The Lies You Believe And The Truth Behind Them

Time to read: 1 minute, 36 seconds

Hello Rebels!

One of my clients (let's call her Stacy) called me dreading her mid-term review. She hated the fact that her VP didn't understand her department's role and even worse, he didn't seem to care. She felt like she spent her precious one-on-one time justifying her work, explaining why it mattered, and trying to convince him to care. She didn't know what he wanted and found their conversations frustrating and discouraging.

Does this sound familiar in your corporate job?

Stacy and I talked about the one thing she could control - herself. She believed a number of lies, and those lies were holding her back. We uncovered the truth and prepped her to step powerfully into her review.

Try these on:

The lie: She has to justify herself and her team's work.

The truth: You have nothing to justify. You get to have your passions, and your passion is not diminished if your boss doesn't share your level of excitement. Your job is to share your excitement and help your boss come along.

The lie: She needs her boss's validation for her leadership to be worthy and her team's work to be valuable.

The truth: Your success as a leader does not come from your boss's validation. It comes from how you show up, the way you manage your team, and the way you hold yourself as a powerful leader. Going in apologetic or pleading is not empowering. Instead, know your value and tell the story of your team's success.

The lie: That her boss doesn't care.

The truth: Your boss cares a great deal. He/She may care about different things than you do. As a direct report, your job is to figure out what keeps your boss up at night and how your work fits into the big picture your boss has to manage.

The lie: There's nothing she can do.

The truth: You always have more influence than you think you do. Stacy wanted to know what her boss needed from her so instead of guessing, she asked him. He told her what he needed, and she emailed me to say, "It was a great conversation. THANK YOU!!!!!"

Stacy moved from being her own worst enemy (believing in her lack of power, apologizing and justifying herself) to being her own best friend. She walked into her review powerful and in charge. That changed everything.

If you want a dose of this kind of power, join me and my BFF for our Corporate Rebel Rethinking U Webinar on August 20th at 11:00 am CT. You can register here.

Can't wait to see you on the inside!

Christina

P.S. Did you love the Quiet the Noise Challenge? Do you have friends who could use a little dose of positivity and hope in their corporate job? Invite them to join you for the Rethinking U Webinar on August 20 at 11:00 am CT. Send them here. You'll be glad you spent the hour with us.

Have You Paid Too Much?

Time to read: Less than 90 seconds.

You don't have to earn this. It's already yours.

I belong to a writing salon. Once a month, a small group of unlikely friends gathers around someone's dining room table to write and read our journals, stories, essays, and memoirs. We've been meeting for five years and have seen each other through retirements, deaths, grandchildren, job changes, and the rediscovery of our creativity. This month, one of my esteemed colleagues wrote a beautiful piece with a great reminder of the price you think you have to pay for pleasure.

I was deeply moved by his piece, and he generously agreed that I could share it with you. It's a perfect message for Corporate Rebels in summer.

From Bill Peterson:

In the busyness years of my life, I remember reading an article in which the author recommended some “good summer reads.” I’m thinking it was about twenty years ago. My history is no longer five or ten or fifteen years ago. I now have to reach back twenty, thirty, forty years or even more to reach those heyday years.

For years, I have longed to sit in the leisure of summer, open a book and enjoy a good summer read. And now, this summer I have arrived! I have laid aside the demands I put upon myself through a combination of purposeful intention and opportunity. On Sunday afternoons and mild weekday evenings I am finding myself stretched out on the old couch in the front porch with my feet up and the lamp lighting only enough to illuminate the pages, and I am enjoying a “good...summer...read.” Serendipitously I'm reading a book entitled, “The Art of the Wasted Day”, by Patricia Hampl. A wasted day? I don’t think so. You'd have to read the book to understand that part. But, for me it's more like, “The Fulfilled Day”, “The Blessed Day” or “The Day Long Awaited” because I feel like I have been waiting for these days all of my life.

I’ve paid for these days. I’ve paid with hard work and toil, sweat and burnt skin. I’ve paid, but the truth is I’ve paid too much. And I’m wondering if I really didn’t need to pay for these days at all. They were always there for me, but I told them to wait...for too long...way too long!

So now, here I am, in summer 2018, and I am fulfilling a life dream. I am reading with no intention to rush. I am savoring each word, each sentence, each thought. At last I am enjoying “a good summer read.”

If you loved Bill's writing, please email me and let me know. I'll share it with him.

Happy rebel-y summer, everyone!

Christina

P.S. Do you have a colleague who needs permission to sloooowwww down and put their feet up? Send them this newsletter and invite them to sign up for the Corporate Rebel Video Podcast and Newsletter right here.

It's the quitting season!

Estimated read time: 1:17.09 minutes.

Quit optional activities you don't enjoy. My daughter hated T- ball.

There's a lot going on right now. Holiday prep. Election updates. Dark days. Year-end deliverables. Here in the North, we're finally into cold weather. Are you feeling the intensity?

With everything that's happening in your life, the US and the world right now, I want to provide you with relief, permission to rest, and a chance to slow down. I want to help you find some ease.

One simple path to more ease is Be A Quitter.

I can hear some of you saying, "Nope. That's impossible. I can can't shirk my responsibilities." We're taught that being a quitter is Bad with a capital B.

Quitting is good. Sometimes, you must.

You are a kind and generous person. You likely say yes to more things than you can reasonably handle. Quitting is one path to balance. (So is saying no but that's a conversation for a different day.)

Tony Robbins says that quitting in order to honor your values is vital. (And if Tony Robbins says it, it must be true.)

Try these ideas on for size:

• Promised you'd attend a baby shower, and now you feel like you need a quiet evening at home? Send a Babies R Us gift card with a kind note and quit! Honor your value of quiet.
• Volunteered to organize an event and realize you've said yes to one to many things? Send an email and quit! Honor your value of free time.
• Agreed to have lunch with a friend from college who you don't like much anymore? Decline, make a note not to schedule this lunch again, and quit! Honor your value of authentic relationships.

When you are evaluating how you spend your day, consider if an activity brings you joy - nor not. Choose to do the things that bring you joy. And offer a polite, accountable, "I quit."

It's a good practice. And the discomfort of quitting will ultimately teach you where you need to say no to honor your values.

I hope this brings you some ease and simplicity.

Christina

P.S. If you know someone who would like to receive this newsletter, they can sign-up for The Corporate Rebel Video Podcast and Newsletter HERE.