Fathers and Mothers Know Best
Things have certainly changed since the days of the television series Father Knows Best. The title of this show alone would not be politically correct in U.S. society today. I can hear the fallout now. What do you mean the father knows best? What about the mother?
But in the 1950′s, the father was often the sole bread-winner and maybe he didn’t always know best, but he was respected for being head of household and providing for his family.
It’s amazing to me how much has changed in this relatively short period of time. The Father Knows Best family has quickly faded into a memory in most households in America. (For instance, since 2005 the majority of U.S. households have not been headed by married couples.)
As women move into the workforce in greater numbers, the family dynamics change. We now see families where both husband and wife are breadwinners and each have responsibilities to share at work and at home.
According to authors Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober in their book, Getting to 50/50:
Both Mom and Dad are on the hook for the cost of raising kids, from groceries to braces, from housing to soccer cleats. The payoff? We enjoy rewarding careers and see that our families thrive – not despite our work but because of it.
This requires a new type of Dad; one who not only works, but one who changes the diapers and participates equally in family responsibilities.
I want to take this responsibility on Father’s Day to salute all the young dads who are adapting to the changing the family dynamics. These “new” dads are taking on more responsibility in the household chores and parenting and thus, they are supporting their spouses with their careers.
Kudos to dads! They are stepping up to the plate and helping women take their rightful place at the table in business.
I would like your support! Last year this blog and my website were selected by Forbes as one of the top 100 websites for professional women. Forbes is creating another list for 2011 and I would greatly appreciate your vote.
If you have found the Women Success Coaching blog valuable, please go to http://tinyurl.com/5szjk7t to nominate this blog again this year.
Thank you!!
Confessions of a Planning Addict
How many of you enjoy making plans? For those of you like myself, who somehow feel more in control if they have a plan, you will appreciate this blog and confession.
When circumstances are very uncertain (in fact, when are they really certain?), I am the master of planning. I will most likely make several plans: Plan A if this happens; Plan B in this situation, etc. Having alternative plans in the face of uncertainty, gives me solace.
But life always seems to throw us a curve ball just when we think we are in control. No matter how many plans and back up plans I create, I find that I can still be unprepared. After all, it’s impossible to foresee the future and have a consistent strategy for what life presents us.
Intellectually, I understand this and yet my desire to be in control always takes over any inclination I might have to “wait and see” what happens. No, instead I can waste hours attempting to create some semblance of order to the chaos in my life. I have a plan, therefore, I must be in control.
I really do have to laugh at myself. You know the saying “the best laid plans”. Plan after plan after plan is scrapped because one cannot possibly plan for all of life’s surprises and uncertainties.
How do I break this addiction to planning?
I know one answer is to try living fully in the present. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is a great introduction to the importance of this spiritual philosophy and the book serves as a “how to” guide as well. It was an eye-opener for me when I read it a few years ago. I was excited about the prospect of changing my focus to living and appreciating every precious moment.
But honestly, I couldn’t help myself. After reading this book, I immediately made another “plan” to live more in the present!!!
Am I hopeless?
Finding Your True Place
This guest post is a deviation from my normal business tips, but one that I know you will enjoy. Recently bestselling author Brunonia Barry’s publicist sent me a book to review called The Map of True Places , and I loved the book. I am sure that many of you can relate to the theme about finding your true place in the world.
I am delighted to be able to offer this article today from the author and also give away ONE FREE COPY of this book for my favorite personal story of your own quest to find your true place. Please email me your response.
The Map of True Places
by Brunonia Barry
“It is not down in any map; true places never are.” ~Herman Melville
That quote was the inspiration for the title of my second novel, The Map of True Places, which recently came out in paperback. As I embark on the book tour, I am talking with readers about the true places in their lives. 
The maps we follow for our individual lives have always been subject to unexpected twists of fate, but lately our modern world has shifted in ways we never expected: economic collapse, global terrorism, environmental disasters. The recent earthquake in Japan literally rocked the world on its axis.
So how do we navigate our lives when our old maps have become obsolete? The answer, I think, lies in finding our own true places: safe havens that are homes to us. Sometimes these places are real. Sometimes they exist only in memory and imagination. Almost always, they are connected to the people we love.
The truest place in my life is a real one, a Victorian summer-house on a lake in New Hampshire. It was built by my great grandfather more than a century ago and has been handed down through the generations. The cottage hasn’t changed much in those hundred years, which makes it easier to conjure images of the people who have touched my life there, some who are still with me, many who have long since departed.
Standing in the old fashioned kitchen, I don’t have to look far to summon a memory. Here is the bucket we used to pick blueberries for the pies and muffins my grandmother always made. Over there is the megaphone my father used to call us back when we swam too far from shore. I can still hear the creaky slamming of the back door and the laughing of children as they rush in and out.
In the washroom across the hall, the medicine cabinet door won’t close properly. I can see my mother’s compact on the glass shelf, and I can see her too, standing in front of the mirror, her lips pursed as she applies Revlon Fire Engine Red lipstick, blots it with tissue, then puts on another coat.
In my true place, my mother still gets dressed to go dancing. She is not confined to her RA wheelchair. My father doesn’t shake from Parkinson’s. I don’t find him scared and frozen in place in the back hall but rather out on the porch playing with the dogs or pitching horseshoes with the uncles. My grandmother, gone many years now, is still the outspoken matriarch who so frustrated her son-in-law, my father, that one day he locked her in the pan closet in the kitchen and wouldn’t let her out until she promised to be nice to him, which she was from that day on.
In my true place, I can bring all of the generations back to life at once. My reverie supposes that time is non-linear, and that all the characters exist in their happiest moments. People who never knew each other gather together for a weekend celebration. A favorite uncle who read stories to me when I was little reads those same stories now to my brother’s grandchildren. My first dog rolls on the front lawn with my sixteen year old golden retriever whose hip dysplasia has miraculously healed. My grandmother sits on the front porch shelling peas with the great granddaughter she never knew.
My true place is always sunny and warm, except at about 4PM each day when a quick thunderstorm follows the curve of the White Mountains and moves swiftly across our little lake. We laugh and run for cover. The storm disappears as quickly as it has come. There may or may not be a rainbow.
My truest place, though real, has the luxury of fantasy. I am, after all, a fiction writer. Whether real of imagined, true places seem more important than ever in these times of great and sometimes devastating change.
What are some of your true places?
Please email me your response. I will post my favorite story on this blog and send you a free copy of the book!
The $500,000 Mistake
How would you feel if you lost $500,000? $500,000 can buy a lot.
Visualize what $500,000 could mean for you. One half million dollars is more than enough to buy a house. It’s a nice chunk of change to squirrel away in a retirement account that will yield you even more money. $500,000 can mean financial independence and security.
I am asking you how you feel about losing this amount of money because women walk away from the potential of earning $500,000 over the course of their lifetime by their failure to negotiate better salaries.
In her latest book, No Excuses, and during her interview on Head over Heels this week, Gloria Feldt discussed the consequences of women being poor negotiators. She quantified the amount of potential income we lose ($500,000) as a result of not being skillful in negotiating for ourselves.
When we begin our careers, if we don’t negotiate a good starting salary, the impact is substantial over time. The salary of our first position is an important first step that is often the basis of future compensation. The reality is that it is more difficult later in your career to make up for the lower initial salary.
What can we do with this information?
First of all, just knowing the consequences of our poor negotiation skills is powerful. It’s one thing to read statistics that say that female managers earn 81 cents to the dollar of their male counterparts, and quite another to understand the long range consequences. So thank you, Gloria!
How can we learn to negotiate better for ourselves?
How can we change our mindset to step into our power; to have the confidence to stand up for ourselves?
One method Gloria suggests in her book is to remind ourselves that a better income is not just for ourselves, but for our family as well. She suggests that women will better align themselves to this purpose and, therefore, feel more comfortable and determined to ask for more money. She tells the story of how she was guilty of this herself, and during her own career, she graciously accepted whatever salary was offered with the position. She did learn, however, that men had applied for the same job, were offered more money, and still turned down the job as not having adequate compensation. It never dawned on her to ask for more money at the time.
I think it really boils down to having the confidence in the value you bring to the organization. Staying connected to your values and talent is the key.
What are your strengths?
What have been your accomplishments?
Journalling all your successes and periodically reviewing your entries can help build your confidence. Write down what these successes say about you. Use these statements as your personal affirmations.
Use your success journal documentation as the basis for your performance review, requests for promotion, as well as salary reviews and job interviews.
Use your personal affirmations to fuel your passion, energy, and courage to step up and negotiate the best possible salary. The consequences of not doing this…a potential $500,000 mistake!
Is it Time to Write Your Book?
This is a guest post by Lisa Tener, author and book coach.
Have you noticed how many people are writing books lately? Maybe some colleagues and competitors in your field have recently become published authors. Do you wonder if becoming a published author is for you?
A book can help you start a new business or take an existing business to the next level. It can help you position yourself as an expert in your field and open up new (or bigger) opportunities in public speaking, media attention, joint ventures and more.
Evana Maggiore, Author of Fashion Feng Shui: The Power of Dressing with Intention, has told me that she often hears from new person who found her on the internet, read her book in a day and immediately signed up for her training program with a several thousand dollar price tag. Even those who don’t sign up for training often look for a fashion feng shui consultant who can help them dress their mind, body and spirit for powerful results. Evana’s book is out there attracting a following for her own business and businesses of FFS Consultants she trains 24/7—even when Evana is on vacation.
Aspiring authors tend to to talk about their book to anyone and everyone—friends, family, people at cocktail parties. Mum’s the word. I’m not going to tell you they’ll steal your idea. That is extremely unlikely. The fact is, though, that the less energy you project outward about your book, the more you focus your energy inward into the writing. Talking about your book can take the place of writing it. Keep it quiet and write, write, write.
But wait. Before you just start writing mounds and mounds of stuff that someday you’ll have to wade through and organize and figure out how to put it all together into something coherent, take a deep breath and begin to plan.
Without a plan, how do you know what to do and how to get there? Everyone needs a plan. Plan your time; plan what you need to do; plan how to research your market before you begin; plan what you’ll do when you run into snags. Plan how you’ll get support, as well as any expertise you need. Support can come from a friend, colleague, writing cohort, coach or writing class. Expertise can come from people in your market (potential readers), editors, a writing coach, agents, publishers, colleagues and experts in your field.
Above all, have fun and stay connected to your passion for your subject. Writing a book, getting published and hearing from readers about how the book made a difference in their lives can be a peak experience. The more connect with what excites you about the subject, the more fun you’ll have.
Lisa Tener is a published author and book coach. She teaches on the faculty of Harvard Medical School’s CME publishing course. Lisa has been interviewed on ABC World News with Peter Jennings, NiteBeat and PBS-TV and quoted in USA Weekend, Glamour, Family Circle, Body and Soul, Fitness, the Boston Globe and dozens of other publications. Her clients have been interviewed on Oprah, Montel and much more.
To sign up for her FREE teleseminar, Write Your Book: The First 5 Steps (next offered September 9 at 8:30 pm ET) e-mail Lisa at Lisa@LisaTener.com with the subject: “Sept. 9 seminar, new.” You can visit her website at www.LisaTener.com. And sign up for her blog at www.LisaTener.com/blog.
How to Stay Marketable in a Down Economy
How do you stay marketable in a down economy? Promote your personal brand.
When it comes to selling yourself, you should follow the same guidelines that you use when selling any product or service. Take an objective point of view, do an assessment of the product (you), create an effective pitch, and develop a sales plan.
1. Know Your Product.
Do an assessment of yourself and get to know yourself as the “product”.
What are your strengths?
List 3-5 personality pluses and how these traits have helped you in your current and past positions.
List 3-5 recent accomplishments. What do these accomplishments say about you?
2. What is your sales pitch for your product?
Create your own personal pitch.
Answer these questions:
What is my story? my history?
What differentiates me? What special qualities do I have and why are they marketable?
How have these qualities helped me be successful in the past?
What are my features and benefits?
i.e. I am tenacious and what that means to my employer is that they can count on me to stay focused and complete my assigned projects.
3. Create Your Sales Plan
What is your career goal for the next 6-12 months?
Create action items to help you reach your goal.
Identify people you need to be in front of consistently. How will you accomplish that? Set timeframes and identify resources needed if any.
What organizations should you join/attend? What committee should you volunteer for?
What special projects should you take on?
4. Go out there and sell yourself.
Always be prepared 24/7 to talk about your accomplishments.
Consistently work your sales plan and stay in front of your “web of influence”, your important contacts.
Stay visible. Stay positive. Stay focused.
Approach selling yourself and your own personal brand with the enthusiasm and confidence your “product” deserves. You are the best possible “product”. Go out there and let everyone know what you’ve got!
Want to practice your positive self-talk?
NEW Group staring in April
Friday morning Breakfast Brag Club (TGIF)
Thank Goodness I’m Fabulous!!!
8-8:30 am EDT every Friday morning
check it out: http://womenssuccesscoaching.com/services/group-coaching/
Setting Your Goals for 2009: Step Three
In our goal setting process so far:
- We listed our accomplishments over the past year.
- We reviewed this list and noted what strengths and values these accomplishments represent. What lessons did we learn about ourselves and what success patterns did we identify that will carry us forward to continued success?
Now we are going to look forward and set our sights on where we want to be in the future. In Breaking the Rules, Kurt Wright describes a “New Paradigm in Goal Setting”. He recommends that we start with the END in mind. This approach to goal setting with the focus on the long range goals frees you from thinking about limitations and obstacles. (As an example, sometimes when you think about a specific goal you would like to accomplish in the short term, it is easy to start thinking about HOW you are going to do that and then reject it because you don’t know the HOW. This hinders the visioning process.)
Wright recommends that you begin your visioning with ten year goals in these areas:
- Spiritual Goals
- Family Goals
- Career Goals
- Self-Improvement Goals
- Health Goals
- Social Goals
- Financial Goals: how much money is required to support the above goals?
Start thinking about how you want your life to look in ten years within each of these categories. Jot down some notes in each category. You will have more information in some areas than others. Take your time and write down your thoughts over time. What is your vision for yourself, your business, your relationships? Prioritize the categories. Which ones are most important to you? Where do you have the most information right now? This is the starting point.
Now, knowing what you do about yourself and your values, what do you think you can accomplish this year toward these goals? Take one category at a time.This becomes your short term action plan for 2009.
- When do you begin?
- What results do you expect to see?
- How do you track my progress?
- What obstacles might pop up and how do you overcome these?
- What resources do you need, if any, to accomplish these action items?
- When do you expect to complete this action item?
Once you have completed your long range goals and short term action plan, Wright recommends that you begin to track your “success factors”.
What three action items can I take on a regular basis that will have the most impact on my success in reaching my goals?
What specific results should I look for to measure my progress?
What can I do to measure specific results? How do I monitor my success?
Tap into the empowering energy of your proven success and know that you have the ability to reach your long term goals when you use your strengths to make it happen.
De-Clutter Your Brain and Jump Start Your Creativity
A few months ago a long time friend of mine recommended that I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. In this book, Julia describes a program she created for artists to connect with their creativity through a series of exercises. This process has been so successful that people from all different professions have adopted the practice.
One of my favorite exercises is called The Morning Pages. Similar to writing in a journal, Julia asks you to write three longhand pages first thing every morning. These three pages of writing are strictly stream-of consciousness and they are not supposed to sound intelligent or meaningful. You are directed to just write what ever comes to mind and fill three pages. Often my morning pages are filled with a variety of emotions and “stuff”. Perhaps I am feeling negative about something that could be as simple as not wanting to do the laundry or clean the house. Some days, I write down my personal and professional concerns. I address my feelings of self-doubt. I purge them through this process. Sometimes, my thoughts are more profound and as I write, I find solutions to issues I have tossed around in my brain for days.
This writing exercise is a great cleansing. There is no right or wrong way to write. It is not supposed to be a creative exercise. You are directed never to read your pages to anyone else. In fact, the author recommends that you not read your own pages for at least eight weeks. The point here is that this exercise and all the petty, whiny stuff you write down helps you to de-clutter your brain and in doing so, you open the door to your creativity. As you rid yourself of the “stuff” that occupies your attention, it is amazing what happens.
I have a love-hate relationship to the morning pages and yet I still force myself even when I’m not in the mood to write. I stopped writing for a while and this past week I started again. I no sooner finished writing my pages one morning than the flood gates opened with new ideas for my business for next year.
Try it for a while. Make this practice a part of your morning routine and see what happens. De-clutter your brain and unleash your creativity. You will breathe new life into your personal and professional life.
-
20 Minutes For $20
20 Minutes of Interviewing Coaching For Only $20...
Present yourself with confidence!
