Do you ever feel plagued with bad luck? Some people have good luck – but you don’t seem to? You’ve heard of ROI – Return on Investment. Well there’s actually ROL – Return on Luck. Even bad luck. Impossible? Read on. Last year I heard a speech by Jim Collins, business guru and author of Good to Great and his latest, Great By Choice. Jim has spent his career studying … Read More
How to Stop Comparing Yourself With Others – Coming Back to Your Own Yippee
How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others: Coming Back to Your Own Yippee Comparisons are odious- Shakespeare Nine women sat around a stone fireplace in a cottage on the Rhode Island coast. Ranging in age from late eighties to early forties. Their professional interests as wide ranging as their ages – from Cardy Raper the scientist and author of the wild book Love, Sex and Mushrooms, to horse whisperer … Read More
Bluebird On The Mountain
I was on the Read My Lips radio show the other day with my engaging host Bonnie D. Graham who asked me: What is Yippee Index exactly??? I answered as often do: The Yippee Index measures how satisfied you are with what you do. Does what you do make you want to say Yippee? But what does having a High Yippee actually feel like? Your life is full of moments … Read More
Uh Oh!! Are You Using Standard Operating Procedure?
Outside the window red and blue lights flashed and a line of red lights snaked its way toward our plane. The flight attendant spoke into the intercom. ““This is standard procedure for an unscheduled landing. Don’t be alarmed.” Who was she kidding? I’d been planning this trip to Vancouver for weeks, and at first everything had lined up perfectly: Four clients, four days, not a wasted minute, back to Nashville … Read More
How Being Vulnerable Now Will Let You Rock the House Later
My husband Umberto and I lived in Caracas for a dozen years. As an executive and consultant to the US Embassy, I made presentations, wrote proposals and managed a household in Spanish. But Umberto and I got divorced in 95 and even though I tried to find ways to use the language since then, it’s really not an everyday event. Then my neighbor Sheyla invited me to be interviewed on … Read More
Being The Real You
Last week I spent four days at Social Venture Institute, the amazing conference for 100 or so entrepreneurs and social enterprise leaders who are using business to change the world. The conference is held at Hollyhock www.hollyhock.ca, a serene retreat on an island north of Vancouver nestled between mountain ranges on a pristine bay. The paths wind through coastal rain forest with towering Douglass fir and waist-high ferns. The large … Read More
Feeling Special
Because I coach entrepreneurs myself, some people are surprised I need a coach. Or, that I even have feelings of inadequacy or timidity. But of course I do!! And recently those feelings got triggered. As I explore the blogosphere, wise voices say, “Be yourself. Let people get to know you. You are so wonderful people will just fall in love with you and follow you. You are so special, let … Read More
Re-Invention
When I was in my twenties, I’m a Baby Boomer, so it was a different world, I had the notion that when one “grew up”, that life somehow settled down to a predictable “happily ever after” pattern. Mine didn’t and I felt like a failure. Gail Sheehy’s book Passage’s was a revelation to me. The subtitle was “The predictable passages of adult life”. As I read it I was both … Read More
Change Something
Last Thursday I was watching the sun rise out of the Atlantic from the coast of South Carolina. On Monday, I was watching the sunset in English Bay in Vancouver on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. I love sunrises and sunsets – purples, oranges and pinks, with the light burnishing the water gold. I marvel how the trail seems to come straight toward me. Dawn and dusk are dramatic … Read More
Are You Stuck?
Is your boss grumpy or unappreciative? Do you have a co-worker who takes credit for your ideas? Is your company or industry in decline? Most of us don’t do anything about situations like these because deep down we hope something will change. The boss: Maybe he’s just having a hard time in his own life and things will get better. Or: My boss’s boss treats him the same way. That … Read More