Making the most of your mornings

Does getting out of bed the hardest part of your day? Most people aren’t naturally what you’d call a “morning person” – the types who are bright eyed and bushy tailed upon rising at the sound of their alarm clock. Just because it doesn’t come naturally doesn’t mean it can’t happen, however. By following a few simple tips, you can train your body and up your A.M. productivity – and, in doing so, increase your health by sleeping more and starting your day without the stress of running late.

• Set a sleep routine – Don’t underestimate the importance of your circadian rhythm. This regulates how your body runs, and it craves routine. Ideally, you should wake up from a light phase of sleep, not a deeper stage. It’s that deeper stage that leads to a foggy head and lower functioning. If you set a bedtime and stick to it (within 30 minutes) and get up around the same time each morning, your body will reset to the routine. The hope is that eventually you will be able to wake yourself up sans alarm.
• Get active – Working out first thing in the morning may not sound tempting, but the effects pay off. Even if it’s as simple as taking a half-hour stroll, kickstarting your morning with cardio will boost your energy levels throughout the day AND help you wind down at night, leading to a deeper night’s sleep.
• Provide the right fuel – While a donut and a cup of Joe may be an easy way to get your blood sugar rising, it can also lead to a sugar crash a few hours into your day. Reach instead for some quality fuel – oatmeal, fresh fruit, or a veggie omelet. Always on the go? Make hard-boiled eggs that you can grab on the run for a protein-packed breakfast.
• See the light – Light has a huge effect on the body’s triggers to sleep or wake up. Switch on a bright light or open your blinds right when you wake up. Conversely, avoid bright lights – yes, including electronics – for that last hour before you plan to hit the hay. This will help your body begin to wind down from the busy day and slip into that deep sleep you need for rejuvenation.

 

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Sharing the Vision

What is it that makes you passionate and motivated? For conductor Benjamin Zander, it’s classical music – and as a leader, he works to help his musicians catch the vision. 

“It’s one of the characteristics of a leader that he not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he’s leading to realize whatever he’s dreaming,” Zander told the audience at TED in 2008.   

As a musician matures, he or she learns to play with passion and engagement – and their impulses are reduced as they focus on the entire piece instead of notes. Likewise, as a leader, our focus should be on the long line of the vision.  

Zander had a leadership revelation the moment he realized that he, as the conductor, doesn’t make a sound. Rather, all of the conductor’s power is in making his players powerful, helping them to carry out his vision. 

“I realized my job was to awaken possibility in other people,” he said. “If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it. If the eyes are not shining, you have to ask the question: ‘Who am I being that my players’ eyes aren’t shining?’ That’s a totally different world.” 

Successful leadership is not about wealth or fame or power. It’s about shining eyes. Share your passion with colleagues and employees, and as that enthusiasm and sincere drive shines through, they will catch the vision and help your dream become reality. 

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Managing Expectations

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw 

Communicating effectively is one of the most important skills to develop in business. While there are several reasons why, one of the most important from a leadership perspective is to be able to adequately manage expectations – in other words, you must be able to help those you manage understand what to expect from any given scenario, from timelines to structure and protocol. By managing expectations, you are then able to stave off conflicts before they spring up.  

How can you communicate more effectively to help manage expectations?

• Define expectations: Conflicts and frustration often arise from a lack of information. When initiating a project, be sure to help team members understand why the project is needed, what the plan is for addressing that need, and how you intend to execute that plan. As you set out to make the project happen, look for ways to build camaraderie and trust. A little goes a long way in creating connections among those who will rely upon one another’s skills and abilities to make a project become reality. Also, don’t overlook establishing expectations among your customers. Communicating with them that a much-requested product or service is in the works, along with periodic updates on progress, will do wonders for building buzz and assuring customers that their requests aren’t falling on deaf ears.
• Explain the problem: It’s rare that a project – or anything in life, for that matter – will go according to plan. Consequently, you’ll have to redefine expectations and give updates on progress throughout the life of a project. While it can be intimidating to report that a project will be delayed, it’s better to communicate that up front than to let the initial timeline expectations linger unchanged. Of course, that said, reporting a delay should come only after your team has exhausted all options to make up lost time and get the project back on track.
• Offer a solution: While it’s important to explain why a project is facing a setback, it’s even more important to follow up immediately with a solution of how you plan to amend the disruption. It shows thoroughness, proactivity, and accountability – all traits that merit respect. Be sure to answer the question “What’s in it for me?” as you present the solution to a specific audience, whether it be internal team members or customers. Addressing the needs of a specific audience will resonate better than general information to which they cannot easily connect.

 
Clear and continued communication is vital to keeping all of your shareholders informed on a project’s progress. By managing their expectations, you’ll be able to reduce or eliminate frustration and confusion – which, in turn, will reduce how much emotional energy they bring into their interactions with you on the subject. This serves to reduce the risk of potential conflicts, creating an environment of collaboration and understanding.

Fear or Faith?

Have you ever desperately needed an answer or solution about something in your personal or career? Have you found yourself playing over and over the mental movie of the problem and the fear of what might happen it you didn't find an answer and find it fast?  Have you been in a place where the more you dug around for an answer from a place of fear .. you not only felt worse emotionally .. but still no answer?  I think this has happened to everyone I've ever coached including myself at one time or another.  In fact it happened last week.

Last Friday I left the office in total frustration after trying countless times to figure out why my mouse kept freezing.  I had so much I needed to do before packing it up for the day but my mouse function was stuck and do was I!  It should be such an easy fix, I kept thinking to myself, after all I had just purchased the computer less than 3 months ago.  There must be a reset button or something to push to fix the problem .. but where was it?  Has this ever happened to you?  I could literally feel the frustration mounting inside me.  I heard myself saying "this shouldn't be happening, this is a new computer!"

As an emotional energy management coach I am always focused on what is the lesson here?  What is the Universe trying to teach me or tell me?  Of course the more frustrated I became the more out of alignment I found myself.  If there was a lesson  to learn,  I couldn't see it.  I had allowed myself to move so far out of spiritual alignment (the place of calm knowing that all is well)  that both the lesson  and the solution had escaped me.

Well it was  after 5PM anyway so I reluctantly surrendered, packed up my things including my computer and went home.  On the drive home I was hoping that after the computer cooled down maybe it would reset itself. That would be great!  But the lesson in all this was still missing me.  Was there a lesson I asked myself or was I reading too much into all this?    

The weekend was busy and with other activities on my mind and  I forgot about my computer challenge until returning home on Saturday.  I grabbed my computer when I got home, held my breath, turned it on, crossed my fingers and toes and with my eyes glued to the screen watched the little arrow freeeeze again.   

This time the lesson began to reveal itself as it always does when I am open to it.  And here it is. There is not only a lesson but a solution in every challenge but we will not have access to the solution until we are able to relax, let go and trust.  For me, this meant   If I could let go of my entangled frustrated energy and clear the emotional pathways for the expectation of an answer .. It would reveal itself. It meant I had to deliberately manage my thoughts and consciously declare that I do have control over what I choose to dwell on, that I could decide to either focus on what wasn't working or use that energy to focus on possibilities and perhaps even get in a little gratitude for what was working and then consider my options. 

As I think back over my life and career including every difficult and seeming impossible situation or transaction this process has proven to be incredibly powerful over and over again.  I remember the times I've said to myself and others when coaching we cannot get to solution from frustration, anger or fear.  Somehow, someway we must stand down, step back, let go and step into the feeling that even when we may not see the answer at that present moment, still there is an answer hovering to reveal itself to us.

And so for me, the pathway was cleared and the answer was revealed. Something occurred to me that I didn't see before and that some of you reading this may have though of immediately.  Reset!  The computer needed to be reset to it's original configuration! How do I do that and will I lose files?   Google it, I thought.  If that doesn't work try You Tube!  And there right before me was the solution! I had found a step by step demonstration on how to reset my exact computer. I followed the instructions and  by the next morning my computer had gone through a reset.  I gently picked up my precious little laptop that I had come to really appreciate in a whole new way and placed it own my lap and pushed start.  The screen loaded up and somehow I knew this time all would be fine and then when I saw that little arrow moving everywhere that my mouse wanted it to I let out a howl!  Alright!  Praise God!  

I then thanked God for the experience and the refresher on an old lesson. Faith and Fear cannot occupy the same place at the same time.  Today I choose faith .. What about you? 

What My Mom Taught Me ...

As Mother\'s Day approaches I am grateful to have had a mom who modeled so much that I find I have incorporated in my own life and has supported me in a myriad of ways. The most impactful memories of my mom for me was her strength and perseverance, her love for music in particular the violin and piano. As a young woman she loved her violin but the opportunity for her to pursue a musical career as a poor black girl seemed remote. My grandmother who was a proud teacher in Oklahoma was unable to get a position teaching in California after relocating the family and to take care of her family she became a maid to a loving prestigious family in Beverley Hills Ca. That family heard my mom play the violin and were so impressed they graciously offered to sponsor a recital at their home to raise money to send her away to school to The Rochester School of Music in New York where she finished school. No one in her family had ever been away to school, this was an amazing opportunity. Later my mom shared her passion as a concert violinist touring across the US playing for Black churches and ultimately had the distinction of being the first black person to be hired as musician in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. My mother passed away at 95 so you can image the times she lived in and what a major accomplishment this must have been for she and her family. We were never a wealthy family but always a family of service and sometimes struggle. My mom formally left her music to raise my brother and I. Eventually she went into social work but there was always the sound of music in our home. Even as a tiny infant I remember her giving violin and piano lessons in our home and this became a practice all the way through her nineties. In her 60\'s she opened a preschool which was indeed was a labor of love and here again she focused on the Arts making it available to the children living in Inglewood and surrounding areas. 100\'s of children graduated over the years from that little preschool and one thing for sure they each receive loving discipline, basic rudimentary learning of the basics and each one left with a strong appreciation for the Arts, piano, violin, karate and ballet. Mom was almost 80 when she retired from her preschool but she continued giving lessons to students and then started a new project of writing music. She created several albums where she wrote the music and lyrics and she called her albums Vickie\'s Sacred Gems. Those she never really sold any just creating music and listening to her creations gave her great joy and satisfaction. Happy Mothers Day .. Mom. What are your memories of your mom or mom figure in your life? My mom wasn\'t perfect she had flaws like all moms but there was so many wonderfully positive aspects of her that I have had the honor to make my own ... such as the ability to see all people as the children of one God. One of the last songs she wrote and was very proud of .. was What Color is Love .. A Child Wants to Know" I miss you mom..