I have been working on finding white space in my life for many years now. I've had some success. I've gone from constantly running on the hamster wheel of life to learning how to trust, have more space, and be comfortable. I've been able to move away from being a total overachiever and workaholic. It was a slow process that took time and conscious effort. 

Now, I've become comfortable in white space. And I think that going into white space takes tremendous courage and vulnerability (uncertainty, emotional exposure, and risk). The reward of that courage and vulnerability is gaining the opportunity to really get to know yourself. 

In this podcast, which was originally published in 2016, Hiro Boga and I talk about white space and how we can use it to return to ourselves. Hiro is a business strategist, teacher, adviser, and mentor.

One of the issues many of us will face with finding white space is that the rhythm and pace of our workplaces, schools, and societies does not always match the natural rhythm of ourselves. We usually have to actively work to find opportunities to slow down. And to turn those opportunities into white space we have to go even further and resist spending that time on things like social media. 

Listen to this episode to learn strategies for finding white space in your life, the benefits of play and organized play, how to discover who you are, how white space fits into parenting, and more. I invite you to create more white space in your life and use it to return to yourself.

Your voice matters! Make sure you subscribe to the show and leave a review in Apple Podcasts. Tell me what you love and why you’re here and maybe you’ll hear a shoutout to YOU in a future episode!

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We all face difficulties from time to time, and many of us are experiencing them right now. But so often, we downplay them or feel shame about them, because we believe that other people have it worse.

Everybody goes through hard things. But beating yourself up and thinking what you go through isn't that hard because someone else has it worse is not helpful. It is so important to show yourself compassion and self-care during these times.

When I used to think about self-care, I would think of manicures and pedicures. But self-care is so much more than that and it’s a crucial component in helping us get through hard times. 

If you are going through something right now, my invitation to you is to remember that you are not alone. Everybody faces difficulties and recognizing this enables you to fill yourself up so you can move forward.

Tune in this week and hear why self-care is so important in dealing with the hard stuff and how to remember you are not alone. I'm sharing what self-care means to me, how to establish what it looks like for you, and the importance of giving yourself time to play during hard times.

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Many of us love listening to music while we work or do other tasks that require focus. When you can tap into the right formula, you've probably found that you get a significant productivity boost from it. Is it just because music is enjoyable, or is there neurological activity behind it that we can tap into to maximize our focus?

In this episode, which was originally published in 2014, I interview musician, scientist, song writer, and technology inventor Will Henshall. Will is the founder of Focus@Will, a neuroscience based web and mobile app that uses sequenced instrumental music tracks to increase your attention span up to 400% when working and studying.

Will was the founder of the British pop-soul band Londonbeat and had two Billboard #1 hit records. He also created and sold multiple companies. With Focus@Will, his goal is to work with audio to find the right music at the right place at the right time. Will got interested in the way that human beings react to music. He started talking to people he knew about what music they were listening to while working, studying, and reading. 

We often think of listening to music as something that we do actively, like going to a show or singing along to our favorite albums. But there's a whole other part of ourselves that consumes music unconsciously and as a background element in our lives. This background music is what drove Will to start to look at the neuroscience of the intersection of music and focus. He wanted to answer the question: is there a way to find specific kinds of music that will help you get into a flow state for working and studying?

Listen to this episode to learn the answer to that question, and how Will used neuroscience to find it. We also talk about how music can benefit the focus of some people with ADHD, how teenagers’ brains interpret music, creating habits for your brain, and a couple of takeaway tips to increase work and study flow.

Your voice matters! Make sure you subscribe to the show and leave a review in Apple Podcasts. Tell me what you love and why you’re here and maybe you’ll hear a shoutout to YOU in a future episode!

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Do you ever feel like something isn't possible for you? Do you find that you don't believe it when other people compliment you or tell you something about yourself because you feel like an imposter?

Imposter Syndrome is the inability to believe that your success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of your own efforts or skills. It can be debilitating and is something we all experience at some point.

We put such high expectations on ourselves that it's no wonder we find ourselves drowning in imposter syndrome. But there are ways to move through it, and knowing that you are not alone can help.

My invitation for you this week is to consider how the world is perceiving you versus what you are believing about yourself. Put a lens on and see things you haven't been able to see before. It is possible to do the mental and emotional work to realize what you've accomplished, become a compassionate observer, and let go of your imposter syndrome.

In this episode, Laura and I share our own experiences of imposter syndrome and how we have learned to manage our mindsets around it. Discover some ways that imposter syndrome can serve you, and how to change your mindset to get beyond it and believe in your own abilities.

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Four-time Olympian, 27 time All-american and 16 National Championships, today's guest Jill Sterkel knows about success.  And as the head coach of the University of Texas women's swim team from 1992-2006 she also understands leadership for women.  One of the all-time great sports figures in swimming, Jill Sterkel's name is recognized in swimming circles around the word, here today to discuss Women Leadership and Success.

” There’s no easy way to be great.”

~ Jill Sterkel, on How She Really Does It

“Learn to control the things you can control and don’t worry about the things you can not.”

“Successful people have a tendency to be able to focus on what they can control.”

“Successful people don’t let their disappointments sink them.”

“You are responsible to make choices to be great.”

“We learn through our challenges.

I don’t think you grow when you are not challenged.

You are writing your own history.”

“Personal accountability pushes you to the next level.”

smiling,

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When preparing for the Olympics, swimmers set up a four-year plan to train, race, and compete. And part of this plan includes tapering. Tapering is when we start to decrease the work we do and become more deliberate with invisible training: sleeping, resting, and really taking care of ourselves.

As a swimmer, taper time was always my favorite because I enjoyed having the downtime to really rest and replenish. It is so important to allow yourself to do this, and it doesn't only apply to training plans, it applies to vacations too.

Some of you have been going on vacation, and some of you are planning to take one soon. Vacations are a way for us to refuel, and you all know we need some refueling right now. But it's important to remember that there are small decisions you can make right now to make your vacation more enjoyable.

I invite you to ask yourself, what do you want from your vacation? What is the intention of it? Give yourself permission to enjoy and embrace your vacation and give yourself the space to reenter your life feeling refreshed, refueled, and ready to do amazing things.

Join me this week as I share why tapering into vacation will help you enjoy your experience more when you're there. Learn why the success of your vacation is really on your terms, as long as you are clear about what you want from it, and the importance of being deliberate about what you need to transition in and out of your vacation.

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What are you supposed to do when everyone around you is in a bad mood and you don't want to be affected? It's so easy to let other people's bad moods bring us down. But my guest co-host Anna Vocino and I have strategies and ideas for how to hold space and keep your energy. 

Anna Vocino is an actor, comic, voice over artist, podcaster, and cookbook author. She joined me as a guest co-host on the podcast for several episodes. In this episode, which originally aired in 2015, we talk about what to do when everybody around you is in a bad mood.

One of my strategies for everybody around you being in a bad mood is to simply leave the area. Another one is to ask people to be responsible for the energy that they bring into the room. This can be hard to get used to but these simple ideas will help you preserve your energy and mood.

Everybody is entitled to their emotions, but you must be responsible to how you displace them, we say in this episode.

Listen to this episode to learn more strategies for holding space and protecting your energy, learn about the types of bad moods, and learn how to stop giving into your fixer tendencies.

Your voice matters! Make sure you subscribe to the show and leave a review in Apple Podcasts. Tell me what you love and why you’re here and maybe you’ll hear a shoutout to YOU in a future episode!

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People can be difficult. They can show up and do things we don't necessarily agree with; it's just what happens in life. And difficult people are something that we all get the opportunity to experience.

Laura Boyd is coming back onto the show as a guest co-host today, and we're talking all about dealing with difficult people and sharing some real-life examples of this. There will always be difficult people, but we get to decide how we deal with them.

So often, we put a label on others because they do things we don't agree with or that go against our expectations of them. But maybe sometimes difficult people have strong personalities, and we can actually learn from them. People learn by being difficult.

If you are dealing with a perceived difficult person, I invite you to check in with your expectations of them and what the cost of you labeling them as difficult is. Consider that maybe they're just doing the best they can, and ask yourself what might be the most generous assumption you can make about that person.

Join us this week as we discuss some ways people can be perceived as difficult and why they are labeled in this way. We talk about difficult situations and how to handle them and how to shift the paradigm and the way you think about difficult people.

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Our home frustrations can definitely spill over into our workplace. The opposite is also true. In this episode, my guest and I take a look at her research on motivation and how it translates to home life and parenting specifically. 

Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson is a social psychologist who researches, writes and speaks about the science of motivation.  She is the Associate Director of the Motivation Center at the Columbia Business School and author of the best-selling books: Succeed and the co-author of Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World to Power Success and Influence.  

In another episode, Heidi and I discussed motivation and influence in ourselves and our careers. In this episode, which originally aired in 2014, Heidi has returned to talk specifically about applying her research for parenting motivating and influencing our children. 

In order to be able to motivate our children and have a positive influence (not control!) we need to understand how they think. One way to do this is to understand promotion focus and prevention focus. Promotion focused motivation means thinking about your goals as a way to advance areas of your life. People who use this type of focus are often creative, good at thinking outside of the box, and great at seizing opportunities. 

Prevention focused motivation means thinking about your goals in terms of what you can lose if you don't succeed. These people are good at being thorough, careful, and accurate. They don't take things for granted and are sometimes more reliable than their promotion focused counterparts. Listen to this episode to get a deeper dive into those types of focus, learn which one children use more, and learn communication strategies for motivating our children.

Your voice matters! Make sure you subscribe to the show and leave a review in Apple Podcasts. Tell me what you love and why you’re here and maybe you’ll hear a shoutout to YOU in a future episode!

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The last year and a half has given people the opportunity to take a step back and consider what success means for them. People everywhere are considering how they want to show up in their lives and what they are looking for in the world and for many, this means resigning from their jobs in search of something better.

My guest co-host this week is Laura Boyd, who has spent over 25 years working with organizations to help them develop sustainable growth, both as organizations and the people within them. She joins me to discuss the changes in behavior we're seeing in the workplace as a result of the pandemic, and we're diving deep into what's been labeled The Great Resignation'. 

For many, there is an illusion that there is something better elsewhere for them, and that changing their circumstances, or leaving their jobs, will make them happier. But fleeing isn't always the answer, and as we go into this Great Resignation, there is still a lot of internal work needed.

There will always be opportunities, and if you are considering a resignation, I invite you to give yourself the space to be proactive, consider the best-case scenario for you, and manage the risk. Check in with yourself, get clear about what you are thinking and wanting.

Join us this week to hear more about The Great Resignation and the changes we are seeing in organizations as a result. We discuss workplace loyalty, the importance of establishing boundaries, and some advice and questions to ask yourself if you are considering a resignation of some sort.

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