Personal Management & Leadership (14)
Be Awesome Today - Message from Top Life Coach - Malti Bhojwani
Published in Personal Management & Leadership Written by Malti Bhojwani
I realize that, today is no ordinary day.
It's more important than that.
What I'm about to tell you isn't really a surprise, but
it may be the extra dose of energy you need to get the
most out of your day.
I was thinking about an important question that people
think about all the time. You've probably thought about
this question at least once or twice in the past week.
**** WHEN WILL *THIS* CHANGE ****
It may be your desire to make more money, buy a new car,
lose weight, achieve a goal, start your business, find
the love of your life, or improve a relationship.
Well, I have an answer. The time is NOW!! Today!
Whatever you do today **must** be important because you
are trading a day of your life for it.
Don't be hypnotized by the ordinary routine of living
and waste the day swimming in doubt, fear, jealousy,
envy, unhappiness and frustration.
Today can be the first day of the rest of your life
But you have to MAKE IT AWESOME!!!
And the way you do that is by being awesome.
Make today the day when you play your best game, make
today the day that you are the person who is brilliant
at what you do, who has such high standards that you
inspire others around you to play at their best too!
Make today the day when you refuse to complain about
ANYTHING and spend the day in gratitude for all that is
good in your life.
Make today the day that you make time for your important
relationships. Love more today, and you will be loved
back.
Make today the day you affirm your commitment to getting
into good health. Go for a walk, a jog, a run, or hit
the weights in the gym.
Make today the day where you choose to only eat healthy
food at the right times. Get the HOT, sexy body you
deserve.
Make today the day you are conscious about not putting
anything unhealthy to your lips.
Make today the day you give a little of you back to the
Universe. Give and watch people pour more into YOUR
life. Give someone a $1, and prepare for the Universe to
give you $10, $100 and $1,000s back in return. Give and
it shall be GIVEN!!
Call your mum today! Forgive someone today, appreciate
someone today, tell someone you love them today.
It takes an awesome person to do all these things. You
may not do them all, but you can do at least one. If
you're gonna live today, you might as well make it
awesome.
Watch the miracles unfold as you GIVE yourself to the
world and live as the awesome person you truly are. I
hope you'll accept my challenge for the day.
No matter what happens today... make it awesome!
--- Malti
Be Awesome today in everyway!
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Energy is what gives it Life - Energy Management - by Malti Bhojwani & TJ Coulagi
Published in Personal Management & Leadership Written by Malti Bhojwani
ENERGY!
“If Time is our most precious resource then Energy is what gives it life!”-TJ Coulagi
One of the most important, essential & sadly under addressed topics is that of Energy Management. All of our lofty goals & desires take hard hard work…and hard work requires high quality Energy!
It should be our goal then to ensure that we have optimal energy when we need it. We must know our bodies well and know how maximise our physical and mental energy levels when we have to do our toughest and most creative work. Energy adds enthusiasm to everything, makes us feel good, positive & optimistic whereas the lack of energy does the opposite!
Do you see the importance of being a black-belt energy manager if you truly wish to live the life of your dreams?
So read on for simple tricks and techniques you can use to maximize your Energy and have an awesome, fun and truly productive day!
Sleep well
The ideal day, begins the night before!
In today’s fast paced world sleep is increasingly being seen as a luxury and many times I have heard people boast about how much they do and how little they sleep. Exhaustive research now proves that skimping on sleep is very bad for your health with serious long terms side effects. A person can survive longer without food than without sleep!
Maintain regular sleep and wake up timings and ensure that you get at least 7-8 hours of sleep every night. After a while your body will automatically start to adjust to this pattern as it becomes a habit. Ensure that you sleep in a comfortable bed with comfortable pillows and dim the lights as darkness approaches. Limit your television watching or being on the computer at night as the light emitted from the monitor fools the brain into thinking it is day and impairs the production of the sleep inducing hormone melatonin in your brain!
Instead listen to relaxing music or read a book or indulge in any calm activity that helps you unwind.
Exercise regularly
Exercising daily and getting fit is probably the best thing you can do for yourself, your life and for your Energy!
Our world is going through what is now being called the “Wellness Revolution” where we Humans as a species are beginning to realize the value of good health and fitness. And a fit body is an energetic body!
Many of my clients and people I interact with tell me how busy their jobs keep them and how they simply do not have the time to exercise on account of their packed schedules. My question back is that if you are a person who’s perpetually busy, can you afford to not have good health? What is the point of working that hard to make money and losing your health and wellness in the bargain?
The whole “I don’t have the time or resources to exercise” excuse is simply an EXCUSE! Exercising does not need you spend 2 hours a day in the gym, it can be something as simple as a brisk 20 minute walk or jog. So get that metabolism-raising, blood-flow increasing exercise session in today, tomorrow, and every day and watch your energy levels rise!
Eat right kinds of food and drink plenty of water
Avoid simple sugars, sweet & fatty food. Instead a well-balanced diet with three or four small meals of proteins, good low glycaemic index carbohydrates (oats, multi-grain bread, red rice) and good fats (omega-3 fatty acids) will go a long way in ensuring you have good, sustained energy levels throughout the day
And drink a lot of water! Our body is 70% water and dehydration is the number 1 energy drainer out there. I cannot stress the importance staying well hydrated has on our energy. Ensure that you have a bottle of water handy and keep sipping throughout the day. Your aim should be to drink 4-6 litres of water every single day, more if you live in hotter climates or exercise intensely.
Know your bodily energy timings
Everybody is different and our energy cycles vary to some degree.
What I find is that on waking I have decent energy levels and get my morning workout in early. After a refreshing workout, I shower and get to work and find that my energy levels are at their peak which lasts till about noon. From noon onwards I find my energy levels dropping and get to their lowest at about 3pm-3:30pm after which they begin to rise and from 5pm-7pm they are at their best again.
Knowing my energy cycle is a great time management tool!
I ensure that I get to the most difficult, biggest, important & mentally taxing work/project first thing in the morning.
“Whatever is worst, you must do it first!”-TJ Coulagi
I get to the toughest part of my day when my energy is high 1st thing in the morning and get it out of the way (just as I did with exercising even before I got to work). That way the rest of the day becomes easier and you’ll find it a lot less stressful and be more energetic as a direct result of getting the worst part of it out of the way first thing. Discipline yourself to do this and watch it work wonders with your energy.
Then when I feel my energy (& motivation) levels dropping, I do mundane work, like checking emails, printing out documents, making routine phone calls or inputting data into excel sheets. Work that doesn’t require much thought, creativity or energy. Then between 4-7pm I schedule my most creative work, write out proposals and have important meetings where I need to be mentally alert.
Just by knowing my own Energy Cycle and leveraging it productively I am able to get more work done in a day than I used to in a week!
Do the work 1stàThe positive feedback loop!
Most of us wait to feel inspired, energetic and motivated before we start working towards a goal or pick up any kind of project. We don’t feel like it now so we procrastinate hoping that we will feel motivated and energetic enough tomorrow to do what we should be doing now even though we know in the back of our minds that tomorrow we shall feel no different than today!
Here’s a trick that I have learnt over the years…do the work 1st and then the feelings of energy and motivation shall follow! Just get into the activity, block out all else and before you know it you will hit “The Zone” and shall be feeling the feelings of motivation and energy that you wished you were feeling before you started it.
This is not about energy conservation it is about energy conversion!
Without ENERGY, nothing is possible. An old mantra I learnt and use when I am most tired is "The more energy I use, the more energy I have.” The funny part is this is exactly what happened to me this morning. I went to for a fabulous roof-top poolside bbq yesterday evening and I had a few glasses of wine and woke up this morning completely listless. I am sure you know what I mean. I allowed myself to stay in that ‘low-energy” mood for a bit and then I remembered my mantra as I forced myself to type this email. And guess what? Yup – I have more energy!!!
Before you get vertical and get out of bed, (and by the way, I am a gentle, turn to my side-to avoid postural hypotension or back injury-type-of-riser) think of something pleasurable you can do straight away, and think of a great reason to get vertical, then think is there something you're thinking you'd like to see done today? What are you going to do to make it happen? If like me, you are already writing in your TAG Journal, (Thankfulness Appreciation Gratitude) then this is also a great time to write what you hope and expect to be grateful for by tonight!
This is like working in reverse!
It sets you up to BE energetic enough to DO the things you must to HAVE the result you are writing down to be grateful for! Can you see how this simple act on your part can be interpreted as MAGIC?
"Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you."-Oprah Winfrey
"The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results."
Anthony Robbins
Transformational Workshop by Top Life Coach & Author Malti Bhojwani - Mumbai India
Published in Personal Management & Leadership Written by Malti Bhojwani
Grow or Die - who said that? Life Coach Malti Bhojwani blogs about the universal messages
Published in Personal Management & Leadership Written by Malti Bhojwani
I was at a leadership talk a while back and a famous Indian CEO said that leadership includes, telling and retelling people what they already know, so they know they are on the right track.
I was looking through my very old life coaching notes from 2000, and then notes from the late Thomas Leonard (one of the founders of life coaching as we know it) and then my newest notes from my training in Ontological coaching and they say very similar things, but I FELT that I was learning new stuff only because I had evolved and grown in the last decade myself.
The observer that I was had grown and so I see differently and hence feel and think differently availing me to act in newer ways creating new results!!!
Tony Robbins said, either we are growing or we are dying, T Harv Eker says the same thing Robert Cooper says, Every moment of our lives we are either growing or dying and back in the day, Seneca has many quotes on learning and growing.
The message is the same and almost repetitive to some of us, because you have heard it before and again and again, the scriptures contain it, old philosophers have claimed it and modern day motivational speakers and authors say it too. I was asked about the similar message in many books about the magic of gratitude, as in my Journal – Thankfulness, Appreciation, Gratitude. We are all tapping into the same Universal source. We are hearing the same messages from varied messengers as it is the truth. So write, express yourself, don’t be afraid that what you want to say is not new, guess what? Nothing really is. (Unless you are a scientist and then too, there would have been a spark of it back in history)
As I shared in my book, “Don’t Think of a Blue Ball” Napolean Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich has been around since 1937, it came to my awareness over a decade ago and it went over my head, it re-visited me about 4 years ago and again, I didn’t get it, but last year when I read it, it hit home. Marianne Williamson's "A Return to Love" literally fell off the shelf on my head days when I was editing the final chapter of my book, it was my subconscious mind wanting to add her wonderful poem "Our Greatest Gift" into my book.
The common message is that of gratitude, acceptance and compassion combined with taking action. A knowingness in my heart that not only is it my birth right but my responsibility to let my light shine so that other people can shine too.
The messenger is not important, the message is and we all have a different “observer” and hence a unique way of explaining what we understand to be the truth and how it works. Through the past few weeks, I have been so humbled and grateful that so many are embracing the truth through “Don’t Think of a Blue Ball” and what warms me up even more is that it has helped so many to see that we have to keep learning and growing, or we die.
Happy weekend and TAG someone today,
With Thankfulness, Appreciation and Gratitude,
Malti Bhojwani
How to: Be a Good Boss - Professional Life Coach trained in Ontological Coaching shares her views
Published in Personal Management & Leadership Written by Malti Bhojwani
How to: Be a Good Boss as featured in the Times Of India and Guy Life this month - by Malti Bhojwani PCC - Professional Life Coach, NLP Practitioner, Author, trained in Ontological coaching
Times have changed. Recently, a friend was telling me how different it was to work in India again after having lived overseas. When he was away, people told him off for not saying his “please” and “thank yous" and here in India, his employer told him the diametrical opposite. He was told never to do this when the ‘staff’ does something as it their job, what they are paid to do, and hence, there is no need to be humble or grateful about it! I think my jaw dropped so low, we needed a crane to lift it! Therein, it seems, lies a cultural and a generational gap that desperately needs to be paved.
To me, this is just simple manners and politeness; this is what will gain you respect and love, which is always far more effective than “fear”
I stumbled on an article in which they made a mockery of the old bosses and mentioned their old management strategies of “divide and rule,” so that your employees can never stand up and unify to oppose you. “Never give them credit," “always give them less time than is needed to finish the job” (and then hold it against them in their appraisals) and lastly, “always make mountains out of mole-hills.”
It was funny to read but I'm aware that some people still do treat their employees in these old-fashioned ways even today. Unfortunately, if you don’t aim to inspire, lead by example, and truly wish the best of growth and success for each of your employees, you will not have a happy or healthy team.
A good boss is one who shows appreciation for each employee, seeing clearly how they contribute to his/her getting the job done. They value their employees and share the common vision and goals of the company with them. On that note, here are a few simple things you can incorporate into your 'leading' techniques for a better boss-employee relationship:
Trust
Trust not only that the employee will, but also that he is capable of delivering the job. Hence, bosses are able to delegate and give the employees enough and more information to make decisions with the bigger picture in mind. A good boss solves problems, offers feedback without pointing fingers in blame, and avoids nit-picking on petty details.
Humanize
We no longer live in the days where you could whip people into doing your bidding. Remember that your employees are people with needs and aspirations just like you, and the more you care about them, the more they will care about you and your company.
Make it Fun
Make the office a fun place to be, It has been proven time and again that people are more productive when they are having fun. Support and create fun interactions and brainstorming that would engage your employees from all different areas of the business and involve them activities that unify.
Talking Up vs. Talking Down
Check if you “talk down” to your employees or whether you treat them like children. Remind yourself that they are adults and treat them as responsible ones. People often behave and deliver in the manner you expect them to--so revise your expectations upward!
Acknowledge & Appreciate
Acknowledge and appreciate good work and good effort. It is not always about the numbers; when you can see that your employee has put in his best, then let them know that you noticed and reassure them that it is not only about the results.
Coach them to see that failures are just feedback to teach them for the next time. Empower and support your employee’s growth. It is alright to point out mistakes or to offer constructive criticism as long as you are just as generous with your compliments.
Share
Share as much information as you can about the business to “include” your employees in the common goals and vision. They too want that sense of “belonging” and when you have a team who receive fulfillment of that basic human need from the company they work for, you will have them as devoted employees for life.
Be Humble When Necessary
Be willing to admit that you don’t know everything and be grateful when an employee can either show you or do some things for you. Never be jealous or feel threatened if an employee shows how good he is--it only adds to the strength of your team!
Conclusion
The bottom line--remember that they too have dreams and aspirations and that if through working for you they can grow and blossom to create more for themselves, then you have been a great boss. Most importantly, remember that "with great power comes great responsibility"
How To Manage Your Boss - by Kevin Lobo with tips from Professional Life Coach Malti Bhojwani
Published in Personal Management & Leadership Written by Malti Bhojwani
A good boss is one who shows appreciation for each unique employee seeing clearly how they each contribute to him/her getting the job done. They value their employees and shares the common vision and goals of the company with them in a trusting way.
Trust here means that you believe the employee will and is able to deliver the job hence you are able to delegate and you give the employees enough and more information to make decisions with the bigger picture in mind. The good boss keeps emotions out of it, solves problems, offers feedback without pointing fingers in blame or nit-picking on petty details. The bottom line is to first value yourself, have the guts to risk your job and to learn to communicate your request clearly and specifically. Reiterate to your boss what you assume their request is, so that you don't have any misconceptions of what is being asked of you vs what you understand and hence deliver. Remember that what may seem "obvious" to them or to you, may not be "obvious". So state the specifics before you agree to take on any project. As featured in print in The Mumbai Mirror on the 12th of April 2012 and The Times Of India.
You can stay out of your house longer if you don't like your wife, ignore your parents' calls when you are too bored to talk to them, but bosses... that's a tricky one. Whether you like them or not, you have to interact with them, and if you are planning to stick around in your job, you have to keep them happy. While not everyone has a boss from hell, you sure as hell hate something about your boss that you just can't ignore. We give you the most common archetypes and with the help of life coach Malti Bhojwani, here are tips on how to deal with them.
1. The dangler
So you've planned a big tour through Europe with your friends, a la Zindagi na Milegi Dobara, after speaking to your boss. This kind of boss has promised you can take the leave if you put in a few extra hours. A week before your flight, they turn around and say you can't leave because there is a bigger project in the offing. You are stuck with The Dangler.
They promise things in return for more work and do not fulfill those promises.
Deal with it
If you see this often, email your boss copying everyone else in the meeting about the promises and expectations. Practise writing self-appraisals, train yourself to look at the big picture and type out a self-appraisal every month to send to your boss. This will keep him in the loop about what you are accomplishing for the company. Remind them of their promises every once in a while. Have full faith in yourself - you are a valuable employee or you wouldn't be here. Fearless is the only way to be. These bosses smell fear instinctively.
2. The best friend
This type is great to hang out with, and if you weren't working together, you guys would've been best chums. But when the boss is upset if you don't reveal personal things or forces you to hang out with him/her even if you have plans, it becomes problematic. They are always in your face and everything you do can turn into an emotional argument about how you hurt them.
Deal with it
These bosses don't have a life. Limit the personal info you share and keep your work and social life separate. You aren't being rude, just drawing boundaries.
3. The Viper
If you have barbs thrown at you constantly like, 'My kid makes better presentations than you' or 'I'm glad you wore that dress, it reminds me of what my grandma wore when I was a kid', then you are stuck with the viper. When they get to work, all they seem to want to do is spread their venom around and sink those fangs into you.
Deal with it
Keep this one at arm's length, you don't want to be stung. Practise communicating directly with your boss keeping your worth in mind.
4. The number cruncher
You have been working really hard, but the project that was a done deal suddenly slipped through your fingers. Your boss is aware of the effort you have put in, but is still on your back because the numbers are down. This species does not understand anything other than stats. Your blood and sweat are just body fluids to them.
Deal with it
Do your homework to display a comparative report on numbers between yourself and your competitors. Document the number of attempts/ hours spent per project.
5. The invisible man
If the only person you can turn to during a crisis at work is the mirror, then you have are suffering from the absent boss syndrome. They are always at meetings, imagined or real, and when it's not workrelated, they are chilling with the wife and kids at a sea-side resort in Lakshadweep, while you are pulling 15-hour days in the office.
Deal with it
Find ways to get schedule weekly meetings with them. Try not to be spiteful that they are away. It could also be that they are not aware that you need them.
6. The flaming fury
When was the last time you saw your boss smile? If your answer ranges between never and the last time they fired your colleague, then we sympathise with you. While anger is an emotion that is usually associated with bosses, this one is in the extreme. Whether you are doing a good or a bad job, it doesn't matter. All you receive is a little spittle when they are screaming down your face and a few insults to wipe your face with.
Deal with it
Be as humorous as you can, smile at them, treat them as a human being you care about and see if your 'love' will rub off. They are the ones who probably think the only way to get anything done is to be pissed off. Offer them some kindness and see how the relationship shifts. Often it is your reaction and expectation that they are pissed off that causes the cycle and it just keeps going on and on. It takes only one of you to change the dance between the two of you. So why not take the lead?
7. The softy
This is the one who walks on eggshells around you, apologizes when they ask you to do something, get walked all over by stronger employees and you often feel sorry for them. They are scared of you and this can be very disempowering.
Deal with it
A good approach is to resume the role of a cheerleader and point out to this boss their strengths and show them appreciation. Make this boss look good to their superiors and to your colleagues.
8. The early riser
Early to rise, early to bed. Okay, maybe the saying is the other way around, but this could well be your future if you are stuck with The Early Riser. They are obviously going to be stepping on toes, and your very simple day-to-day job can turn into a political drama.
Deal with it
They want to gain rank and accolades for themselves. Don't feel bad, for often their promotion could mean a promotion for you too. Support this boss in looking good.
9. The nitpicker
Your office is a minefield if you are suck with The Nitpicker. If you put your left foot forward, they demand that you should have put your right and if you put your right, they ask why you didn't swing your hands enough. They will always find faults in everything you do.
Deal with it
Set your boundaries. Let them know you are uncomfortable with them breathing over your shoulder. Request for an 'Operation Manual' if they want specifics.
10. The memento-r
If your boss uses the Five Ws to being every second sentence then unfortunately you are stuck with The Memento-r. He forgets important meetings, ideas that you pitched, and sometimes even forgets that you exist. While you wish you can tattoo everything you spoke about on his body, you realise he is soon going to run out of skin.
Deal with it
Help this one out with reminders, emails, postits, notes. Speak to your colleagues to support this type of boss. Realise and acknowledge that they are in that position due to particular skills or expertise that they possess. If they tend to forget important information, communicating that with them and setting
structures in place to help them would only help you in the long run.
World Business and Executive Coach Pre-Summit May 1st, 2012
https://modernmethods.infusionsoft.com/go/wbecs/gsdf
Last year…
Over 7,000 coaches listened in from the comfort of their own homes.
An industry first…
Top experts under one "virtual" roof, making sure all in attendance got:
- Maximum value
- Executive training
- Great strategies and advice.
This year, we're back better than ever, with another all-star lineup.
If you'd like to sneak a peak, you can attend the initial WBECS sessions FREE via the pre-Summit series.
Click on this link to register:
https://modernmethods.infusionsoft.com/go/wbecs/gsdf
A small selection of thought leaders presenting at the summit will include:
- Sir John Whitmore—pre-eminent thinker in leadership and organisational change
- Verne Harnish—named one of the "Top 10 Minds in Small Business" by Fortune magazine
- Dr. (VG) Vijay Govindarajan—world's leading expert on strategy and innovation
- Dr. Marshall Goldsmith—#1 leadership and #7 business thinker in the world…2011 Thinkers 50 ceremony.
WBECS has one simple mission in mind:
To dramatically improve the success of business and executive coaches the world over…
If you're on board with that, you won't want to miss THE online industry event of the year—WBECS 2012…
Sign up today to reserve your spot.
To Your Continued Success,
Malti Bhojwani - PCC ICF
PS: You'll be pleased to know—No Sales Pitches Allowed!
How To Deal With Failure by Professional Life Coach Malti Bhojwani
Published in Personal Management & Leadership Written by Malti BhojwaniAs Featured in GuyLife on the 22nd of March 2012
Malti Bhojwani is a certified life coach. "Like" her on facebook Malti Bhojwani - Professional Certified Life Coach & Author. When she's not teaching people how to improve their lives, she's helping scores of corporates, educational institutes, and individuals better themselves using her unique coaching techniques. She's also launched a series of YouTube videos offering tips and advice; check them out here.
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.” - JK Rowling
Life’s all about perspective so before we begin, I’d like you to imbibe the following--there is no failure, just results. People who have never failed have basically never come out of their comfort zones or taken risks; they only did enough to get by and stayed on the sidelines of true success because they are so afraid of failing.
Still, failing is a life experience--most often a painful one that we all have to go through. So here’s everything you need to know about dealing with it in the healthiest possible manner. I’ve broken it down into three simple segments, which should make it even easier to understand:
You Did Not Fail, It Did
First, lets define failure and success. What is success to you and will the lack of it equal failure? If that is the way you are seeing it, you are being extremely hard on yourself and this very emotion is what will come in the way of your success.
Keep in mind that you are not a failure nor do you fail. A project may, a business might, but you don’t fail. This is because as long as you keep getting up and pursuing, your experiences are just a wealthy bank to help you get closer to your desires.
Opportunity To Revise Your Strategy
The experience is a part of getting the recipe right. So look at your strategies again and see what and where things went wrong. What were the signs and what were the emotions? What were you saying to yourself when you knew this was going south?
A strategy can be compared to a recipe. Ingredients and the timing and sequence are put in and the method they are mixed in is imperative. So remember that these experiences are a great opportunity to retrace your steps.
Also, keep in mind that insanity means doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. So if you find that the results are not aligned with the expected outcomes, then you will need to, as a group, adjust the actions. Thus, it is essential to identify the particular course of action that did not work, and change your strategy.
The journey of success is being comfortable to admit that you may have misjudged a situation.
Keep On Moving
Finally, don’t stop, don’t cry and certainly don’t blame or punish yourself! Leave the “Go into exile I must... failed I have” style insane behaviour to Star Trek characters like Yoda and get back on your horse and simply keep on moving. Persistence is faith in motion. You can only persist when you believe and you can only succeed when you persist.
Be ready to make decisions. Have the passion and guts to stand up and take responsibility and most importantly, know that there are no failures, only feedback.
When my clients ask me,‘But what if I fail?’ I often tend to respond with a ‘What if you succeed?’ The strangest thing is that our deepest fear is not our darkness but in fact our light.
“Don't worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try.”- Jack Canfield (Creator of Chicken Soup For The Soul)
-Pictures courtesy Thinkstock-
http://guylife.com/news-lifemore/how-to-deal-with-failure/11683
Do leave your comments and questions.
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”– Winston Churchill
Malti offers one-off 45 minute Power Coaching Calls for US$180
Indian Rs9,220
Singapore $226
Indonesian Rupiah: Rp1650
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Book yourself a session now - they will be the best investment you'll make this year....one call can change the course of your life with new perspective.
How to: Center Yourself And Deal With Stress At Work Part 2 by Coach Malti Bhojwani
Published in Personal Management & Leadership Written by Malti Bhojwani
In the first part of this series, I presented a deeper understanding of stress and started listing solutions for all your workspace woes; I will continue from there, assuming you have already read the first part of this series. If you haven’t yet, you can do so right here.
Make a Choice: Choose to respond to situations rather than reacting impulsively out of your anger, which is induced by your stress in the first place.
Identify the Stressor: Most of the things that get us stressed are not life-threatening.
Some major life-changing events can cause stress and most therapists would suggest not taking on too many of those simultaneously. For example, change of work, change of place of residence, change of relationship status, and the death of a loved one.
However, when we are dealing with regular day-to-day stressors, my recommendation is to learn to identify that your body and your language are going into stress mode and then replace your body position, breathing pattern, and language immediately with more useful and productive alternatives.
Centering: And finally, we come to the most useful step but it is only possible to try this once you have made up your mind to implement my initial suggestions. What I have for you is a step-by-step guide to a process called Centering. You can relate this to putting the gear-stick in your car in 'neutral' before moving it to gear 1, 2, 3 or even reverse. When you are feeling stressed, it is an indication that you are off-centre.
This exercise will take barely two minutes and you can do it anywhere--at your desk, in the bathroom, car, elevator, anytime. The idea is to make it habitual and practice it several times a day in order to etch new neurological pathways and new habitual body positions so that you can get into 'Centre' mode easily.
Small amounts of fear and stress let us know we're alive and moving in the right direction. Feeling the fear and doing something anyway can be exhilarating and rewarding. Let the fear and stress bring you closer to your goals.
Allowing yourself to go into the "freeze mode" I mentioned in Part 1 will stop you from achieving your dreams and limit your happiness. Most of all, learn to be light and add humour to situations that you cannot do anything about. Life does not have to be so serious!
Why You Need to Center Yourself
When people ask me why they need to center themselves, here's how I respond. When you can find your center--the center of your body, thoughts and emotions, and language--you can revolve around your own axis. When you revolve your life around someone other than you, you lose your own alignment. Just as the earth revolves around its own axis daily and at the same time also revolves around the sun, if you don’t find your own axis to revolve around, you cannot be there for anyone else.
The following centering exercise is derived from the BEL Model by the Newfield Network.
How to Center Yourself
- Close your eyes. Sit in an open body position with your feet flat on the floor. Your palms should be open and face upwards on your thighs.
- Notice the fabric of your pants and how they feel on your skin; notice the feel of your feet on the ground.
- Close your eyes softly, relax your eye-lids, balance your head on your shoulders without leaning forward or backwards. Relax your shoulders.
- Breathe into your Dan Tian (2 inches below your navel), in and out. Place your left hand on your belly and imagine your breath flowing into there, imagine the center of your belly in depth and in width, imagine the spot that is equidistant from your front, back, left and right. This is the center of your body.
- Accept things as they are--all your thoughts, emotions, and feelings. Put everything else aside. They are already in the past. Accept them, don't change or resist, and just accept your emotions. Acceptance is the center of emotion.
- Silence. Imagine that it is silent all around you--totally quiet. Silence is the center of language.
- All you have to do now is notice your breathing and notice the 3 centers--of your body, your emotions and your language.
- Open your eyes. You are centered. You are now in neutral; from here, your choices increase. You can "go" anywhere from here with grace and with ease. You are now equidistant linguistically, in your body and in your feelings from every other body position, emotion or language.
Put It Into Practice
Practice this often and do it anywhere; you can practice centering standing up, before you go from one meeting to the next, from work to home, or from one call to another.
We say practice because there is no being centered all the time. You go off-center and you come back when you notice it. Whenever you feel overwhelmed or discombobulated, confused or annoyed, stressed or afraid, overly excited or concerned, you are off-center--so just take 2 minutes and center yourself.
Some claim that it has to be “embodied” before it can be really useful in your life. My claim is that just making a habit of centering yourself is one of the best stress-relievers you can incorporate into your life. Center when you are shifting from one meeting to the next, when you getting off a vendor call and on to a sales call, or when you are moving from “hard-baller” at work to “loving dad and husband” at home.
You cannot be centered all the time. Being centered in every moment is not the aim. The focus is to notice when you are off-center and to have the awareness and capacity to make the conscious choice to come back to center over and over again.
Remember, learning is not the acquisition of knowledge; rather, it is practice plus time. In other words, knowing about centering is different than centering itself! Knowing about cycling or driving is different from actually riding a bike or driving a car. So the sooner you start practicing, the better. Good luck!
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How to: Deal with Stress at Work Part 1 - by Lifecoach Malti Bhojwani
Published in Personal Management & Leadership Written by Malti BhojwaniSelf-Evaluation
What has your stress cost you lately in your personal and professional relationships? Be honest with yourself. Have you broken anything, been horribly rude to anyone you care about, blown up over a business relationship or perhaps, even hurt someone physically? Has it made you hurt yourself by indulging in vices and staying in denial?
The Surface Explanation
Stress is caused when we are in fear of some undesirable outcome. So, when we have deadlines, schedules or bills that are due, and we can’t see ourselves meeting these targets, we feel a sense of fear. When we fear getting caught for doing or not doing something that was expected of us--we feel this fear. And it is this very fear that causes stress.
Fear is not bad, just as stress isn’t bad either. In fact, without stress, we won’t win races or go that extra mile and perform. Stress motivates us to take action sometimes. It only becomes bad for you when you allow it to reach levels where it instigates the same options that fear does. Namely, the 'Fight,' 'Flight' or 'Freeze' response.
A Deeper Understanding of Stress
Our bodies have a primitive--or should I say limbic--brain-generated response to stress, which no longer serves us in our concrete jungles as it did back when we were cavemen. Adrenaline and a racing heart and mind equals the need to "act;"
dread equals the need to avoid; "can’t act" equals a freeze.
These responses were valid and useful when we were hunters. Our modern day stressors are not fatal and often do not need us to realistically go into the fight, flight or freeze modes. Unfortunately, many of us allow our bodies to go there but only due to a lack of this understanding.
Solutions
Exaggerate: Think of the words that you may recite in your head when you are stressed and then exaggerate them; notice what this feels like in your body and what it does to your breathing.
Usually the message is something like 'I will fail,' 'I will be sacked,' 'I may get demoted or scolded by my superiors,' 'people will see me as incompetent,' or 'I am just not good enough.' Terrible isn’t it? Can you see how unhealthy and how unproductive thinking this way can be to you?
Notice how your body folds in, your breathing becomes short, your eyes and brows burrow inwards to form lines and frowns on your forehead, and your mouth goes down. Exaggerate the facial expressions stress brings with it and you will get a sense of how terrible it is for you.
Maintain Structure: Stress is a sign of feeling overwhelmed, which simply means a lack of structure. Writing a list of all the important and urgent things that you need to get done is usually the first step to alleviating a lot of stress.
Do what needs to be done to pick your game up--be on time, clean up your clutter on your phone, computer, desk and calendar. When your stress causes you to react in anger because you are running late or caught in traffic, make it a point to just leave earlier, play good music in your car or iPod and relax instead. Renegotiate your commitments if you have to. Then put them in different categories, prioritize, and get cracking!
Relax: The best thing you can do about something that's beyond your grasp is relax and surrender. If you really can’t do anything then at least stop directing all this worry, stress and negative emotion towards your problem. Otherwise, this will render you incapable of doing anything else.
There’s still more advice I have to offer regarding dealing with work-related stress, including an exceptionally helpful centering exercise. Watch out for that in the second part of my series!
As featured on GuyLife.com on the 9th February 2012
How To Negotiate Effectively - by Malti Bhojwani as Featured in Guylife 19th Aug 2011
Published in Personal Management & Leadership Written by Malti Bhojwani
When it comes to approaching negotiations, think win-win. Negotiations only work when both parties feel like they are getting their needs fulfilled and we’re here to help you get started with the following pointers.
Show Appreciation
Look for common interests between yourself and the people you are negotiating with. It could be anything: kids, sports, authors, cities, drinks. Once you’ve established this, they become your partners and can relate to you, which makes it easier to be on the same side as them. You are not selling them something anymore but rather helping them to buy. This is a very simple distinction that goes a long way in making a difference in how they view you.
Know Your Stuff
The person with the most information is usually the most powerful person in the room. Study and research as best you can before you go in to negotiate. In order to do this, you have to be able to have a helicopter view with absolute win-win for both parties in mind; only then will you be able to come through as an honest and open negotiator. This is the best way to gain trust.
Ask Questions and Listen
You need to elicit their objectives and desired outcome. Learn why they are asking for the things that they've requested. For that, there is an NLP process called chunking up. Ask questions such as ‘For what purpose? What is the intention? What is that an example of?’ This will help you find common ground and understand the motivations behind their behaviour. If you understand the desired objectives behind a specific point, you will be able to chunk it up to a common goal, making it a win-win situation.
No, Maybe and BATNA
Be very clear about your “BATNA” before you go in. If you have to consult with anyone else in your organization, do so before you go in to negotiate.
BATNA stands for: the “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” The term was coined by Roger Fisher and William Ury of the Harvard Program on Negotiation
To illustrate BATNA with a simple example:
If a landlord of a Mumbai flat declined an offer from an expat client for Rs. 1 lakh a month, then the landlord’s BATNA from that point on would be that same Rs. 1 lakh a month since that was the rent he could have gotten elsewhere.
Using this example, any future offer that represented amounts below the BATNA, or terms that were substantially different, would be rejected by the landlord since he knows he can get a better deal elsewhere.
A BATNA is the alternative course of action if a negotiation is not reached. This is what you measure the agreement you are negotiating and will help you decline agreements that are not in your best interests because you know you have recourse to better options.
If you do get a “maybe”, let them know that you have taken it as a “no”; often, that would make them want to negotiate with you! It only gives you the freedom and time to focus on leads that will turn into “yeses”. A lot of time is wasted in business with maybes. So do not be afraid of a “no”. You need to be able to walk away from the deal assertively and the opposing party has to be able to see this confidence in you.
Yes, Yes, Yes
Discuss the simple stuff first, so that you have the opposing party in the habit of agreeing with you and seeing that you are easy to negotiate with. Studies say that if you can elicit two initial yeses, the 3rd one will be easier.
Be Comfortable With Silence
Use silence to your advantage. You do not have to say something all the time. “Allow” them to respond or make suggestions after you have made a statement and while you are silent, let your body language and your personal self-talk be positive and optimistic. Half the victory is yours when you expect it a favourable outcome. Positive expectations are more powerful than you think. If they provoke you in any way, never lose your temper but wait it out. A little bit of silence is fine; learn to be comfortable with silence. Your silence also shows that you are indeed listening to them. Play back what you have heard by saying everything you understood back to them and ask if you missed anything. This ensures that you are both on the same page and also increases the comfort level as you negotiate because of your use of their language.
Conditional Agreements
Once you have identified and connected on the higher intentions, ask them if you can have this, then would you be OK with this? Give something to get something. Study your numbers and your offer before going in so that you know exactly where you stand and where you do have room for negotiation so that you can pull these up as trump cards when needed. What can you give them in exchange for their business that is not as valuable to you as it may be to them?
“Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. – Stephen Covey
In the end, Stephen Covey’s description of win-win is the only attitude that will create a successful negotiation. Happy negotiating and good luck! Ask Malti a question and check out the other experts Guylife has on board to answer your queries.
-Pictures courtesy Thinkstock-
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