Celebrate!

Time to read: 15 seconds. Take the extra minute you would have spent reading to pause
and celebrate something!

Hello Rebels!

It's my birthday week. Although you all will kindly and generously send me birthday wishes now that I've told you, trolling for birthday greetings isn't why I'm writing about it.

I'm writing about it because birthdays are an obvious reason to celebrate. When I worked in corporate, our department was small enough that we made homemade birthday cakes.

Birthdays are not the only reason to celebrate. In fact, there are thousands of reasons to celebrate and all of them deserve CAKE! Try these on:

• It's Thursday! Thursday is the new Friday. Cake time!
• You sent 100 emails today. You are a rock star of efficiency. Reward = cake.
• You made a live phone call. Yay connection! More cake.
• You have a staff meeting. Bring cake.
• It's Monday morning. Celebrate the possibilities of the coming week. Cake for breakfast!
• You got everyone off to school, fed the dog, and got yourself to the office relatively put together. Eat cake.

See how easy that is? What else can you celebrate?

Happy Everything!

Cake time!

Christina

Let Go of Guilt

Time to read: less than one minute, guilt-free

Hello Rebels!

Let's talk about guilt. Here's what I mean:

You exchange texts with an old colleague and say, "Let's have coffee soon." Then you never do.

Insert guilt.

Your mother is in a nursing home. You feel you should visit more often. You don't.

Insert guilt.

You promise to make networking introductions for a college friend who is job hunting. You "forget."

Insert guilt.

Guilt sucks.

Here's the kicker. Guilt isn't real. It's what's known as a "false emotion." You throw guilt up in front of true emotion to feel like you're taking action while you are actually avoiding. Let's look at the above examples through this lens to uncover the real emotions.

The old colleague: If you really wanted to hang out with this person, you'd make it a priority. Instead of guilt, feel sad that you don't choose to make this person a priority. Then, own your choice and let it go.

Your mother: The real emotion here is regret and sadness. It may be grief over the loss of your mother (if she's lost to Alzheimers, for example) or sadness that you don't have the kind of relationship with your mother that makes you want to visit her more often. Or maybe, it's fear about losing her. Rather than false guilt, give yourself permission to feel your actual sadness or fear.

The job hunter: If you're not motivated to help, there's a good chance you said yes to something when you wanted to say no. Maybe you're frustrated by your lack of boundaries and embarrassed that you want to get out of this commitment. You are avoiding the fact that you are out of integrity with yourself and the other person. Instead of hiding behind guilt, take responsibility for your decision and let the person know you're sorry and you can't make the introductions after all.

Guilt is a waste of your time. Instead, put that energy into feeling your real feelings and take ownership of the truth. You'll feel a lot better.

I hope this helps!

Christina

2 Questions to Defeat Doubt

Time to read: a teeny bit over one minute

The stage at Hadestown

You're in a meeting. You say something risky. The room goes silent. One of your colleagues replies, and the meeting moves on. After the meeting, you run your words over and over in your head. You wonder if your colleague thinks you're an idiot. You wonder if you should have kept your mouth shut.

Doubt runs roughshod over your confidence and energy.

Doubt is a story older than time.

My daughter and I spent Labor Day weekend in NYC eating and going to Broadway. We saw Hadestown, a sublime retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. (If you have a chance to see this show, go. Amazing music. Wonderful story. A parable for life and work.)

Spoiler alert.

If you know your Greek myths, you know how the story ends. Orpheus and Eurydice strike a deal with Hades that they can leave hell, but only if Eurydice walks behind and Orpheus doesn't turn around. The voices of doubt overtake Orpheus, and he turns his head to check that Eurydice is there. As soon as he turns, Eurydice returns to hell and heartbreak ensues. When the show was over, I was sobbing in my seat. (My daughter was mortified.)

Of course, I was sad by the unhappy ending. More than that, I was pissed that doubt won. I wanted so badly for this old tale of love and trust to end with trust. It didn't.

So, what does this have to do with you and your work?

Very often, doubt wins. Doubt overtakes you, and you metaphorically end up in hell, even if it's only the darkness and confusion in your own mind.

What do you do about it? Here are two questions to ask yourself when doubt creeps in:

1. What am I trying to get away with? Maybe you want to hide after the meeting and wish your comment would disappear.


2. What do I not want to be responsible for? It might be a good idea to check in with your colleague. Talking to her feels uncomfortable and vulnerable. You'll get feedback. You don't want to take responsibility for whatever impact you had in the meeting. Not asking about it means it didn't happen (see #1).

What to do: Go straight into the discomfort and ask, "I'd like to check in with you about the meeting. Do you have a minute?"

You'll feel better. You'll defeat doubt. And trust will win.

I hope this helps.

Christina

My Moth Story - Finally!

Time to read: 30 seconds. If you listen to my story on the Moth, 4 minutes and 53 seconds.

Remember this?

Hey Rebels!

My Moth story is finally ready for prime time! Beyond a small handful of family and a couple of friends, you are the first people to see it.

Besides being fun, why does this Moth story matter to you? Here's why:

Getting on that stage...

• is a tale of triumph over fear.
• demonstrates that you can choose how you feel. (i.e. I chose fun and excitement over terror.)
• shows that it's possible to step away from the need to prove yourself and still get amazing results. In fact, you will get better results with less energy and more calm.
• proves that you can do new things. New hard things. New scary things.

Doing this story was one of the most courageous and sublime experiences of my life and sharing it with you feels tender and vulnerable. I'm glad we've built the kind of relationship over the years that makes sharing something like this possible.

So, if this Moth story is a metaphor for your triumph over fear, what will you do?

Enjoy it here!

Email me and tell me all about it. I love to hear from you.

With Rebel Love,

Christina

P.S. Feel free to pass the story around to any of your friends you think would enjoy it.

Stop Doing This To Yourself!

Time to read: less than one minute

Hey Rebels!

You're walking down the hall at the office and you pass a very important person. Said important person walks right on by without acknowledging you. Your stomach falls. You feel nervous. Your mind spins.

"I think she hates me... or worse, she doesn't even know who I am... I'm not valued... or appreciated... I'm a complete fraud... I'll be first in line during the next round of layoffs... Then I'll lose my house... My friends will walk away... I'll be destitute and alone."

Do you play some version of this fiction over and over in your head?

If you let completely made up stories suck your energy and ruin your day, then our webinar, The Corporate Rebel Truthfully U is for YOU.

We'll be live on Monday, October 7 at noon Central Time. Join us here. (If you can't attend live, no worries. We'll send a recording to all subscribers.)

It's worth the 60 minutes if you...

• Can’t keep negative thoughts out of your brain, even when you want to think positively.
• Compare yourself to others and come up short.
• Search for hidden meaning behind interactions.
• Spin and lie awake at night analyzing situations leaving you muddled and tired. Your friends are seriously tired of talking about it.

In 60 minutes you will...

• Distinguish the Facts of a situation from the Fiction.
• Clear the clutter in your brain so you feel calm, energetic, and confident.
• Dive under the emotion and confusion so you can make clearer and faster decisions.
• Take action based on what’s actually true, rather than what you think is true, which will lead to better results.

Join us here. We can't wait to see you!

Christina and Anne

P.S. Invite your friends! Their minds are full of fictions, too, and some of them may be about you. :-) They can join here.

Are You Hijacked By BS?

Time to read: 1.5 minutes. 2.5 minutes if you read all the way to the signature.

Hey Rebels!

It’s Anne!

I'm doing a dance of joy to be here with you today. Hooray!

When Christina and I held our Quiet the Noise Challenge this summer, YOU gave us feedback and WE listened.

You said, gee, I want to work on this Fact vs. Fiction thing. To help you with that, we're hosting another 60-minute webinar! The Corporate Rebel Truthfully U: Fact vs Fiction. If you already know you want to join us, sign up here.

If you want to dig deeper into what we mean by Fact vs Fiction, step into my life for a moment. You'll quickly see how the fiction hoodwinks your mind and sucks your energy.

On a quiet Saturday, I sat at my desk preparing for the Rethinking U Webinar. Computer straightened. Papers arranged logically. Pens, pencils perfectly lined up. Then the phone rang.

We have a landline (yes, an antique contraption with wires connected to other wires) and no caller ID so every call is a mystery guessing game. I can generally fake it, “Oh hey! How’s it going?” until I have enough voice recognition data to figure out the caller.

As I said, the phone rang...

Me: “Hello?”

Friend (let’s call her Gina): “Why are you still at home?”

Me: “Uh…” (brain churning…It’s Gina. Why am I not supposed to be at home? I like being at home.)

Gina: “You were supposed to pick me up ten minutes ago!”

Me: “Oh horsefeathers!” (She was right.)

Me again: “I can be there in twelve minutes.”

Gina: “No, I’ll just go.”

Me: “Oh. Okay.”

Gina: “Bye.”

I flew into action, changed into public-appropriate attire, and shot out of the garage. My brain went crazy. Gina will never forgive me. She’ll think I’m not reliable. I made us late. I let her down. She’ll hold a grudge and tell our friends that you cannot count on Anne for anything. Nope. Unreliable Anne.

I then devised an elaborate, heartfelt apology that basically held me personally responsible for all badness everywhere.

I arrived (late) to the gathering and, lo and behold, there was no steam coming out of Gina’s ears. When a side moment presented itself, I delivered my (truncated) apology and Gina said, “That’s okay. It happens to all of us.” Or something like that. The end. Do you do this to yourself?

Get out your dissecting tools. Dig around in the first couple paragraphs and look for the FACTS of what happened.

FACT #1: I forgot I had planned to pick up Gina.

FACT #2: I didn’t pick up Gina because of Fact #1.

FACT #3: Gina forgave me and still trusts me.

After that, it's all FICTION. Gina will never trust me again. She’ll turn all our mutual friends against me. Blah. Blah. Blah. You get the point. I created a friendship catastrophe that was all in my head and a waste of time.

Notice the energy I squandered. Do you do make stuff up and create catastrophe's in your head? Are you tired of wasting energy generating all kinds of negative gobbledeemuck? And for nothing?

Join us! (Small trumpet fanfare.) We’re doing another webinar: The Corporate Rebel Truthfully U on Monday October 7 at noon Central Time. Join us here.

It's worth the 60 minutes if you...

• Can’t keep negative thoughts out of your brain, even when you want to think positively.
• Compare yourself with others and come up short.
• Search for hidden meaning behind interactions.
• Spin and lie awake at night analyzing situations leaving you muddled and tired. Your friends are seriously tired of talking about it.

In 60 minutes you will...

• Distinguish the Facts of a situation from the Fiction
• Clear the clutter in your brain so you feel calm, energetic, and confident
• Dive under the emotion and confusion so you can make clearer and faster decisions
• Take action based on what’s actually true, rather than what you think is true, which will lead to better results

Join us. We can't wait to see you there!

Christina and Anne

P.S. Invite your friends! Their minds are full of fictions, too, and some of them may be about you. :-) They can join here.

The Secret to Destressing

Time to Read: Less than one minute. If you read all the way to the bottom, it will take you two minutes.

Greetings Rebels!

When I go to North Carolina to work at my children's summer camp, I have no car. We fly and it doesn't make sense to rent a car for three weeks for a few days off and a trip to the airport.

My first year, I worried about how I would get anywhere on those days off and how my children and I would get to the airport from a little town with no Uber. Somehow everything worked out. People let me join their plans. The camp directors loaned me cars. I got everywhere I needed to go with ease. The worry was a waste of energy.

This summer was my third year at camp, and I no longer worry about the car. At all. Another parent asked me how I possibly manage with no car. I told her, with no sense of irony at all...

The universe always provides a car.

It's true, both literally and metaphorically. The worry is unnecessary. You will always have a car. It may not look the way you expect, and you'll always get where you need to go.

The trick is to do these three things:

1. Trust.
2. Trust.
3. Trust.

As someone who needs constant reminders to trust, I know what a challenge this is.

• Trust requires you to believe that everything will turn out, even when you're stressed.
• Trust requires you to know that you're on the right path even when that path has headed in unexpected directions.
• Trust means you can't tell the good news from the bad news.
• Trust is relishing the journey of the unknown and mysterious.

If you feel like a dose of trust in your journey would help make your day-to-day calmer and more joyful, let's talk!

You can schedule a 30-minute spot here. We'll have a casual chat about what's going on, develop a strategy or two to help, and talk about if support (1:1 or The Corporate Rebel Clarity U coaching group) is a good next step for you.

Why does this matter to you?

• You react instead of actively making decisions which leaves you feeling depleted and second-guessing your choices.
• Life and work feel chaotic and disjointed. You find yourself running from place to place, slamming out emails, and feeling like you're not actually accomplishing anything.
• You fall into the same ineffective patterns that have held you back for years.
• Every year you think, "This is the year things are going to be different." Then they are not different and you keep going with the same old, same old.

What's in it for you? Starting in mid- October, you'll learn how to...

• Shake off negative patterns of thinking and behaving so you can stop holding yourself back. Your life will be calmer and work more fulfilling.
• Gracefully navigate transitions so you feel confident in the unknown and able to handle the changes that work and life throw at you.
• Ground yourself physically and spiritually to allow radical transformation. You will look back and wonder why you didn't address this stuff sooner.
• Wield your new, portable Toolbox of Skills so you're ready to take action, make choices, and be in control of your career and life.
• Get clear about what you want and bravely take action toward making your goals real.

The Corporate Rebel Clarity U coaching group will help you put work and life on your terms. This link will take you to Christina's personal calendar to schedule a casual 30-minute chat.

We start in mid-October. There's no time like now!

You can also hit reply to this email to set up a time in the next few weeks or reach out to me privately with questions or inquiries.

Life is too short for work to suck.

With Rebel Hugs,

Christina

P.S. Are you ready to take action in your life? Let's talk! Click this link to choose a 30-minute spot on Christina's calendar. We'll talk about what's going on and whether Corporate Rebel Clarity U is a good fit.

P.P.S. Wouldn't it be awesome to do this work with your friends? Invite them to explore the possibilities by forwarding this email to them. They can sign up to chat about the group here.