FUN-photos: A&K Private Jet Wild Life Safari – Kenya
December 29, 2022 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on FUN-photos: A&K Private Jet Wild Life Safari – Kenya
Rwanda to Kenya – 1.5 hrs – lose 1 hr – Angama Mara – 3 nights not 5*
8 am depart – 3 hr drive back down to airport – arrive Nairobi then board 45 min charter flight – 30 min safari jeep arrives camp at 4:45 pm – perched high atop the hill with breath taking views of the vast expanse of the Masai Mara
- Day 1 – 4:30 wake up – 5 am drive for balloon ride & Champagne breakfast in the bush – game drive back 10:30
Opt out of afternoon game drive for a divine 90 min massage on our deck overlooking the Masai Mara
- Day 2 – 7:30 game drive – overall disappointing with lack of animals compared to 2019
Take afternoon off and bush dinner is a disappointment as well.
Fun-fact: Our trip leader John, AKA SS Supervisor, lives in Kenya and his next-door neighbor runs Nairobi airport operations. Only handed passports to him and got them back on arrival at our camp.Kenya to Boston – 18hrs – Four Seasons – 1 night
October 27 – 5:30 am depart – more John airport connections so no immigration!
We had fuel stops in Malta & Shannon, IRE where the flight crew changed. We were so lucky! The new crew didn’t have the same energy.
October 28 – 8:30 pm – arrive Logan Airport – only short drive to hotel.
October 29 – Boston Commons is directly across the street from our hotel so have lovely stroll before taking a 5 pm non-stop flight back to San Diego.
- Overview – Still had to go thru TSA but not main terminals – too much with all the time zones and felt like we jammed and slammed it.
Only place we had stayed before was Rathambore in 2016 and only saw a 1-pixel tiger – way, way ever so far away! Also, one of the hardest animals to get to see “up close and personal!” It’s pretty much a given that you will see the “Big 5” in Africa with four game drives.
WATC = What are the Chances! Xena clearly here with so many magical moments – Japan & the Macaques, seeing the tiger, feeding the lemurs, flying the plane, suite upgrade & easy gorilla trek with so many to see. Not everyone had it so lucky!
Word-Of-the-Week #960: Action
December 29, 2022 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #960: Action
Action – something that people do or cause to happen.
Is it easy for you to take action? Do you ever second guess yourself? Is there something you know you should take action on that you are putting off? What is stopping you?
I wanted to keep the WOW short and simple for the holiday week and chose to re-run “Row Your Boat,” from Steve Straus, author of STEVE’S 3-MINUTE COACHING. It’s a great one going into our new year!
“Wayne Dyer was the first person I heard tell this story, but I believe he gave credit to someone else. It has been around a long time and tells of several great truths.
Principle: Row Your Boat
(Principles are basic truths that, when applied, cause success to come to you easier and quicker.)
Row, Row, Row
(Be in action. The universe rewards action.)
your boat,
(Your’s. Not someone else’s.)
gently
(Enjoy the process.)
down the stream,
(Go with the flow. Stop fighting.)
merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
(You could be a grump about it, but don’t be.)
life is but a dream.
(Chose to have very good dreams.)”
— Copyright 2022 Steve Straus. All rights reserved. —
I just love this one! How about you? This week focus on what courses of action you are going to take in the new year. Do any relate to your job situation? How about your personal life? How would it feel to live your dream and row your boat gently down the stream? Enjoy the ride!
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Word-Of-the-Week #959: Credit
December 22, 2022 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #959: Credit
Credit – what you take when you have done something that deserves praise.
How good are you at accepting praise for a job well done? Do you have a tendency to deny or play down your achievements? Does it make you feel uncomfortable to get credit when you deserve it?
This week we follow up on the Bryan Falchuk, Inc. “Don’t let negative self-talk hold you back.” He writes, “How can you possibly be successful if you see yourself as mediocre or worse? The answer is obviously that you can’t. However, you can change the situation.
Here is the exercise I give people I work with. I call it…
Stop the “But”
Say something good about yourself or something you did. As soon as you feel the word “but” forming in your mind, stop yourself. Just say the good part without moving onto anything to downplay it, take away from it, or negate it. Just allow the good.
Here are a few examples from people I work with.
The first is from working with a woman who was so caught in her not being smart enough for the job she wanted, she thought they made a mistake or there was something wrong with the company when they offered her the job.
So I asked her about how she did in college. She said, “I got good grades, but…”
I jumped in there and cut her off by saying, “Stop. You got good grades. Leave it there.”
But she could not do it, and responded with, “No, that does not matter. It was so long ago. And what I studied is not relevant to what I want to do. So who cares?” 
The point is just to allow the good thing about you to sit unchallenged. Of course that good thing may not be relevant in every situation, so why bother naming specific reasons for it to be invalid in any one context? Good grades are also not relevant to whether she is good at basketball, can fly a plane, or any number of other unrelated things. So choosing one to focus on to discredit the good is no more rational than just letting the good be as it.
Another person was having trouble getting along with his boss, and was broadening that out to a general issue with people, and then catastrophizing that he was unemployable, and his career was doomed.
So I asked him, “Do you have friends?”
He said, “Of course I do. But–“
I cut him off right there. “You have friends. People who were not born into knowing you actively choose to be connected to you. Are they close friends or just acquaintances?”
“Good friends. In my circle of friends, I am kind of the go-to person when people are really struggling with problems in their job. They all turn to me.”
I said, “Ah ha! So people are specifically turning to you for advice about career issues. People have made a decision based on the kind of person you are to do this. And they want your advice about what you think you are afraid you are not good at. Doesn’t that seem disconnected?”
Through this exercise (which we repeated a few times) he stopped seeing himself as doomed because of his inability to be a relatable person, but rather realized there are people he does get along with well and others that may take more work. And then we focused on doing that work so he could improve, which he has.
This is something I have people do daily to start to counter-act the years of negative self-talk they have been engaging in throughout their lives, let alone their careers.
If you want to be successful, you have to allow for the possibility that you are actually good at things and capable of success. You cannot discredit every little attempt to credit you with a win and expect to have hope that you can achieve what you aspire to in your career.
This week’s focus is on taking credit. What are your three top attributes at work? How many things are you good at doing in your personal life? Now, how would it feel to say “Thank you. I appreciate that.” when someone gives you credit for a job well done?
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Word-Of-the-Week #958: Self-talk
December 15, 2022 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #958: Self-talk
Self-Talk – the positive and negative thoughts you feed yourself daily.
Have you ever thought about what percentage of your “self-talk” is positive? Do you tend to deny your accomplishments or brush them aside? How can you possibly be successful if you see yourself as mediocre or worse?
This week features Bryan Falchuk, Inc. “Don’t let negative self-talk hold you back.” He writes, “I spent one third of my career as a management consultant. It was a great experience filled with a lot of learning and a lot of tough moments, too.
That means I was paid to find what is wrong, root it out, and figure out a better path forward. It made me a great problem-solver, but it had a downside–I (and others in similar jobs) was 
being conditioned to point out the negative in everything I saw.
The thing is, we all do this, especially with ourselves. Listen to how people talk about their workload or the hours they work. It almost becomes a competition for who is the most beaten down.
You often hear things around the office like, “I was at the office until 10 last night. I’m so tired!” Then a coworker will often respond, full of pride, with something like, “10? Wow, you have it easy. I was here until midnight, and then did another three hours once I got home.”
Let me ask, which one of them is the winner in this debate?
Or when you try to commend someone on doing a good job, they often point out where they went wrong rather than just taking the praise. I remember giving a big presentation to a client early in my career, and a peer told me I did a great job afterward. My immediate response was, “No, I totally messed up that section about their growth strategy. Luckily they forgot about that once we showed them the savings involved.” I could not even start by saying, “Thanks,” before pointing out my failure.
And it is not just in work situations. Next time someone has you over for dinner, compliment them on the food, and watch what happens. You are likely to hear something like, “Thanks, but I overcooked the meat.” Or, “Maybe, but the vegetables needed more salt.”
This has become a major focus of my coaching work–helping people to get comfortable with being good at things. We are so entrenched in self-deprecation or denying our achievements that we end up framing ourselves with mediocrity at best or incompetence at worst.
How can you possibly be successful if you see yourself as mediocre or worse? The answer is obviously that you can’t.”
However you can change the situation and next week will feature how to do just that.
This week’s focus is on your “self talk.” What thoughts are you reinforcing? When someone compliments you do you accept the praise or try to downplay it? How would it feel to get comfortable with being good at things?
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Word-Of-the-Week #957: Comfort
December 8, 2022 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #957: Comfort
Comfort – a condition or feeling of pleasurable ease, well-being, and contentment.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of comfort? Did the phrase “comfort food” come up? Or the phrase “comfort zone?” Did it make you think about what brings you comfort?
When you think back to your childhood what comes to mind? What were the things that brought you pleasure? What were the things that made you feel content and have a sense of well being?
Do you have a favorite comfort food? Or do you have multiple ones? I think of mashed potatoes and gravy. I think of ice cream. Both of those are comfort foods for me. I don’t eat them that often but when I do I savor them! They take me back to a time that was easy and good. Sometimes I’m in the mood for something warm and creamy. Sometimes I’m in the mood for something rich.
What about your comfort zone? Do you like to step out of it from time to time? Do you like the adrenaline rush from being scared? I have always been a risk taker but have found that as I have gotten older I seem to be less of one. I don’t like that! So I am pushing myself out of my comfort zone from time to time.
This week focus on comfort. Are you stuck in your comfort zone? Does the strain of your work or home life have you eating more comfort foods than you would like? Are you able to see that your situation is totally controllable by you? Can you find comfort in knowing that?
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