Career Women Coaching

Networking is Crucial for Success

“Networking is like exercise,” says Candace Corlett, president of WSL, a retail strategy consulting firm. “You know you must, but do you?  And you know if you do, you’ll feel better.”

According to data collected in a study of 118 companies by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co., 10% of senior women executives said they had the aid of four or more executives helping them advance, compared with 17% of senior men executives.

Work and Home

Making connections is often challenging for women who want to maximize their time at work and get home for dinner, say executives. Others fear looking like they are bragging or inappropriate for seeking favor and guidance from a male superior, even though it is likely that any executive above them will be a man, they say.

Women often think of their network as social contacts.

Friendships can happen naturally, but it isn't essential for a network to be built on close, intimate ties, executives say.  Networking isn't always easy but it is crucial for business success.  Although networking is important for women, they have fewer connections than men.

If you hate networking, then stop networking and begin to share knowledge.

Effective corporate leaders recognize that there is an 'invisible' structure of personal and business networks within their company that define the true influences and interdependencies -- and they know how to access and leverage those resources. Effective leaders are strategic in the way they share knowledge. They use their knowledge to earn trust and build their reputation within the company.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2015

"At the current pace of progress, we are more than 100 years away from gender equality in the C-suite."  Sheryl Sandberg 

Here are some self-coaching books to get started in shifting gears:

 When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook edition $0.99, Workbook Edition in paperback $13.41) 

 

 Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (ebook and paperback editions) 

 

 Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions) 

 

Become the Same Person at Work and Home

The roles you play at home and work must be in harmony---not requiring you to play different roles.

Although there are distinct competencies attached to each role, it is to your advantage to create a powerful personal synergy among all your roles.

Creating a more holistic paradigm of integration to your work and home life will help you from thinking you are running between very different life segments.  The synergy saves you incredible problem-solving time and energy.

Overbooked lives and strong immunity to change try to keep us from relearning deeply ingrained habits.  To make our intention a reality takes personal determination, practice, repetition and the support of others.

Pay attention to your intentions.  Every year, we gain a clearer understanding that without positive change, decline is inevitable.  The challenge is to recognize that what we are now tolerating can be reinvented by paying attention to our intentions.

From where you are to where you want to be.  Self-directed learning helps you to discover an ideal vision of yourself, to feel motivated in developing the abilities necessary to get you where you want to be.  This becomes the source of the energy required to work at the difficult and often frustrating process of change.

It's tough to do it alone.  Find the support to help you get to where you want to be..  Others help us see things we are missing, affirm whatever progress we have made, test our perceptions and let us know how we are doing.  They provide the context for our practice of the new rituals.  Although the model is called self-directed learning, without others' involvement lasting change can't occur.

Source:    When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback $13.41   

Improving the Quality of Your Life   By  Author M.B. Tosi   on April 1, 2013

 

Every now and then a person runs across a great book that really helps improve the quality of life. This is such a book! Written by top coaches of executive women, Barb McEwen and John Agno, the goal of When Doing It All Won’t Do is to develop solutions and strategies to help women’s lives be easier, richer, happier, and saner.

 

It’s based on the premise that doing it all won’t do. If you are a woman who is weary and stressed and taking on too much and struggling to juggle it all, this book is dedicated to helping you find the enjoyment and satisfaction you expected with your success.

 

Well-organized with real solutions and a helpful workbook section, this book focuses on developing your signature talents to do what you do best, developing a formula for success, and prioritizing your values and goals.  A great read! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

                 

 

Self Awareness through Self-Coaching

 

 

 

 

Discovering Your Life's Work

A sprout grows damp under the earth. It pokes through weak mud, following the light, gently leaning toward nourishment. The sprout unfurls. With its flesh, it creates stalks, leaves, flowers and fruits. It flourishes through a growing season and withers with the frost. With each moment,  the growth of this plant unfolds, following innate design.

Likewise, each of us contains a blueprint for the continual discovery of our true nature and purpose. Our innate signature talents are the tools we can use to accomplish our life purpose. Part of us already knows the secret of our life blueprint but it remains unclear for most of us.        

However, if we allow our blueprint to unfold in its way, carefully encouraging its movements, time and nourishment, we will foster the development of an exceptional life.

What's Important to You?

At certain times in life, people take stock of where they are and where they want to go. Deciding what is important to us in our life's journey, including where we may be stuck, is the way to begin this life planning. The gift of knowing who you are and your life's work gives you the energy to transform your life.

You Get What You Tolerate      

"I'll be happy when...." is the way many people think they are living their lives. Yet, happiness is not something that happens to you. Happiness is inside you now. You are motivated from within. You only have to allow happiness to surface.

Happiness = K (knowing who you are) X D (discovering your life's work) X L (learning not to tolerate what's not important).

That's the formula for happiness--know yourself, your true calling and that you get what you tolerate.

Only when you know who you are (your signature talents, your values, assumptions/beliefs, guiding principles, vision and passions) are you able to bring your true self to your professional and personal lives.

Your life signature is the tracing of the talents we are given and how we express them in our lives.

In medicine you look at how "well tolerated" a drug will be related to its side effects.  At work and at home, many people evaluate new opportunities related to what can be well tolerated.

Yet after life, most people don't want their tombstone to read, "He tolerated stuff for other people because they paid him."  Especially, when we realize that we can make more money and have more fun doing work that engages our passions.  Life is too short for doing work you don't enjoy for people you don't respect.

Why not decide today, to live your life to its fullest?

         To discover your life's work, go to: LifeSignature.com

3 Ways To Conquer Self-Doubt

By Guest Author Michelle McQuaid

Ever found your confidence deserting you at work just when you need it most? 

There’s nothing like that little voice of self-doubt, whispering “you’re not really good enough” to make even the most competent woman hesitate, hold herself back or dim herself down.  

But if even women as accomplished as Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, admit to over-preparing in an effort to quiet their self-doubt is feeling confident a realistic expectation? 

Or are we doomed to ask for pay rises four times less frequently than our male colleagues, negotiate salaries of 30% less and not put ourselves forward for promotions unless we meet 100% of the qualifications necessary for a job. 

The good news is that despite the neurological and social challenges that researchers have found cause us to hesitate be it for fear of failure, a desire to do it perfectly or the need to be liked, researchers also report that a large part of confidence actually comes down to the choices we make each day as we’re going about our jobs.  

So here are three choices you can try to better manage those feelings of self-doubt: 

Be authentic. best-selling authors of The Confidence Code, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, suggest the linchpin choice when it comes to confidence may be authenticity.   By making a virtue out of our differences instead of trying to hide, erase or change them, we allow confidence to emanate from our core.  You can discover your strengths and find small, daily ways to authentically develop them at the free Strengths Challenge site.

Take one small step. Acknowledge your self-doubt and then take a small step outside your comfort zone anyway.  Start with small challenges that allow you to grow, improve and gain confidence. If you fail, think about how you can do it differently next time and try again. If you succeed, set the next challenge and keep stretching yourself forward again and again.

Practice self-compassion.  Don’t let that “mean girl” voice run wild in your head.   Instead talk to yourself like you would to any other friend and be willing to look at your mistakes and short-comings with kindness and understanding.  Acknowledge that you’re “not there yet” but that as long as you stay open to learning and willing to practice, you will get better. 

When it comes down to it, confidence is simply the ability to turn our thoughts into action; so where will you start? 

 Here are some self-coaching books to get started:

When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook edition $0.99, Workbook Edition in paperback $13.41) 

   When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback $13.41  

 John G Agno: Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (ebook and paperback editions)

 John G. Agno: Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions)

  Decoding the Executive Woman's Dress Code (FREE ebook) 

 

Slipping on the Short White Coat

What happens when "Sex and the City" meets "Grey's Anatomy?"

In "BURNING THE SHORT WHITE COAT: A story of Becoming a Woman Doctor," Dr. Eve Shvidler narrates the humor and heartbreak in love and medicine through young medical student Elle Gallagher, just as Candace Bushnell does with Carrie Bradshaw and Shonda Rhimes does with Meredith Grey.

This medical chick-lit novel exposes the personal battles that single women must overcome in balancing a demanding profession and the desire to find a trusting and loving relationship.

"While our society is supportive of women and their desire to become professionals, we are still bound by our societal goals to find love, relationships and eventually a family in order to call ourselves whole," Dr. Shvidler said.  "How we get there and balance it all is always a challenge we face."

Dr. Shvidler's inspiration for writing "BURNING THE SHORT WHITE COAT" came from her own real-life experiences while in medical school.  Today, she is a practicing physician in the Pacific Northwest, married with three children.

Source: Eve Shvidler M.D.: Burning the Short White Coat: A Story of Becoming a Woman Doctor

   When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback   

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Are You Overworked and Out of Time?

'Grey's Anatomy' Alum Katherine Heigl: ABC Series Won't Be The Same Without Patrick Dempsey

Are You Overworked and Out of Time?

Increasing technological advances tend to be the consequence of living where everybody is trying to do more in less time.  Conversations are routinely interrupted by cell phones and text messaging, people are pressing one another to be constantly available and world-wide access means many people are holding very early morning or very late evening meetings.

Our research tells us that it is a mistake to believe that time management is simply about working more effectively, prioritizing or planning ahead.  It is all of that and much more.  Of significance is doing what is important, using your strengths, disciplining yourself to stay focused, and having the ability to say 'no.'

To be more effective, most organizations and individuals believe they need to focus on improving their time management skills when what they really need to concentrate on are personal choices.  As executive coaches, who help people to live a better life by taking control of their own behavior, we know this will take some dedication---but the benefits will be worth every bit of your effort. 

The meaningful and practical recommendations, in the self-coaching books below, will allow you to get to where you want to be both in your personal and professional life.  What operates in the background of our time management behavior is discussed in these books to help you learn what you don't know about how you make choices and compromises.

It is our hope that by selectively applying these time management insights, you'll be able to gain a better work/life balance.

  Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (ebook for $.99 or paperback edition for $7.99) 

 Women and Time (ebook for $.99 or paperback for $7.99)

For specific "things to do" on time management, self-knowledge and other subjects, consider purchasing the paperback "Workbook Edition" of "When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women:"

(Paperback Edition for $13.09)

 

 

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Getting to Know You

Managing a Successful Career

Finding Prince Charming

Often a career woman has to kiss more than one frog before meeting her prince.

Are you ready for a mature love story between a man and a woman who fall in love with each other for the first and last time in their lives?

In her new book, "A Real Love at Last", author Victoria Leigh Gabriella uses real-life inspiration to tell the story of the struggle to find true love after the discouragement of severed marriages and heartaches.  Even later in life, men and women can still find real love.

"It is almost impossible to find a decent and nice man who can play nicely as Prince Charming for the rest of his life," Gabriella said.  "Hopefully, people who are a bit later in life can still find the real love they want even though they may have been unlucky in love in the past."

"I hope it will give women a romance story they can enjoy, laugh at and relate to as women who have gone through many of the same situations," says Gabriella.  "A Real Love at Last" emphasizes that love is not always easy, but finding true love after heartbreak and even divorce is possible.

Source: Victoria Leigh Gabriella: A Real Love at Last: A Romance in Williamsburg and Places Beyond.

 

  Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (ebook - $.99)

 

 Women and Time (ebook - $.99)

 

For specific "things to do" on time management, self-knowledge and other subjects, consider purchasing the paperback "Workbook Edition" of "When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women:"

 

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Uncluttering Your Life

Nearly 80% of Working Moms Believe They Can Have It All

Can a Professional Mentor/Coach Be Your Mom?

Few of today’s senior managers had their own mothers as professional role models. They were more likely to be among the first women to rise to high-ranking jobs in their companies or fields.

A growing number of women managers and professionals today, however, are mentoring their own daughters—sometimes in the same fields—as the young women build careers.

Taking on this new maternal role as a professional mentor can be challenging. These relationships can be rewarding, but also fraught with tension, as young women strive for independence and mothers walk the line between giving needed guidance and meddling too much.

Parents who mentor their children must avoid imposing their own views, says Ilene Lang, former president and chief executive officer of Catalyst, a New York nonprofit provider of research and advice on advancing women.

Mentor relationships should be driven by the younger person.  Ms. Lang adds, “You have to be conscious of, ‘How much of this is my agenda, vs. their agenda?’ ”

Source: The Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2015

 

    When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women

 

  Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.

 

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Bench your Inner Coach

Has owning your company improved family life?

Has owning your company improved family life?

It was Gloria Steinem who said, “I’ve yet to hear a man ask for advice about how to combine marriage and a career.” 

Aspiring women deserve a solid “heads-up.” 

Women who ascend the corporate ladder are expected to give up, to go up.  This is a critical consideration for woman with children. Whoever first noticed that we get what we wish for was right.

We need to make sure that our career goals coincide with our personal goals—and if, at present, they don’t appear to, we should think long and hard about how to make them harmonious. 

Countless mothers of young children have surprised themselves by creating professional opportunities while they’ve been home with children.

Others have impressed themselves and others when they demonstrate how their organizational abilities at work translate well on the home front, in locating the right support network and helpers to make both work and home function smoothly.

Choosing to take the appropriate measures to advance our careers is a significant decision. Ultimately, the right decision for one woman may be entirely wrong for another. The choice belongs to each of us.  Industry asks and expects a lot.  But the demands will only change when women push through changes so no one will be expected to sacrifice family for success in business. 

After spending time in the corporate world, many women choose to open their own businesses so they have more control over their time. 

Source:    When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback 

 

  Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. 

 

 

 Everyone you meet these days is overworked and out of time. 

 

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Comment period on proposed sex discrimination rule extended

  WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor has announced a two-week extension of the comment period for its proposed rule governing the obligations of federal contractors and subcontractors not to discriminate on the basis of sex in their employment practices.  

The extension ensures that the public has time to comment on the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 25, 2015, decision in Young v. United Parcel Service. That decision involved application of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to pregnancy discrimination in the workplace. The Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs follows Title VII principles when enforcing the law against employment discrimination by federal contractors and subcontractors.  

OFCCP published a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register on January 30, 2015, with a March 31 deadline to submit comments. The comment period will be extended through Tuesday, April 14. To read and comment on the proposed rule, please visit http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/SDNPRM/index.html. 

OFCCP enforces Executive Order 11246, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974. These three laws require contractors and subcontractors that do business with the federal government to follow the fair and reasonable standard that they not discriminate in employment on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, national origin, disability or status as a protected veteran. For more information, please call OFCCP’s toll-free helpline at 800-397-6251 or visit http://www.dol.gov/ofccp.