Who Is In Charge of Your Life And Career?

Time to read: Time to read? Less than one minute. Time to choose a time to chat? 30 seconds

One of my clients just quit her job. Her career and life purpose were skyrocketing when Covid hit and pulled out the rug. It's hard to find traction again when so much has changed. She's finding it hard to feel hopeful when the world outside her home is fundamentally different than it was even a few weeks ago. She's exhausted and frustrated. She's one of the most powerful leaders I know, and thank goodness she is taking the summer off to rest and regroup before jumping back into the arena.

Can you relate?

In our conversation we talked about how no one is coming to save her. The curtain has pulled back, and we've all seen that there is no Oz. That sentence sounds dire. Does part of you wish there were something, someone, anything (e.g. a boss, a workplace, a job change, a local or national leader, a new hobby) that would fix things? I know I wish for that sometimes (even if that Oz would simply make dinner.)

Actually, knowing there is no Oz puts the power back in your hands to craft your life and choose the experience you want to have every day at work and at home. No Oz means you decide when you need to rest and recover. No Oz means you determine your perspective. No Oz means you choose to suffer or live with ease and elegance. That is hopeful and empowering.

If you're wondering how to claim that agency and ownership, I have good news.

My signature 10-month group coaching program, Clarity U, starts again this Fall. This program is so good that friends of graduates reached out to sign up before official enrollment started. There is a terrific group already waiting for you.

If you'd like to learn how to craft work and life on your terms, let's chat! In 30-minutes, we'll talk about what's going on in your world, I'll make a suggestion or two, and we'll determine if Clarity U is your next step. Choose a time on my personal calendar here.

How to Get Out of Exhaustion and Overwhelm

Time to read: Less than one minute and fifteen seconds

Hello Rebels,

It's 6:00 am. Your feet are barely on the floor, and you're already behind. You stayed up after your children's bedtime to empty your stuffed inbox and get ahead on that presentation you couldn't finish during your back-to-back day. Then there is summer scheduling, end of school activities, and picking up the slack while your colleagues take spring vacation. Remember exercise? Ha!

You're exhausted before you've started, and although some days are more packed than others, they all mush together in one long string of busy-ness.

Feel familiar?

You think that if you find the right productivity strategy, you'll be able to fix this. You get creative with your company's insistence that you "do more with less." You only check email once or twice a day. You focus on the three most important things you need to get done. These strategies work to some extent, and nothing seems to change.

I love productivity tips as much as the next busy person. And, organizing your desk differently or making prioritized lists is only going to get you so far.

What will actually get you out of exhaustion and overwhelm, is a change in you.

To help you experiment with this idea, I turned to a process I use in my own life. I have this amazing set of cards full of empowering choices and beliefs. I pull one every day to anchor how I will be with whatever is happening that day.

Today, I pulled three cards for you. (See the photo above.) Your three cards are:

Willingness: This is one of my favorites. You have to be willing to do things differently today. To slow down. To stop worrying. To get into action. Even when things suck, we're often not actually willing to change it.

I am creative: Where can you lean into your wild creativity to bring more joy, new solutions, or less stress to your work?

I choose trust: I pull a card everyday, and I seriously trust 4 out of 5 times. Seems like this one might be kind of important. Where do you not trust yourself? Or others? Where can you lean into more trust to bring ease to your work and relationships?

Pick one of these cards and use it to navigate your day. Then hit reply to this email and tell me what happens.

I always love to hear from you.

With rebel love,

Christina

P.S. Please share these cards with a friend or colleague who needs a little more trust, creativity or willingness. They can join our merry band of rebels here.

Everything I Learned at the Chopra Center (In 19 Words)

I promised to bring back amazing learning from the Chopra Center. In addition to in-depth lectures about space - time and science, the body and the spirit, I bring you this short summary of everything Deepak taught us.

1. Meditate.
2. Eat vegetables. Lots of them. Preferably kale.
3. Meditate.
4. Everything is a human construct.
5. Everything is only consciousness.
6. Meditate.

Let me know if you're curious, and I will go into more depth and show you how to apply his teaching to your life and work.

With rebel love!

Christina

What Your Quick No May Be Costing You

Today I want to talk about saying no and make the case for why you shouldn't.

I know. I know. I have preached that a good, clear no will protect your time and keep your priorities in order. And...

Sometimes a quick "no" costs you opportunities.

See if you share this fear with me:

I fear my life and time will be completely overwhelmed (which has happened a few times). I've learned to manage this potentiality with a swift and easy "no." I've realized recently that I may be throwing that no around like a bull in a china shop, resulting in broken opportunities and shards of potential on the floor. (Enough of that metaphor.)

Here are two recent examples where my fast no almost cost me an amazing opportunity.

1. A dear friend from college is retiring from a muckity-muck chief of everyone job with the US Navy. He emailed me a "save the date" for his blow out party in Washington DC . I emailed him an immediate no, thinking that with kids back in school and the pace of fall, I can't be flying to DC for the weekend. When I mentioned the party to my husband he was, like, "Why not? You should go. It would be fun." He was right.

2. My family and I were invited to a childhood friend's daughter's wedding in Kenya. (Did I mention I used to live in Kenya? See the photo of Lamu, Kenya above for a little taste.) I immediately responded no because tickets are expensive, and we'd have to take our children out of school. At dinner that night, I told my family about the engagement and the "impossible" invitation. All three of them got excited and pulled me immediately from the realm of "impossible" to "likely." My husband? Right again.

What's the message here?

1. Listen to my husband.
    
2. Spend a few more than 2 seconds evaluating an opportunity before you say no. If you're invited to chair that time consuming committee for an organization you don't care about, a swift and decisive no may be just the ticket. A friend's wedding? The trip of a lifetime? Give it more time.
    
3. Consider your values. Yes, I value balance. I also value adventure, life experiences, and my relationships. Be conscious about which value you are honoring or dishonoring with each choice.
    
4. Consider if your no is coming from fear or from a true desire to manage your time and honor what's important to you. Choose based on what's important to you, not fear.

What "no" are you going to revisit as a result of today's content? Pop on over the the Corporate Rebel HQ Facebook community to tell us all about it. Click here to comment or join!

With Rebel Love,
 
Christina

P.S. The conversation is happening in the Corporate Rebel HQ Facebook community. Click here to comment on today's content, ask questions, and join the rebel conversation. 

P.P.S If something you read today made you think of a friend or colleague, please share it by forwarding this email to them. They can sign up to receive it right here.

The #1 Strategy for Managing Stress. Yes, even YOU can do it!

What's the #1, research-proven strategy to manage stress? Here's the punchline, right up front.

Meditation

If that's all you needed, then you can go now and use your 89 seconds of bonus time however you please. If you are already listing all the reasons you can't meditate and have 89 seconds to spare, keep reading.

Here are the popular reasons I hear from my clients not to meditate:

• No time.
• No quiet space.
• Impossible to quiet my mind.
• Too wiggly (that was my reason for years).
• Too impatient.

Those excuses are a bit like saying you need to get in shape before you hire a trainer. Meditation will help you with all these things plus it's proven to improve your immunity, lower blood pressure and to change your brain to enhance compassion and promote calmer reactions to the stresses of life.

Meditation is not just for the ashram anymore. Companies like Google, McKinsey & Co, AOL Time Warner, Apple and Procter and Gamble encourage meditation for their employees because they know that meditation promotes the happiness and productivity of their workforce.

The list of benefits goes on and on, and you can start to realize all kinds of good things within 10 seconds of your first meditation. What else can promise you such fast results?

Meditation CAN fit into your busy, fast-paced life.

Here's how meditation works for me. Ideally, I wake up before my family and meditate in the dark before anyone else is awake. That happens, like, 1% of the time.

Usually, my husband comes in to start his coffee grinder. Then my son wakes up and climbs into my lap for a snuggle which invites the dog to join us. Then we settle in.

My point in telling you this is that meditation can fit into your regular life. In fact, your regular life can serve to help you focus your practice and model to others the importance of a little stillness and quiet.

Here are three easy ways to fit meditation into your life:

1. Sit at your desk with your eyes closed for 5 minutes. Find a little stillness.
2. Go for a walk with the only purpose being to enjoy the sights around you.
3. Find a meditation app or program (there are hundreds online) that you like. My favorite is the meditation series from Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey.

Give meditation a whirl then tell me what it was like. If you already meditate, I'd love to hear what practices work for you and the benefits you receive.

Om.

Christina

10 Ways to Increase Your Visibility at the Office

Estimated read time: 1 minute, 9.98 seconds

When you make yourself visible, you stand out.

I hear from many of you that you wish you were more visible, that more people would see and appreciate your work. For a few of you, you tell me you wish even one person valued your work.

When you feel undervalued or unappreciated, take a look at whether you are truly allowing yourself to be seen.

When I first decided to call my business The Corporate Rebel, I could hardly choke out those words for fear that my corporate clients would never let me in their buildings again. One morning, a colleague of mine and I were presenting about managing conflict to a room full of people when someone asked about our businesses. I said something bland about being a "leadership coach" when my friend grabbed the mic and declared, "She's the Corporate Rebel Coach. Isn't that awesome?!" I couldn't believe she said it out loud. I wanted to disappear.

Take a look at your situation. Where are you hiding? Playing safe? Holding back from saying what you really think or believe? What are you keeping your accomplishments to yourself because "it's not polite to brag?"

Then consider how much more satisfying it might be to allow yourself to be seen. If you want your management and colleagues to see and value your work, choose these things:

Take risks.

Show up.

Take a stand for what you believe and what's important to you.

Feel vulnerable, doubtful, unsafe, and uncomfortable.

Make mistakes - maybe really big ones (see #1).

Listen deeply to feedback. Learn. Grow.

Spend time with people who hold a big vision for you, maybe even a bigger vision than you hold for yourself.

Build trust that you can handle whatever happens. Even the mistakes. Even the wild successes.

Be accountable and responsible for your actions and words.

Clean up your messes. Recover and keep going.

Last night, I presented to a group of Executive MBA candidates at a prestigious business school. The first slide declared boldly, "The Corporate Rebel." I can attest to the fact that it is more fulfilling to be seen.

If you feel undervalued, afraid to been seen as you really are, or wish you were more visible to your management, I'd love to talk. Email me at christina@boydsmithcoaching.com to schedule a chat.

I hope this is helpful!

Warmly,

Christina

P.S. When you choose visibility, you'll make mistakes. Last week, I used the phrase, “rebel flag” in the subject line of this newsletter. Two friends generously pointed out the reference to the Confederate battle flag, a symbol that to many represents white supremacy. I stand for racial justice and apologize for referencing something that stands so counter to my values and may have puzzled or hurt some of you.

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.

Let your rebel flag fly AND succeed in a corporate job. In fact, it's vital!

Estimated read time: 2.5 - 3 minutes depending on your reading speed

The Muppet Yip-Yips can make you successful at work, too!

Let's jump right into a story this week about the amazing results you get when you let your unique, rebel flag fly at the office.

Meet Matt. (Matt is my client's REAL name. Matt said this morning, "I’m happy to hear my story is helpful for others" and is ready to "take the plunge" to share it.)

Matt didn't get to pick me as his coach. I was hired by his company (a large, multi-national financial firm) to coach high potential managers, and the HR team matched us up. Matt's management felt that things were crunchy with his team. The ways he was interacting in meetings wasn't always, shall we say, productive. Shared anxiety was affecting his team's performance.

As Matt and I started working together, it became clear that much of the anxiety was stemming from him. (Yup. He's the leader. Makes sense.) We quickly uncovered three things:

1. He is deeply creative and has an elephant's brain. It's a groovy circus in there - full of connections, hilarious metaphors, and a steel trap memory.
2. He believed that only a buttoned up, carefully controlled version of himself was going to succeed as a corporate leader. He literally visualized a wall on his commute to work where he turned off big parts of his identity in order to become the person he thought would be effective at the office.
3. He ran his life on a tight timetable and set of expectations that was making Matt all work and killing his sense of fun.

Our work was clear: expose the beliefs that were holding him back, uncover the amazing way he already operates, leverage those funky, rebel-y mental processes to bring him success at work, get clear about what he wants in all areas of his life, and teach him how to take care of himself.

If anyone had been a fly on the wall in our coaching sessions, they would have wondered what the heck we were doing. We talked about the ninja on his shoulder, used Sesame Street as a point of reference (yep, the alien Yip Yips), and cleaned out the metaphorical clutter in the attic of his brain. He did homework: meditation, turned off all of his clocks for a weekend to enable him to experience his own pace, and experimented with ways to open up at work. We had a blast.

At the end of 6 months, Matt had worked diligently in coaching to grow himself and created real, practical results for himself and his team. He quelled the anxiety. He lost weight. His team got happy and productive. (In our final status meeting, his boss commended the amazing change in Matt and his employees.) His retention was secured. He started exercising and hosted grilled cheese lunches for his group at his desk. He took walks during the day when he needed to clear his mind. And, (I LOVE this part), he went to a concert with his new open attitude and met the love of his life. They got married a year later. His success has led him to be courted for a new challenging assignment full of interesting risk and potential. Giving himself permission to be his full self created real, lasting, tangible results.

I asked Matt to comment on this story and here's what he said today:

"One thing that came to mind in reflecting on our time together...was the magnitude of the positive impact you had on my life centered around you guiding me on how to get out of my own way. I had and others had 'everything necessary to be successful.' (I remember you repeating this a number of times in our sessions). You cheered me on as I tackled that mental clutter, associated fear and uncomfortableness with the 'unknown and hard to describe,' and helped me realize the value in being my genuine self (and how much easier and fun it was to be)."

I can't make this stuff up, Christina. When a client does something incredible for themselves, I still shout with amazement from the rooftops, "this shit really works!" And it sticks. Matt and I worked together years ago, and the changes he created are still true today.

You deserve to be happy at work. You deserve to understand the fun and funky ways you operate so you can leverage them for your success. You deserve to feel like what you do every day matters and brings you a sense of meaning and joy. (Ok, most days. Some days are still gonna suck. Not gonna lie.) You deserve to let your rebel flag fly loud and proud.

Let's get your rebel flag in the air and get you happy at work. Hop on the phone with me for 30 minutes. We'll strategize your personal situation and transform the way you're thinking about your leadership and your work. Email me at christina@boydsmithcoaching.com to set up a time to talk.

Seriously, this shit really works. (I hope my mother-in-law doesn't read this. I promise I don't teach my kids the "s" word.)

Christina

P.S. Please forward this email to anyone you think could use some support or consider a session for one of your employees. Being fully yourself is vital to your success. P.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.