How to Use Body Language Effectively in Business
Do you know that your body language can sabotage your message before you even open your mouth? This podcast will help us to learn about the common mistakes we make with body language and how we can use it to our advantage in business. It’s a fascinating topic and one we all need to know more about.
Featured Guest
My guest today is Carol Kinsey Goman. Carol is a keynote speaker and author of The NonVerbal Advantage-Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work and most recently, The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body Language Can Help or Hurt How You Lead. Her books are important resources for all of us who want to better position themselves in business and I’m sure you’ll agree after listening to Carol.
Carol is president of Kinsey Consulting Services. She has worked with over 130 organizations in twenty-one countries. Her work has been featured on CNN, Bloomberg Television, and NBC News. Carol addresses associations, government and business audiences around the world on this and other strategic business issues. You can learn more about Carol and her books and services at www.NonVerbalAdvantage.com and www.ckg.com.
Listen to the January 2nd podcast.
Creating Buzz for Your Business and Career
It’s vitally important that we have visibility in order to get more clients and get promoted at work. What is the best way to do that? Where do we begin? My guest, PR Expert Lisa Elia will give us valuable advice on how we can position ourselves in the marketplace to sell our products and services and promote our expertise in the workplace.
Featured Guest
Lisa Elia is a publicist, media trainer and CEO and founder of Lisa Elia Public Relations, a full-service PR firm in Los Angeles. She has secured placements for her clients in major media outlets, such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CNN, Redbook, In Style and hundreds of others. She has positioned clients for book deals, endorsement deals, positions as contributing editors to magazines and even their own TV shows. As an entrepreneur herself for over 20 years, Lisa speaks at many events for entrepreneurs, sharing tips on publicity, internal communications, positioning oneself as an expert and a variety of other topics. She has created programs to teach people how to do their own PR and to improve their on-camera presence. For information about the many programs and services Lisa Elia, please visit her website, www.lisaeliapr.com.
Listen to the December 26th show.
The Importance of Determination and Resilience for Success
Today’s show is all about the importance of determination and resilience for success; how we have the power within to overcome most obstacles we face in our lives and careers. You will hear an incredible story from my guest, Maureen Manley, that will forever change the way you look at your own life challenges and empower you to find your strength to achieve whatever you want. Maureen’s championship cycling career came to an abrupt halt with the sudden onset of Multiple Sclerosis during the Tour De France. She turned her determination and focus to a new journey, exploring ways to integrate her Mind, Body and Spirit in order to create optimal health and peace of mind. As Maureen shares her story of recovery, there are many life lessons for all of us about how to deal with life’s uncertainties and our own fears and limiting beliefs. And, in fact, we can all create a path of championship for ourselves by setting our goals, understanding and working through our limiting beliefs and keeping our focus and direction.
Featured Guest
Determination and resilience have served Maureen Manley in her many accomplishments. As a member of the US Cycling Team she won a National Championship, set a national record, earned a silver and 2 bronze medals at National Championships, competed in 3 World Championships and won a silver medal in the 1990 World Championships. Maureen’s cycling career came to an abrupt halt at the sudden onset of Multiple Sclerosis.She turned her determination and focus to a new journey, exploring ways to integrate her Mind, Body and Spirit in order to create optimal health and peace of mind. This inquiry led her to gain knowledge and understanding from a variety of fields, including: mind-body sciences, behavior sciences, faith based traditions, psychology, meditation, life coaching, and system’s theory. The application of her learning’s led her to a deeper understanding that true change and transformation originates from the inside. After completion of a Master’s Degree in Integrated Wellness, Maureen established her private practice and return to her much-loved sport of cycling. Maureen is a well respected speaker, counselor, educator and consultant. She currently delivers motivational presentations around the country, leads workshops, teaches classes, designs wellness programs and consults with organizations who wish to empower both their workforce and clients.
Listen to the December 19th, 2011 show.
Living the Life of Your Dreams
Women certainly face many obstacles in business but perhaps the biggest challenge we have is to keep our lives in balance and maintain our own well-being. We are great multi-taskers! We think nothing of running a business, a family, doing volunteer work and putting our energy into keeping everyone happy and healthy. But what happens to our well-being in the process? Often we put ourselves last and burn ourselves out. My guest today, Marilyn Tam, has done it all with great success. She came all alone to the United States from China as a young girl, put herself through college and rose to become a high level executive; President of Reebok Apparel, VP at Nike, and CEO of Aveda. Tune in to hear Marilyn’s inspiring story as well as her valuable tips on how to keep your life in balance and live your life with passion and purpose.
Featured Guest
My guest today, Marilyn Tam, has done it all with great success. She came on her own to the United States from China as a young girl, put herself through college and rose to become a high level executive; President of Reebok Apparel, VP at Nike, and CEO of Aveda. She is also a successful entrepreneur, having developed and built three companies. As a corporate consultant, speaker, author, executive director and co-founder of US Foundation, Marilyn speaks, trains, and consults with companies globally on Leadership, Change Management, Diversity, and how to integrate social and environmental issues to develop successful organizations. Marilyn’s book, How to Use What You’ve Got to Get What You Want, combines her business acumen with her goal of giving back to guide others to achieve their highest potential. In her newest book, Living the Life of Your Dreams: The Secrets of Turning the Life of Your Dreams into Reality, Marilyn reveals the secrets, principles, tools and strategies she and other experts learned and used to achieve a balanced, healthy and joyful life. You can learn more about Marilyn’s books on her website.
Listen to the December 12th, 2011 show.
How to Network Effectively for Business
As entrepreneurs, we know we need to network to grow our business. As career professionals, we know we need to build relationships to help us advance our career. But how do we do this well? What do we need to know about networking to help us be successful? Diane Darling, founder of Effective Networking, Inc. joins me today to give us some advice on how to approach networking so that we are comfortable and effective. Listen to Diane’s great tips on how to approach new people at networking events and what the best way is to follow up and build relationships that last.
Featured Guest
Diane is the founder of Effective Networking, Inc. and is an expert on networking.Diane believes that everyone can learn to network well, once they find their own style. Her own story is that she is shy herself and needed to get over her fears and learn the skill networking. She not only mastered the skill , but then went to build a successful business from it. Diane is the author of The Networking Survival Guide and Networking for Career Success, both published by McGraw Hill. Diane has appeared on NBC Nightly News. She’s been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Boston Globe. And she’s here today on GPS Your Career to offer us some advice on how to network to advance our careers.
Listen to the December 5, 2011 show.
Power Tools for Success
Roseann Barr says, “The thing that women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.” This is not an easy task for most women because of the complicated relationship we have with power. Activist, author, and speaker, Gloria Feldt, joins me to discuss this relationship and give us practical tips on how to step into our power and own our talent and unique gifts. Gloria will share with us some “power tools” from her popular book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change the Way We Think about Power and Leadership, to help us re-frame our mindset about power and use it to our advantage in business.
Today, Gloria and I will talk about women and their relationship to power and specifically some of the ways women can “power up” to assume more leadership roles.
Featured Guest
Gloria Feldt has had an incredible career and track record of success. Former CEO of Planned Parenthood, Gloria is an activist, a celebrated author and speaker. This past year, she has been speaking all over the country about her latest book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change the Way We Think about Power and Leadership. In addition to her inspiring keynote speeches, Gloria now offers customized No Excuses Power Tools workshops that include bite sized practical takeaways that participants can use right away. You can check out her website for more information.
Listen to the November 28, 2011 show.
Do You Sabotage Yourself By Using Weak Language?
The ability to communicate effectively and confidently has a dramatic effect on our ability to advance our careers. Yet many of us fall into the trap of using weak language that sabotages our efforts to present ourselves with authority and confidence.
I would just like to say that I may not know as much as some of the communication experts out there, but I feel that women undermine their credibility time and time again by using minimizing language.
This one sentence says it all! By using the words “just”, “I feel”, and stating that I may not have as much expertise as perhaps other do, I have reduced my credibility to almost zero! How many times have you heard women communicate this way? How many times have you yourself used this type of minimizing language?
I had the pleasure a couple of years ago of attending a summer course at Yale Law School that prepares women to run for political office. One faculty member, a political strategist, stood up to address the students and prefaced her presentation with, “Before I begin, I just have a few handouts for you”. Her credentials were so impressive. Why did she seem to be apologetic for her work? The use of the word “just” was not only unnecessary but it undermined the credibility of this amazing woman who has run national campaigns.
I’m convinced that even if we take one small step and eliminate the word “just” from our communication, we would see a huge difference in the way we are perceived in the workplace. I am amazed how much I use this word unnecessarily and unconsciously. “I’m just checking in to see…”. “I just want you to know”. “I just called because..” . My new awareness of the impact of this one word has now forced me to carefully choose my words in order to reflect more confidence.
The Harvard Business Review article, Replace Meaningless Words with Meaningful Ones,by Jerry Weissman advises us to replace weak, meaningless words with stronger ones. He talks about how a simple word replacement can change the impact of our overall communication.
Weissman advices us to replace the weak words “I think”, “I believe”, and “I feel”, for stronger options such as “I’m confident”, “I’m convinced”, “I expect”. These simple replacements can make a difference in how our message is perceived .
In their article for WomensMedia, 8 Tips for Fearless Communication in the Workplace, authors Victoria Simon, PhD, and Holly Pedersen, PhD talk about the effect of adding tag lines to our sentences.
Women have a tendency to use ‘weak’ language that serves to water down their message. One example of weak language is using tag lines at the end of sentences. Examples of these are: “This is a great angle, don’t you think?” and “Our department is doing well, isn’t it?” A tag line at the end of a sentence weakens the statement being made as well as the authority of the speaker. It communicates that the speaker is not completely confident so must ask for reassurance.
They go on to say,
Courage is the foundation of successful communication – and successful communication is the foundation of great achievement. Is it difficult to strive for respect above being liked, or to avoid weak language so that people hear your message more clearly? Yes. Does fearless communication mean that you have to be aggressive, even masculine, at work? Absolutely not! Ideally, the kind of strength you will develop in your communication will allow you to be direct and assertive and will create an environment for others to feel this freedom as well. Be yourself, be authentic and communicate fearlessly.
Be aware of your own use of weak language and eliminate and/or replace the words and phrases that have a negative impact on your professional image and reputation.
Just a suggestion, ok?
Are You on Your Holiday List? 6 Gifts to Give Yourself this Holiday Season
I’m a list maker. Are you? I get tremendous satisfaction creating my to-do list and crossing off items as they are accomplished. In fact, I start every day with a new list that has everything I want to do for my business as well as some personal tasks. (Go to the bank, write a new blog, follow up with a coaching client, run to Trader Joes, pick up dry cleaning, etc.)
Now this time of year the list gets very complicated for not only does it all have of the above details, it also has holiday gifts for family and friends as well as a calendar full of social events. Trying to keep up with all the holiday madness on top of normal business is a challenge. I get stressed just thinking about it.
It dawned on me this morning as I was putting my list together for today that nowhere on my list is ME! And perhaps the greatest gift we can give ourselves this holiday season is to take care of ourselves as well as our loved ones. Have you even thought about this? What will you do for yourself this holiday season?
Here are some simple suggestions to maintain your sanity and well-being:
1. Learn to say “no”.
As many events begin to fill in your calendar, focus on your energy and make good decisions about which events to attend and which to decline.
2. Avoid the “what can I bring?” offer.
If you’re like me and love to bake and cook, you probably make this generous offer a lot. How can I turn down someone asking for my special chocolate cake? Refer to tip number one and offer to pick up something instead.
3. Outsource when appropriate.
It can be a great gift to yourself to hire someone to clean your house or do the dishes if you are having a large party. Think about ways to reserve your time and energy.
4. Keep up your exercise routine.
When we are consume more calories at one meal than we might in one month, we need to burn those calories! Plus exercise boosts are serotonin levels and helps us to maintain our energy.
5. Schedule some quiet time for yourself.
Whether or not you are into meditation, just being alone for a few minutes a day can be extremely relaxing. It helps us clarify our thoughts and focus on what’s important. Holidays can bring lots of stress as well as joy.
6. Focus on gratitude.
It’s a time to be with family and friends and a wonderful time to be grateful for all the wonderful people in our lives.
For more tips on how to keep your life in balance, listen to my conversation with Marilyn Tam on How to Live the Life of Your Dreams on GPS Your Career Radio, Monday, December 12th.
Holiday Networking: Offer the Gift of Connection
‘Tis the season to be jolly! It’s also the season for socializing. We are invited to many holiday events; some for business and some just to have fun and share some holiday cheer. The point is that we are meeting and greeting more people this time of year than any other. It’s a great networking opportunity.
Often these occasions are not about serious networking yet they do provide us with the chance to meet new people and enter into casual conversations about what we do. It’s the perfect time to network without the pressure to “sell” ourselves.
How do you enter into casual conversations with someone new?
Simply introduce yourself and ask the other person to tell you about them. People love to talk about themselves and this opens up the conversation in a casual way. Listen to what they have to say and learn about their business or position.
Offer the gift of connection.
Here is where the holiday giving spirit comes in. What can you do to help this person? Ask them! There may be opportunities for you to introduce them to other possible clients, partners, or referral sources.
When you are open and giving, it opens the door for others to reciprocate.
Take their business card and write on the back where you met them and who you want to introduce them to and make sure to follow up immediately.
Pay it forward and enjoy all your holiday events! You will be surprised how much you will receive in return.
For more tips on how to network, listen to my GPS Your Career Radio podcast with Diane Darling, President of Effective Networking, Inc.
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