Are you prepared for success? The viable, most likely to be hired, candidate invests time and follows a strategic plan to be relevant, aligned, and necessary.

If you missed this live broadcast, listen online from your pc now to “Your Next Job: What To Do Right Now to Improve Your Odds”.

Find out more about a Strategic Career Plan that works every day to fuel your activities, helps you to rebound when challenges put a drag on your emotional and physical resources, and reinforces your ability to tap your potential.

Take a moment now to imagine a scenario over which you have no control.. Consider something very challenging, at work or a personal relationship. Clearly imagine every aspect of this potentially negative event. Now, consider others who may be looking to you to project a positive attitude and, most critically, they may be watching or listening, as your attitude is manifested in your behaviors. How will you display behaviors, how will you take action, as you react and move beyond the negative circumstances?

FACT: Psychologists estimate that nearly 80% of our thoughts each day may be negative or harmful to our self-respect.  Whoa Nellie!! That’s a lot of “no” for most of us.

SOME ACTION STEPS TO ELIMINATE NEGATIVITY  [For my readers who have children (any age) or work with them in a classroom, this is a GREAT activity to do together to encourage positive behaviors.]

Identify your negative thoughts, and then write them down. 

In black and white, the negative thoughts can really be “an eye opener” and heighten your awareness to how damaging negative thinking can be.

Erase the negatives. With a black marker, draw a thick line through all of the negative remarks.

Replace the negative remarks with a positive version. For example, if your negative thought was “I am hopeless at managing my staff” write the exact opposite, “I’m really good at managing my staff.”

If you believe your positive remark is not true, keep in mind that your negative thoughts were not likely purely true either. Negative self-talk or imagery becomes so powerful because you have a conditioned, automatic negative way of thinking many times throughout your life, consciously or subconsciously.  Each day forces you to believe the negativity a little more.

The same principle applies to positive self-talk or imagery. Positive affirmations like, “Everyday, I’m becoming a better person” can have a strong impact on building your self-esteem.

Repeat your positive-self talk daily. Write your affirmations on index cards or post-it notes and stick them to your keyboard, computer monitor, refrigerator, mirrors, bedside table- anywhere and everywhere you can. The more you see them, the more you will say them to yourself, and the more they will become ingrained in your mind.

Got negativity?  You can beat it!

For grins, or for an exercise in personal development, “Act like you’ve been here before”. Consider how you might anticipate any activity if you simply integrated this attitude into your patterns of thinking. Visioning, as much as our successful athletes can attest, is a powerful tool.

Consider a time when you took on a new job, tried to learn a new skill, made a mistake in judgment or actions, felt insecure among strangers, stumbled over your tongue when you attempted to speak in a meeting or in front of a group, or hesitated to take action for fear of failure. Every one of us has some area in our lives where our confidence can be strengthened, and success is more likely, if we act like we’d been here before.  In reality, you have been here before.  Maybe it wasn’t the same group of people, or the same training room or project, but if you recognize and honor the elements, the attitude, the attributes, that helped you achieve your goals and helped you survive the uncomfortable experience, then you can acknowledge and engage the skills to do it again!

If you begin your week as if “you’d been here before”, how will you plan? What will you do differently? The same? What, or who, will you notice that you didn’t see before? How will you use this attitude to make your week, your days, your hours, more meaningful?

Go ahead. Try it. “Act like you’ve been here before” for just one day.

It takes an incredibly optimistic grower to invest in any gardening efforts at the wane of summer, September in the Midwest. Winters are harsh here and tender new plantings struggle to develop their strong starts in the dry soil. Yet, despite the drought, heat, and budget stressors of our challenged economy, these confident neighbors planted their hardy mums. I love it! These cheerful folks are confident that even if the mums die, they envision this garden and themselves enjoying it, next spring. They believe that they will have enough funding to buy new plants in the spring of 2012. They enter this project with conviction that, if prepared with care, next March they will be able to begin phase II with tulips or lilies or any one of thousands of their favorite spring flowers.

This optimism is not blind.  This, my friends, is community leadership, forward planning, and preparation that achieves well designed goals. This is why Americans are able to rebound from adversity, and yes, a tough economy does not get in the way of a passionate gardener. Just as any leader worth following, any goal worth planning, and any dream worth visioning, gardens always give back wonderful, and sometimes surprising, rewards.

Do you have someone in your life who helps you to achieve your best results in your career and your personal life?

Do you have someone who helps you to develop skills to make effective decisions?

Do you have someone in your life who always tells you the truth and provides growth points to help you when the truth reveals a challenge for you?

Envision a relationship that is purposefully-driven and focused on your success. A coach is all that! Your coach is the person who honors and celebrates your wins in life and helps you to develop your best tools to learn from experiences and obstacles. Your coach is 100% your success partner! That’s it! Your Success Partner!

Do you have someone like that?

What are some reasons people hire a coach?

Need for control, self-discipline, and order.

A frequent reason to seek a coach is the tendency to take on too much. Too often we try to do too many activities, simple or complex, without realistic time constraints. When we fail to achieve our objectives, fail to meet deadlines, we become discouraged. We feel out of control and even small issues become weighty. The problem can raise its ugly head when we continue to arrive late for appointments or social engagements.

Need to hear the truth.

Although we may be loved and adored by our family, friends, and partners, they are not always the most reliable source for the painful truth.  The realities of many facets of our lives require the objectivity that a dedicated coach brings to conversations. Your coach is your success partner who always tells the truth, no matter what. Yes, the truth can hurt.  And yes, in fact, the truth will set you free! Your coach holds you accountable and helps to prepare you to hear, receive, and use the truth to become the best version of yourself.

Many people are surrounded by negative influences. When less-enlightened people bring us down, a coach helps us to stomp negativity! Because successes begin to happen quickly with coaching, the “I can’t”, “Yeah, but….” beasts are driven away.  Your coach builds positive reinforcement and success into your daily actions. You will change your habits of thinking or negative conditioning that slowed or stopped your momentum.

Need to find direction.

Have you ever been stuck? You are achieving day-to-day accomplishments, but you believe there is more that you should be doing. The self-destructive feelings that come from immobilization, “arrested development”, will threaten your chances for a happy, fulfilling personal life and career. Your coach fuels your process and delimits your thinking. With a coach, you can move, make changes, reveal your energy resources from within, and create a fully functional, satisfying life. You are capable. If you are one of “the stuck” among us, a coach can develop your program to summon your strengths, minimize negative influences, and stimulate your ability to discover your best direction. You will move toward and find your most satisfying life and your best performance.

Need for accountability.

How many New Year’s resolutions have you made? How many have you kept? How many benchmarks have you set for yourself? How many have you achieved? Your coach helps you to develop accountability tools that are a foundation for personal success. Your coach helps you to examine where you are right now; your situation, your values, your frame of mind. Your coach helps you to envision and illuminate your direction; where you want to go.  You will identify and examine your passion, harvest your dreams, and develop your realistic, time-relevant, measurable goals. Your coach will help you develop effective and efficient actions to achieve your goals. If you want to move, you need action steps. Action steps thrust you out of bed in the morning!

What may be the most valuable component for a coaching-client relationship is self-accountability, the tool to fully execute your personal strategic plan stands alone as the gem for most clients.

Need a customized process specific to your success needs.

The best results from a coaching relationship include our ability to take control over change, become able to self-direct, and learn to be patient with ourselves and others.

A skilled, trained coaching professional is equipped with robust assessment tools, foundational methods, and customized processes to support your development experience. There is no “one size fits most” in coaching.

So, when do people hire a coach?

We hire a coach when the status quo is not enough. We hire a coach when we need solutions for sustainable personal and professional success. We hire a coach when the most important tuition investment is in the course of YOUR SUCCESS!

Explore the coaching process now!  FreyWorks & Associates Cons. LLC is offering an absolutely FREE opportunity for you to experience one of the most valuable tools in your coaching process, the Innermetrix^® Attribute Index assessment. During your free coaching session, you will unravel the mystery of your decision-making process when things are moving fast, high-velocity, fast-paced situations, when your intuition works to guide your choices. Also, check out our discussion of Why Hire a Coach? on 30MinuteBusinessDig on BlogTalkRadio, featuring Deborah Frey and co-host, Lisa Kanda.

Today is the day!!  Find out more about how the coaching process works and to take full advantage of the Innermetrix^® AI assessment free offer! Treat yourself this valuable gift today–>Contact Deborah Frey at FreyWorks & Associates.  Email at freyworks@gmail.com.

Decision-making: A critical, essential skill for success

Most of us do not see “leader” in the mirror in the morning. Fact:  If you have responsibilities, if others look to you for advice and support, if you invest your time in the well-being of others, you are a leader. We see it every day. If you look like you know where you’re going, right or wrong, people will follow you. People watch each other and seek inspiration.  Although the source of confidence may not always be ideal, leaders emerge, and people follow.

The critical nature of indecision is inaction. We can become intellectually stuck. The reality, it is unlikely that you will achieve your full potential and success in all facets of your life and work, if you cannot effectively steer yourself.  Fundamental decision-making and strategic-thinking skills, help us to be more confident, self-reliant, and in control. Ultimately, we become better self-leaders, and effective leaders in other areas of our lives.

In our society, every day we see the products of indecision. We perceive, right or wrong, that a person has the ability to be a good leader because they appear to be decisive. When in fact, many leaders have created more difficulty and lost trust of their followers because they failed to, or did not know how to, use an effective decision making process. Essentially, when we can confidently decide, we become better equipped for adversity—When challenges make it difficult to defog, effective decision-making skills give us the capability to quickly determine our circumstances and move forward to change-up the situation, address and resolve problems, or rebound from hardships.

Our Habits of Thinking

Our attitudes, our habits of thinking, fuel our behaviors. Procrastination, the most pure form of indecision, is a behavior of inaction.  Procrastination is typically not about time management or planning. Procrastination is a habit of thinking. Dr. Joseph Ferrari, associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago, commented in an  article published in Psychology Today,  “Procrastinators are not different in their ability to estimate time, although they are more optimistic than others. Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up.”

As a rule, major decisions are really a series of smaller decisions.Large or  small, the ability to be successfully decisive has little to do with personality, but more to do with our ability to analyze a situation and plan actionable ways to approach each piece or step of the challenge.

Another aspect of decisiveness is the combination of our logic and the emotional facets of our personality. This combination, our intuition, will influence our best made decisions. Intuition, some call it our sixth sense, can serve us well as we apply our personal experiences & daily applications of formal learning to a scenario, and yet, intuition is sometimes elusive. We simply cannot always sense the right outcome.   

For the stuck among us, develop your skills to help you develop autopilot tools when times get tough or when conflicts and priorities distort the facts and obscure the right, or best, path for you. The Attribute Index assessment tool is designed to help people identify how they make decisions in hi-velocity situations, when intuition drives the process.  Debriefing conversations with a skilled coach, always helps to reveal the strengths and challenges for people when the pressure is on. The Attribute Index is a valuable starting point to design a program that helps people and organizational teams to develop highly effective decision-making skills.

To find out more about the Attribute Index and how you can benefit from this free assessment, contact Dr. Deborah Frey, certified Innermetrix specialist, at freyworks@gmail.com.

Also, go to  http://www.transformleaders.tv/ to see more tools and information from Henna and her colleagues on Mentor Moments TV and the Empower Women Leaders YouTube Channel. link for provocative leadership insights and how your ability to lead will change your life and the lives of others.

Gazing out of my backseat window of the Durango as we tooled up and up and up the winding mountain road, I was doin’ the  “ooooh- aaaaaahhhs” as I snapped pictures from my very cozy position , unaware of my imminent adventure.  I notice that we are now in an area where the signs that welcome visitors to the towns do not declare the population, but how high the town is. “Cortez, 6, 191 Elev”, “Mancos, 7,028 Elev.”

My seasoned hiker friends had wonderful plans for the weekend..surprise plans. Uh-Oh!

Sidebar: My  “ooooh- aaaaaahhhs”  were gentle and garbled with the slurry cough drop sounds as my throat fought the symptoms of a evolving head cold—razor blades wrapped around my tonsils carved away at my enthusiasm as I kept silent  about my prognosis.  I was not to be the cause for a premature end to this wonderful day full of exploration.

So I eagerly hopped from the SUV to see this celebrated, magical place called Telluride!  And yes, it is magical.  Such breathtaking vistas!  Wisely attired in layers, sunglasses and very warm hat, I joined my friends for a brisk walk in the ice crystalized air to the gondola to catch the amazing overview of the region from aloft (Oh! And to peek at the sprawling ski lodges including, Tom and Katy’s hideaway)!

Back on terra firma, we began yet another adventure with my friends, the Pipps!  (The Pipps? A story for another day, but suffice that there is never a dull day in life with our friends, The Pipps!) .

As we walked through the village streets I noticed that I was frequently gasping.  Holy Cow!  There is no air!  “Not to worry. just a little head cold giving me grief”, I thought. Then, we began to walk, “A hike, not too far” Mike called it, as he noticed my labored breathing. “Let’s test out those new hiking boots, Deb.  We’re hiking up to see the frozen waterfall!” he said, as my pace grew staggered from NO AIR!!  What?  Climb up that mountainside and I can’t breathe down here?  “You’ll be okay, take your time”, “Oh, and use this ski pole for balance. Grab anything you can, if you slip, okay?”

So we climbed.  Not bad at first, as I stopped to wheeze (and cough) every 20 meters. Yep, by now I’m havin’ a serious fever issue and WOW was I glad that I donned my layers and a headband.  At 20 degrees, and Oh, did I mention NO AIR?

I digress to ask you, my reader: How long has it been since you have tested your physical resources and your determination to do something? I venture that most of us do it infrequently, at best.  Yes, I’m so guilty!

As I climbed, a bit behind the others, I was struggling.  I was becoming very ill, but aside from the impending head cold,  I was testing every atrophied muscle in my body and each arthritic joint said, “Hey, hold up, lady!!” Self-loathing was teasing my sentiments, but prideful resolve prevailed. I kept climbing, “post-holing” in the melting snow drifts on the mountainside and pulling myself up with rocks, limbs, and my trusty ski pole.  Only a little further to the “prize”. I know I can do this.  The lump in my throat made breathing more difficult as I stifled unexpected frustration-driven tears.  What’s the matter with me?  This girl is not a crybaby!! Move it sister!

“Hey look!!” And there it was!  A frozen waterfall that lay as graceful as an angel on the mountainside at 12,000 feet!  The icy waterfall was hanging like a massive icicle, frozen in the moment!  Fern fossil-tipped rocks at the base lay respectfully undisturbed by curious adventurers like us.  Such a magical place was meant for my well-deserved respite!   I made it and now, I was blissfully resting and sucking in as much oxygen as I could breathe in before the long journey down.

As I basked in the warm, sudsy shower before dinner, I reflected on this challenging accomplishment. Wow! I discovered another layer of myself that day.  I realized that, although I’m often busy helping others to develop their capabilities, I too have not begun to appreciate and develop my own potential.

At dinner that evening in the Smugglers restaurant in Telluride, as they turned their concerns to my fever-flushed face, I raised my glass to my fellow warriors who supported, guided, encouraged, and protected me to make the journey.  Our friend Mike, who was the leader in this adventure, asked if I was going to refer to him with unflattering yet colorful descriptions and disparaging references to his ancestry, and of course, never hike with him again.  Without hesitation I answered, “How could I do that when he gave me the chance to discover my toughness and identify my limitations?”

I challenge you to take on something each week that tests you to the limit, tests your self-reliance, tests your physical, mental and emotional durability. Whether you are walking a mile or climbing a mountain, or stepping up to duties not yet ventured, do it! The value comes when you know how far you can go, then go just a little further.

To the Grand Canyon and beyond! What is not to like about groovy outdoor fashions?  ;-D

Join and Do: Be Valuable

If you are experienced and unemployed, it is likely that you are knowledgeable about a particular subject or area of work. If you are a first time job seeker, you will need to learn about the kind of work that you seek. In either case, association, club, or professional organization memberships, that are affiliated with the kind of work that you would like to do, can be worthwhile and valuable. And as you participate, you will build self-assurance while you benefit the community and learn from others, while you become an established and appreciated contributor.

Begin by identifying professional organizations or clubs that have members who do the kind of work you seek. Start locally by identifying organizations through the memberships in organizations such as Chambers of Commerce, Kiwanis, Rotary Clubs. For college students, join professional associations while you are in school. Do not wait to network with professionals who are already working in your field of interest, and remember, most professional associations have student rates for membership that accommodate student budgets. Giving up a few pizza nights with friends to pay an annual membership in a professional association may be the best decision you will make to launch your career!

Why Spend My Resources on Organization Memberships?

Be heard and seen. Attendance at regular meetings and events provides valuable networking opportunities, as well as, a natural venue for you to ask questions or share what you know. Take advantage of volunteer activities and use effective communication skills to become part of the organization. Demonstrate your reliability as a “go to” person to achieve the goals of the organization and become a team player to help promote their mission. Referrals emerge from bonding relationships that develop in team-centric activities. Become part of the member team and serve selflessly. People will notice.

Speak Up

If you are uncomfortable with your speaking skills, interpersonal or public speaking, join your local Toastmasters™ International club. The minimal dues for membership provide opportunities to develop powerful leadership and speaking skills. At each regular meeting, members enjoy the privilege to participate in speaking activities and club roles, and as a valuable member of the audience. Toastmasters help members to develop confidence to speak about topics in front of a group, and when you are able to confidently speak about useful information or express new ideas, you become a subject expert and value-added among your associates.

Remember, the combination of your involvement in groups or clubs and your ability to communicate and capably support the activities builds your potential for referrals in an area of work where you will not only survive, but thrive!

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If you would like to know more the only Toastmasters™ International club, Southern Illinois Toastmasters Club, serving southern Illinois, email us at SITC606012@gmail.com or contact Club President, Peggy Willoughby at 618.993.2171. Learn more about Toastmasters™ International online at http://www.toastmasters.org.