Continue Reading

Dare To Dream

Do you dare to dream or are you working for a living?  This is the time of year when we are all feverishly making our New Year’s resolutions or what I call the biggest to-do list of the year.  Yet, what are the odds of success?  Usually it is natural to decide that this is the year that you will make the big changes and create the life you’re destined to live.

Before you embark on this path, let’s review your past history.  Have you made New Year’s resolutions before?  If so, then how many have you kept?  If you’re like most people, it’s just another way to validate why your life and career aren’t working or living up to your expectations.

Let’s review these expectations.  Where do they come from?  Do you decide how you will rate your progress or is it defined by how you compare yourself to others?  Are you satisfied with the standards by which you measure yourself, or are you ready to take a look if this is really working for you?  If you are willing to peek under the hood, let’s explore how you can easily shift your focus to tune into your true vision.

When I was growing up, my father called me a “dreamer.”  Yet, without our dreams, how can we even get clear about what we truly want?  Take a stroll down memory lane and begin to remember when you were about 8 or 9 years old.

• What were you involved with?
• What captured your interest?  Your imagination?
• List the activities you enjoyed.
• Any similarities or differences from your later years?  Sometimes our early years may reveal your true interests without censorship or comparison to others.
• Pay attention to your observations or insights.

If you’ve strayed away from your earlier interests and just fell into the work you’re doing, this could be the reason you’re no longer satisfied with your progress.  If that’s the case, even if you reach the pinnacle of your career and appear extremely successful to others, you still may not be happy.  In my book, 3 Brains for Success, I explain the model I developed for success and happiness.  It all starts with clarity.  Once you have clarity about where you’re headed, you can develop a personal strategic plan and move forward.  The key is to start with your true heart’s desires because otherwise you will be working hard and going through the motions but will never become satisfied with your progress.

According to the latest Gallup Well-Being Survey, the highest income earners and senior citizens reported the highest job satisfaction.  With age, satisfaction increases.  How do you define satisfaction?  Does it mean abandoning your childhood dreams and settling to meet your budget?  Is there a way you can discover your true heart’s desire and make a plan to slowly transition or integrate it into reality?  I’m not advocating quitting your day job or changing careers.  I’m just encouraging you to examine your true motives and where you would like to be at the end of your working life.  It’s never too late to start.

Take a look at my favorite example of someone who dared to dream, was very clear about her heart’s desires to become a professional singer and astounded the world.  Listen below as Susan Boyle sings, “I Dreamed a Dream” as she begins her dream at 47:

Are you ready to discover your dream?  Remember, it’s not what they say you are, it’s about what you know you are.

Try a free coaching consultation with Wanda Ropa, your success coach, to get you started and get clear about where you’re going with your career, or with your life so you can develop a strategic plan that really works for you.  With clarity, success becomes a natural outcome.
Posted by Wanda Ropa, The Success Coach.

Continue Reading

One Step Forward

I want you to ask yourself,“what is the smallest step I can take towards achieving my life vision today?”

Continue Reading

The thought of a job interview evokes fear for many individuals, including many of my clients.  The majority of the time it’s about lack of confidence or the pressure to perform.  This feeling is enhanced when you really want a specific job or believe this is your dream role.

Research has shown that our minds and the way we think can affect our bodies.  Yet, do you realize that your body posture can actually impact the way you think and feel about yourself?  This is especially important during a job interview or when you’re giving a presentation.

Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist has conducted research on power and dominance in human behavior.  Her findings validate that people in power roles or those who feel powerful actually exude confidence and are resilient to stress.  Being confident and unaffected by stress are 2 traits that are desired in a job interview or during a presentation.  So, what can you do to easily shift into success when it feels like you’re under a microscope or being judged during the interview process?

Listen to Amy Cuddy’s TED talk where she provides a quick 2-minute technique that can actually change the outcome of your next job interview.  Just like athletes achieve peak performance with practice, you too can become more confident and less stress reactive by practicing power posing as demonstrated below.

Remember, if you need more support to guide you through preparing for your next significant interview or presentation;  be sure to seek out the services of an expert interview coach who has a whole toolbox of techniques to make it easy and effortless.

Posted by Wanda Ropa, The Success Coach.

Continue Reading

Are you listening to everyone but yourself about what path you should take in your career?  Are you just staying in your current role or taking the next position because that’s what’s expected from you?

This year marks the 72nd anniversary of the movie, The Wizard of Oz.

In the movie, Dorothy is repeatedly told to follow the yellow brick road by everyone she meets and she blindly listens.  Are you just following the yellow brick road in your career? Have you been just listening to everybody else and now finding that you are either dissatisfied, not completely fulfilled, unemployed, or just stuck about what to do next?  Every day, just like advertising, we are bombarded with new stories of individuals who have defied the odds and achieved unexpected success.  Everywhere you turn people are looking for the secret formula, the yellow brick road that will just lead them there, if they just follow and not ask questions.

However, in my experience working with clients from all walks of life, unless you choose your path, you will never truly be happy.  Whether you choose to stay exactly where you are, or transition to another career, the key is that you choose.  One clue to help you uncover if you’re in the right spot is to review the last time you had a peak experience at work.  Take a moment to reflect when you were last on top of your game, when everything was flowing smoothly and you were motivated and enjoying your work. How long has it been?  Have you ever had a peak experience at work?  If you are feeling unmotivated and struggling to either go to work, look for a job, or drum up new business it might be because you’re not really clear that you want to continue what you’ve been doing over and over.  You see unless you have chosen this path for yourself, you will naturally resist, even if it’s unconscious.  This resistance will make it harder to move forward on your goals and will hold you back.

Yet, with more choices and advanced speed in communication, there are more resources available than ever before.  The Internet has changed our world and this is the first time we have ever connected to each other in this way.  From Linked In, to Facebook, to Twitter, our people connections are growing exponentially.  Yet, with all of this external stimulation, there is little time to focus internally and reflect.  Therefore, if you find yourself just reacting and riding the assembly line of life without pausing to figure out where you’re going, you will end up on the nowhere road and wonder how you got there.  Just like Dorothy, in the Wizard of Oz, everyone told her to follow the yellow brick road.

So, what does this all mean?  Let’s look at the bigger picture to understand some of the influences exerting pressure on us.  In our generation, in America, we have witnessed more life defining moments and fundamental shifts in how the world and business operates.  Since 9/11, there has been a lot of pressure to find our true passion or our life purpose.  Seven years later, in November 2008, the housing crisis fundamentally changed the playing field.  Everything we believed and were told to follow has fundamentally shifted.

How can you find your road map for success in career, relationships, and life when the world has turned upside down? One way to start is to frame our shared experience.

It feels like we have all stepped onto a “Rotor-ride” or more currently known as the Gravitron ride where the world has been spinning and our floor has dropped out. However, the ride hasn’t stopped, most of us are still spinning. Yet, we can’t operate in the same way. As you are becoming aware, it’s not business as usual anymore. The floor or foundation disappeared when the economy and marketplace shifted and historic business structures tumbled down the rabbit hole.

Yes, just like global warming, the job and business climate has changed.  However, crisis breeds opportunity if you know how to use it.

The very next action step to take is to decide if you want to choose what happens next in your career.  If you’re ready to step off the yellow brick road, define where you’re going and develop your strategic road map, then it might be helpful to work with a career coach to jump-start this process and make it easier.

Try a free coaching consultation with Wanda Ropa, your success coach, to get you started and get clear about where you’re going with your career, or with your life so you can develop a strategic plan that really works for you.  With clarity, success becomes a natural outcome.

Posted by Wanda Ropa, The Success Coach.

Continue Reading

“As there were no real answers in her life. She was in abeyance. Stuck in a pattern of waiting for a future she could not guess.” ~Anya Seton

Continue Reading

Things Are Different Now

The world has shifted. All the old paradigms of success are being tested and put on trial as we watch in disbelief. As individuals and a society, we are now faced with redefining how we will thrive in these new and ever-changing times.  In the last fifty years, we have seen a social and economic revolution.  As our culture changed, so did the music.  The Beatles started the musical revolution and ushered in a new era that expanded our connections to the world.  Step into yesterday as the Beatles whisk you back to 1966 and take a moment to reflect on what the world was like in that era.

In the 60’s, the world was clearly defined. During the Industrial age, people usually went to work for one employer and remained there until retirement. As we experienced the Information Age and everything moved faster and faster, the world of work started to change.

Fifteen years ago, Daniel Goleman talked about the new rules for work as he wrote about emotional intelligence. According to his findings, it was no longer enough to have intellectual ability and technical know-how to do our jobs; it was now about personal qualities, such as initiative, empathy, adaptability, and persuasiveness. Ten years later, Daniel Pink cited further evidence of change, in A Whole New Mind, when he acknowledged that we moved from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. With globalization and shareholders demanding more ROI, large corporations, small business owners and employees alike are experiencing uncertain economic times. Only one thing is certain, increasing your marketability increases your chances of thriving in this current economy.

So, how is the new economy working in your favor? Because now you get to be in the driver’s seat by creating your personal brand and leveraging it in the marketplace to get the results you want.

The new rule: When everybody zigs, zag. – Marty Neumeier

You can easily do this by radically differentiating from your competition by translating your natural talents, skills, and experience into your unique value proposition:  your personal brand.  Being in the driver’s seat with your career means that you treat your career as if you were running a business.  The first place to start is to have clarity about where you’re going.  If you’re not clear about your vision or where you’re headed, you end up on the nowhere road.  In the story, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy was advised to follow the yellow brick road.  This was not a path she chose on her own.  She didn’t have all the facts.  As a result, her long journey ended with a wizard in Emerald City who had no answers and couldn’t help her reach her goals.  She just wanted to get home.

When we create our personal brand, we come home to ourselves.  We step into who we are and finally get comfortable in our own skin.  Think about individuals you may know that stand out from the crowd.  Do they have exceptional talent or have they discovered how to leverage what they have and translate it to the world?  Career coaching can easily help you identify and package yourself to fundamentally improve your career advantage so you increase your marketability and your market worth.

Neumeier acknowledges that your brand is not what YOU say it is.  It’s what THEY say it is. It’s about building your personal reputation, as well as your digital presence.

It’s about how others perceive your value.  The public’s gut feelings about the company, their products and services impact the best business brands.  It is not enough to have emotional intelligence and just understand yourself.  In today’s market, you need to understand how you impact the world at large or how marketable you really are.  Many of my career coaching and business coaching clients start working with me to get promoted, transition to a better career, be successful in their job search, start or develop their businesses.  Whether you’re an entrepreneur, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to land a higher paying job, the first place to begin is to examine your state of mind.  Are you clear about your vision?  Do you have clarity about where you’re going?  Once you have clarity, the decisions are easy with the right tools and resources.  If you aren’t clear or need support discovering the right tools and resources that fit you, try a free career coaching or business coaching consultation to explore if coaching is right for you.

Try a free coaching consultation with Wanda Ropa, your success coach, to get you started and get clear about where you’re going with your career, or with your life so you can develop a strategic plan to become more marketable that really works for you.  With clarity, success becomes a natural outcome.

Posted by Wanda Ropa, The Success Coach.

Continue Reading

If you are in the job search market, you have inevitably heard about creating your 30 second elevator pitch for networking purposes.  But how far has that that pitch gotten you?  As a recap, the old elevator pitch is a quick highlight of your work experiences and key successes (aka: abridged resume).

But, what if you have decided to shift your career focus a bit or even — “gasp” — change your career to truly align with your dreams?  Where can you pull the data for that pitch if you don’t have direct work experience? Yes, you absolutely have several transferable skills, but will those get the attention of the person listening to your pitch?  

Here is a way for them to really hear you–put the passion behind your message and start speaking to your natural talents in your personal brand. With the competition seeming even greater for the career changers, ignite the passion within your personal message and unlock the secret to differentiating you from all the rest.

It will not only get you in the door for an interview, but you will be “the competition”.   And you will make the jobs of any recruiter and hiring team a cinch, since often their final decision factor between the last two candidates is typically made on “fit” and personality.  Since you will lead the interview with your personal brand, which has a component of why you are really there along with your vision, they will be able to see how you are the perfect person for the role.  Now, let’s get started with creating your personal “passionate” brand.  Get your free consultation with Wendy.

Wendy is a current career and life coach at Feroce and former HR professional. Read more about her.

Continue Reading

Before starting career coaching and life coaching, my clients frequently ask:  where is Yoda?  How do I find Yoda?  What they are really looking for is answers.  Yet, as a result of our technological advances, people generally aren’t taking time to reflect and search for their own answers. Instead, addicted to instantaneous button clicking, our society breeds impatience, so we expect instant gratification and results, immediately, if not sooner, as my Dad used to say.  What have we become?  Let’s hear from a cyborg anthropologist what has happened in our current culture.

Join me for a closer pictorial look to see how our world has evolved and the impact it’s made on our lives.

From the first ride of the Pony Express:

To the assembly lines of the Industrial Age:

To the Information Age of computers, as we head into the Conceptual Age:

Dan Pink acknowledges that we have left the Industrial Age and entered a Conceptual Age. What if instead we are entering a dark age? The economy, the workplace, the political stage, your current state of mind all take its toll on your sense of self.

At the TED conference, Barry Schwartz discusses why too much choice is bad for us.
Too many choices cause:
1. Paralysis rather than liberation – people prefer to make no decision rather than make a complicated choice.
2. Less satisfaction with decisions as people have greater reason to regret the decisions they have made.
3. Unrealistic expectations.
4. Self-blame – when experiences are not perfect, people blame themselves.

So, what does this all mean?  With more choices and advanced speed in communication, there are more resources available than ever before.  The Internet has changed our world as we know it and this is the first time we have ever connected to each other in this way.  From Linked In, to Facebook, to Twitter, our people connections are growing exponentially.  Yet, with all of this external stimulation, there is little time to focus internally and reflect.  More than we suspect, outside influences control our actions. Therefore, if you find yourself just reacting and riding the assembly line of life without pausing to figure out where you’re going, you will end up on the nowhere road and wonder how you got there.  Even if you take a first step and start working with a career coach and life coach, it is too easy in our current age, to expect immediate answers and changes.  It takes 28 to 30 days to change a habit, introduce a new routine, practice, or start to reframe your situation and it takes another couple months to make it stick.  So, how can one expect to shift into the driver’s seat and get instant results?  However, with career coaching and life coaching, you will be supported to help make these changes stick.  So, what do you have to gain?  Yes, it’s about finding the Yoda inside of you that may be foggy or unclear at the moment.  Take the first step and get your life coaching and career coaching consultation from your success coach now.

Try a free coaching consultation with Wanda Ropa, your success coach, to get you started and get clear about where you’re going with your career, or with your life so you can develop a strategic plan that really works for you.  With clarity, success becomes a natural outcome.

Posted by Wanda Ropa, The Success Coach.

Continue Reading

A Life Coach or Career Coach Can Make the Difference

You know the drill.  It’s the new year and you have a new resolve to lose the weight,  start exercising, quit smoking, begin meditating, etc.  Or maybe this year you’re resolved to finish the book you’ve been dabbling with, or get that promotion that’s overdue, or navigate a transition to a new, more meaningful career – one that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning.

You start off strong. This is the year you’re going to do it. After six weeks or so, you’ve built up some momentum and confidence. You’ve started to make some progress and you’re feeling good. And then March rolls around. Distractions surface. Stuff happens to usurp your time and money. It’s tax time after all.  Or maybe fear and doubt creep in. Old patterns of thinking sabotage your progress. You tell yourself this is temporary and when the weather gets warmer, you’ll re-double your efforts and start anew.

Now it’s summer and you’re back on it. The sun is out, the weather is warm and you’re feeling optimistic. You’re going to stick to it this time. You start to regain the momentum from earlier in the year. Then as the weather turns colder, stuff happens again. More distractions. Life gets increasingly hectic as the holidays approach. And when the holidays hit, you tell yourself:  “Just get through the holidays.”

You decide to table everything until the new year…and then the cycle begins again.

If all of this sounds familiar, then hiring a life coach, career coach or spiritual coach might be the way to go this year. One of the reasons why coaching works is that it’s a support structure that holds you accountable for your progress. Life coaching and career coaching (as well as other types of coaching such as spiritual, business, relationship, etc.) keeps you focused when will power waxes and wanes and distractions deter your progress. And on a deeper level, coaching works because it helps you to dissolve the soundtracks from the past which sabotage your future.  Since I began coaching in 2005, I have found that fear and doubt are the two biggest reasons why people don’t achieve their goals. Distractions are the third.

But life coaching or career coaching is not meant to be a permanent support structure.  A good life coach or career coach strives to coach you to independence – not dependence. So a skillfully trained coach works with you to create other, long-term support structures to help you not only attain your goals but sustain them, long after the coaching is over.

Resolve this year to make your resolutions work. Give yourself the support to attain and sustain your progress throughout the year so you can make 2011 the time in which you achieve the personal and professional success that has eluded you in the past.

Posted by Laura Svolos, Certified Professional Coach and Swami of Kriya Yoga specializing in life, career, relationship and spiritual/wellness coaching.

Take the first step in making your resolutions work, schedule a free consult with Coach Laura.

Continue Reading