Empowerment

I was driving home from getting groceries a few days ago and saw a sign on an empty storefront that said “Reimagination In Progress”.

My immediate thought was "That’s me! That’s exactly where I am at! That’s exactly what I’m feeling.”

I got excited as this is what I’ve been doing recently. I wrote in my blog a few weeks ago “with all that has happened this past year, I believe this time is calling us to act in bigger and better ways than we ever have in the past.”

When I published it, I read …

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. ~ Alice Walker

Have you ever had someone say something to you that shook your world and made you feel worth less than what you believed you were worth? Well, I have and here’s what I did about it.

Early in my career, I was working in business at an international company. It was January, the dreaded “Personnel Management Performance Review” time. I walked into my boss’ office, and sat at the round table where…

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” - Voltaire

We are now in the time of the year where we think of everything we are grateful for.

We all know what gratitude means. It is the quality of being thankful or readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. The word ‘gratitude’ comes from the Latin word gratus, meaning pleasing or thankful.

Research shows that people who are grateful tend to show higher levels of well-being…

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao-Tzu

In my work, I talk about power. Power in living authentically, power in using your voice, stepping into your power, and even using power poses. But what does power mean? Sometimes when I mention power, people will say, “Oh no, I don’t want to be powerful.” And when we dig a little deeper I find a lot of people are afraid of power because they have the …

"Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade?" ~Benjamin Franklin

When it comes to formal evaluations of organizational employees, I think we have it all wrong. We take a look at what their weaknesses are and where they can improve. We look at what they are doing wrong, and what they are doing that is not in alignment with how we would do it and what we expect from ourselves.

In other words, we look for where they are weak.

Imagine what would happen if we…

I was born into a family of Democrats in a neighborhood of Democrats, attended a church of Democrats in a city of Democrats and moved across country to another city of Democrats. And I am not a Democrat. Here's how I got here. 

I remember as a little girl how my Dad used to watch both Democratic and Republican conventions every four years in their entirety. This was a time where they were three days long. My Dad watched every single minute he could.

Coming from Polish immigrant parents, my Dad…

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” – Benjamin Franklin

Yes. I confess. I am a life long over preparer. I am one of those individuals who prepares excessively. I have a fear of being seen as someone who doesn’t know her stuff. And I carry with me a performance mentality where I have a need to be seen as an expert in my field.

The source of this is that I don’t want that experience I had as a kid when I was laughed at or made fun of because I said the wrong thing or made a mi…

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." ~Plato

I think we as a society currently lack basic human kindness toward each other. It seems we were a lot kinder to each other a mere two years ago. This saddens me. I understand the current world happenings are contributing to our inability to show kindness and I think our full, busy and stressful lives are a big contributor to our lack of kindness. We just don’t have time for it anymore and due to social distancing, we don’t have …

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." ~ Barack Obama

When I first heard this, I realized the first task of leadership is to get inspired ourselves. Unless we have that hunger that must be fed and a compelling purpose to move forward, how in the world do we inspire others? It is impossible to lead if we don't feel inspired. Okay, not impossible, because I can certainly name a few lea…

A couple of days ago I was feeling totally overwhelmed with so much happening in our world that I got on Facebook  and posted: 

I am feeling overwhelmed with it all.
What do you do to quiet this down?

Here are 15 of the responses I received:

1. Meditate…or more realistically, overeat. 
2. Put on my headphones and put on a favorite playlist of music.
3. Pray.
4. Deep breaths and shaking it out, movement so I’m balancing the stress with joy. 
5. Watch something that makes you laugh. 
6. The Serenity Prayer…