Articles
Magic
Believe in magic or not, we all know what it's about. The awe-induced experience of witnessing something momentous...and wanting to be a better person because of it. No matter what it is. My magical top 7 (in no order whatsoever) 1. shooting stars - to see one means that you've a) been patiently keeping your gaze up and not at your feet or b) you've had dumb luck. 2. dumb luck - this happens...a lot. Sadly, it's the hope that this will befall us that can keep us small...think lotto dreams. Then again, think lotto dreams and replace "lotto" with "blue sky"...and now what's available? Now what is your subconscious working on? If it's real and authentic, you'll find a way to make it happen...clarity is the key. 3. love - can't see it, hear it, taste it, or touch it...but man, can you feel it when it's real and genuine. 4. new beginnings - there's always a chance to turn the bus around....especially if you have the right people sitting with you. 5. music - for me, there is nothing like music to lift me up if I need to be lifted, or brought to earth if I need the grounding. I love it all...except for rinky-dink noodly jazz...that just makes me mad. But make a recommendation and I may turn that around too...may be another new beginning. 6. coaching - working with people committed to making real, tangible and significant changes...for themselves and ultimately, the world around them...sheer inspiration and an honour to witness. 7. the smell of oleanders - poetry in a fragrance
Why only 7? I love the magic of having room for more. I intend to keep adding, so please send me some of your thoughts...magic is to be shared.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Dare to be Free
This weekend, I was fortunate enough to have assisted 21 people brave enough to dare to be free. Of self-limiting beliefs. Of self-imposed judgments. Of holding back. Of being small. It was an honour to witness and a privilege to be in their midst. Courageous people ripping out the tap roots of what’s holding them back and filling that void with new, fertile and brilliant truths about their essence…it was sheer joy and beauty.
I felt like a bit of an interloper at times, because here’s the truth…I haven’t really dared to be free of my own self-limiting belief. Mostly because I didn’t really know what it was. But with the help of the masterful L.A. Reding (the co-creator of this unbelievably powerful program Dare to be Free), the incomparable Elisa Palombi and the knowing Paulo da Silva, I’ve discovered what the mother of all my self-limiting beliefs is: I fear…nay BELIEVE, that I am a fake. Which REAAAAAALLLLY sucks because one of my major core values is authenticity.
Hence the proclamation here: I want to be authentic about the fact that I fear I’m a fake.
That’s a risky proposition for a coach who claims to be powerful and runs the risk of publicly admitting weakness. But I do so in honour of those brave enough to dig deeper this weekend. And in service of those who have a story made up in their own minds that I have it all together. Nope. And I’m okay with it.
Now that I know what’s truly been holding me back, I have some work to excavate it. Back-breaking work given that those roots are pretty deep…they’ve been gaining power for 36 years.
I’ve committed to myself and to the group that I would eradicate it. So I will. And I'll let you know how it goes…but I think you’ll just feel it.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Dance like no one’s watching (redux)
Last night we spent a perfectly lovely evening at the Beaches International Jazz Festival. The weather was ideal, the crowd was energetic and appreciative and the music somehow seemed better than we’ve enjoyed in previous years (in my humble opinion). Some nights are just like that. One of the many musical highlights for us was seeing The Disease…a young “7-piece funk machine” from Toronto. They were (in the words of my drumming husband) “tight”. I don’t know much about that, but I do like to think I know talent. And they really had it going on. While they didn’t pull the same size crowd as other bands doing jazz standards, the crowd that they did have appreciated the talent too.
Ok, so you don’t visit my blog for musical critiques. Here’s what I really loved and appreciated about this group—they “felt it”. Every last member. I was particularly mesmerized by the guy on the keys – David Atkinson. He would not, COULD not stop dancing. He played on his tippy-toes for goodness’ sake! He couldn’t contain his jubilation…his sheer joy of doing what he loved doing. It was infectious and to me it epitomized that quote that we’ve all been e-mailed ad nauseum: dance like no one’s watching.
Now I know what that means…really means. Had that wildly talented young man put a cap on his groove, the notes would have been flatter, to be sure, but more criminally, we the audience would have been cheated out of a display of unbridled excitement, energy and joy. Which I know I really inspired me.
Kids do it. They run, jump, play, sing, dance and twirl with no concern about appearances (at least until pre-puberty, and then, I’m told, it’s hell in a handbasket). Why does watching kids sing the national anthem off-key bring tears to my eyes? Because it is sung with heart, intention and purity of soul.
It’s not too late for us as adults to do the same.
So, I challenge you: give like no one’s watching; worship like no one’s watching, play like no one’s watching; love like no one’s watching; cry like no one’s watching and laugh like no one’s watching. Go on and even let the milk pour out of your nose. Those that are watching will celebrate the moment right alongside you.
Thanks David, for the reminder.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Excuse me…I’m flawed
Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog. It’s summer, you know…and everything happens at a slower pace. BEEP BEEP BEEP! Back the truck up. (You do realize that I only broke a Christine Kane cardinal rule of blogging: “apologizing for not writing” to prove a point, right?)
I’m curious as to why have you just accepted my incredibly lame excuse. When I say “everything happens at a slower pace” aren’t I really just saying “I’ve made things other than posting to my blog a bigger priority right now”. Same diff, right? But what am I owning by blaming the season? Nada. Zilch…niet. And ultimately, that’s what a good excuse will do for you. Absolve you of responsibility.
I’ve really noticed lately how I have a lower tolerance threshold for justification of bad behaviour. And excuses. Perhaps it’s the economy (ha…tricked you!!!) but let me ask you this….are you not tired of hearing people explain their lateness with “I’m late wherever I go...it’s just who I am”. Which is really tantamount to: “I do not value your time; I am disorganized; and fundamentally, I’d probably rather be somewhere else”. Consider the two versions. In version a) their lateness is simply a part of their genetic make-up…a flipped x or y chromosome on the double helix of life. In version b) there is choice and ownership…it may be rude ad crude and filled with ‘tude, but there is learning. And possibility.
Making up excuses is easy…taking responsibility and action, less so.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Impact
Walking my daughter to daycare today, we were discussing matters of great import such as whether or not kids are smarter than grown-ups (my theory that they were perhaps just more curious was resoundingly trounced) and why sharks have to be so mean all the time. A car drove smoothly by and just after it passed, I noticed a squirrel in the middle of the road twisting and jerking frantically. It took a moment or two for me to realize what had happened. In fact, it took me so long that for a split-second, I thought to point out the funny dance to my daughter. Once it sunk in, I sucked in my breath and grabbed my girl into my arms (intending to not let her see the squirrel’s final moments of agony). Of course she saw, asked what had happened and I started to panic. “Nothing honey…let’s hurry along and call the vet...I’m sure everything will be fine”. We turned the corner and I calmed down enough to realize what a horrid and pointless thing that I’d just done…pretending nothing happened. Besides, she wasn’t buying it.
I sat her down on the curb, and we talked about it…in as much detail as I felt appropriate for a tender-hearted 5 year old. (Can’t help but be a Mom so I did slide in the fact that the squirrel probably didn’t look both ways). She took it all in stride, asked me wonderful questions and I think she mostly got it. She was confused about the driver of the car. Why didn’t he stop? Why was he so careless? I explained that because we didn’t hear anything, he likely hadn’t even realized what had happened. He was unaware of the impact. Feel a metaphor coming on?
Without getting all Butterfly effect-y here, every action we take has repercussions…some positive and some negative, some intentional and some accidental. That driver had no clue of his impact on the squirrel (and any family waiting back in the nest), then on my daughter, then on her daycare mates, then on me, then on my clients, then on you…and so on. It was purely accidental.
So what would happen, what COULD happen, if we applied this to the positive…that we took great pains to be conscious, at every turn, to spread the good stuff and ONLY the good stuff around? Blissful karma…viral karma. We're not always going to get it right....but we can sure as hell try.
As I dropped my girl off, she turned to me and said: “Let’s always be careful to never hurt a squirrel and be nice to everyone, ok Mommy?”
Out of the mouth of babes.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
The Ikea Effect
Have you ever offered advice only to find that it’s duly ignored? Makes you feel kind of cruddy, right? Especially given that, in your mind, it was probably exactly what the recipient needed to hear? Here’s an inside secret…no one really likes being told what to do (even if they came to you asking for advice…weird, quirky, but true). Further, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this, when people come to their own conclusions, they are more satisfied, motivated and inspired. And when they land on their own solution…BING BING BING…they’re more likely to follow through in action.
The coaching profession accounts for this by basing its work on the assumption that every person is naturally creative, resourceful and whole. Everyone has the answers to their life’s problems within them…they just need someone to help them to pull it out. And when expert advice is really required, clients will have the motivation to find that, too.
I just let you in on Coaching 101. It may sound a little abstract (perhaps), a little ungrounded (I assure you that it is not) and a little woo-woo (at times, sure). But the idea of building your own something and loving it more than something you were just handed is called “The Ikea Effect”. An article in the Harvard Business Review points to the phenomenon that “labor enhances affection for its results”. You-fab vs. pre-fab means you’ll find it more fab.
Intrinsically, I believe this to be true. I am most fond of the art in my house that my husband and I have created ourselves. We encourage our daughter to make her own mistakes rather than handing her the answers. And I’m certainly finding my own way in business as an entrepreneur (with some support systems in place) more so than when I was “corporate”. Ask around…you’ll see what I mean. Stacie Maier, very cool owner of Uprise Careers points to her favourite tattoo…a cute and simple paw print. It’s not the same caliber of the others that adorn her frame, but she did it herself (told you she was cool…and a GREAT person to talk to if you’re late-20’s and “not cubicle friendly”).
Where the Ikea Effect can be worrisome is in the power of “I'm righteousness”. We’ve seen this too, haven’t we? People who actually use and BELIEVE such 80’s phrases such as: “my way or the highway”. The HBR article points out:
Managers should keep in mind that ideas they have come to love because they invested their own labor in them may not be as highly valued by their coworkers – or their customers.
In building Ikea furniture, we all know one thing: lose the Allen key and your Galant desk will never come together. No duct tape can help you there.
Further, in coming to your own decisions, if you’ve asked for advice, please appreciate the perspective from which it came, listen to the offering for resonance with your own values and go from there. Assuredly, no duct tape will be required.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.