A long time ago (before email so a very long time ago), I worked with a woman who was a terrific mentor, leader and coach. One of the things she did consistently was to keep track of days when I had an important client meeting and take the time to leave an encouraging voicemail message to let me know she was thinking of me. She’d personalize the message by pointing out specific reasons that she knew I’d be successful. I can tell you those messages made all the difference to me ─ I walked into many tough meetings feeling self-confident and prepared because Jan had left me a message.

I try to do the same for others now. When someone mentions an upcoming date important to them for some reason, I put it on my calendar and set a reminder for the day before. When the time is right, I leave a voicemail or send an email letting them know that I’m thinking about them. I’ve taken Jan’s lesson one step further and applied it to family and friends as well as colleagues. But as I write that I realize she probably did that too!

More recently, a woman with whom I’m working in a mentoring program for college seniors mentioned that she noted the date her mentee was taking the LSAT and sent him an email the night before to wish him well.  The other mentors thought that was a terrific idea and now it’s been incorporated into the program as a best practice.

Something easy to do that means a lot. Who’d appreciate knowing you are rooting for them?

TAGS: Coaching, encouraging others, friendship, LinkedIn, mentoring

That’s me!

I was born on December 25 (the year is not relevant!) at 10:30 PM so my mother called me, ‘Carol”.  She has a wonderful sense of humor.  Perhaps because I am a Christmas Carol, I particularly love Christmas. Clearly, not all Thin Pink Line Readers celebrate this particular holiday but I’m sure everyone has a special holiday they do celebrate.

Here’s what I love about my favorite holiday:

• Buying gifts
  As much as I obsess about what to buy, and complain about the crowds in the stores (although this year, I’m not complaining much ─ I’m happy to see people out buying to help the economy) I love the opportunity to please people with a tangible expression of my feeling. Trite but true, the giver often receives more pleasure than the donor.

• Holiday cards
  While one could certainly argue that staying in touch with people only through the rather tenuous exchange of greeting cards isn’t much of a relationship, it still makes me happy to send and receive greeting cards ─ even the ones with the long and often tedious brag letters.

• Getting together with friends and family
  Whether it’s a large party or dinner for just the immediate family, I love the opportunity/obligation to see people. It’s just too easy to let time slip away without making the time to meet face-to-face; holidays force us to get it done.

The most frequently asked question I get when people learn of my special “Christmas Carol” status is, ‘Don’t you lose out?”.   There were years when, as a child, I thought I did because I was never able to have a birthday party on my actual birthday.  Now I’d say that I’m very fortunate ─ mine is the birthday that few forget. I’m amazed that at such a busy time of year some people actually buy a special, “For your Christmas Birthday” card separate card just for me!

Whatever you celebrate,  know that you have my heartfelt best wishes!

TAGS: holidays, LinkedIn

From June Cleaver to Hillary Clinton, Gail Collins‘ new book, When Everything Changed, reminds us of both how much everything has changed for American women in the last 50 years ─ and just how little. Collins writes skillfully about the “olden” days when a glamour career for a woman was to be a stewardess and when the reason most women went to college to get a “Mrs.”.

As accessible as she is on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, and as wryly funny, Collins illustrates the historical facts with the stories of real women including those whose names we all know (Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama) as well as those we would probably not know unless we read her book.

What Collins does particularly well though is to highlight that there still isn’t gender parity in America’s workplaces or homes. She ends on a note that celebrates how far we’ve come with a reality check – the gender pay gap still exists, too few women serve as CEOs or sit on corporate boards and the work-life balance conundrum has yet to be resolved.

When Everything Changed is an inspiring book.  If we have forgotten the sacrifices and struggles of women who blazed the trail and take the fact that they changed the world, we should be reminded.  And even if we haven’t, Collins shows us that we have miles to go before we sleep.

Let’s get busy!

And please, after you’ve read When Everything Changed, comment here about what you will do differently as a result.

TAGS: Gail Collins, LinkedIn

Many years ago, a much cherished friend gave me the nickname “Valuable”.  It was her way of respecting my Mom’s wish that my given name of Valerie not be shortened (though Val is quite fine with me) – while simultaneously delighting her by creating such a complimentary substitution. 

This same friend is the one who showed me by her example - this most valuable life lesson:  once we have the freedom to re-invent ourselves, it opens up a buffet of choices. 

Her menu has always been varied.  She has successfully and deliberately re-invented what she chooses to do with her time but more importantly, re-evaluated how she felt about herself with each change.   Her career started working at the beginning of the life cycle – as a nurse midwife.  She was present for the birth of both of my daughters.  Her career now post, raising children, surving widowed and the grandmother to a growing nest – is as a geriatric medical specialist.  

In the midst of the lives we live – there is always change.  Remembering my friend’s valuable life lesson has always helped me (eventually) see a bigger menu – a buffet of choices.  It does again as we are changing and starting to feel the beginning cycle of a recovering economy. 

I believe that in the midst of this infant recovery are important generational change characteristics about personal money and what people are choosing to do with it.  Call them the characteristics of new philanthropists in which cultural changes are rampant. 

Younger generations are re-inventing the reasons, ways and to whom they tithe; looking for a return on their investment when it comes to which not-for-profits they support and commit to sustain as their assets and incomes grow.  Charitable giving is coming of a valuable new age and new philanthropists – however rich or modest their financial circumstances – want to see the good of their assets rather than just feeling good about their actions. 

This new mindset is real and worthy.  It will require each of us to commit to seeing/reassessing/recalculating where everybody is now when it comes to money relations.  The old “we’ve always done it this way” formula doesn’t work anymore.  Financial sustainability has new metrics these days and for the future.

The challenge:  each of us must figure out how to move the financial people in our respective lives into the new money direction we each need – and do it without getting everyone’s back up.  A buffet of choices on how to do that is available to you.  Get creative.  Talk with your lenders, creditors and other financial services representatives in your money house and get your money needs recalculated.  It’s doable.  It’s worthy.  It’s valuable. 

Here’s to your health and wealth.

TAGS: charitable giving, philanthropy, Re-inventing money disciplines, recovering economy

This week I’m pleased to share a new video I recorded on the beautiful campus of Columbia University. Click here if you’re looking for tips on how to find your professional passion.

TAGS: career advice

Joanna Krotz, in collaboration with Town&Country, has just published The Guide to Intelligent Giving. This is a book that needed to be written ─ a definitive guide covering everything from discovering where and how you personally should give to practical considerations about taxes and picking advisors.

While we have written here before about the power of giving, Joanna’s book is full of inspirational stories about those who have “decided to wield the power of one” by making the decision to give their time or their money to change the things in the world that they want to change.  A superb writer, Joanna does a terrific job of balancing their stories  with important information anyone considering should know.

I was delighted to learn that women are giving more than ever before. And, they are giving more that men do. Krotz reports that according to the latest IRS reports, women gave $22 billion dollars in 2005 compared to the $15 billion they gave in 1997, when the last gender analysis was done.

Source: The Intelligent Guide to Giving

So if you haven’t found your philanthropic passion yet, you need to get started.

Other reasons this book a “must read”:

• Giving smart requires more than just writing a check; you should make sure that the money you give works as hard for your charity as you worked to earn it.

• While money matters, your time, skills and attention matter too. A lot.

• Be smart about to whom you give. Check out the charities carefully.

Something else that will please you – the publisher will donate $1.00 to unicef for every book sold.

TAGS: charity. philanthropy, living a rich life, living your values

Working in the garden planting bright red geraniums, I encountered a patch of soil that was so hard I didn’t think I was going to be able to dig the holes needed.  A neighbor’s gardener pulled up and I thought of asking him to help me.  Then I decided I wasn’t in a hurry, it was a lovely day and I could take my time digging the holes.  As I chipped away at the soil inch-by-inch (those of you old enough to remember Abbott and Costello may remember the line from one of their acts) I thought about how much this approach applies to many things in life.  

The things that are worthwhile rarely come easily.  We work at them.  Sometimes for years, months, or in the case of my holes, hours.  Patience, never one of my virtues, is something I’ve been working on my entire adult life.  The next time you’re working in your  ”garden,” metaphorical or otherwise, ponder these questions:

• What project did you give up on because it didn’t come as easily as you would have liked it to?  Could you achieve it if you gave it more time and showed more patience with the process?
• How can you “chip away at” an obstacle in your life?  It may seem to big to resolve in its entirety, but could you break it into smaller pieces and work on them a little at a time?
• What are you trying to attain that remains just out of your grasp?  Could you employ the negotiation technique called “the salami?”  You don’t sit down and eat an entire salami… you cut it up into pieces.  Try negotiating for a piece at a time until you have the whole enchilada!

TAGS: learning patience, perseverence

You may have read about Sonia Sotomayor’s inspirational journey from the projects to the Ivy League to the steps of the United States Supreme Court. It’s difficult not to be moved by the story of a woman raised by a single, working mom and who, against all odds, will likely become the third woman to sit on the Court. There are, of course, some thinpinkline innuendos about her “temperament”─ evidently Judge Sotomayor expects the lawyers in her courtroom to be prepared and if they are not, she lets them know she is not pleased. Yet, I don’t recall much concern being raised regarding Samuel Alito’s disposition. But I digress.

What can Judge Sotomayor teach us about success?

• Do what you can to raise yourself up.
  When Sotomayor arrived at Princeton, her previous education had left her unready to compete. She knew she had to compensate so she spent hours in the library reading the books her classmates had already read at boarding school.

  If you wait for someone to pave the way for you, you may be waiting a very long time. In fact, your time may never come.

• Ask for and accept help.
  Although Sotomayor is reported to have confessed to a friend at Yale Law School that when she got to Princeton that she could “barely write”, clearly, she was able to improve her skills. How? In part by approaching her history professor who tutored her to write more critically.

  Sometimes, we’re embarrassed to ask for help. Sometimes, we don’t know whom to ask. Other times, we’re just too proud. But if you have done all you can to help yourself and still aren’t able to accomplish what you set out to do, figure out who can help you and ask.
  

• Find a support system.

Sotomayor had an incredibly supportive mother who believed that education was the antidote to poverty. Celina Sotomayor may have purchased the only set of the Encyclopedia Britannica ever to be found in the Bronx housing project.

While not everyone is blessed with a supportive mother, we all need support. Find people who believe in you, whether they are relatives, teachers or friends. Let them know when you need an emotional booster shot to keep you on track.

TAGS: Inspiration, sotomayor, success, US Supreme Court

People often ask me how I managed to build a coaching firm, write books, conduct keynote presentations and have a life.  The answer is simple: vision.  I know first-hand the power of vision.  Long before it was trendy or had a name, I intuitively knew if I could focus clearly on the outcomes I wanted then the path toward achieving them would be revealed.  It’s not mystical or magical — it takes dedicated effort.

If you’re struggling with getting what you most want out of life (and that includes career, relationships, money, etc.), here are a few tips to put you on your unique path:

• Clear the pathway.  This means let go of negative thoughts, toxic people, and activities that are currently getting in your way.  They create both mental and physical blocks for the energy you want in your life to find its way to you. 
• Develop a laser-focus on desired outcomes.    It’s not enough to say you want a new job or an intimate relationship.  Those are much too broad.  Be as specific as possible, painting a clear picture of what you envision once you’ve achieved your goal or desire.  For example, “By the end of this year I will have a job that allows me to use my technical and creative capabilities, in an environment that encourages and rewards independent action, with a boss who not only supports but also coaches and mentors me, that is no more than a thirty minute commute from home, and that pays 20% more than I’m currently earning.” 
• Factor in your values.  I’ve watched people achieve the precise vision toward which they aimed only to realize it wasn’t satisfying and be disappointed.  Most often this is because they neglected to consider their values.  Identify your 3 – 5 most cherished values and be certain to factor these into your vision.
• Develop your game plan.  A plan without a vision maintains status quo.  A vision without a plan is only a dream.  What do you have to do starting now? Who do you have to meet with?  How much money do you have to save? Where do you need to live? What do you need to research or study?  Your plan may change with the circumstances, but it must guide you toward your vision.

There’s a Goethe poem that I’ve referred to countless times throughout my life that has served me well.  I encourage you to read The Power of Commitment and print it out to serve as a reminder that “the moment one definitely commits oneself then providence moves too.”

TAGS: planning for the future, strategic thinking, strategy, Vision

I spoke at the Bay Path College’s Women’s Professional Conference held in Springfield, MA last week. This small, women’s college has held an annual conference for women for the past fourteen years.

One of the other speakers was Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Trained as a neuroanatomist, she had a stroke at age 37.

Because she lost a great deal of function in the left side of her brain, she was, during her eight years of recovery, focused on the “living in the moment”, relying on her right brain functions.

The left side of the brain, as Dr. Taylor explained it, is the “serial processor” of the brain. It thinks in language, focuses on details and allows us to think critically. As such, Dr, Taylor characterizes the left side of the brain as more determined to be “right” than to be happy.

The right brain is just the opposite. It would rather be happy. With a function to control images and sensory information, the right brain enables us to feel joy and pleasure.

Dr. Taylor spoke eloquently of the need to balance both sides of our brains in order to achieve true balance. It’s a lesson she says she never would have learned had she not suffered a stroke. Now, fully recovered, she shares her insights with others.  Watch  a video of Dr. Taylor.

Her book,  Stroke of Insight, will be next on my reading list.  I’ll take her word for all of it and hope to learn the lessons she learned without the stroke experience!

Has anyone already read it? If so, what did you learn from Dr. Taylor’s extraordinary journey of discovery?

TAGS: Jill Bolte Taylor, left brain, life lessons, right brain, stroke