that saw them as
trouble on wheels.
The Rest of the Story
That afternoon I was stretching my legs at a rest stop on our way
home (see how symbolic it is that I was stretching), when two big men
Closet Words
What is God telling you?
By Kim Hilton
Interactive
For those of us who regularly pray to God, we would give anything
to actually hear His words in return. I have been thus blessed. My
new book, Closet Words, is an inspiring collection of powerful words
I heard from God in the stillness of my prayer closet. As I listened for
God, I began hearing from Him—and I wrote down what I heard.
After making the decision to share my journal in the form of a book,
many people have been greatly impacted by Closet Words.
Although I had made earlier efforts to connect with God, it was on a
particular August morning in 2002 as I prayed a single prayer to God
that He began speaking to me. Written word for word as heard from
God, Closet Words is a collection of the powerful and penetrating words
that I wrote down in the stillness of a prayer closet. What began as my
earnest journey to seek God in prayer became God speaking to me.
My life has not been an easy one. I was an orphan, the youngest of
six children. My mother was 14 when she married, 15 when she had
my oldest sister and 21 when I was born; she had six children in six
years. One day my father came home to the shack we lived in and
shot my mother with a shotgun. We lived in violence, abuse and
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014
on motorcycles rode up and parked beside me. I am not accustomed
to speaking with big biker guys on motorcycles. However, I asked
if they had been in Corvallis. They said no—they were just out for
a ride. I realized how comfortable I was talking to them. Then the
most magical thing happened. One of the men was gently arranging
something inside the front of his leather jacket. I then I saw the face
of little dog looking at me—and the dog was wearing sunglasses!
This big man was carefully putting his little dog into a carrier inside
his jacket so that only the face of this sweet little animal and its tiny
sunglasses were showing. He told me that his dog was in heaven every
time he rode on the motorcycle.
My perception was forever changed that day. Before then, a frightened part of my personality had prejudged riders of big motorcycles
as people to avoid. That day, I opened to my intuition instead of acting
on my judgments, and results were wonderful. I’m now asking myself,
what other frightened parts of my personality are so familiar that I don’t
recognize them, even when they are judging other people and me? PE
Gary Zukav and Linda Francis are best-selling authors and co-founders of the Seat of the Soul
Institute. Visit www.seatofthesoul.com
“The New Male and
Authentic Power”
“Gary Zukav and Linda
Francis Share Their Insight”
poverty. I personally experienced extreme hunger because there was
no food in the house. Eventually the State came in and took all six
of us children from the home and put us into Foster Care, then into
an orphanage; eventually four of us were adopted.
While I was in Foster Care, there was tremendous abuse. I was tied
with ropes, put in closets, and pushed down steps. When I was two
years old, I broke my femur after being pushed down of steps. I was
smothered many times. I remember the struggle and my daily fight
to live. I have many bad memories of my life while young. I entered
into adulthood without understanding love or grace. And I saw God
as a distant judge—someone I could not reach. I had lived too years
of being judged and being told that I did not measure up. I belonged
to no one. I felt no one loved me, including God.
Despite feeling rejected and alone, I made a choice that I would be
not only a survivor but an over-comer. I longed to have the life I had
seen others live—a life that included family, laughter and this Jesus I
would hear about. I wanted to know who God was. I wanted to know
if God really had any love to give to someone like me.
So, I began my journey of seeking God. I dug into the scriptures. I
read scriptures on prayer—scriptures about God talking to us, about
how the sheep know the sound of the shepherd’s voice. I longed to
hear the voice of this God who said He had so much love to give. As
I began to earnestly seek God in prayer, I began hearing from God.
As I prayed or after I prayed, I would stay still and listen. And when
I heard words, I grabbed a notebook and wrote them down. I kept
a daily journal, writing down the words that I heard from God. His
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Closet Words
words might come at any time—sometimes as I prayed in my closet,
sometimes at night in bed, sometimes in the middle of the day. Many
nights I reached for pen and paper to scribble words down. God also
gave me words for others, and what I have passed on to them has
greatly impacted them.
God has shown me, an abused orphan girl, that there is a true God who
is here for us. The words God gave me have not only greatly impacted
me and brought great comfort, they also have been of tremendous
help and encouragement to others.
I begin my book Closet Words with a clear call to all believers, asking
“Who are you going to serve?” When I teach my Bible Study classes,
I invite my students to imagine going to a recruiting meeting about
joining the Army. You’re given information, and asked questions.
In such meetings, you receive a charge, asking if you are brave and
willing to serve God and Country. Closet Words begins in a similar
way. I ask you, who are you going to serve? It is time to stand up, be
trained for the battle, and take charge. Closet Words is my bugle call
to modern-day Christians.
Closet Words also has a Study Guide for group Bible study or personal
reflection. The questions probe you to go to a deeper level. God
wants us to take our practice of Christianity seriously. Closet Words is
encouraging and uplifting, written for those who want to find God
and for those who want to go to a deeper level in their relationship
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with God. My prayer is that your journey through Closet Words will
be a blessing to you. I’ve tried to reveal the words I heard in the
same honest, straight-forward way I received them from the Lord.
These encouraging and uplifting words bring a clear message to all
believers—we are not alone in this life: God is deeply and personally
committed to each of us. We never face the journey of life alone. PE
Kim Hilton, MCC, is a Christian counselor, speaker, teacher, founder of
Closet Words Ministries Foundation, mother of six children, grandmother,
and author of Closet Words (WestBowPress). Visit www.KimHilton.org.
“Interview with Christian
Author’s Show”
“Closet Words”
Book
“I Feel the Need to
Pray”
personal excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 02.2014