The tiger represents courage, power and passion. Which of those will drive your life this year?

I took a break from writing this blog over the last few months, mainly because I’ve been focused on a bigger project related to coaching and its value to the world. You may guess (correctly) that this has something to do with the International Association of Coaching where I was the President for the last two years. I’ll be writing more about this in the coming few months.

I’ve been interacting instead through my Facebook Fan page. I really love that format …Every day I am learning something related to career fulfillment, success and leadership, and sharing it with hundreds of friends. It’s so easy to learn and interact regularly, efficiently and impactfully. At least I think so! Have you visited yet?

Back to the tiger, I wholeheartedly wish that you and I will know our passions with empowering clarity such that we have the courage to follow-through with gusto in 2010.

For some reason I had a copy of a huge, thick Anthony Robbins book. With nothing to lose I followed one of the simple NLP processes to eliminate my feelings of shame and self-loathing. With the snap of my fingers the bad feelings disappeared! I was shocked and thankful.

For the first time I had an inkling of how my thoughts could create and discreate my feelings. And I also realized that mistakes are not THAT bad.

Fast forward 20 years and I’ve now learned many more techniques to manage my feelings. Along this road, mistakes have gradually become something I value.

In a seminar with Denpo Roshi on the Big Mind Process, we discussed the personality within all of us that we call ’stupid’. And I realized that being stupid was something I used to avoid at all costs which has now become a highly valuable and even enjoyable role.

When I’m stupid I can ask all kinds of questions that I would otherwise not be able to ask. This is very valuable when you are operating in a foreign culture where some aspects of the way things are done are a complete mystery. In a child-like ’stupid’ way, I can make terrible mistakes that would be highly embarrassing to someone proud, but are only shared jokes or new opportunities for mutual understanding. Sometimes my mistakes create special moments of rapport because other people accept me more easily when they realize I can laugh at myself. Mistakes are also excellent memory enhancers. A surefire way to remember the tone of a Cantonese word is to say it wrong and invoke a reaction of shock or horror. I always remember the time I got a packet of sugar with my rice instead of the soup I was expecting. (Tong vs tong!)

Yes, making mistakes is fun and useful as long as you have the right attitude. There are 4 keys to loving your mistakes.

1) Handle the automatic negative emotional reactions that are programmed into you. This is personal development 101, and there are many easy and excellent ways to do this.

2) Allow your hidden mistake-maker to come out and play. Discover that lovable child inside you who plays freely, is curious, experiments, learns, and is adored for all the mistakes he/she makes.

3) Practice making mistakes, especially small mistakes. Do something new, where you don’t know the answers. Enjoy any emotional jolts you experience as you make mistakes and realize you’re creating memories and laughter.

Big mistakes, and I mean really big ones where people get hurt, are of course deeper issues to handle. Build your mistake-making muscles on the small ones so that in case you make a really big mistake one day, you’ll be able to save yourself from suffering over the mistake and focus your energy on handling the outcome.

4) Expand your perspective. Even our most tragic mistakes are opportunities for growth, for us and for future generations.

To stop running late, the first thing is to understand what motivates you to run late. When you're late, there is always a reason. Bad habits often continue when you're not aware of the real reasons behind them.

For example, years ago I used to find myself running late for business networking meetings. At the last minute before heading out to the meeting I would always start fussing around with my make-up or clothes because I was not confident about the way I looked. Once I realized that's what I was consistently doing, I could ponder the reason openly with myself. I stopped denying the true root cause of the problem. It was a vicious cycle because being late also made me feel less confident in myself. Spending time at the last minute to worry about my image was not helping.

My coach helped me reflect honestly on my own behaviour. Once I realized what I was doing, I could work directly on feeling more confident about my image and make a more conscious decision to be on time.

Some of the common reasons people are habitually late are:

• fear they will make a mistake
• fear they will look bad
• fear of being judged
• fear of interacting with strangers/colleagues/seniors etc.
• wanting to seem busy or important
• wanting to attract attention

It's useful to remember that when you are late, there is always a reason. Once you uncover the reason and endorse it, it's possible to take steps consciously to resolve it.

Step 2: Create New Habits

If you have been running late habitually, you'll need to create some brand new habits to replace the old ones that aren't working. You'll have to do things differently enough that you don't accidentally fall into the same old traps.

To find the best new habits, start by looking at your whole scheduling process including your diary, calendar, to do list, reminder systems, time-telling systems, support environment and thinking habits. What's missing in the system? What isn't working?

Here are some simple examples of changes you can make that target specific problems in your scheduling systems.

• Schedule longer buffer times between appointments;
• Plan to arrive 5 minutes early and use any extra time on arrival to calm yourself and clear your mind;
• Get a new “to do list” system that is a) more portable, b) more comprehensive, c) more attractive, d) sets priorities, e) whatever else specifically works for you;
• Change the location of your lists and reminders;
• Sort your lists differently so that the priorities are clearer;
• Get a new watch or clock that attracts your attention or is more pleasing;
• Use computer or telephone features to create visual or audio reminders;
• Change your work so that you don't need to attend meetings that don't thrill you.

Remember that you can enlist other people into your changes. Think about ways that your colleagues, family and friends can help. Afterall, they will probably benefit from you being on time. Here are some ideas of how this could work.

• Ask a friend to accompany you to appointments that make you nervous;
• Have a friend or colleague perk up your confidence before your meetings;
• Ask your assistant to remind you earlier for meetings;
• Delegate meetings that you prefer not to attend;
• Arrange for the attention or recognition you desire by setting better boundaries in your life.

Step 3: Implement the Changes

Implement the changes and be sure to assess their effectiveness. Often
the new system you have designed will not work exactly as planned.
Reflect and readjust until the system works. It's very helpful to use
the support of a coach during this process. A coach can help you
reflect on what you're doing, provide different ideas, encouragement
and keep you accountable.

Do you run late? Is being late a symptom of an unresolved fear or unmet need that you are now ready to resolve? Would being on time have multiple benefits in your life?

If yes, then I encourage you to call me. I'll be pleased to help you understand how I can support you in this process of being on time.

Angela Spaxman
Tel: +852 8103-7326 in Hong Kong
angela (at) loving-your-work.com

But because spiritual
words tend to be emotionally loaded and misunderstood, it is easy
to create resistance or scare clients off with our talk of spiritual
things.

In September 2009, I held a meeting (through the Hong Kong International Coaching Community) with 14 coaches of different backgrounds and levels of experience to share examples of the successes
we have had with helping clients find their own value in using
spiritual concepts and practices. As a result, I have compiled a list of
approaches for bringing spiritual things, in the broadest possible sense, into coaching relationships. These are simply ideas, in no particular order, that can be tailored for use by a variety of coaches according to their clients' preferences.

• Listen for what makes meaning for your clients and point it out to them.
• Use the same words your clients use to explain spiritual concepts. Even the word 'spiritual' can be negatively charged.
• Ask “do you have any spiritual practice?”
• Fully accept and endorse your client's current thinking and relationship to spiritual things, even if it is very different from your own. This may require you to expand your own perspective to be able to see the value in other mindsets.
• Use silence to help your clients tap into their deeper thoughts. Then ask, “what is your heart telling you?”
• Encourage your clients to be helpful or of service to others. Helping brings joy.
• Encourage your clients to find their passion. It is a route to finding meaning and connecting with a bigger purpose.
• Ask 'why is this important to you?' or 'what is important to you about life?'
• Ask 'who will you become …?'
• Create a safe space by being open, accepting and ensuring confidentiality. 
• Be willing to witness your client's pain, joy and changes. Stay with them without being drawn into the emotions.
• Use your client's upsets or challenges as opportunities to breakthrough to new ways of thinking and being.
• Point out the benefits of spiritual practices as your clients experience them.
• Learn to share your own understanding in words that are inclusive and understandable by many different kinds of people.
• Translate your spiritual practices into practical steps that relate to practical goals so that your clients can clearly see the benefits and try it for themselves.
• Expand your own spiritual practices to gain deeper and wider understanding.

In what other ways do you share your most esoteric learnings with your clients?

Machines are already smarter than us in many ways. They do math and trivia much better than us. The chess champion Garry Kasparov was beaten by Deep Blue. Machines spell, fix grammar, drive trains, translate, draw, calculate, sew, create art and fly much better than humans. Machines are learning very quickly to distinguish (fingerprints, irises) and relate (robots, computerized voices).

How long can we stay ahead of them? We're doing everything we can to help them overtake us!

But anyway, we're in charge, right? Like when you really want to relax and unwind, you can always turn off your Blackberry, right? And you don't suffer withdrawal when your internet connection goes down. And you've never experienced joint soreness from overuse of an electronic device, right?

You can stay alive without technology, can't you? Hmmm.

We are in charge, but just barely.

How many basic brain functions are we losing? Long division went out with my generation. Communicating face-to-face is disappearing with the current one. What are we going to use that extra brain space for?

Are there any ultimate human abilities that will keep us safe from our own inventions? Our experiences with the rapid development of technology in our lifetimes should give us some clues. There are only two crucial abilities that I can pinpoint:
1) discipline …which is only useful when you are holding to
2) purpose.

Will machines ever become so smart that they will be able to figure out why we are here?

I'm letting the words flow more freely than usual this month and I've included a bit a creative writing with my personal vision. I would be thrilled to know if you find this inspiring.

I've been posting regularly on the Loving Your Work Facebook Page which is now entertaining more than 150 fans with tips, quotes, links, articles and sharing about all aspects of loving what you do. If you'd like to join this growing community, please drop by or become a fan.

My friend Cecilia Yeung is putting together a fantastic event for anyone keen to advance in their career through  marketing, branding and positioning. This is a real deal, so if you've an interest in this area, don't miss it.

Cheers,
Angela

Discover and Magnify Your Unique Brand in a Competitive and Challenging Job Market
–Career Advancement Seminar–

Four speakers (including me) will give advice and insight into how to market, brand and position yourself competitively and secure the job/career of your dreams. This event is just packed with value, starting with an open house to network with participants and the speakers, then an hour-long seminar followed by Q&A and lucky draw prizes!

When: 6:30pm to 9:00pm, Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Where: 35/F Central Plaza, 18 Harbour Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong
Cost: HK$110 for Open House, Seminar & Career Development Bonuses
Optional: HK$380 for 10-page Career Assessment & Options Report

Click here for more info and to register.

EnlightenNext Magazine Contest

Are you interested in spirituality, science and human evolution? Do you wonder what the world's best thinkers envision for humanity's future?  If so, this is the magazine for you. Your subscription provides hours of fascinating (and comfortable, on paper) reading as well as supporting an important thought community. It's my favorite magazine.

I've got an extra copy of the summer issue to give away. I will mail it to the first person who emails me the 4-word tag line for the magazine and their mailing address (anywhere in the world!). Good luck!

Many women want to lead and make a mark on the world; leave a legacy in business, government or other organizations. And many have tremendous capability to do so. Indeed capable and motivated leaders are sorely needed. But those same women are often torn between their natural desires and capabilities and the competitive demands for individual achievement in corporations. They face dilemmas that force them to confront their roles as women.

The first dilemma is that they find they have to learn to act more like men if they are to succeed. But at the same time their attempts to act with masculine power are often not well-accepted. They are labeled as bitches. They are side-lined like tokens. There’s a sense that they are not authentic and cannot be fully trusted.

Another dilemma is that in becoming the leaders that the business
environment calls for, they can’t maintain satisfying family lives. They are forced to put their families second to work demands, against their natural tendencies to put family first. They frequently settle for more junior roles than they are capable of, in order to retain the flexibility they want for their families.

Thirdly, business women often struggle in personal relationships because they have learned to embrace the masculine qualities that society values (self-sufficiency, competition, rationality, single-focus etc.), and have not learned to value and express the feminine qualities that strong lifetime relationships require and that sexual and love attraction on built on, in combination with male characteristics.

Women are either too feminine for business, or
too masculine for life. What to do?!

To put this situation in context, it is a very new phenomenon. In most cases, our mothers, and certainly our grandmothers, did not have the choice to serve as organizational leaders. It is only in the past 50 years that average women in progressive countries have gained the right to take leadership roles at all. The years leading up to this change were fought by suffragettes and others demanding women’s rights. Many pioneering female leaders in the past two decades have been learning how to fit in and thrive. They have taken the initial steps but we still see very few models for women to follow regarding how to successfully express our femininity while succeeding both as leaders and in life. 

We’ve now reached a third phase of feminism where women must increase their influence to form a new way of working that values and uses both male and female qualities to greatest advantage.

I summarize the 3 phases of feminism thus:

In the 20th century and continuing now in many developing countries, women are fighting for the right to be educated, to fully participate in society and to lead according to their abilities and preferences.

2) Fitting in to a world built by men

As women enter traditionally male-dominated segments of the workforce, they must learn to adapt to the male way of behaving and to male expectations, in order to gain the respect of their (mostly male) colleagues. Women’s ways of doing things are naturally subjugated as it is not clear how they are relevant in the organizational models that have been built by men.

3) Forming a new way of working for both men and women

As women become better established as leaders, and as dissatisfaction with the status quo becomes more evident, women and men have the opportunity to renegotiate and reinvent their ways of working in order to unleash the maximum benefit from both male and female tendencies.

This trend is happening alongside changing demands in modern organizations. As businesses become more service-oriented, more complex and more global, there’s greater focus on creativity, diversity and the development of human potential. This means there is more need for the feminine qualities of intuition, relating, nurturing and multi-tasking.

And in our personal lives, family formation and child care is changing radically, often through huge efforts and great expense to women. Although women, driven by the promise of fulfillment, have been leading this charge, men are also affected and in some cases are willing to make radical changes to their roles in order to create a new balance.

Of course, I’m not saying that only men or only women can have the respective male or female qualities. Quite the contrary, as when all these qualities are valued, individuals are free to express the traits that come most naturally to them within a diverse working culture.

The good news is that women leaders are on the forefront in creating a massive shift in the way the world works. We have the opportunity to promote female values in a world that sorely needs to reassess and redesign businesses and governments. The values of scientific rationalism, competition and individual achievement have served the world very well in the past century, and are ready to be rebalanced. The challenges we face now, from the financial crisis, to climate change, to unresolved problems of poverty and social inequality, need a stronger dose of feminine power to resolve them. This is part of our inevitable evolution towards an integral worldview where we can value all the existing worldviews: female/male, east/west, collective/individual, to create the ideal solutions for our place and time.

The challenge is that there are no models to follow. We cannot copy the models of business and society that have been created so far. The male models of business leadership are not sufficient and the existing female archetypes cannot serve our needs. We will not be going back in time. The only way forward is to tap into our own wisdom and creativity to form something brand new.

Swirling colourful minnows delight me. Bland, gray fins hint at lurking dangers. Deep caverns of intricate coral evoke my wonder. Patrolling sharks awaken my fear.

When I'm calm and alert I am captivated by the smallest specks of sparkling creatures, hidden amid the coral. With a glance I also see the grand curves of whales and underwater mountains. I open my eyes to all of the ocean of life.

I can swim wherever I choose. I can cast my gaze in any direction and allow myself to be swept into warm and fertile currents. I can focus my attention on the black, cold depths and count the infinity of evils that exist. I can revel playfully in the shallows enjoying the pleasures of life while death is in every molecule.

I can swim everywhere in the sea, seeing the whole for what it is, choosing my focus and direction while fearlessly accepting the wholeness and holiness of opposites.

I think the more we know about ourselves, the more powerful we become. By learning precisely about our own strengths, weaknesses, values and preferences, we learn how to make the most of the human equipment we have been given for this life.

It is especially useful to learn about our strengths and preferences because with that information we can achieve whatever we want more easily and with more enjoyment. Each of us is unique and the better we know ourselves the more we can engage ourselves in the unique life's work that is perfect for us.

Our weaknesses too are important to ignore. They keep us humble, let us understand the value of those who are different to us — those who are strong where we are weak, and give us reasons to collaborate with other people, They also point to our strengths, since our biggest weaknesses are also our strengths.

As we continue through our lives to explore who we are, we find a never-ending inquiry. We can never know ourselves completely because we are always changing and our situations also change continually. We are always at a disadvantage because we cannot see ourselves. We need to view ourselves through other people in order to understand.

Beyond how other people see you, the biggest gift in raising your self-awareness is in exploring the inner realms of who you are, that no one can see for you. You can ask yourself, “who is the 'I' who speaks to me in my head?” ; “who is the one who knows what I am thinking?”

At the deepest levels of exploring who we are, we find that we are not ourselves at all. When you reflect on who is the one who is observing, At the heart of each of us we are connected to each other, and we are connected to the power and inspiration behind all life. It can be very motivating to know what infinite power and goodness is within you. By knowing yourself well, you can know exactly how you yourself express a particular aspect of life and how you can allow that to shine at its brightest.

…but…

Many people avoid knowing themselves because they are afraid of what they will find. They do not yet understand that they really are perfect exactly as they are. Our faults are neither good nor bad. They are merely reality. All our faults have also an equal greatness and good side to them, their flip side.

So when learning more about yourself, it is necessary to do it with warmth and appreciation. It can take practice for people who tend to be self-critical. There are many ways to develop the ability to accept and appreciate yourself including:

- creating a “mutual appreciation society” with some friends
- repeating positive affirmations,
- using guided meditation recordings to guide your thinking
- meditation, praying or otherwise connecting to the deep perfection and peace of reality,
- using psychological means to change the root fears that cause negative self-talk,
- seeing yourself as if you are a small child whose weaknesses are part of his/her beauty.

People who know themselves well have also learned to accept themselves and by extension others. There is tremendous attractiveness in that. Try it and you will love yourself and your life even more.