Tag Archives: women

Carron got her groove back!

Posted in Developing the Possibilities Mindset by

Today I got a call out of the blue from someone who had a free session with me many moons ago following a group session I did for women called “Unleashing Your True Potential”. I couldn’t remember the name immediately but once she described herself – I knew EXACTLY who it was.

Carron, a fashion designer had lost her mojo. She seemed beaten down by life. She had recently lost her son and just couldn’t seem to get back into the groove. I remember encouraging her as much as I could but I felt helpless. With no children of my own I didn’t have words. Instead I just reminded her of her own power and that since she had put on successful shows in the past that she should dip from those wells and not the wells that brought her emptiness and sorrow.

Today Carron called to invite me to her fashion show tomorrow! She sounded great! Unfortunately I can’t make it as I’m in Tobago but  for those of you who can – please do!

Carron made my day today! Oftentimes I doubt whether I am making a difference. My insecurities surface regularly. I feel inadequate….unsure. My enemy within bashes me to smithereens often – what makes you think YOU could help people? And then I get evidence from a real human being – who benefited from the short intervention. So as I thanked her for remembering me and for inviting me to her show – she said “no. THANK YOU! for being there for me.”

This is why I do what I do. This is what makes me happy. This speaks to me of authentic success!

To find out more about Carron’s show go on line here

Put Away the Knife…

Posted in Practicing Self Mastery by

Of shame, blame, fear and remorse.

By Marcia Reynolds, PsyD

Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame gave the closing keynote at the Women’s Conference I spoke at in Omaha. Her brief yet powerful speech left us all feeling a little less crazy and immensely more content with life. I don’t think she would mind if I shared the secret with you.

She started by saying, “People think my life is together so I should be able to help them get their life together.” She didn’t disclaim the idea. Instead, she launched into her sense of where women stand in the world today.

“We, as women, are living in a most interesting time in history. We are the subjects of a social experiment. Suddenly we have choices, self-sufficiency, freedom…we don’t have thousands of years of role models, or even 50 years.”

She reminded us that our lives used to resemble each other’s whereas now our lives are very different from our sisters and old friends. We struggle with making decisions and then live with worry or regret over the decisions we made.

It is no wonder many of us are neurotic and keep seeking to find the one person who can tell us how to put our lives together and feel happy ever after.

She shared stories of how this ambiguity shows up in all of our lives no matter what choices we make.

Then she described what her day looks like. She starts with an hour of meditation, then an hour of yoga, and then a wonderful breakfast before sitting down to write. Or maybe she sees friends before summoning her muse.

Then she said, “Do you believe this is true? It’s not. I get up every day and do my best, just like you.” She said she often falls short of what she had hoped to accomplish and the days go too fast for her to keep up.

She ended by telling us to “Let go of the knife you are holding at your throat, the knife of shame, blame, fear and remorse.”

There was a long, deathly silence, a clear acknowledgment of how solid her words had hit home with the more than a thousand women in the room.

“Be kind to yourself,” she implored, “especially now. You must give yourself unconditional self-friendship.”

She said a few more things about putting the knife of judgment away and then ended her speech. The room burst with applause. They didn’t mind that she shared nothing new and no secret formula of success.

She shared her humanity. She shared how much she cares about what women are doing to themselves. And she shared a simple, profound truth that we need to hear over and over again.

I have the wonderful opportunity to be in Trinidad and Tobago this week — I will be speaking at A World of Possibilities™ on Thursday — the launch of a yearlong event — speaking directly to the needs of women — just as Elizabeth Gilbert described — all of you at a crossroads in your lives and confronted with so many different decisions that you can’t help but feel a little crazy. It’s my first time to your country and I look forward to sharing and meeting as many of you as I can.

After that Women’s Conference I have even more admiration for Elizabeth Gilbert, as a speaker and a wise woman (and of course, as an author). I will do my best to put the knife away today. What about you?

The Burden of Greatness

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When artists create masterpieces and bestsellers, they feel an unrealistic expectation to repeat the miraculous. The same is true for many high-achieving women.

This obsessive pursuit can lead to great accomplishments. It can also lead to frustration, exhaustion and a disconnection from ourselves and our emotions. No doubt this has an effect on our relationships as well.

For two decades, I willingly sacrificed my life for my work. Nothing could get in the way of my success. At the age of forty, people saw my home, my cars, and my possessions and defined me as a successful, brilliant woman. They did not see that I was numb when working, bored when on vacation, and barely existing beyond fatigue.

In both my research and my work with female leaders, I have found an increasing number of women giving up their peace of mind. In our effort to “have it all” we think we need to do it all.

The problem started about fifty years ago when it became important to bring up girls with the notion that they could accomplish anything they put their minds to. To compensate for centuries of holding women back, the message hit girls with a vengeance.

Now there is a revolution going on as women gain more intellectual power, financial self-sufficiency and authority in the business world. At the same time, there is another revolution going on in our heads as we obsessively pursue our next great accomplishment.

I have come to call this phenomenon the “Burden of Greatness.”

It is wonderful believing in our greatness. But having the goal of “being great” is as hard to define as it is to achieve. There is always “the next great thing” to master. As a result, we are always looking for the elusive “something more” to direct our life, which leaves us feeling restless and incomplete.

This restlessness, along with the drive to excel, either shuts down our emotions or we channel them toward our chosen goals. Instead of experiencing the fullness of life, we live in a frenzy of email, chores, and to-do lists. We obsess about what we need to do differently in the future and in idle moments we play the “if only” game with the past.

If you recognize the Burden in yourself, it is likely your gifts of intelligence, resourcefulness, courage, and determination have also been a burden. Some days you wonder if it is all worth it. If you have children, you feel guilty for not spending more time with them. You hunger for a day of rest and long for a chance to pamper your body. You laugh when someone suggests you need life balance. The best you can do is balance your energy as you go about your busy day. You can still love your friends, your partner, and your children, but you know there will always be an internal struggle about how you show your love.

I have spent the last fifteen years waking up my senses. On good days, I choose my work based on what I have defined as my purpose and say “no” to everything else. When I am buried under a to-do list, I prioritize and let some things go with no guilt. My exercise and fun time can’t be compromised. These are the good days.

I have to make decisions to live like this every day, sometimes every hour, so the old days don’t creep back in.

In order to get some control over my life, I had to explore the dark side of my inheritance of excellence by asking myself some very difficult questions. When I find myself working too hard and filling in my free time with tasks or planning, I ask myself:

Who would I be if I were to stop everything and give voice to my heart? What have I imprisoned that wants to be free?

What if I didn’t have to do everything? Who will I then be?

How can I succeed without sacrificing my peace of mind? Can I stop and enjoy my life right now?

These questions, and others like them, have initiated powerful discussions for my clients as well as for me. The quicker you admit to carrying a burden of greatness, the sooner you can have some peace of mind.

You can still search for something more, you can still create amazing things; you can still be the incredible leader others will follow. But while you are on this road, look for the beauty along the way. Open your heart as well as your mind. Your life is waiting.

Marcia Reynolds, Psy.D. is the author of Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction. She is a professional coach and leadership trainer who works within a variety of industries and around the world. Read more about her and her work at www.OutsmartYourBrain.com. For a free report “Standing at the Junction – How to Become your ‘Next’ Self”, send an email to womenleaderseries@gmail.com

Why are we so afraid to stand out?

Posted in Developing the Possibilities Mindset, Practicing Self Mastery by

The year was 1970. I was staring at a picture larger than life of Angela Davis, (an American political activist and university professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), on my brother’s bedroom wall. I was 6 years old. I didn’t know anything about what Angela Davis stood for – but that picture poster of her with the huge afro – spoke to me.

I always looked up to my eldest brother, not because he was older but he always seemed so certain and so I’m not sure if he actually told me this or if I somehow felt that it would be something that he would say…but every time I found myself feeling stifled or taken advantage of I would hear him say “Stand up for your Rights” and I would visualize that huge poster of Angela Davis. It seems that she too said the same thing, quietly from the wall of his room.

Yet I find that all too often we are trying so hard to fit in rather than expand and be who we were meant to be. How many of us are willing to risk the possibilities and fully embrace this affirmation: Today I resolve to be a little less than the me I know and leave a little room for the me I could be?

There seems to be two groups that exist – one filled with folks leading lives of quiet desperation (a phrase made popular by Thoreau in 1854) and the other filled with restless agitators – those of us who wander in search of something more. Yet even as we wander, we still try to conform so that we are not seen.

I recently met a bold, energetic female entrepreneur (with businesses in New York and Los Angeles) who found that since returning to Trinidad and Tobago to set up business here, that in many ways, the folks in her industry seemed to want her to “tone down”. They’ve criticized her web site – saying that Trinidad and Tobago “not ready for that”, and she’s heard the gossip making its way back to her in the form of “who does she think she is?” I encouraged her to just “do her” – not conform – and if she can – raise the bar!

Many reading this might say that it’s just women being women. They gossip about each other and are unsupportive when others seem to be doing better than they are. I choose to believe that whenever we encounter someone reflecting back to us what is possible – and what we ourselves can be capable of – we shy away and retaliate because it involves standing out and being seen. And truth be told, we are just afraid.

In an essay titled “Our Authentic Lives” Sarah Ban Breathnach observes “I wish I’d known from the beginning that I was born a strong woman. What a difference I would have made! I wish I’d known that I was born a courageous woman; I’ve spent so much of my life cowering. How many conversations would I not only have started but finished if I had known I possessed a warrior’s heart? I wish I’d know that I’d been born to take on the world; I wouldn’t have run from it for so long, but run to it with open arms.”

Angela Davis didn’t seem to mind standing out and standing for something she believed in. She first achieved nationwide notoriety when a weapon registered in her name was linked to the murder of Judge Harold Haley during an effort to free a black convict who was being tried for the attempted retaliatory murder of a white prison guard who killed three unarmed black inmates. Davis fled underground and was the subject of an intense manhunt. Davis was eventually captured, arrested, tried, and then acquitted in one of the most famous trials in recent U.S. history.

Are we afraid to tell our own story, to show who we really are for fear that we would reveal too much? Are we afraid to even tell other women’s story lest people figure out that we are really writing about ourselves?

The truth is that some of those stories would be some of our own story and some about other women. But it shouldn’t matter because one of those stories might just resonate with you so deeply, that it might as well have been yours. As W. B Yeats one said to someone admiring his work, “If what I say resonates with you, it’s merely because we are both branches on the same tree”. Let’s not be afraid to stand out and stand up for ourselves. We are indeed – all branches of the same tree of womanhood.

If you would like the FREE report “Standing at the Junction – How to Become your ‘Next’ Self”, send an email to womenleaderseries@gmail.com

Angela Davis photo from http://www.jackandjillpolitics

We teach people how to treat us

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This is the second article in the “Women In Leadership Series”. If you missed the first one you can read it here.

In today’s article my colleague Dr. Marcia Reynolds addresses how Smart Strong Women Teach People How to Treat Them.

I am amazed at how many articles today still portray women as all alike and that we need to change in order to be successful. I contend that the people who write these articles and those that make management decisions based on women as a subset of humanity need to be educated.

If you feel the person in front of you doesn’t see you, hear you and honour you as an individual, you must teach this person who you are and what you need. Read the rest of the article here.

If you haven’t done so already be sure to get your copy of Marcia’s bestselling book –