Courage First, Then Confidence.

Courage is taking risks, persisting, falling down, and getting back up. Repeat. This doesn’t require confidence, it is what builds confidence.  Don’t wait around for confidence, it’s not a precursor to success.  And, it comes in moments of time. Confidence is not a static destination, it grows and it ebbs and flows, yes even for the most confident among us. 

The earliest example of this is the baby learning to walk. She doesn’t wait until she has confidence, that comes later after many attempts and fails, then mastery. 

I believe we are born with courage, but life and people often knock it out of us. We need to return to this courageous state of being. In this mindset, we can be unstoppable, free to try anything, invested yet unattached to the outcome, thereby exposing ourselves to the potential for great self-confidence. 

We know that through persistence and hard work, we can attain that experience of confidence.

 Reach out to me if you continue to be tripped up by too much self-doubt.  It can creep in during a life transition, or when you are stretching out of your comfort zone. 

The Internal & External Language of Confidence

Your language is a powerful tool to shape your reality and create your life. What you say to yourself, not only out in the world, has a dramatic effect on how you feel, think and act.  

In fact, what you say to yourself is likely to shape your choices, relationships, professional success and your personal satisfaction. 

Check for yourself: Try this for a few days: Be your own private investigator, watch what you say and how you say it. This mental muscle takes a little time to build. First, strengthen your awareness of your self-talk. Listen carefully, as you would to your best friend. Is it negative, worrisome, judgy? Are you saying self-defeating words that make you feel badly, such as, “That was dumb, I can’t believe I did that.” ? Are you thinking and rethinking the same thing all day? Actively choose to slow down, observe your internal voices, then switch it up and use new language. Use kind, loving, empowering words with yourself. Replace the critic with what I call the warrior… If you do this often enough, over time your warrior will be stronger than your critic - this will boost your confidence.

Being Unapologetically You

In day one, I mentioned that in order to step into your own power, one must be willing to stand up for who you are without apology. 

There is an interesting dilemma for women which still exists:  How do I confidently express my beliefs, thoughts, feelings and still be liked and keep others happy? 

Herein lies the problem.  It is OK to feel strongly about what you think and feel, AND for others to disagree and dislike you because of those very thoughts and feelings. 

You abdicate your confidence ( and thereby your internal power) when you prioritize others’ thoughts and feeling above your own.  

Being unapologetic means being and doing what you feel strongly about in the way you choose, without the fear of offending, disappointing or challenging someone.  Expect to do these things! 

Look, most people want to be liked.  It’s just human nature, but when we relinquish our true nature in order to be liked, it diminishes confidence.

On the other hand, playing around with being true to yourself will build confidence. 

Do you remember any time as a child when you either played an instrument or a sport and a parent kept telling you to practice?

It is the same with building the confidence muscle.  Practice, practice, practice.  

Being comfortably you comes with time.  Keep practicing, and follow along over the next week for easy daily strategies.

Becoming a Leader

There is no better time than right now to become your own boss. The availability of online trainings, the booming entrepreneurial world, and a fast-changing world makes creating your own business more viable and exciting. If you are reading this, you’re likely already excited and inspired to do what you really want to do, to follow a passion or dream, and to create life on your terms.

High level leadership skills are essential for your success both individually and as you lead your team or become your own boss. Here, I have collected some of the of the most important tools of leadership from more than two decades running my own therapy/coaching practice, and from extensive research on this topic. 

Notice how much focus there is here on emotional intelligence, or EQ. Without a high level of EQ, there is a huge lack in effectiveness as a leader. You can know your product or service inside and out, but if you are missing good communication skills and empathy, for example, people are more likely to go elsewhere.

When you have excellent supports, whether it is a mentor, boss, or coach, who help you develop and strengthen these areas, you can become a truly successful CEO of your own life and your business. 

These are not in any particular order; however, I do believe the first three are necessary to build a strong foundation.

• Self-awareness: This means having a deep understanding of your emotions, values, mission, strengths, challenges, needs and blind spots. Recognizing how your feelings affect yourself and those around you allows you to be a stronger leader. Self-aware people can realistically assess their capabilities as well as know when it’s best to ask for help. Awareness extends from knowing your personal strengths and weaknesses to also being candid about your company’s abilities, services or products.

• Self-Regulation: Managing and monitoring one’s emotions is crucial for excellent leadership. The more you understand and take responsibility for your own emotions and act reasonably, the healthier your company or organization will be; you will create a culture of trust and fairness, whether you have one assistant or 100 employees. Sometimes we think of self-regulation as it relates to a toddler or a teenager, but really, this is a developed skill everyone needs to address because otherwise some leaders can unknowingly erode trust and thereby their most valued work relationships. Impulsivity and lack of integrity is the cause of many bad circumstances within companies.

• What is your WHY? Be incredibly clear on your mission and passion. When you run your own business, and you hit bumps in the road, which inevitably happens, staying in touch with your deep WHY is key for keeping you going. Writing it out, many times, and posting it up so you can read it is powerful. A fun, impactful way to do this is with a picture of some kind. When people in a company understand what they are working for, they come to work with a high sense of purpose. Commitment, innovation, weathering hard times and failure all become easier. Thomas Edison was driven by a higher cause and said, “I didn’t find a way to make a lightbulb, I found a thousand ways how not to make one.”

• Communication: How you communicate is vital – manage your body language and your tone of voice well, and you’ll see the positive impact you can have.

• Research shows this breakdown in how communication is delivered:
  
  7% of communication is words
  38% of communication is tone of voice
  55% of communication is body language
  
  This becomes exponentially important in the world of digital work because of course we have to really tune in and pay close attention online. These numbers stress the degree of importance.

• Establish presence: How do you approach others? How is your eye contact, your body language, your posture or handshake? Confidence and calm go a very long way. Sitting up or standing tall, taking up space but not too much, being present, focused and calm are ways to accomplish this.

• Collaboration: The old top down style of leadership is no longer accepted by many. Discussions based on mutual respect and understanding is now the norm. People want to work for/with people who listen well, value their input, and create a supportive and enjoyable culture. Weekly or daily check ins with your teams, in which they have a chance to voice concerns, contribute ideas, creates a powerful culture in your business. If you work alone with no team, consider ways to collaborate with relevant business owners.

• Courage to be vulnerable: People respect people being real. This does not mean an emotional purge; it means being willing to discuss difficult feelings, owning up to one’s mistakes, being authentic, and being open to feedback. There is still widespread belief that being vulnerable is weak. From my point of view, it’s the opposite, and a growing body of writing supports the belief that both courage and vulnerability are critical for leadership. Read Daring Greatly or Dare to Lead for more on this topic.

• Radical self-care: You might not think this is a key part of great leadership. However, the better you are at taking care of yourself, staying out of overwhelm, and away from burnout, the better you’ll be able to achieve all of the other skills, and then be the leader you want to be. Many people who are driven towards success also work themselves into the ground. Sometimes putting everyone else’s needs above your own means self -neglect that will catch up with you.

• Avoid the disease to please: Women, especially, get caught in the trap of being nice and wanting to be liked. Instead, think hard about yourpriorities, and what you want to achieve in your life, rather than worrying about everyone liking you.

• Authentic empathy: Real genuine interest and understanding in the people you work with and who work for you will be felt and deeply appreciated. It seems so basic yet is often overlooked. You will make a positive impact on them, then they will want to continue working with you.

• Lead by example: Be the leader you would like to have leading you. What are the qualities you would most like in your CEO? Write these out and use this as a compass for your own leadership.

Don’t do it alone: Create a board, join a network, hire a coach, have mentors, but whatever you do, be sure to have a strong, varied network of support. Often when business owners are starting out, they think they can not afford or aren’t at the level of needing this, but I can tell you from my own experience, and from the many business owners I know, if you work with excellent supports from the beginning, you succeed far more quickly and happily than if you go it alone.                                           

Your skills, emotional intelligence and behaviors shape your success and leadership. Take an honest look at yourself, celebrate your strengths and work to overcome any self-limiting thoughts and behaviors so you can soar!    

Reading suggestions:                                                                

• Strengths Based Leadership by Don Clifton

• Fierce Conversations! Achieving Success at Work & Life, One Conversation at a Time by Susan Scott

• Dare to Lead by Brene Brown

• How Women Rise by Marshall Goldsmith & Sally Helgesen

• Anything You Want by Derek Sivers

• Entrepreneur Revolution by Daniel Priestly

• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

• Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek

• The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr

• The 80/20 Manager: The Secret To Working Less and Achieving More by Richard Koch

Happy reading!

Check out this blog post at:  

https://studenttoceo.com/becoming-a-leader/

With love,

Ellie

P.S. Here are two ways I can help you grow your business, make an impact in the world as a female leader, or develop mindset mastery. 

1. I offer 3, 6, & 12 month plans for working together, for ambitious entrepreneurs and for women who want to find their voice and are ready to move past internal barriers to higher levels of success. 

2. As an accredited Enneagram practitioner, I will have space next month for 1 person to take the assessment and do a 90 min. review together.  It is a fascinating and in-depth self development tool.

My mission is to create a world of equality with many more female leaders. If you want to move to the next level in your business faster by mastering your mindset, reach out and we can talk about how I can help you

Please forward this newsletter to others if it was useful for you.

Curious about coaching or know someone who may be interested? Contact me for a complimentary strategy session: 

One Small Shift...

For many people, this continues to be a trying time, balancing many unknowns and difficult conflicting feelings. We truly don't know just what the next few years will bring. 

Yet, we must go on.

In Donna and Lynn Brooks' Seven Secrets of Successful Women, they describe performance, perseverance, practice, and patience as key features of any success strategy.  

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  Which of these four do you most need right now? 

Remember, when I talk about success, I believe it's created from the inside out and  you personally create your definition.

You can find hundreds, or more likely thousands, of ideas on creating success, but here I'm offering a few that I've found vital for myself and my clients. Let me know what you think... 

Which of these ideas could you use, while applying the four P's, to make one small shift and push yourself in the direction you want to go? 

1. Become more visible and offer your knowledge

• It’s not ego based, it’s serving.

2. Be present

• Your presence is a gift in your professional and personal life.

3. Clarify and use your top strengths

• What are your top 3-5 strengths that serve you best in life or in work?

4. Focus

• Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it. Multi-tasking, while it feels productive, is less efficient. And remember, your worth is not based on your finished TO DO list.

5. Strive for excellence, not perfection

• There is no such thing as perfection. The most successful people know they will fail at times.

6. Claim your power

• For women, power isn’t defined as controlling others; it’s about having control of one’s life and responsibility for the direction of your life. Denying your power erodes self-confidence and can create depression.

7. Stop apologizing

• There is an entire book by Rachel Hollis on this topic. Women are notorious for apologizing too much.

8. Self-care

• Need I say more?

9. Are you clear about what you do?

• Connect deeply with what drives you, keep in touch with it, and success and fulfillment become inevitable.

10. Mobilize a support system

• Every successful woman I know has a mentor, coach, women’s group…a network of people, even if just a few, who has her back.

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 I'm gearing my newsletters going forward towards my main client base: women who are raising their voices to become innovators, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and leaders of impact.

If this is not you, but you know someone who fits this description, please forward this along or connect them to me otherwise.  I'd really appreciate it!  

Tips for Tapping into Your Resilience

We are being tested right now in many ways, to maintain our energy, our sense of calm, and our resilience, just to name a few.

One model for change looks at how we move through fear, learning and growth zones. This isn’t linear, as no change is, but thinking about where you are day to day can help with your choices. It’s easy to remain in the fear zone or the learning zone. In the fear zone, your Amygdala (emotion center in your brain, gives you the fight or flight reaction to fear) is hijacked, you can feel very stuck, over-whelmed and anxious. In the learning zone, you are more proactive, finding ways, maybe new ways, to manage what life brings your way.

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How do we move into the growth zone, where we have choices, stress is lower, we are growing, even thriving?

Here are 6 actions associated with growth, which also promote resilience:

1. Thinking of others

2. Living in the present, focusing on what you can control

3. Planning for the future based on values and commitments

4. Making your talents available to others. In other words, get out there and do your stuff

5. Looking for ways to adapt, use a growth mindset

6. Practicing patience

Which might you practice as a tool to strengthen your resilience?

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Managing emotions is clearly another way to build resilience, and right now for many people, emotions are running the gamet.

Mark Breckett at The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence has a handy acronym for managing emotions. I think this is accurate in it’s simplicity.

R U L E R

Recognize your emotion

Understand the cause and consequence

Label it

Express it

Regulate it

What is one daily act that will help you use a ruler for your emotions?  Examples are simple things like breathing, journaling, and meditating.

Oh, and remember to share this with the kiddos in your life, even ages 3-5 can begin to do this. They will really benefit, as emotion regulation is not taught in schools.

Many of my readers are women with small businesses, so if that is you, here’s another thought on resilience.

There is a lot to say in this arena, but 4 important traits for business resilience, especially right now are:

1. Flexibility

2. Creating loyal customers

3. Having a deep understanding of what your clients want

4. Persistence. Be in it for the long haul.

Ask yourself if you are attending to these important areas of your business, and if not, carve out time to plan how to improve.  Your future self will thank you.

My hope is that you find a piece of this newsletter that helps you find or increase your own resilience.  

Be well,

Ellie

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Please forward this newsletter to others if it was useful for you.

My giveaway:

If you know someone who is stuck, personally or professionally, I am blocking out 2 weekly times for 1/2 hr. meetings, at no charge. This is not to start coaching, it is one meeting to support a person in moving forward. A lot can happen in 30 min. 😊

Coaching with Ellie:  Contact me for a free introductory session. Call or email:  coachellielane@gmail.com 781-826-5826

Take very good care of yourself, and keep loving, growing, and giving.

Ellie 

Working Moms: Decide to Take These 5 Crucial Steps to Thrive Now

Hint #1: Now is not the time for overachieving.

One month into our current world scenario, you may already be addressing these issues, but going forward these are still so important for thriving during challenging times and beyond.

1.   Let’s get real. Let go of high expectations. Folks, I am sure you’ve found, this is a monumental task both practically and emotionally, of working from home, or losing work, taking care of family and attempting to teach our children while handling all of the emotions and loss we are experiencing right now. What is going to give for you? How can you lower the bar a bit, and allow for things to be good enough? For your sanity, and for peace at home, just do the best you can. It is OK to return to big achievements later.

2.    Structure = sanity. For now, allow yourself to not try to adhere rigidly to number of minutes on a screen or studying for your kids. Figure out what your family needs most right now. Getting dressed and showered, keeping some semblance of a bedtime schedule for younger kids, start and finish study/work routines, mealtimes, time for daily exercise, are all good ways to create some structure. Think of this as a framework which includes what is most important, not a rigid set of rules, that works for you and your kids.

3.    Self awareness: Yes, you’ve got it, you can’t get an article written by a therapist/coach without this piece. The more you acknowledge where stress, fear, worry are showing up for you

 ( and they are ), the better you’ll manage the current conditions, and in turn, your success at work and home increases. Identify the physical or emotional affects of this pandemic and quarantine on you, be crystal clear and give yourself what you need, and you’ll be vastly better equipped going forward.

4.    Health and Wellness Maintenance: Make this next month a time for self-care. There is a good reason the flight attendant says put your oxygen mask on first ( though I cringe every time). Your self- care is urgent right now. If your well is empty, you’ll have nothing for yourself or others.  This time of being homebound will pass, but for now, doing just 30 min./day of movement plus some good food will go a long way.  The main point here is, shoot for maintaining through good nutrition and movement, not setting new or big goals. Hey, if you’re a marathon runner, a personal trainer, or the like, go for it!  But, for the rest of us, maintenance is a good place to focus for the time being.

5.    Long term visioning based on values: This is the perfect time, with the world slowed down, to reassess your most important values and vision for your future. When you know your own values, you can use them to make decisions about how to live your life, when you don’t, it’s very easy to lose ourselves and the opportunity to create real happiness. For example, if you don’t value competition, and you work in a highly competitive sales environment, are you likely to be satisfied with your job? Identifying and understanding your values is an important exercise – your personal values are central to who you are and who you want to be, and you truly can drive your future.

Here’s how:

1. Look back at your life and find the times you were the happiest.

2. In your personal and professional life, when were you most proud and why?

3. Identify times when you were most satisfied and fulfilled. What contributed to those feelings?

4. Based on the experiences you’ve come up with, look at a list of values (google it if you need to), and find 10 that are right for you. 

5. Prioritize the top 3. This can be hard, but worthwhile.

Take very good care of yourself, and keep loving, growing, and giving.

Ellie 

Build an Unshakeable Foundation

What to do during uncertain times

What a few weeks this has been. Millions around the world are in a state of fear and uncertainty. Fear, of course is a natural reaction, especially to a global crisis.

It was early March, and I was functioning as usual. Kids at school, going to work, grocery shopping as needed, cleaning with environmentally-friendly products. On March 13th, I felt a little stressed going to the grocery store as my kids told me I was “panic shopping.” Fast forward just one week and I was acutely aware of simply walking out of my house and feeling some degree of fear. 

• How do I go to the store without exposing myself to the Corona virus? 

• Will there be many people at the store? 

• Do I bag my own things? 

• Will this be the last time I can freely leave my house for a while?

• Will I get sick unknowingly and transfer the virus? 

This absolutely manifested physically, my heart rate up, jumpiness activated. This dramatic emotional shift in one short week was, well, mind blowing.

All of you, I imagine, have felt the same thing in one form or another, and are experiencing varying levels of stress, ranging from mild worry to moderate stress to panic attacks, racing thoughts, being wide eyed in the middle of the night. Friday the 13th, (I am not suspicious, but this really did seem like the day things changed) I was checking the news every few minutes, thinking a lot about going to the store, and had insomnia. I woke up Saturday and told myself that I must refocus to get through this sanely. I saw no other choice.

Right now, amidst this collective adversity and vulnerability, we have an opportunity to shift perspective away from the fear.

So, what can we do in times of such extreme uncertainty?

The secret behind everything when there’s so much fear and uncertainty is to focus on doing the little things you can control.

You’re already seeing lots of tips in your inbox about how to work from home, stay safe and healthy. I’m not talking about that here, because what I do with people is help shift perspective and thought patterns.

4 ways to shift perspective to greatly affect how you feel:

• Breathe. Inhale 5 long breaths. Inhale for count of 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4. Yep, it is that simple.

• Focus on your body: Focus on the energy in your body. Bring your attention to your feet, contract and release. Do this head to toe. Notice where you are holding your stress because emotional stress will show up physically. You can have a full meditation practice in place, but you don’t need to. Just pause what you are doing for a few minutes, put your attention on your body, and relax where you feel the stress.

• Focus on your actions: What are your red flags? Are you snappy, overeating, overdrinking, checking the news constantly? You don’t need to judge yourself, just be aware of what is and what is not serving you right now?

• Focus on your thoughts: You can not control every one of the more than 60 thousand thoughts you have daily, but you can control where you choose to focus. When you become aware of giving certain thoughts your attention or your energy, like a worry about the future, you get to choose to shift your perspective, and either find another place to park your mind - call it distraction, I call it being empowered - or go to breathing and focusing on your body for a few moments.

There are so many ways to cope with the state of the world right now, but with my clients, creating success from the inside out is my approach so I look at mindset. I’ve seen over many years with thousands of clients that we have the ability in any given moment to change our emotional state of mind and create a new perspective which serves us well.

Dig deep and find the strength and courage that is within you.

Challenge yourself to do one of the exercises about daily for one week.

Take another step and turn fear, stress and anxiety around.

A special offer for an unusual time

I am on telehealth and offering sessions for folks at a distance as well as locally. It’s easy, no worries about getting support and social distancing, we can connect from the comfort of your home.

If you or someone you know wants to get back on track or have wellness maintenance, please shoot me an email coachellielane@gmail.com I’ll give you more information.

My offer:

1. 15 min. phone session to assess your needs. No charge.

2. A short personality profile giving valuable information about how you’re likely to respond and what you need most in this time of uncertainty and change. No charge.

3. 1-2 meetings to begin to get you back on track given your unique needs. 20% discount.

I look forward to helping you through this period of time. We will get through this together.

Take very good care of yourself, and keep loving, growing, and giving.

Ellie