You're the Best!

Time to read: Barely one minute. It's summer. You've got fun stuff to do.

You are a gift!

One of our own Corporate Rebels inspired today's blog. Steve sent me some astute comments after a post a few months ago. His thoughts inspired some fresh ways to think about your career which put you back in the driver's seat. If you feel like your career has been pushed this way and that by the winds of your company, read on!

Steve wrote, "I’ve shifted my attitude about work and career to how to use my gifts and talents (i.e., value proposition). For me, satisfaction comes from applying my gifts and talents which meets someone’s need and who is willing to compensate me for that."

Steve makes an excellent point. Put another way, you are a gift to your employer. Your contributions are as important as the things they give you.

Blow open your thinking about your career with these ideas:

1. Your employment is an equal energy exchange. You give your gifts and talents. Your company gives you money and benefits. They need you as much as you need them. This idea puts the power in your career back in your hands.


2. Do what you do best. You have gifts and talents. And you have...what shall we call them?…liabilities and weaknesses. Spend your career maximizing your strengths and partnering with other people's strengths (i.e. your liabilities and weaknesses). Doing what you do best allows you to shine and partnering with others who have different strengths, allows them to shine. It's a win-win!


3. Stop competing. Spending your career trying to outdo your competition is not a winning strategy. Instead, focus on partnership, relationship, and delivering the best darn solutions to meet your (internal and external) customer's needs. By focusing on value and solutions, you set yourself up to be a sought-after member of any team.

You're the best!

Christina

P.S. Have a colleague who needs to see themselves as a gift to your organization? Send them this newsletter and they can sign up for weekly motivation and positivity right here.

What Would You Do If You Stopped Postponing Your Life?

Time to read: 40 little seconds (keeping in short so you can enjoy this summer day - for our Northern Hemisphere rebels!)

This is a vent louver. I had to look it up.

Happy August Corporate Rebels!

A c!ient recently sent me an ah-ha about constantly trying to improve herself. Her insight made me think of you.

Here's the email she sent me (shared with her permission.):

"I had this revelation this morning that I've been spending so much time and energy trying to fix all these things about myself. It dawned on me that I'm actually using self-improvement as an excuse to postpone really living. The analogy that comes to mind is that I have a car with a bunch of little things wrong - hail dents, torn carpet, stained seats, broken vent louver - and I'm fixating about fixing them, rather than just packing up the car and taking a road trip.

I finally realized that I don't really need fixing any more than I need to fix a broken plastic vent louver. I can just pack up and go for a ride instead.

I want to stop using these excuses that are preventing me from taking the necessary risks to get out and enjoy life."

And there it is.

As a human, you will always have scratches and dents. They are part of what makes you wonderful. So, when you stop hiding behind your scratches and dents, what do YOU want to do?

Two words: Road trip!

Happy lazy August!

Christina

P.S. Invite some of your colleagues to road trip with you by joining the Corporate Rebel Video Podcast and Newsletter. They can sign up here.

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.

When You Work In Chaos, Do These 2 Things

Time to read: 1 min. 20 seconds.

When work gives you lemons...

I was talking with a client recently. Let's call her Polly. (Name changed to protect the innocent.) Polly works for a huge company that for generations has been a bastion of stability and happy employees.

Until recently.

For the past two years, Polly and her team have undergone multiple rounds of layoffs, worked to bridge differing cultures with colleagues from an acquisition, and navigated what sometimes seems like daily emails announcing more departures in upper leadership. They don't know who handles decisions, where to go for funding, or even if their projects will continue to be a priority in six months. They are getting used to their "new normal" and still, it's frustrating and discouraging to do good work in daily uncertainty and chaos.

Does this sound familiar to you? (Keep reading. I'll tell you what to do about it.)

Polly asked me, "will we ever have stability again?" (She knows I spent 5 years in this very environment. We had 3 CEOs in five years. Talk about chaos and ever-changing priorities.)

The answer to Polly's questions is yes... and...

It could be years before the company starts to chug along like a well-oiled machine. It takes a long time to redirect a big ship after a series of tsunamis. The company I worked for started to stabilize after 6-7 years.

In our conversation, Polly and I uncovered 2 excellent strategies for working in, and even thriving in, an ever-changing work environment. With her permission, here they are:

1. Every morning, say to yourself, "I choose to be here." The fact is, you decide if you can tolerate the chaos or not. If you keep showing up at the office, you are signing up for whatever the company is dishing up that day. Knowing that you choose to stay is liberating. And, if you choose to go (which was my choice), that is liberating, too.
2. Make lemonade. Seriously. Times of change and chaos need leaders - at all levels. Your company needs YOU. In the midst of the confusion are opportunities for you to step up and lead. Polly walked away from our session chanting this mantra:
   
   
   "Be the thing you are wishing for."

If no one is making decisions, you make decisions. If no one knows the priorities, you set your priorities. You may get it wrong. (So what? Sitting around worrying about the future is not advancing your career or making you happy so what have you got to lose?) More likely, you will shine as a leader and initiator and people will notice.

You've got this.

I hope this helps.

Christina

P.S. If you are working in chaos and want to chat about it, reach out to me anytime: christina@boydsmithcoaching.com

P.P.S. If you just had drinks with friends who complained all night about the chaos at their workplace, forward this email to them. They can sign up to join us here.

I'm Going to Camp. Let's Write!

Time to read: A little over 30 seconds.

Do you remember? This is what a personal letter looks like.

All through elementary school, high-school, college, and Peace Corps, I was an avid letter writer. If I was running this business 20 years ago, I would be cutting and pasting this newsletter together, licking stamps and snail-mailing it to you.

I love corresponding by letter. It's private and connected and in today's world, really special. When was the last time you received a personal letter, like hand-written, real stamp, with more than "happy birthday" written inside?

I have an invitation for you. I'm spending 3 weeks working at my children's summer camp, and while I'm there, letters are the name of the game. I can't carry my phone, and there's no internet in my room so I'm back to old-school pen and paper. (For those of you who are thinking, "Wait! I want my weekly newsletter." Never fear, you'll still receive it every Thursday like clockwork thanks to the wonders of technology.)

If you'd like to write, I'd love it. And I promise to write back. Send photos of your dog. Tell me about what you had for dinner or your summer vacation. Tell me about work. Or just scrawl a sentence that says, "you're the best" (or something to that effect).

Here's the address:

Christina Boyd-Smith
Gwynn Valley
301 Gwynn Valley Trail
Brevard, NC 28712

Last year, I invited people in my Facebook community to write. (You can join using the link.) Corresponding with Corporate Rebels was so fun, I'm opening it to all of you!

I look forward to hearing from you.

With Rebel Love,

Christina

P.S. Do you have friends who would love our quirky antics here at the Corporate Rebel? Forward this email to them and they can sign up to receive the Corporate Rebel Unplugged Podcast and Newsletter right here.

Why You Must Take Your Vacation

Time to read: Less than one minute. You've got fun stuff to do!

On vacation, you get to to stuff like this!

Hello Corporate Rebels!

Children are out of school, it is finally sunny and warm-ish here in the North, and it's time to think about... TIME OFF!

The sad reality in the United States is that 54% of Americans leave unused vacation days on the table each year, many of them forfeited forever. That amounts to 662 million unused vacation days according to a 2017 study by the Travel Association's Project Time Off. If all those days were yours, that would be like being on vacation for the next 18,000 years. Imagine that.

Are you worried about the mountains of work that will be waiting for you or how you might appear uncommitted if you take time off? Do you get mixed messages from your company about taking vacation?

Reports show that fear is the primary driver for keeping your butt in your chair rather than under an umbrella with a margarita in your hand. Clearly, from the data, you are not alone.

Time off isn't just a nice benefit. It's actually part of your employment contract (meaning, you have a right to your time off). Even more, it's vital to your success as an employee. Here are three reasons to take your vacation time:

1. Vacations keep you healthy. Your time off reduces your stress which in turn, reduces your risk for all kinds of bad things - like depression and heart disease.
2. Vacations make you more productive. After time away, you return to the office refreshed, focused and full of new energy and ideas. Ironically, time away from work makes you more productive. Liberal vacation policies lead to loyal and more fulfilled workers.
3. Vacation makes you a better employee. The Travel Association study showed that employees who failed to take vacation were lower performers. They are less likely to have been promoted in the past year or to have received a bonus in the past 3 years.

Vacation also makes you happier, more fun, improves your relationships and helps you have better sex.

Do you need more reasons to take your vacation time this summer?

Here's to you, a map, and an open road.

With rebel love,

Christina

P.S. Do you know someone who is afraid to take their vacation time? You can help by forwarding them this email. Then they can join our merry little band of corporate rebels right here.

Feeling "Meh" About Selling Yourself?

Time to read: 1.5 minutes

Today I want to talk about self - promotion. Eeew. Yuck. Ick. Does the idea of promoting yourself turn your stomach?

Here's what I've been feeling lately. In the online business world (Think: "Become a 6-Figure Coach in 3 Days!" "Fix All Your Problems Now!" "Become the Most Awesome Boss in the World in 3 Easy Steps!"), there has been a lot of despicable behavior.

Online marketers sell programs that don't work. They know they don't work and sell them anyway for big bucks. Entrepreneurs sign people up for content and sales launches that they never asked for. (I delete at least one a day.) Every webinar is a pitch. I don't know about you but my Facebook feed is filled with marketing messages offering me everything from younger skin to a fairy godmother. I avoid Facebook and want nothing to do with those marketing tactics.

All of this leaves a business person like me looking for ways to connect authentically with people and get my message out into the world with integrity. For you, it's like figuring out how to promote yourself without sounding like that self-serving jerk who is constantly taking up air time in meetings. Neither of us wants to be associated with the bad behavior we see. So what are you and I to do?

I've given this lots of thought in the past few weeks. There are very good reasons to promote yourself and ways to do it with integrity. Here are 6 of them:

1. No one is paying attention to you. That's not as harsh as it sounds. It means that people are paying attention to a million other things, and you are not at the top of their "pay attention to this now" list. Knowing this frees you to promote yourself. Stop waiting for other people to notice you.
2. Your story is compelling. You are interesting. You have done amazing things. You have a point of view. All of that brilliance will get lost if you don't share it.
3. You can help others. Shift the idea of promoting yourself from one of "how can I look good" to one of "how do I use my gifts and talents to help my company and the people we serve?"
4. Promoting yourself is generous. You have an obligation to share your brilliance with others. You really do. Holding back serves no one.
5. Make your promotion about real connection and real conversation. When you authentically connect from a place of interest in and service to others, you will no longer feel like a used car salesman.
6. Promote yourself to people who are interested in you. Don't just plunk a calendar invite on some busy VP's schedule in order to tell them how wonderful you are. It's a great idea to invite a senior leader to lunch and start by getting curious about their vision, their fears, and how you can support their efforts. Then, once you are on their radar as a human being, you can talk about your accomplishments and desires for your career.

Real connection is always welcome. So, feel free to email me and tell me what you think about self-promotion or the current state of online marketing or anything else you feel like sharing with me. I'm here.

With rebel love,

Christina

P.S. I want you to stay at the Corporate Rebel for a good long time. And, I am a fan of choosing where you put your attention. There is always an "unsubscribe" button at the bottom of this newsletter anytime you feel like this content is no longer serving you.

P.P.S. The best way for the Corporate Rebel message to spread is through you. If you love this weekly dose of wisdom and humor, please forward this newsletter to friends. They can join our merry little band of rebels right here.