by Liz Clark | Feb 1, 2016 | Business Matters, Personal Development, Pursuits, Uncategorized
This mindset held me back for many years. I sincerely believe it was responsible for a lot of unnecessary unhappiness. Try this mindset shift experiment to begin enjoying your life right...
by Liz Clark | Jan 28, 2016 | Getting Stuff Done, Personal Development, Pursuits
With a headline like that, I’ll get straight to the point: Ashamed is how you feel in the morning. Or at least that’s how I felt. Can’t-look-myself-in-the-mirror-ashamed. And despite the awful shame, it happens again and again. It starts innocently enough: An adventurous glint in my eye, a pep in my step, The seed planted deep within my mind, nothing else will satisfy… I rush impatiently through my “regular” work and chores and errands. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes days, but it always happens the same. Sooner or later, I can wait no longer. The pull becomes too great. Everything else pales in comparison to the singular fulfillment of this one desire: I HAVE A SHINY, NEW IDEA! Bolstered by sheer will-power and determination, I start out confidently, thinking I know exactly how this love affair with a new idea is going to go: “Why, hello there, Idea. Ready to change the world?” But this Idea is not so easily tamed. After one or two rough nights of unmet expectations, I awake in the morning – bleary eyed and ashamed – and slip back into my “regular” life. Leaving the idea behind without so much as a phone number. I try to pretend it never happened. Have you ever had a great – I mean lightning-bolt-great – idea? Maybe while driving? Maybe in the shower? Maybe in those moments just before you fully wake up in the morning? Ever felt that idea slipping through your fingers the moment you do a little research and find a similar (or identical) idea already out there? Has an idea even broken your...
by Liz Clark | Aug 2, 2015 | Business Matters, Pursuits, Team Building
Remember that awful feeling in the pit of your stomach when your teacher announced a new group project? Whether the teacher chose the groups or you got to choose didn’t matter – no one liked group projects. I liked to work alone because I was the nerd kid who ended up doing most of the work for the entire group. I always thought the other kids must love group projects. But, no. They hated them, too. We didn’t realize it, but “group work” is an educational theory to help students develop something beyond learning the subject matter at hand – skills like teamwork and leadership. You know, to “prepare for real life.” I’m not sure if that worked as well as the theory postulated it would. But, it is true that teams are an inevitable part of real life: at work, in business, sports, church, with friends and family – every project has the potential to need a team. We may still be groaning and rolling our eyes on the inside at the idea of having to work as a team, but “resistance is futile:” we cannot simply avoid “group work” forever. As a business consultant (and as a human!), I’ve worked with many teams over the years, and it is truly awful to be on a losing team. But, it’s also incredibly amazing to be part of a high-performance team. How do you know the difference? One way is to measure is results: is the team achieving what it was meant to achieve? But, any quick study in human behavior will tell you: achievement is only one measure of success. You can scare, manipulate, bribe (read: “incentivize”) people into “delivering results” – that doesn’t necessarily...
