Remember and Amplify Your Brilliance

Most of my clients forget two things:

1. they forget that they are uniquely brilliant.

they are gifted, talented and wise in many distinct ways. But we live in a culture of ambition, drive and never-ending growth. while growth is a great thing, constantly striving lends itself to looking ahead, not looking within. therefore much of their brilliance is forgotten. untapped, like buried treasure, it lies deep and they have forgotten how to find it.

2. they forget that they have a body that can enhance and amplify their gifts.

the brilliance they have extends beyond the brain. the body has enormous capacity to support, sustain and empower that brilliance. but the body is an untapped and unharnessed resource that when leveraged, makes everything easier and more connected.

My job as a coach is to remind them. When I am coaching I am like the image you see at the top of this page. The hawk represents two things - the ability to see very clearly from a distance - because my brilliance is the ability to see what is hidden or forgotten. It also represents that ability to soar at great heights with less effort. because when I embody my brilliance I find ways to glide rather than struggle. this is how I lead.

now your turn. how do you lead? would you like to lead in ways that are simpler, powerful and more sustainable? click here to start a conversation with me or connect with me here.

Regulate before you react

Ever wish you could rewind your reaction? Here’s why breathing is such a big deal.

For all who wish to be more proactive and less reactive:

Share this with anyone who experiences stress or anyone who is doing something for the first time.

Who Let the Zen Out?

Image by Kourosh Qaffari

Clarity and calm come more easily in the quiet.

Spend time being unavailable. Quiet. Doing day-to-day things but without noise, without distraction. Without someone else’s experience influencing yours. Wear earplugs. Resist the urge to engage - either listening or responding - to the news, to chats, to nudges, to ongoing discussions.

This is easier for some than for others. Regardless of your current situation, grant yourself permission to say no in ways you haven’t been. Find ways to reduce your presence with others so you can be more present with yourself. If you can’t reduce the noise, at least reduce the volume.

Go easy with yourself. Be deliberate with what you consume so it does not consume you. In other words, let your own heart speak loudest.

Time Management Trick for New Habits

As we kick of a new year and a new decade, many of us gear up for personal and professional improvement. In order to improve something in your life a typical approach is to make time for a new practice. You have to add time to make it happen. If you want to lose weight, you start going to the gym. To make more money, you increase the amount of work. To be more present, you wake up earlier and meditate. But if you are a leader in any capacity your life is already full of things to do. For the perpetually busy, what could be more stressful than adding yet one more task?

An alternative approach would be to subtract. If you want to lose weight, eat less. If you want more money, spend less. If you want to be happier see what Bob Newhart says in this SNL skit. (If only it were that easy.) 

But what if there’s another option; something neither additive nor deductive. Rather than starting something new, or stopping something old just shift what you’re already doing.

You already have to breathe, eat, drink and transport yourself from one place to another. You already attend meetings and have 1-1 conversations.  How can you make the most of these moments? Here are a few examples of what our clients have done:

A seasoned VP felt constantly edgy and combative with the less experienced co-founders of his startup. A shift in his morning commute made all the difference. Instead of a news packed radio hour full of the latest shootings and world problems he listened to his favorite up-beat music. The music made him smile and he naturally felt more at ease and happy when he entered the office each day. He was less tense right out of the gate and therefore more open to their fresh ideas and perspectives. 

For an engineer who wanted to speak more clearly and succinctly it wasn’t as simple as stopping his habit of speaking fast or rambling. For him, the shift was in posture, from slouching to standing straight instead. First, this unraveled patterns of tension and anxiety in his body. Second, it signaled to his brain that he didn’t need to be casual, slouchy or buddy-buddy with his co-workers. He needed to stand comfortably tall and in alignment. He practiced improving his posture daily during regular meetings. Nothing changed in his schedule, he just used meeting time more productively by practicing posture while listening and engaging. This micro shift practiced repeatedly over time led him to a game-changing conversation with a top level exec. He calmly and succinctly shared his idea and his skip-level superior quickly adopted it and rolled it out to the rest of the organization.

A new partner in a firm wanted to increase engagement with her team. When a move from the city to the suburbs increased her commute time she used her drive time as a valuable time to shift gears, connect, and have important conversations with her directs. She learned things about them and issues for the company as a whole that she would have missed had she not invested the time in connecting with them.

But wait, this sounds too simple. In Legacy, James Kerr tells the story about the famous All Blacks rugby team famous for their haka - a mighty ritual they use at the start of a match. According to Kerr such shifts are game changing. The All Blacks take their shifts to a new level by making them rituals. “You must ritualize to actualize.”

Step back…consider the flow and pattern of your day. Where could you simplify, slow down and be more deliberate? What small shift in effort will generate maximum return for you?  What purpose are you trying to fulfill right now and what’s the easiest way to integrate that purpose into things you are already doing?  This is where rubber hits the road. Cultivate habits that are uniquely powerful for you based on your specific purpose and your daily patterns. Then chart a path that starts where you are.

The problem-solver’s dilemma & tools for being more strategic at work

I work with people who are highly skilled problem solvers. As an addicted problem solver myself I would often create problems to solve just so I had something to work on in my head. Not consciously, of course, but I think I was that afraid of being bored and sitting still. As a practicing meditator I catch myself doing this all the time. Worrying about something, planning, prepping. Problem solving was a means to try to control my world. To reduce uncertainty, risk and….well, problems.

You don’t have to be problem solver addict to suffer from this. You could be someone who doesn’t beat your chest in victory because you are quickly and resolutely moving on to the next challenge. You might be someone who struggles to sleep at night as you play back the conversations/emails of the day and think “if only…I said or did this…” or perhaps you’re playing scenes from tomorrow’s critical shareholder meeting or the conversation you’ll have tomorrow when you have to let someone go. If stress and anxiety is a constant for you - you’ll definitely benefit from being more strategic at work.

Being more strategic at work doesn’t mean that you stop solving problems, you just start seeing them from a much wider lens. It means stepping back and looking in from a hundred feet up; Or from a the outside in rather than the inside out. Changing your perspective and vantage point is critical. When you are that far away, the problem of the day is far less personal. It’s not nearly as close to home, therefore the charge and the body’s primal reaction of freeze, flee, fight can relax. You can take a deep breath and see with clear eyes not just the challenge but a much bigger context and many more contributors or factors that could be influencing the situation at hand.

Being strategic requires not only the space to look from a new angle but a different rhythm and timing. It is very hard to be thoughtful and strategic when you are rushing. We humans have certain wiring. Rushing triggers adrenaline and increases stress hormones in the body. The stress reaction takes energy away from the highest level processors in the brain and sends it to your extremities so you can run or fight and survive the situation. This is why I will frequently start a meeting or coaching session with clients by centering and deliberately slowing down. Just one minute and heart rate slows down, breathing settles. Every time we do this the meeting is far more productive, the insights deeper and richer and overall clients seem much happier and supported. My questions don’t feel like a threat, but an opportunity to explore. Sometimes you have to go slow in order to go fast. Going slow increases your leverage and the ability to discern if you are headed in the right direction in the first place.

Part of being strategic is asking the question what went well? Problem solvers are quick to ask what went wrong and how do I ensure that doesn’t happen again. It takes some practice to deliberately ask what went well? If you a) have a harsh inner critic or b) dip into imposter syndrome or b) even if you have a hard time with approval and compliments from others then grab these questions below and make them part of your daily practice. At a minimum use them at the end of the day or week or quarter….or as you prep for your next offsite and next year’s planning. What went well? and then dialing in a little deeper…What were the conditions to make it so?

Autumn is a fabulous time to ask what went well. We even have a ritual for this in the United States. It’s called Thanksgiving. If asking what went well is new for you, I dare you to use the prompt right now, while the cycle of nature and the season of harvest supports this. In order to get to the next level of wherever you aspire to be…pause, reflect, go slow, look wide. See, feel, sense the richness of all that has happened and how even all the challenges are fuel for growth. See all that has happened like falling leaves. Look at the pile. What made it so?

Oprah & Avatar on Leadership: The Gift of Presence

I just watched the movie Avatar again last weekend. It is probably my favorite movie of all time. It speaks to me on so many levels. One of the most powerful phrases used in this movie is “I see you.” It is used in the tribe of the Na'vi to convey unity between two souls.

In sanskrit, the greeting Namaste holds the same essence.

Namasté represents the idea that all are one. It affirms that beneath the outer trappings that make you appear different from others, you are made of the same stuff. You are more the same than you are different. - The Chopra Center

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In 2014 Oprah spoke to graduate students a Stanford sharing her journey and her thoughts on life-path and leadership. Watch this sometime. It’s an hour so perhaps watch as an alternative to the latest binge-worthy TV series, or after you watch Avatar again. There are numerous insights in Oprah’s words, but I’ll focus on one for now. She describes how across the range of everyone she has ever interviewed from movie stars to presidents at the end of the interview when they walk off stage the question they ask is always the same: “How’d it go?” Translation: Did I do okay? Oprah concludes that everyone, no matter how successful, wants to be seen. They want to know that who they are - their being - is enough. The message for all of us as leaders and compassionate human beings is to give that gift of seeing another. It’s the gift you give when you are still, listening without any agenda, fully present. Listening as to put yourself in their shoes, feel their struggle, their strife. Not needing to fix it or solve it, but just being there with them. It’s from that place of stillness and presence that you can honestly say, “I see you.”

Oprah demonstrates this in real time while onstage for this talk. She shows her ability to see others in the way she compliments Amanda, her interviewer. She offers words like, “That is such a great question,” and “You must have been up all night,” referring to the rigor and mental processing Amanda did beforehand. In silicon valley, imposter syndrome runs rampant. Am I good enough? and more specifically, am I smart enough? This question trembles silently and is stored deep under the pressures felt by those drawn to it’s heat, like moths to a flame. Oprah gives Amanda a gift by staying present, by answering the questions that are asked as well as those that aren’t asked (at least not verbally), but heard because she was still enough to hear them.

So what’s the takeaway? What action might we distill from this? (Sigh) Does it always have to be about action? If yes, and you can’t help yourself either, here’s what I’ve got for you:

1. Cultivate your capacity to be still enough to listen. Set aside what you have to say and be open to what someone else needs to share. Listen fully. It’s not just the compassionate thing to do, it’s how trust begins to take root.

2. Name what you see in another. Recognize the contributions they are making, how they impress you. Not in a grandious way, just literally im-press, as if they’ve made an imprint.

3. Remember (over and over again, because it’s easy to forget). It is a gift to be known: to be seen, to be heard. Perhaps the greatest gift of our time.

Allow Yourself to be Creative, Even with How you Create

I just listened to Elizabeth Gilbert in conversation with Brene Brown on Gilbert’s Magic Lessons Podcast.

Gilbert talks about the martyrdom of creativity, a notion that “creativity is only born suffering, sacrifice, pain and torment. But when we open ourselves up to the idea that it can be done joyfully, collectively, lovingly, forgivingly, then that’s the work that can be done.”

I love how Brene speaks of how she wrote her book, Rising Strong as a collaborative, story-telling process. Brown wasn’t the martyr who forced herself to sit still for hours on end and churn it out. She was “mid-wifed”. Her book was born out of days and weeks of talking and discussing with beloved colleagues and champions of hers. She got creative even with her creative process and leveraged her gift of speaking aloud.

Gilbert names it: martyrdom. To me, it’s an old pattern, just one of many “legacy systems” passed down for generations, of people who never knew self-love.

As a child I heard it from my martial arts teacher and athletic coaches: “No pain no gain!” Words that echoed in my head to the point that I wore stress fractures into my feet.
And from my grandmother who passed it along to my mother who whispered, “Beauty must suffer,” as she pulled my hair tight into perfect side pigtails.

I started to pull the plug on that particular legacy system encoded within me the day I wrote my values list. In my Top 3 is grace (& ease). I find so much joy in making things that much cleaner, that much clearer that any micro-movement is a powerful wingtip manuever midflight as I soar.

I’ve organized my life so differently now that when I went to the gym for the first time in years it felt odd to hear the voice and sadistic tone of the spin instructor, “feel the burn..if you aren’t in pain you aren’t working.” I knew how far I’d come, these words, this tone, once so familiar, now alien.

Navy Seals use it: a Quick and Powerful Practice to Decrease Stress

We are living in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. Stress and falling off balance is inevitable. It can happen as quickly as an email that catches you off guard or an interaction that triggers you and makes you defensive. Wendy Palmer, a 6th degree black belt in Aikido describes a martial arts master who admits falling off center all the time. It’s not about whether or not you’ll lose center, but how quickly you can return to center once you’ve lost it. I first learned this practice as part of a yoga teacher training. I recently discovered that navy seals use it as well.
There may also be periods of time - seasons of stress - if you will, such as loss of a loved one, or birth of a new child, taking on a new job, undergoing surgery or facing a healing crisis that prolong this off-centered feeling. The recording below is a tool that can bring immediate relief in times of peak stress. You might listen before you have to have a difficult conversation or before you hit send on a super-charged email. Some like to listen during the morning or evening commute to be more intentional with the start of the day or to unwind and let it go when the day is done. This recording might also be used strengthen your resilience and self awareness when used over a longer period of time. Enjoy!

Success Stories

The executives I’ve coached who have had the most success are the ones who persistently incorporate a daily physical practice that helps them embody the person they wish to become.
Maya jokingly called herself a robot: "Coffee in, powerpoint out..." Eyes glazed, she overrode her fatigue with caffeine and anxiety-induced adrenalin to churn out data rich presentations. As she learned to listen to her body, she discovered that cold feet was her body’s warning sign that she was feeling stressed, and it became a trusted signal for her to set limits on her relentless workload. Though uncomfortable at first, putting her foot down and taking a stand garnered more respect from colleagues and clients, not less.

In Stuart’s case, speaking clearly and succinctly was paramount. He didn't realize it, but his tendency to slouch was part of the problem. His intention to make others feel comfortable or less intimidated didn’t actually work - for them or for him. He discovered that sitting and standing in alignment felt more comfortable and helped him stay calm during high-stakes presentations. This new calmness helped him focus and as a result he became more clear and concise.

For Alek, a tightly wound CEO, clowning around and making silly sounds and faces helped him lighten up as a leader, husband and parent of two kids. For all of my clients, self-awareness is fundamental. Managing their bodies is a game changer because it instantly reduces stress and allows them to be strategic and deliberate rather than tense and reactive. It also helps them feel more energized, creative, happy and whole.

My Approach: Body Influences Mind

I live and work in Silicon Valley, immersed in a culture where thought leaders are changing the world with innovation and technology. I am sitting not in the heart of our country, but rather the head—in an increasingly digital age. Since the dawn of IBM, Intel and Apple, just a few miles away from my home, we’ve watched how Silicon Valley has transformed our daily lives. This laptop on which I type, the mobile phone on the desk beside me, the digital document on my screen, were all born right here.

I am an executive coach who has also been trained as a Bodytherapy® practitioner. This means that while my coaching is centered on improving people’s leadership, I can’t help but observe the posture, alignment and corresponding messages from their bodies.  I love working with my clients--leaders at exciting technology companies--but I’m alarmed by the patterns I see resulting from this always on, minds rule culture. We might as well be brains on sticks. The body and its intelligence are rarely considered in the success equation. Body hacks are more popular than body holism. My clients don’t realize that what they do physically—how they sit, stand and move - is constantly communicating messages to their whole self.

If you are leaning forward over the conference table with tight fists and a clenched jaw, while talking so fast that there’s no air for anyone else in the room, is it any wonder your colleagues feel intimidated, untrusting and even bullied? At a minimum they’re unappreciated and unvalued. But forget about them for a moment. More importantly, what are these behaviors saying to yourself? Your body is saying “I am impatient, intolerant and unyielding.” How can you possibly think creative thoughts and be engaging with others when your body is wound up and rigid? The fastest way to be truly open-minded or open-hearted is to is to embody these in your physical practice. When you cultivate openness and flexibility in your body, your structure naturally conveys that to your mind and heart.