Sara Jane Lowry

Coaching and Consultation

Influence happens 1 person at a time

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Are you having difficulty influencing people to buy into your ideas? Are you wishing you had more impact at your job? Then, you may need to consider planning your conversations and building in flexibility in approaches.

Sparrows conversing in a group trying to influence one another

Influence has some principles that might be helpful to remember in those conversations:

  • What’s in it for them? (People do things for their own reasons.)
  • Make sure to take a reading of ego and relationships and how that relates to results. Perhaps, reconsider the balance of those three.
  • Are you employing the behavior of “If you don’t ask for it, you won’t get it” talk with that person?
  • Remember that influence happens 1 person at a time, not as a group?
  • Are you taking 100% responsibility for your own impact on that person? This means: do you realize that what you intend to impact doesn’t always translate to the impact the other person experiences?
  • Realize that with influence conversations there are no guarantees: use each influence conversation as an opportunity to learn and improve.

And, it requires “influence flexibility” to know what approach to take with each person.  Each person requires their own plan.

Start with a goal

How can you think about what you want that person to do, say, think or feel differently? And, as you consider that outcome, also think about whether it is possible to accomplish it one meeting, or if you will need more than one.

2 Sparrows at odds with each other

Determine what might motivate them

Even Dale Carnegie, the author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People, knew that to have influence, you needed to understand what a person was focused on, and what was important for them in the situation.

  • What will motivate them in this situation?
  • Are there reasons that you might provide that would influence them?
  • What incentives can you provide that s/he would value?
  • Or, is there something you could you remove, or use to apply pressure to influence them?
  • What are his/her primary interests or concerns in the situation?

And, it’s important to address THEIR key interests, concerns, or frustrations first before bringing up your own if you want to influence a change.

Influence is a 2-way street.

As you prepare to have the conversation, check in with your own rigidity and bias:

  • are you willing to be open to his/her ideas? Check your own needs against theirs? And, are you able to inspire them to a shared vision?
  • If you know the places where you are not willing to be flexible, then make that clear up front.
  • Don’t air all your grievances, or be overly emotional. Therefore, think through what you know you shouldn’t say or do because it might escalate or upset the situation. This is a good time to practice your own emotional awareness because you don’t want to lose focus.
  • Is there common ground such as shared values or experiences?
2 sparrows arguing

Sometimes conversations don’t go as planned.

So, plan in advance what you will do if you need to go to “plan B.”

  • Plan to excuse yourself if it isn’t going well to regroup
  • Consider coming back to it later with new information, or when the situation is calmer.

If you weren’t able to achieve the goal you set, think about what didn’t work in your approach, and notice what you learned about the process of influence. Because learning how to influence people to hear your ideas, or perform better on a team, is a process of learning more about the people you work with or want to influence.

I can help you plan your next important conversation, clarify your goals, and rehearse to be sure you are ready and maximize your success. Book me at https://sarajanelowrybooking.as.me/

20 guiding habits to finding work you love

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chalkboard with words I love my work and my work loves me. The word heart is actually a symbol of a heart.20 guiding habits to finding work you love

Finding work you love is everyone’s ideal. Sadly, less than a third of Americans report doing work they love. I am fortunate to work with clients every day that are on a journey to a new future for themselves and their work. In fact, they are talking about a future that they find authentic and meaningful; not without challenges, but inspired and impactful. They are each growing in their careers or starting new businesses. They are changing careers or leading new companies. But there some similarities between their paths that they are learning, or have learned to live by in this journey.  I call them the guiding habits for creating or manifesting work you love.

20 guiding habits

  1. Think big.Have a big vision of what you intend to accomplish from the get-go. Get out of your head trash and go to the place that causes your hands to shake because it would be exciting and scary. Stop listening to the people who say you can’t.
  2. Don’t play small. When your vision isn’t big enough, you only accomplish the middle of the dream. Sometimes your idea of “realistic” is really code for not knowing how to get there, or a mindset that it’s not possible. Sure, you can stay there for a little while, but go back to #1 – inspire yourself.
  3. Fail big. Fail often. Fear of failure is a waste of time. I get it, failure stings. Actually, it’s not a failure when you learn from it. Better to do it soon though, before giving away your time, which isn’t a renewable resource. Remember your strengths. Most of all, take time to assess – but don’t stay there.
  4. Value your time more than money. So don’t waste your time on the 80% (Pareto’s 80/20 principle), or on networking without connecting the dots.
  5. Invest in yourself. Get a coach and a mentor. Sign up webinars and classes. Read every day. Because there’s not enough time to learn it all on your own.blank book opened to a page that says A little space to be creative
  6. Creativity is key to your success. Actually, it’s a mindset change. It requires putting yourself into a state of absorption, and fearlessness. Be a maverick. Get out of your ruts. Learn to rest and recharge.
  7. Focus on your strengths. You can spend a lot of time focused on trying to improve your weaknesses. If they are relational, work on them. Otherwise, outsource your weaknesses and the things you hate doing. Stop thinking no one can do it as well as you – delegate!
  8. Do uncomfortable things. If it’s comfortable, you know you’re not pushing enough. Sometimes setting goals is the first place to push yourself. A little discomfort leads to productivity.
  9. Speak up. If you don’t tell the world what you are doing or thinking, they won’t know about it. Contribute your observations or successes to your team, to your customers, and to your community.
  10. Get others to help you. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. This goes hand in hand with #11.
  11. Be vulnerable. Let people in. Since the state of being vulnerable can be an act of courage, this kind of risk-taking isn’t passive but instead, is actively being willing to put it out there in reaching for the greatest rewards as you define it.
  12. Promote yourself. Just do it a genuine way. Bring your whole self. Don’t wait to be seen. Write, comment, vlog.
  13. Your competitors are your role models. Study and learn from them. It’s where you will recognize not only how you’re different, but how they interact internally, externally, and ethically and how you interact.
  14. See yourself as a contributor in your field. Don’t exclude yourself because you are new or inexperienced. When you’re new, you see things with fresh eyes and fresh ideas.
  15. Take care of yourself. This is a long journey. You need healthy mind, body, and heart. Make your own self-care plan and stick to it. It’s not a badge of honor to be exhausted.
  16. Find a powerful support group.A mastermind. A small group of like-minded colleagues. Find people who will help you grow, make connections, truly see you, and keep you accountable.
  17. Find inspiration and guidance in those who have mastered what you are trying to accomplish. Reach out to them. Follow them on social media. Doing work you love is a journey of discovery.
  18. Share your expertise freely. Give more than you take. Don’t hoard information. Let people learn from you. The more you give, the more you receive – in relationships and inspiration.
  19. Pursue your passion for its fire, inventiveness and life force. Your inspiration is what gives you the fuel you need even in the dark days. Don’t let anyone dampen it.
  20. Nurture patience. Finding/doing work that you love is a process. No one is an overnight success. There will be down days. (see #3, #8)

Mindset and heart space

Remember that your mindset and attitudes underpin the whole journey to doing work you love.  Creation and manifestation are acts of courage. In making a transition, it’s not just understanding the past, but what you can change about it to move on. For many people, uncertainty can overwhelm: it can be difficult to see which path to take, in the midst of change or transition. So, stop going it alone. Ask for help. And bring your hesitancy, your disappointed, overwhelmed, or confused self on a new journey toward the life you deserve. When you allow yourself to deeply listen to yourself, you will gain clarity and passion for doing work you love.

Fresh start: It’s time to awaken to our potential to live authentically

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circular stairs highest potentialWe need a fresh start and conscious awakening. If you’re like me, your lives are flooded with information from every direction.  And we have become very good at selecting the information we choose to let in, to affect us, to learn from, to judge others and ourselves by, and to believe. We filter that information by choice on how it fits our beliefs, our experiences, our worldview, and our desires. Inevitably, we reject the information that doesn’t seem to directly fit. Thus, if we find ourselves reacting to the content of information and it makes us feel uncomfortable, or afraid, or helpless, we reject it, or get angry, or pretend we didn’t see it.

Dead or alive?dead or alive

As we are all connected on a deeper human level, we can’t pretend we didn’t consume it. Unfortunately, that information remains inside of us and shows up as an unconscious worry, doubt, anxiety and depression. Or, we experience feelings that bubble up related to that information, but don’t know why.  Most of all, we just want to stop feeling that way. We feel brittle, ghost-like. So, we try to ignore the feelings: we eat, drink, anaesthetize ourselves with medication, with shopping or trips, with mindless entertainment. Or it shows up as anger, lack of compassion, lack of focus. In ways that matter, we begin to deaden ourselves. It’s as if we will ourselves into stressful, reactionary, unhappy and frantic lives. As Sigmund Freud said, “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”  And as we suffer, so do our families, our colleagues, and our communities. When that happens, we become less than our true selves. We no longer are living our highest potential.

It’s time for a fresh start – to awaken

When you go through a conscious awakening, you undergo a period of intense change and revelation in your fresh start awakeninglife.

If every day is an awakening, you will never grow old. You will just keep growing. – Gail Sheehy

Conscious awakening doesn’t mean that you shut out the information, the news, the situations we face. So, it requires that we take a step back for a moment and find a breath of distance.  A breath of distance is when we stop and breathe and focus fully on what we are seeing, hearing, reading. Perhaps, we listen fully to the person who is speaking. Since the breath allows us to find clarity, we can make a choice on how we want to respond.  When we choose a breath of distance, we move past the urge to complain – complaining is a negative release of energy that disempowers us. Or it releases stress, anxiety, and anger.

Consciousness leads t0 intuitively and creatively taking action

Christof Koch, Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, tells us: “Consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe. Wherever there is integrated information, there is experience.” The more we move to being conscious, the more we understand ourselves and the world. A conscious awakening begins with a quiet moment as we go inside to question our beliefs and reactions. Here you find answers to your suffering and can make peace within moments of silence. Most importantly, this is where you will recognize your spirit, your purpose, and your ability to choose. What reflects your highest potential? As we begin to figure out whether we can change something and how, we can take conscious action. Or, sometimes we choose to surrender to the situation within ourselves. A fresh start might mean walking away in order to go within, or working with a coach on mindfulness.

All humans connect through consciousness. So, how we think, act, react, and believe ripples out from us into the world and affects others. Consequently, we have a responsibility to one another to respond to the world from a place of consciousness.

Today is a new day. Fresh start, begins now.awaken fresh start

Mindfulness benefits my business? I thought it was just for yoga.

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Pause for mindfulness benefits

How does mindfulness benefit my business?

Mindfulness benefits business but only if you use it. If you’re a start-up company, a freelancer, a small business, or a nonprofit, you are stressed – about money. Stressed thinking does not lead to good decisions, more sales, or improved relationships. It damages our health.  In our agitation, we often focus on small things we can control, rather than bold moves. We try to manage the details of what we are already doing rather than calmly analyzing what’s going well and what’s failing.  We are unable to come up with creative solutions.

And what is failure anyway? Failure is part of critical growth. Did you see a child give up walking after falling down?  Of course not. You see them learn to hold onto things, to take shorter walks, and to fall down but get up again. There are dozens of studies on how mindfulness practices can improve our stress levels, and our sleep. Stress can also have a huge impact on our creativity and decision-making.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

– Winston Churchill

Creative paralysis is fear of failure

We procrastinate in making hard decisions, and holding the hard conversations we dread. It’s as if avoiding things will make it get better. Mindfulness benefits include converting our fear of failure to action. One of the most frequent sources of creative paralysis is fear of failure. It’s nonaction that keeps us stuck doing the same thing over and over with no improvement rather than risk ‘failure.’

So, back to mindfulness and what benefits it brings to my business.  Mindfulness does 4 important things for business leaders: it brings focus, clarity, creativity, and compassion (for yourself, and others) back into your field of awareness. I recently was working with a nonprofit executive. She was simply unable to see how her reluctance to create an earned revenue program was keeping her tied to fickle foundation funding. When we began to explore her beliefs around money using mindfulness, she began to let herself explore new opportunities. Mindfulness benefits for her were connecting again with skills in leadership that she could use in this new endeavor. And, happily she was able to gain foundation dollars to support the launch.

Mindfulness benefits: is it really as simple as breathing?

Breathing is where you begin to focus your attention. And the breathing that is part of mindfulness work is where you start to get some distance from the pressure of current issues. It’s where you start to tune into what your body is feeling, and the emotional surges that upset your day. Mindfulness is a practice which means you might try to do it every day, or even several times a day.  You do it because the practice bears fruit within days of keeping at it. You can read more about the steps to mindfulness here. Or find a more in-depth blog post by John Parrot called The Art of Mindfulness: Why it Matters to get a full look at the benefits of mindfulness.

beach mindfulness benefits

When you go to the beach, you breathe in the salt air, you feel the warm sun on your lips, and the wind across your shoulders. You notice the ocean, the sky, the sand as you gaze at the ocean waves coming in and out.  You often find you’re not thinking about much of anything. And, you can probably see mindfulness benefits easily in this scenario.

Now imagine having a moment like that in your day where instead of waves, you see those things you believe to be failures, or irritating people, or worrisome sales numbers also floating in and out with the breath.  Can you be a witness and observer and look at it on all sides? In a place of detachment, can you step back and let it just be without assigning pejoratives, and see what isn’t working?

Shifting beliefs

Mindful benefits your ability to face what scares you.  It is possible to see how your beliefs and thoughts can be transformed to ones of confidence, to courage, to a creative solution as we see how to shift our usual patterns by becoming more aware of them. And, your mind can become a bridge from the problem to the answer.

 

 

What does mindfulness have to do with success?

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multitasking is not mindful

Mindfulness is key to success – busyness is not

Today I talked with a small group of women entrepreneurs about the importance of mindfulness in their day. One of the women described her day. It includes running from phone call to a meeting to picking up kids. Followed by making dinner, answering emails to creating a presentation. Her day consists of checking off tasks and activities as she went as she juggles a burgeoning business and a young family. She shared that emotionally she feels drained and overwhelmed. And yet, every day she thinks she was being successful: “I am accomplishing a great deal and something useful seems to be getting done, and I am getting lots of positive press for my business.”

Is this how you measure success?

We spent some time in practicing some mindfulness pauses. She revealed that she was equating a busy schedule and positive reviews with a happy life. She began to notice that she was never fully present in any momenmindfulness begins the dayt or activity, already skipping ahead mentally to the next thing. “I’m simply going from meeting to activity on my daily schedule,” she said, “but I’m not really there.”  I’m driving my kids while thinking about my last meeting, and looking at a paper for my next conversation. I never have enough time to focus on the next innovation needed in my business. Then it’s time to put the kids to bed, and stay up till midnight responding to emails and preparing my presentation that’s in two days. I fall into bed at night just to wake up the next morning and start all over. I’m exhausted.”

By recognizing how much time we spend in a mental state known as continuous partial attention, we deprive ourselves of fully living. We feel anxious about more complex situations as we don’t take the time to give it our full attention. We seem to expect ourselves to multitask, efficiently answering emails while on a conference call. Sound familiar?

Ghosting, the opposite of mindfulness

I call this ‘ghosting,’ where one’s form appears to be solidly present but the life force inside is vapory and permeable, hovering around the edges of your life. And when you’re in this state of being, you lose touch. You no longer know what motivated you in the first place.  You don’t recognize the person you envisioned yourself to be as the lead in your own life. But now, there are others who depend on you.

So how can you choose differently?

This requires a change in your beliefs about success norms. As a culture, everyone tries to copy and reengineer what we observe as success with others we admire.  But that is often a focus on the past which had its own circumstances, rules, norms, and relationships. Comparing our lives, choices, relationships, successes to another can be a learning experience. But it can also be a slippery slope to devaluing the uniqueness of your own market, relationships, expertise and intuition.  In being focused, you allow your own creativity and relationships develop new choices that enrich your life and fit your goals.two paths - mindfulness or multitasking

So where does mindfulness fit in this?

When you bring your full attention into the present moment, you become alert. You hold an inner focus – a fuller consciousness of what responses you can choose to challenges that are being presented in this moment. Or, you may begin to hear the sounds around you, take note of the day and weather, or the aches in your body. As you pay attention to your breath, bringing your awareness more into your body, you release a bit of what has been so important just the moment before.  In that moment, a more fully conscious recognition of what is real and what is “drama” becomes possible. You begin to register what your arguments for and against the situation are as your values and beliefs arise. It may include an arising of your instincts or intuition, your “knowing” of what should happen next. You are able to listen more fully to your business partner. Or you find yourself enjoying your child’s recitation about the field trip experience today. In that moment, you can respond fully rather than react or push away these moments as distractions not on your checklist.

Mindfulness is a moment by moment practice

Creating a better future is dependent on the seeds you plant in the present moment. Planting seeds requires a full and complete acceptance of the present moment, one without judgement. Being present in this way helps you to have clarity about where to focus. And being nonjudgmental allows you to have compassion for yourself, and be more fully you in any moment. No more ghost, but rather a full present human. So here you are. Can you pause in your hurried, complicated, and entangled life to be present in this moment? You can begin by stopping and focusing on your breath. Where do you feel it in your body? In your nostrils? Can you just focus there for this moment now?

Mindfulness is the key to an enriching life and successful leadership.

If you need help learning how to use mindfulness to be more fully you, you can visit:  http://www.freemindfulness.org/download for free audio recordings.  Sometimes it’s helpful to work with a mindfulness coach – if that’s you, please reach out for a session at https://sarajanelowry.com/contact.html.  I work with individuals and leaders to bring mindfulness into their lives and work.

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