Word Of the Week #595: Patience
December 31, 2015 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word Of the Week #595: Patience
Patience – good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence.
How would you rate yourself on patience? Do you stay good-natured when dealing with delays and incompetence? Are there people in your life who have taken advantage of your patience?
My dear girlfriend (and sister from a prior life) sent me this in December and it only seemed fitting to make it my New Year’s Resolution. When I did a web search I found it here I No Longer Have Patience.
- “I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me.
- I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature.
- I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me.
- I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate.
- I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise.
- I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance.
- I do not adjust either to popular gossiping.
- I hate conflict and comparisons.
- believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities.
- In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal.
- I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement.
- Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals.
- And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.”
Meryl Streep quoted it as words she lives by!
Update: originally written by José Micard Teixeira.
This week’s focus is on patience. Did any of the quotes resonate with you? Have you wasted time with what displeases you or hurts you? Is there anyone who does not deserve your patience?
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Word Of the Week #594: Proactive
December 24, 2015 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word Of the Week #594: Proactive
Proactive – acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty.
Did you make time to “break a sweat” and exercise last week? How did that make you feel? Were you able to take time to relax? Did you make a connection with any of your social support systems?
This week is the follow up to last week’s Heidi Stevens’ article from the Chicago Tribune titled, “TAMING STRESS” featuring Thea Singer’s “5 things you can do so you will be less reactive to a stressor when one hits. It’s really important to be proactive.”
- Break a sweat: Exercise is a good stressor and it trains your brain to relax.
- Offline friending: Call a pal. Join a book club. Volunteer.
- Skip Ben & Jerry’s: Stress eating makes us feel better, but over time it wears down our ability to keep anxiety at bay. It kicks off a pleasure center, the same way drugs of abuse do. But once it wears off, the cycle starts over and we crave the same food to kick off the center again. This actually raises our stress levels and increases our cortisol levels. I recommend you think of something else that brings you satisfaction that will also kick off the reward center, but that won’t get you into that whole cycle again. Carrots and celery are not necessarily pleasurable. Do something that you enjoy: Take a mindful walk, read a book, jump rope.
- Meditate: We’ve seen a lot of research that shows people who meditate can begin to change not just the physiology of the brain, but the structure of the brain. The brain waves are very different in someone who meditates than in someone who doesn’t. That’s because meditation (also known as mindfulness-based stress reduction) actually creates new neural pathways between the brain’s right and left hemispheres which offers coherence between our brains’s analytical, time-conscious, logical left side and the intuitive, accepting, creative right side. A Psychiatry Research study concludes that participation in mindfulness-based stress reduction is associated with changes in gray matter concentration in brain regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing and perspective taking.
- Show compassion: Acceptance of others is particularly helpful in warding off stress. The goal is to alter your perceptions of situations outside of yourself. It’s not about wearing rose-colored glasses, but finding ways to counter negativity. Notice something good that happened to you today and tell someone about it. Do something nice for another person.
Singer ends by saying, “People say, ‘Oh, his is so touchy-feely,’ but there is scientific evidence to back it up. I’m as skeptical as the next guy. But when you look at the science behind it, it’s really inspiring.”
This week’s focus is on being proactive and less reactive. Do you have a backup plan in place if something goes wrong? What activity other than eating brings you pleasure? Have you ever tried meditation? When was the last time you did something nice for someone? Have you ever done a “random act of kindness” to a complete stranger? How did it make you feel?
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Word Of the Week #593: Stress
December 17, 2015 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word Of the Week #593: Stress
Stress – mental, emotional, or physical strain or tension.
Does your stress level go up with the holidays? Do you feel more stress at home or at work? Have you found ways to help you reduce tension?
This week I am taking the liberty of re-running my WOW from 2012. Heidi Stevens’s article from the Chicago Tribune titled, “TAMING STRESS” caught my eye. She writes, “Facing down a man-eating lion is not the same as facing gown an Excel spreadsheet, but try explaining that to your body’s stress receptors, especially when they’re at maximum capacity trying to get ready for the holidays.
Stress has become a normal part of most of our lives with longer work hours, financial burdens 
and family strains. It doesn’t take much, especially at this time of year, to push us over the top.”
Thea Singer an MIT instructor and author of “Stress Less” says, “Once the lion is gone your stress response subsides. So much of what stresses us now, though is perceived stress. And when you constantly perceive yourself as stressed, your stress hormones never get turned off and you bathe yourself in a toxic substance.”
The consequences of stress is that it instantaneously increases your heart rate and blood pressure, makes your guts not function well and creates damage to your blood vessels and organs. Singer goes on to say, “There are 5 things you can do so you will be less reactive to a stressor when one hits. It’s really important to be proactive.”
- Break a sweat: Exercise is a good stressor and it trains your brain to relax. If you look at our culture, we’re not exercising regularly. We’re training ourselves for stress, but we’re not training ourselves for relaxation.
- Offline friending: Scientific studies have shown that those who have greater social support are less reactive to stressors than those who have less support. When we experience emotional pleasure, our reward circuitry kicks in. When we experience emotional pain, a different part of the brain kicks in. In those who exhibit more social support, the part of the brain that experiences pain is less reactive during “stress” than in those with less support. And the benefits apply whether you’re giving or receiving social support. Call a pal. Join a book club. Volunteer.
I will share the other 3 next week. This week’s focus is on how much stress you have in your life. What % of your day do you feel stressed? Do you feel more stress at work or at home? When was the last time you exercised? When was the last time you relaxed? How many social support systems do you have?
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Word Of the Week #592: Self-promotion
December 9, 2015 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word Of the Week #592: Self-promotion
Self-promotion – how you effectively highlight the benefits you bring.
How comfortable are you talking about your accomplishments to your supervisors? Have co-workers been promoted when you felt you were more deserving? Who knows what you know?
This week’s featured article “The value of self-promotion” comes from Jennifer Davies, the assistant dean of external affairs for UCSD Extension. She writes, “From an early age, we are taught that it’s not nice to brag. The problem is that too many employees take that childhood lesson to heart and are unable to effectively highlight how they benefit their organization. The effect can have a huge effect on a person’s career, said Rick Gillis, a job search expert and author of the ‘Promote: It’s who knows what you know that makes a career.’
“We need to instill in people that it is OK to speak about their value,’ he said. That doesn’t mean you should immediately dash off an email to your boss with a subject line: ‘I am awesome.’
Any self-promotion, Gillis said, must always be ‘consistent, appropriate and professional,’ and steeped in quantifiable metrics. To do that, he said employees need to assess and evaluate what they do and how it impacts the larger organization. Gillis recommends that employees do the following:
- Make a list – It can be easy to overlook or forget what you achieve at work on a daily
basis. Gillis tells his clients to spend a few minutes each day listing both tasks and accomplishments as it helps provide the data to help craft a narrative on the value they deliver to an organization. If that process sounds daunting, he says there are more than a dozen apps that can help track that information.
- Let history repeat itself – You are more than your current job, so you may need to look back to get a better sense of your real value. He recommends reviewing old resumes, business planners, and performance evaluations. Reach out to personal and professional contacts and talk to them about the projects you worked on together to gain insight into what unique attributes you brought to the table.
- Quantify their work – ‘You were hired because someone trusted that you’d either make or give the company money.’ Gillis said, ‘If you are in sales, it may be about a boost in revenue. If you are human resources, it could be a reduction in turnover. If you are in marketing, it could be about an increase in brand awareness.’
- Understand the value equation – Every accomplishment needs to fit into a simple three-part statement that conveys what you did, what that resulted in and the value of it. For example: ‘Created a digital filing system that resulted in 300 man-hours saved per week, enabling the company to save $6 million annually.’
This week’s focus is on self-promotion. Have you ever assessed and evaluated what you do and how it impacts the larger organization? What are your unique attributes? Who knows what you know? Are you able to effectively highlight the benefit you bring? Who do you know that could help you with that?
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Word Of the Week #591: Prepare
December 2, 2015 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word Of the Week #591: Prepare
Prepare – to make or get ready.
Are you a person who likes to prepare in advance? Did your first job offer skills that prepared you for career opportunities? Do you have family members who are preparing to get their first job? Does anyone you know want to make a career change?
Since I and many of my subscribers are in the Hospitality Industry, I felt this article spoke to the many positive benefits it offers. The Sunday UT Business section featured “Skills learned in restaurant are far-reaching for career success.” One in three Americans get their first jobs in restaurants, and half of all American adults have worked in the restaurant industry at some point in their careers. Restaurants are the nation’s second-largest private sector employer, offering skills and career opportunities to millions.
A majority of employees who work in the restaurant industry are proud to do so, and while not everyone stays in foodservice forever, the industry still prepares them to succeed in any career path they choose. Teamwork, professional behavior, time management, and communications are all skills learned in the restaurant industry. These skills are applicable to any industry, and serve to prepare students and young people for their careers.
It is not only possible, but common, for employees to move from entry-level positions to those of
management, and even ownership. Nine of 10 restaurant managers, supervisors and chefs, and eight out of 10 restaurant owners’ first restaurant job was in an entry-level position, according to “Who Works in the U.S. Restaurant Industry? A Nationwide Survey of the Restaurant Workforce.” The upward mobility offered to employees in the restaurant industry allows for growth and fosters a belief that it is a place where people of all backgrounds can open their own business.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Labor published the first-ever Food & Beverage Service Competency Model, officially codifying the skills learned at each level of a restaurant career, and profiling the employability and technical skills essential to achieving life-long career success in the industry. The model is made up of nine tiers. The first two include personal effectiveness and academic competencies measured in any industry. Skills include motivation, critical thinking and dependability.
Because these base skills learned in a restaurant are so important for any job, the industry is effectively training American’s workforce. Data, as well as anecdotal evidence, suggests that no matter what career they end up in, people who have worked in the restaurant industry never stop using the skills they’ve learned there. The restaurant industry offers a unique blend of opportunities not usually found in other industries. These traits make it a good choice for your first job, a second career or a life-long commitment.
This week’s focus is on being prepared for your future. Are you currently in a position that fosters growth and upward mobility? Are you acquiring skills that will prepare you to succeed in any career? Do you have a desire to own your own business?
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