Feed Your Business For Continued Success

This post is about the importance of continuing to feed your business so it continues to grow and thrive.

Chip Kelly was the football coach for the University of Oregon Ducks for 4 seasons.  He is easily remembered for introducing the fast paced offense that soon became the team’s trademark.  During his tenure, Kelly had read “Water the Bamboo,” a book by Greg Bell, a Portland author, speaker and corporate trainer (www.waterthebamboo.com) which highly influenced his work with the Ducks. The team fully embraced Bell’s philosophy, which is a metaphor for patience, persistence and hard work.

What does this metaphor have to do with business development for the built industry? Everything: “The quality of your bamboo will be determined by the quality of your relationships.” Most of the time, consultants and contractors wear themselves out answering requests for proposals. This is still a people business, and people buy from people they like and trust. If you want to grow, nurture your relationships. Get out of the office and reconnect with people. Friends, like plants, require constant attention. Don’t believe that once you’ve grown your network, it will thrive on its own.

Here’s a simple test: Write down the five best champions of your business. When was the last time you thanked them? When was the last time you even called? Effective marketing is not just pumping out proposals. Take care of your vital relationships—they are the roots of your business.

As with giant timber bamboo, it’s common to put time into developing new relationships without any signs of progress or interest. Push your agenda too quickly and you cut off the roots. Be patient and water, and time does the work.

A sales manager of a $200 million design firm religiously called on prospects every month, regardless of their interest. One prospective customer told him, “You know, I need to see you a certain number of times before I’ll do business with you.” The sales manager asked, “How many times is that?” “Maybe you’ll find out,” the potential client answered.

That’s a great story about what it takes to earn trust. Most of us are suspicious of marketing in any form, especially when it’s sporadic and unfocused. Think about what it says about your character, persistence and trustworthiness if you faithfully call on a prospect every month for a year, or even two years? What if you coupled that with a keen interest in that prospect’s business, taking the time to research the situation? After awhile you look less like a self-serving salesperson and more like a potential long-term partner.

“Practice makes permanent.”

The more you work on sales and building your network, the more successful you will become, guaranteed. There’s no seminar or book that will give you the answers. It’s not about being a super salesperson. It’s also not about simply going through the motions of meeting with people.

Bell talks about the importance of “deliberate practice.” He studied the NFL’s Adam Vinatieri, the first kicker to play in five Super Bowls and win four. He practiced so seriously that he videotaped every single kick. He piped in the loudest crowd noise you would find in any stadium. He put himself in such severe practice conditions that he was ready for any game kick he faced. That’s dedication to a program.

Do you want to be a better listener? Practice effective listening all the time. Do you want to be a more persuasive presenter at competitive interviews? Don’t wait until the day before to practice. Commit to repeatedly rehearsing what you will say and how you will say it. Bill Gates, Mozart and Michael Jordan all “watered their bamboo.” If you want to be a better marketer, there are no shortcuts to success. Put in the time, starting today.

“Don’t water alone.”

Let’s be honest: the main reason that people don’t put the time into sales or marketing is because they would rather have a root canal. There are a handful of people who actually relish it, but most professionals harbor some resentment that the work won’t come in the door if they simply deliver solid construction documents or a completed punch list. They also know that business development is necessary for success, if not survival.

The good news is that you have plenty of company with like-minded people. Don’t make networking and sales calls a solitary task if you don’t savor it: Bring along a colleague or join a group. Find a way to make it more engaging and rewarding. Bell created “bamboo circles” of people who realized that they couldn’t successfully overcome natural resistance to the hard work required without the support and encouragement of others.

Challenge yourself to contact directly five people whom you’ve done business with in the past or had on your list of folks to contact for the first time. Don’t be afraid to make that cold call or remind a former client of your current product or service. If you manage sales people, ask them make the contacts this week.  “Your business will grow only as a result of the care, feeding and attention you give it.”

 

Kathleen

 

How To Feed Our Inner Hunger

 

This post is about hunger, as in hungering for something you don’t have. We all understand the typical use of this word as it relates to food or material things. But, I want to address the spiritual or emotional hunger that can create so much longing within us we will change our entire lives to satiate it. So what is it? Good question. It’s hard to describe what is not tangible, is invisible, seems to come out of nowhere at any time it chooses and is almost impossible to understand with the logical mind.

It can be a longing to belong, a deep desire to be loved, a strong sense that what you’re doing in life doesn’t align with your inner values, an itch you can’t scratch, a purpose unfulfilled, a strong conviction that you must do something about this thing you can’t even describe. I could go on, but many of us know exactly what I’m talking about. And we know the experience of this intuition or conscience—for lack of better words to describe what’s actually happening–how it can awaken us in the middle of the night with a pain in our hearts so devastating we can barely breathe.

I remember when I saw “Avatar,” and the film went right to the phenomenon I am describing: A man is involved in a project that will result in the extermination of the peaceful beings he ends up living with on another planet. In the course of the movie, he finds his true values and becomes more and more hungry to align his actions with his deepest feelings and beliefs.

I even experienced some of the hunger myself when I walked out of the theater. For more than two hours I was immersed  in lush landscapes full of neon colored lights, beautiful background music, and tall, slim, bluish-green people who had a special connection to and appreciation of all sentient beings. I was hit by a deep hunger as I re-entered four city blocks of parking lot next to a shopping mall under grey skies. Who would prefer to live here, I thought. How do I get to that paradise? I was hungry to return to fairyland.

The next morning I read that huge numbers of people around the world have seen this film, many of them more than once. Are they just attracted to the special effects? The storyline is not extraordinary, and the acting is pretty average. What it is about this film that appeals to so many people so deeply? What are they hungering for?

The article went on to say that many of the people who have gone to see the film are experiencing a sort of after-“Avatar” depression. They want what that colorful, beautiful, peaceful place full of beings who make profound heart-felt connections with each other have, and they can’t seem to find it here. That world full of love and light must be so central to our true nature that when it’s represented in a work of art, we gravitate to it.

It’s important to examine what you’re truly hungry for and try doing something about it. We can create a more “Avatar”-like world by expanding our own hearts and having the courage to embrace what we desire. I have often done volunteer work with children.  It feeds me in a way that nothing else does. This is also true about spending time with my grandchildren. They bring me so much joy and love that they each express differently and beautifully.

It was very gratifying to work with a client who was determined to pull himself out of the depths of depression.  He identified his hunger and changed his life to find that inner joy he had lost touch with. After 15 years of going to the same job, sitting in the same cubicle, doing the same programming job, he found what rekindled his joy and now takes people fishing six months out of the year and does programming the other six months. He had the courage to face that gnawing in the pit of his stomach and created a better way to live his life that offered him the peace and tranquility of nature and an opportunity to share it with others. Is he happier? Without question. I think he saved his life.

As he said to me recently, “I’m not sure I even know who that guy was who sat in that cubicle every day doing so much repetitive work. My life has changed so completely and I’m so much more satisfied, it seems like someone from another life.”

 

Kathleen

 

How To Be A Responsible Manager and Leader

This post comes from an article I read in the Harvard Business Review.

It’s entitled, “The Responsible Manager” by K. Prahalad, who was a distinguished professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business before his untimely death in 2010.  Among other innovative ideas, he created core competencies for management and leadership. As a reflection of these competencies, he ended all of his MBA courses with the following 11 suggestions about ways managers can be more responsible.

1) Leadership is about change, hope and the future. Understand the importance of non-conformity. Don’t be afraid to venture into uncharted territory, and be able to handle solitude and ambiguity.

2) Display a commitment to learning and developing yourself.

3) Cultivate the ability to put your career in perspective. Over your career you will experience success and failure. Humility in success and courage in failure are the hallmarks of a good leader.

4) Invest in the development of other people.

5) Learn to relate to those less fortunate than you. Good leaders are inclusive.

6) Be concerned about due process. People seek fairness, not favors.

7) Be loyal to organization, profession, community, society, and, above all, family.

8) Assume responsibility for outcomes as well as for the processes and people you work with.

9) Remember that you are a part of a privileged few. Balance achievement with compassion and learning with understanding.

10) Expect to be judged by what you do and how well you do it. Balance your actions with empathy and caring for others.

11) Be conscious of the part you play. Leadership is about self-awareness, recognizing your failings, and developing mastery with modesty, humility and humanity.

We often find ourselves having to compromise or to weigh one possibility against another without really knowing which will yield the results we wish.  These 11 suggestions can act as a good compass to help us chart our way through the process of managing people and projects.

It’s a worthwhile exercise to commit to some of these suggestions in your managerial position. If you’re not a manager, take a look at these suggestions and see if one of them serves as a good guide for you to improve your performance.

I’m going to try this one out: “Assume responsibility for outcomes as well as for the processes and people you work with.”  Although we can’t control how other people work, we do have an opportunity to positively influence others every day. I’ll try being a more positive and creative influence as I continue in my work.

See which works best for you, and don’t be afraid to experiment with it.

 

Kathleen

 

The Importance of Appreciating Beauty

 

This post is about beauty: beauty in what we see, beauty in what we do, how we perceive beauty and the effect it has upon us.

I was thinking about this subject today because it was an incredibly beautiful day. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and days of brilliant blue sky and bright sunshine are few and far between from November to June. It’s a long, painful stretch of grey days, often with continuous rain or at least consistently cloudy skies. We do our best to combat the depression that can often come from day after day of rain, but there’s no doubt, it takes a toll on most of us. Even the most avid rain lovers start to complain when even at the end of May, it’s only 45 degrees and still raining.

Today it was 54 degrees and completely clear. I marveled at how blue the sky was, how bright the reflection of the sun on the water, the added lift the warmth gave to every person I saw who was walking around without a jacket or coat, secretly smiling to themselves. All of this right smack dab in the middle of December.  Miracles never cease.

Before today, I had been a bit depressed by recent events: another school shooting, political events that create more division rather than unity, mud slides in Washington due to flooding, challenges in my work, etc.

Today was the complete opposite of that drudgery and depression because the sheer beauty of it lifted me far beyond the doldrums I has been experiencing. This is the true miracle of beauty: It fills us up to new heights, it inspires us, it makes us grateful in a moment for the pleasure we are experiencing.

Years ago, I was sitting in a restaurant with a boyfriend of mine. There just happened to be many beautiful women in the restaurant that evening, and it was almost impossible not to gaze at them.  Whether you were male or female, you could not ignore the beautiful sights in the room. At one point, I became a little embarrassed that I was staring at a woman whose beautiful face was truly amazing to see. I said to my boyfriend, “Well, a thing of beauty is a joy forever.” He gave me an appreciative smile and said, “No kidding!”

At that moment, a fairly homely woman came into the restaurant. I felt a little sorry for her. She was the ugly ducking amidst the beautiful swans. My boyfriend looked at her and said, “Isn’t it amazing? I’ve never looked at a woman who I couldn’t find in some way beautiful. Look at that woman’s nose: It’s perfectly shaped.” I couldn’t believe his comment. In all that beauty, he was commenting on the homeliest woman in the room. But when I looked at her more closely, I saw that she did have an incredibly beautiful nose.

Try noticing the beauty around you. Maybe it’s the curve of someone’s arm or the way a person’s eyes light up when smiling. Perhaps you see the beauty in the face of your spouse as he or she asks you how your day went, or your child’s particular way of showing you love. Try looking out the window more than a few times this week. Even in winter there is beauty: the shape of tree limbs without leaves, the way water reflects many different shades of grey or blue, how fire and heat glow in the fireplace. Perhaps you’ll notice the steam that rises from a freshly brewed cup of coffee or tea and the beautiful patterns it makes as it curls up into the air.

If you haven’t done so in awhile, go to a place that showcases beauty, like an art museum or a park. Find your way to a place that fills you up with its beauty and be thankful for it. I guarantee you, it will change your state and your attitude for the better.

Confucius said, “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”

 

Kathleen

 

Great Questions to Ask Yourself to Begin a New Year

This post is about preparing for a new year.

I always ask some of my clients to answer these questions in preparation for a new year. Answering them is a useful exercise to help us re-set and re-focus. They help us to take action on what we want to let go of and what we want more of in our professional and personal lives.

Here are the questions I pose:

1) What would you like to do differently this year (old habits you’d prefer not to repeat; dealing with something you avoided last year; creating an opportunity to innovate)?

2) What would you like more of in your professional life?  What do you need to do to get it?

3) What would you like more of in your personal life? What do you need to do to get it?

4) If there was only one thing I could do to improve my business, what would it be and how would I make it happen?

5) If there was only one thing I could focus on to improve my personal performance, what would that be and how would I make it happen?

6) What messages am I not listening to or refusing to confront in my business and personal performance and how am I going to overcome that this year?

If we pause to reflect before embarking on a new beginning, we give ourselves a chance to make better, more intentional decisions about direction, goals and courses of action. We are often so busy with our day-to-day tasks that we don’t  rise above the daily to-do list to get a broader viewpoint. These questions require us to think through what’s come before as a springboard for creating a road map for the future. We can review, compare, contrast and analyze possibilities to make important distinctions and, from that insight, better decisions about how to move forward.

If you haven’t done so already, this week ask yourself a few of the above-mentioned questions and create an exercise around it.   Don’t just think about them for a minute and then put them aside. Write out answers. Commit to what you’ve written down to help you start the year off with new energy.

January is one of the few times we can demarcate a new start: It’s an opportunity to renew and refresh. Take advantage of this new beginning and ask yourself some good questions. You’ll have a chance to live the questions and the answers all year long.

 

Kathleen

 

The Power of Stories

 

This post is about the power of stories.

The Institute for Co-Intelligence defines the power of story as follows:

“Stories are more than dramas people tell or read. Story, as a pattern, is a powerful way of organizing and sharing individual experience and exploring and co-creating shared realities. It forms one of the underlying structures of reality, comprehensible and responsive to those who possess what we call narrative intelligence.”

I have learned in my personal and business life that storytelling is essential in communicating ideas. Often people don’t understand a concept unless you reframe it in a story they can relate to. Stories help us define our lives and make sense of complicated situations. They allow us to tell the truth about ourselves in such a way that we can be entertained by what might be too painful to admit outright. They give us a way to interpret our lives.

While storytelling serves many noble purposes, it also has a dark side. Stories can be used to mask the truth, to help rationalize destructive or careless actions, to make someone else the bad guy. I’m often surprised to find that the stories I’ve told myself about other people are not true.  These stories were made up from painful interactions, imagined malicious intentions, misunderstandings and inaccurate interpretations of events.

As a coach, I see my clients tell stories about themselves that are not true and serve no positive purpose. Perhaps they were true at one point in their lives. But an obsolete story, retold to themselves and others, has outlived its usefulness. I often suggest that they change their story to one that serves them, rather than continuing to tell a story that diminishes them. By changing their story, they change their lives.

In his book “The Power of Story,” Dr. Jim Loehr shares this insight:

“Telling ourselves stories provides structure and direction as we navigate life’s challenges and opportunities, and helps us interpret our goals and skills. Stories make sense of chaos; they organize our many divergent experiences into a coherent thread; they shape our entire reality. [Yet] far too many of our stories are dysfunctional, in need of serious editing.”

It’s important to hear the stories you tell yourself about yourself and others and to stop telling the ones that no longer serve you. Perhaps you work with someone who irritates you: Do you tell stories about that person which put him or her in a negative light? Maybe you tell yourself you can’t do this or that: Is it true?

You may be telling yourself a story that puts someone on a pedestal or portrays her or him as super-human. That perception is sure to fall apart eventually. No one can stay on a pedestal for long. Or maybe you’re just telling yourself stories about family members that are no longer true. Forgive or seek forgiveness. You might be able to finally release these myths.

Choose the stories that serve you best. You do have a choice: It’s just a matter of seeing the story for what it is, just a story, and then deciding whether or not you want to keep telling it.

 

Kathleen

 

Reflections On the Year and How Best To Prosper in the New Year

 

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the opportunities this year has presented. From small business owners to the leaders and employees of large companies, no one was exempt from the huge challenges that we had to meet.

Many of my clients understood they could no longer do business as they had been used to doing for many years. This started during Covid when we all had to work from home and it fundamentally changed the way we interact with our team mates and customers. It has continued as the political landscape has changed much of the way we do business with foreign countries and with the increases in health insurance and wealth disparities.   Every organization I work with fears losing their best people and the constant need to keep sales up and expenses down is the order of the day.

Having owned a small business for many years, I have found that when the going gets tough it forces me to think creatively, and by being more open-minded and venturesome, doors have opened for me that I had never considered. As human beings, we are extremely adaptable, and when it comes to figuring out what to do to survive, we can be very inventive.

Maybe this was the year in which you got a new job or went back to school to learn a new set of skills. I applaud you if this is the case. We generally hang on to our current jobs or stay in whatever our familiar situation is when times get tough, no matter how bad they are. Changing in the midst of insecure times is particularly difficult, but the rewards can be great if we have the courage to move in the right direction, even when it seems like the wrong time to do it.

It helps to remember that change is not just one thing, but actually three things:  endings, transitions and beginnings. When we change, we always give something up. The loss is often painful, but it also creates space from which something new can emerge. Transitions are usually where the most opportunity arises for us, since we’ve let go of the past and are not yet quite in the future. It’s the scariest phase, but the most exciting! And beginnings are full of all those unknowns that we hoped or dreamed about as we moved through the transition phase. It’s important to remain aware in every stage, because each is distinct and evokes many different emotions and thoughts as conditions, demands and even people change around us.

As this year comes to a close, take some time to reflect on what it has required of you. Think about what you’ve learned and had to put into play. Perhaps you’ve refreshed some of your old ways of doing things. Maybe you’ve become more innovative and benefited by having to re-create your business model.

Whatever the case may be, take time to reflect on what the challenges of this past year have been and how you’ve dealt with them. Give yourself credit for having done the best you could in difficult circumstances. Show your appreciation to the people you’ve worked with during these trying times and don’t forget to be grateful to your friends and family for being supportive when you needed them most. The holidays give all of us a much needed break and many chances to be with loved ones in positive surroundings. Take advantage of these moments and look to the new year with renewed hope that it might bring all of us the peace and prosperity we seek.

 

Kathleen

 

The Magic of Abundance

 

The post is about abundance. Look around you. What do you see? Do you have everything you need? Do you have everything you want? What is the difference? Are you grateful for what you have, or do you find yourself constantly longing for what you don’t?

Recently, I’ve been reading a book about life in the slums of Bombay, India. Most of the people in this book live in small, handmade huts on the outskirts of the city. They own a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a cup, a plate, a fork and a mat to sleep on. (And these are the lucky ones!) I am amazed at how happy these people are and how they experience abundance in their lives. They are grateful for the smallest things, because they have so little. I’m also reading a book about a young girl who was born into a family of billionaires and has all she’s ever wanted. Her life is characterized by continual displeasure with everyone and everything around her. The contrast between the two stories is obvious: Abundance is not about having more and more things, but about our attitude toward the things we have.

We live in a world of enormous wealth and consumerism. The selection of products is overwhelming at times. Do you ever find yourself in the store unable to decide among the 30 brands of laundry detergent on the shelf? I often think that the time I spend analyzing which brand to buy is worth far more to me than any benefit I might derive from saving money or getting better quality with the “right” choice. I have found that I’m actually happier if I have a more limited selection. Faced with too many options, I chafe for what isn’t available, and then I’m dissatisfied with what is.

Cultivating an awareness of our surroundings is one of the best ways to experience abundance. Right now, we are enjoying the beauty of autumn as it moves into winter. Geese are migrating to their southern habitats and small birds are grateful to find birdfeeders full of seeds.  Each of us can experience the abundance of this season,  but only if we take the time to see it, smell it, touch it. This time of year we can be especially grateful for some aspect of our indoor environment:  a warm fire and a good book to read, the beauty of candlelight on such short days, or  good food with family and friends around the dining table.  Perhaps you buy something new for yourself to wear over the holidays and you appreciate how well it fits or how nice the cloth feels on your skin. The next time you laugh with a friend or team member, try experiencing the abundance of being rich in relationships.

When we feel abundant, we tend to attract abundance. When we cultivate an attitude of scarcity, our minds focus on what we don’t have, and in turn, we attract less of what we need and want. Try finding something in your environment this week that makes you truly grateful. Experience how happy and abundant this appreciation makes you feel; enjoy life as William Blake expressed it in “Auguries of Innocence.”

“To see a World in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.”

 

Kathleen

 

The Value of Great Teamwork – what instrument do you play?

 

This post is about the value of great teamwork and what makes a terrific band.

My husband and I went to see some musicians perform this past week. Watching them play reminded both of us of the beauty of great teamwork. This version is written by my husband. He’s a musician so I liked his version better than mine.

Bill Champlin is one of the best musicians you’ve probably never heard of.  As a band-leader, song-writer, keyboard player, vocalist and arranger, he fronted his own 9-piece band – the Sons of Champlin – from the early 70’s through the mid 80’s.  The Sons came out of Marin County, CA and brought a very funky and sophisticated sound to rock music.  They rose above the 3-chord psychedelic scene with with elements of jazz, really tight horn arrangements and soaring vocal harmonies. Their songs had a decidedly positive feel and the lyrics were rooted in spirituality.

Bill went on to join the band Chicago with whom he still tours.  But he wasn’t happy with the rather syrupy pop style that the band settled into.

Bill is a musician’s musician, often drawing people like Bonnie Raitt and Elton John into see and hear him play.  He’s in his sixties with silver gray hair and back now with a new band of mostly very young players, touring again and doing his own music. We caught the early show Thursday night at Jimmy Mak’s – a great local jazz venue.

Watching and listening to the new Bill Champlin Band is a lesson in leadership and teamwork.  They’ve picked up where the Sons left off as a funk band.  If you’ve ever tried to play funky music, you know that it takes incredible teamwork to do well.  It has to be tight. Everyone has to know his part and execute it with precision while listening to and playing off of the other band members’ parts.  The drummer and bass player lay the foundation and have to work as if they are one.  The keys and guitar have to follow the drummer’s lead and lay down a bed of syncopated chords and melodic riffs timed just right.  If any part is weak, the audience won’t feel the groove.

Champlin and his band laid down a 90-minute set of really tight grooves, great vocals and harmonies, and some mind-blowing solo work.  It was clear that Bill was the leader. But it was also clear that his leadership style left plenty of room for each band-member to show his or her strengths.  The band worked so well because each player knew his role – when to lay back and be part of the overall sound, when to solo and wow the crowd with individual talent, and when to add nothing but silence.  You could watch them communicate while they played with a nod or a smile, or a look toward Bill for a cue on timing.   Everyone on stage was committed to the same objective – working together to create a sound that made people want to move to the groove and feel really good.

Try to think of your management team as a band and imagine what instrument each would play.  Who are the leaders?  Who are the ones who love to improvise and solo?  Who are the drummers and bass players – the ones that keep the rhythm and lay down a solid foundation for the rest of the band/team? Would your team be good enough to play really funky music together?  Or would it sound more like a collection of one-man bands?

Kathleen

 

Effective Ways to Deal With Stress

This post is about effective ways to deal with stress.

Lately, many of my clients are going through a particularly stressful time so I thought it would be useful to understand more about what’s actually happening to us when we become too stressed.

Here is an excerpt about the chemistry of stress from “Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership” by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatizis; it appeared in the September 2008 edition of the Harvard Business Review. (The entire article is well worth reading.)

“When people are under stress, surges in stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol strongly affect their reasoning and cognition. At low levels, cortisol facilitates thinking and other mental functions, so well-timed pressure to perform and targeted critiques of subordinates certainly have their place. When a leader’s demands become too great for a subordinate to handle, however, soaring cortisol levels and an added hard kick of adrenaline can paralyze the mind’s critical abilities. Attention fixates on the threat from the boss rather than the work at hand; memory, planning and creativity go out the window. People fall back on old habits, no matter how unsuitable those are for addressing new challenges.

“Poorly delivered criticism and displays of anger by leaders are common triggers of hormonal surges. In fact, when laboratory scientists want to study the highest levels of stress hormones, they simulate a job interview in which an applicant receives intense face-to-face criticism—an analogue of a boss tearing apart a subordinate’s performance.

“Researchers likewise find that when someone who is very important to a person expresses contempt or disgust toward him, his stress circuitry triggers an explosion of stress hormones and a spike in heart rate by 30 to 40 beats person minutes. Then, because of the interpersonal dynamic of mirror neurons and oscillators, the tension spreads to other people. Before you know it, the destructive emotions have infected an entire group and inhibited its performance. Leaders are themselves not immune to the contagion of stress. All the more reason they should take time to understand the biology of emotions.”

It’s important to check your stress levels and try to regain balance for your heart, mind and body. Perhaps you’ve noticed a tendency to disengage when you’re at work. If that’s the case, try finding one particular thing you really love doing and focus on that for awhile. Passion naturally re-engages us, and lends us a new source of energy. Maybe you find yourself becoming negative toward your co-workers; try getting some exercise at lunchtime to counter those feelings. If you find that your behavior is having a negative impact on others, try asking for help. Talk to someone you trust on the team. Let them know you’re having a hard time and could use help seeing things in a more positive light. Experiment with meditation techniques. Recent studies have proven that daily meditation reduces high blood pressure, high levels of cortisol, migraine headaches, and a number of other high-stress symptoms.

Whatever your experience of stress, remember that it’s not just your brain that does the work: A healthy body and an open heart are necessary to face each day as it comes, with all of its successes and failures. If you’re running at a deficit, figure out what you need to do to turn that loss into a gain. And chill out from time to time throughout the day. It might just help you think more clearly and creatively while it supports your body’s ability to be stress free.

 

Kathleen