Category Archives: inspiration
Tell Me About Yourself… What’s your 30 second Billboard Speech?
NAIL IT!® Success Stories In my first career I worked in public relations. In my PR role I wrote a lot of news releases. There’s a formula for writing a news release that gets read and it starts with your lead – the first line. Your hook. After that your news pitch either gets thrown in the slush pile or it catches the editor’s attention and gets a more thorough look. The question “Tell me about yourself” demands a good first line. It’s opening you up to share your lead to let others decide if they want to know more. It’s a tricky question
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Posted in human resources, inspiration, leadership, Motivation
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Are You Minding Your Ps and Qs? Don’t make a career limiting move
Has your mother ever told you to mind your Ps and Qs? Honestly, I never knew what she was talking about. Be good? I did a little research on the origin of the phrase and my favorite explanation is that ‘mind your Ps and Qs’ comes from 17th century English pubs and taverns when bartenders would keep watch on the alcohol consumption of the customers ‘keeping an eye on the pints and quarts that were consumed.” The bartender would ask customers to ‘mind their Ps and Qs’. I imagine the wisdom our mothers were trying to impart on us as children was to
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Posted in Blog, inspiration, mindset, Motivation
Tagged attitude, behavior, career advice, career limiting, Christmas, Holidays, mindset, office party, yoga
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More than You Can Chew?
Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean it’s your passion… I highly suspect that Lu is suffering from career burnout, but he isn’t your typical employee. Still, twice a day Lu goes to work performing at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. On one occasion, my son and I joined the audience gathered under the hot Florida sun to watch Lu emerge from his shaded spot among the water lilies. He slowly took his position in front of a ledge where his trainer stood, ready to feed him his noontime feeding. “Lu used to be a movie star,” the trainer
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Posted in Avoid Burnout, inspiration, mindset
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It’s Yours to Create – A Fairy Tree Tale
What I love about this Fairy Tree is how it got its start. It wasn’t always the star of the forest. In the 15 years or so that I’ve been walking along its popular path I hadn’t really paid it much attention. It just blended in with the other trees. Then one December day that all changed. Someone had come along and placed a single ornament on its branches. Soon, others were added. Within a week it had become a beautifully decorated tree. When I brought my kids to add their own homemade ornaments, they thought the tree must be
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Posted in Blog, inspiration, leadership
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How to Make a Difference? Pause, Ponder, Proceed
Lately, the graphic images of families being completely uprooted, young lives being taken too soon and the desperation to create some sort of ‘new normal’ is hard to watch. Like many, we wonder what we could possibly do to make a difference. And that’s the problem. When we’re faced with something so huge, we can become stuck by the bigness of the issue. We start to vacillate. We don’t know where to begin. It’s similar when we have unrealized career aspirations or want to try something new. Our ideas and dreams can seem too big so we stall, become stuck
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Posted in fundraising, inspiration, Motivation
Tagged career management, Coaching, fundraising
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What Does Authentic Feel Like?
Note: I originally wrote this blog following a conference I attended two years ago, and it’s still relevant today. I’m excited to be joining this group again next week in sunny Orlando, Florida. I will be doing a short videotaped speech with my thoughts on what we need to do to stay true to who we really are at work. This idea of Being Authentic or True to You at work is the theme of my next book on career work/life alignment. *** When I hear the word ‘authentic’, I don’t think of a person. I think of a piece
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Posted in inspiration, leadership
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Stop Giving Your Talent Away; Ask for What You Deserve
Phoebe Anna Traquair has been called the first significant professional woman artist in modern Scotland. One of her works – which took nine years to complete – has been compared to the Sistine Chapel. If you search her art on the Internet, as I did, you will undoubtedly be staggered by what this woman accomplished in her career. But did she get paid for all this? I really can’t tell. In the article I read her first two commissions were said to be unpaid, except to cover the cost of the paint. Here’s what the article, however, did say: “By
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Posted in inspiration, mindset
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