[O.W.W.L. Success Tip] Are you emotionally irresponsible? How do you know?
Many of my clients and O. W. L. Certified Coaches didn’t really understand the role emotions have on their lives, including wealth, weight, and leadership. They either feel emotions deeply, which distracts them from their goals, or they don’t feel them at all. Either way is not a powerful, responsible strategy.
Mother Teresa once said, “Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”
This is a perfect example of being emotionally responsible. Mother Teresa knew what science is now proving: our emotions literally change our world and impact those around us either positively and/or negatively.
Leaders’ emotions drive their team and actually impact employee morale, job satisfaction and productivity. In recent studies, it has been proven that our emotions are contagious. Just like the flu, we can catch another persons stress, negativity and/or happiness.
According to studies conducted by Dr. Paul Ekman, universal emotions like surprise, fear, happiness, disgust, contempt and sadness are found in all cultures and nationalities, and are detectable even when a person is attempting to conceal them. They are transferred to others through our facial expressions, body language, postures, and voices.
Emotions not only can be transferred through personal contact, they are also finding them being transferred through social media. In a collaborative Facebook study with Cornell University, UC San Francisco and Facebook, it was found that people exposed to positive or negative posts on FB, would follow suit with a positive or a negative post, depending on what they saw. The effect of the posts would last about a week with them continuing to post positive or negative posts depending on what they had been exposed too.
You have probably experienced this in your family, at work, or being involved with people anywhere. Some people come in and are a beam of light; others come in and suck the air out of the room with their cloud of negativity. The big question is: Who are you? How do you show up? Do people love seeing you show up, or are they secretly dreading your appearance?
These are some difficult questions and often not ones you want to know the answer to. However, awareness is the key to change. Being an authentic leader requires you to know yourself and your impact on others.
We are all called to be kind, civil, and respectful. One way to develop this quality is through Loving-Kindness Meditation. This meditation focuses your attention on actually being the light or being loving and kind in the world.
One practice is to daily sit quietly, take some deep breaths, and offer thoughts of loving/kindness to you, others and to all humanity everywhere. Do this for about 5 minutes daily and see your life and the impact you have on others transform.
Sending you loving kindness,
PS. Becky Benes hosts the A. W. E. (Authentic Women Empowerment) November 4, 2015. Click here for details and registration.
PSS: The 2015 O. W. L. Coach Certification and Training Program has 2 more openings. If you know of anyone who interested in helping the obesity crisis, become a powerful wellness coach, and build a profitably coaching practice, please have them contact us at Support@JanisPullen.com.
[My OWWL Journey] Sharing a deep sorrow
I want to share a deep sorrow from my personal life that I don’t know how to handle. I feel that it is important for you to know that as coaches, we have “life happens” all the time. Some of it is big like a divorce or death or child custody battles, and some of it is smaller like a new home or fear of filling a program, but either way, life happens. You all know this from your personal lives.
What we must do as coaches is to get the support we need and work through our emotions and breakdowns and keep going toward our commitment to ourselves. That is what I am doing now.
I set a very big goal for this month, and something has happened to derail me from that and from my commitment. I just learned last week that my granddaughter is in crisis and has been cutting herself on purpose. She has been living in another city with her father and stepmother, so I was not aware of all this. She came to visit my daughter last week and ended up in an ambulance and in a psychiatric ward. I learned that she has other dissociative behavior patterns too. I am sick with grief, both for her and for my daughter and my other granddaughter who found her on the floor in a pool of blood. As a coach and mom and grandma, I want to help. As the daughter of a mother who committed suicide, I am triggered. I have reached out to my client, who is a therapist, to help me understand all of this. I have also reached out to my husband and two of my dear friends to get the emotional support I need. I am crying on and off and being with the emotions as they come up. And I am still committed to my business and to my goals while I learn how to deal with this crisis.
So the reason I’m sharing (or oversharing maybe) is that I want you to know we don’t always have to have our lives perfect to be coaches. We don’t always have to know what to do to help people. All we have to do is to show up and be loving and compassionate and be committed to being the best we can be. As I write this to you, I am reminding myself to do that very thing: show up, be loving, be compassionate, and be committed to being the best I can be.
Please hold me and my family in your hearts with love.
Sincerely,
[O.W.W.L Success Tip] Shedding the Weight of Excuses
Sometimes our weather here is the mountains is cold with snow storms and wind. When winter is here, I do not want to walk at 7:00 am. So I make up excuses. Sometimes I don’t want to make marketing calls for my business because I would rather have people just call me. So I make up excuses.
The problem with excuses is that they weigh us down, just as regrets, finances, incompletion, or anything else weighs us down. Good news: We can shed the weight of excuses easily and quickly.
I’m going to keep this short and sweet.
Excuses can be traded in immediately for Choices! (click to tweet)
If you don’t want to walk, don’t walk. If you want to get fat and flabby, get fat and flabby. If you want to stay fit, stay fit. You don’t need to give anyone any excuse for what you choose. If you want to build your business, make the calls. If you want to put more in savings, choose to stop spending. All you need to do is choose.
As they say, this is not nuclear science. Just remember that whenever you choose, you empower yourself. And remember, too, that when you don’t choose, you are really choosing. You’re just not conscious that a non-choice is a choice.
Happy ending: I choose not to walk in freezing weather. I choose to be fit. I choose the recumbent bicycle, jazzercise, zumba, and the weights. I choose to walk when the weather gets back up above 40.
More happy ending: I choose to tell people about my services so I can support them in their lives, and I choose to build my business by working with people I like to talk to…so I make the calls.
What do you choose, and what is your happy ending?
Happy choosing,
P. S. If you are ready to shed the weight of excuses, give yourself the gift of empowerment, and start the New Year off with success, you will want to learn more about our year-end special, the VIP Plus Coaching Program. This is a beautiful, wildly-popular, affordable coaching program and will be customized just for you. Schedule your appointment now at https://www.timetrade.com/book/ZKTNN to learn how this will benefit you.
[Current O.W.W.L. Journey] Why does writing a book have to mean “Open Kimono”?
You may have heard that I am writing a book entitled ‘Lose Weight for Life: 9 Reasons You Can’t Keep Your Weight Off and What to do About It’. It discusses the nine Ontological Weight Loss (O.W.L.) sabotage patterns and how to shift them for permanent weight loss.
I completed my first draft before Labor Day and sent it to my Project Manager Bethany for initial review, thinking that we would just need a few tweaks and then it would be ready for the publication process. I was wrong!
Bethany gave me wise, helpful feedback, including her perspective that my book read more like a workbook. She felt the best, most compelling part of the book was my own journey from anorexia and obesity along with the stories of my clients’ breakdowns and successes…in other words, the human interest elements.
Wow! I agreed with her. The nine ontological shifts are just concepts until we put them into stories showing how they fit into our lives. But I never thought that my own “I” story was so compelling until I saw it through Bethany’s eyes. She remarked that I could have the whole book be about my journey and how each sabotage pattern fit in. Several others I have spoken with since agreed with Bethany.
The only problem is that I have to “open my kimono” and share with you more deeply, more authentically. What will you think of me? Will you judge me? Or will you relate to me? This will take a mindset of courage, vulnerability, and transparency.
I accept the challenge! So I am dedicating time in the next few weeks to revamp the book. I know you are going to love it when it’s finished. In the meantime, please send me support and encouragement!
Warmly,
P. S. Excellent short videos as a resource for you: Watch Brenee Brown’s two talks on YouTube:
“The Power of Vulnerability”
“Listening to Shame.”
[Current OWWL Journey] Wisdom from my granddaughter about your business
My 2 granddaughters. They both give me so much wisdom.
After every failed attempt, she had a “meltdown.” Disappointment, anger, sadness – a virtual tornado of emotions. After that passed, she spoke with other people (my daughter, for instance, who trains her) to find out what she did wrong. Then she got back on the horse and practiced more, in preparation for the next time.
Later, when I asked her how she was feeling, she said, “I can’t think any more about that class; I have others to prepare for.” So wise from a 17-year-old!
The mark of a winner is the ability to bounce back quickly from setbacks. In my book, my granddaughter is a winner, regardless of what else happens this week.
Where in your business have you made mistakes, got over them, and bounced back? Where do you need to learn this lesson?
Warm regards,
Just Released!
Lose Weight for Life:
9 Unconscious reasons you can’t keep the weight off and what to do about it
ORDER NOW
9 Unconscious reasons you can’t keep the weight off and what to do about it
ORDER NOW