by | October 6, 2011 · 5:00 pm

Good Grief

Sheryl Eldene, MA, MBA

This month is all about transition.  Many transitions need to move through a stage of grief.  What’s the difference between “good grief” and a pity party? As a business decision, I closed my massage practice of 17 years last week. I knew it was the right decision, but I’ve been grieving the loss of my connection to many wonderful people, and my chance to contribute to their lives.

I really wanted to avoid the pity party, but in doing so, I also ignored a very real emotion that was welling up, and I found myself with a lump in my throat that I even tried to imagine was a cold coming on!

“Good Grief” for me this week is self-care:

  1. Crying when I need to
  2. Sleeping when I want to
  3. Staying in meditation as long as I can
  4. Allowing a wound to heal

It made me think, that if I were cut, I’d take care of the wound, keep it clean, keep it safe from any further tearing, and spend very little time in a pity party. I’m learning a lot about good grief.

What resources do you use to give space for grief while honoring your own integrity and intention toward your future?

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Filed under Business Transitions, Inner Coach, Intentions, Personal Transitions, Sheryl Eldene

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by | September 15, 2011 · 10:48 am

Got Your Big Girl Panties Game On?

Sheryl Eldene, MA, MBA

Put on your Big Girl panties and go for the gold. Women often do business “politics” with pull-up diapers and wonder why they aren’t achieving the goals they set out.
I’ve been wondering what the difference is between how men operate in the workplace and how women operate. In my corporate career, the most challenging job I had was managing a group of data entry employees, which were all women. [Of course, they were all women, it was one of the lowest paying jobs at the company!! – but that’s entirely an different discussion.]  The cat fighting for status was brutal and for years I’ve been trying to perceive what makes a team of men different than a team of women. Yes, it can be partly that we’re from Venus and we’ve been trained to listen to our emotions more than those Martians.

One thing I’ve understood from Games your Mother never Taught You, a book I read in the ‘70’s is that men, more often than women have been able to play team sports – football, basketball, soccer, although that that is gradually changing. They learn from that experience to rely on team-mates, that the team wins or the whole team loses and there is praise for the individual that made a game point for the team. They also learn that a single skirmish is just a single skirmish. It is an opportunity to learn more about how this specific game is played – about the opponents strengths and weaknesses. Without that bedrock perspective, a skirmish takes on an entirely new meaning.

For many women, losing a skirmish is devastating, shameful and cause for revenge or escape. When you lose a bid for a position, especially to another woman, or lose a contract to another firm, even one that played “dirty”, or are assigned to work under an incompetent, annoying boss, what do you do? It seems to be a girl’s response to attempt to sabotage the person who got the job you wanted, post nasty stories about the dirty company on your facebook page or blog, and mean gossip talk your new boss. All those responses are responses of a victim acting from a place of powerlessness. Yes, we live in a male dominated society where the male way of doing things and being in the world is the standard, but what is the female standard that we want to create – that acknowledges our access to feelings and visions and proceeds from knowing that we are powerful business women?

What skirmishes in your life have you allowed to derail you and take you out of the game? If those skirmishes were a long time ago, you might be able to see a bigger picture by now. That’s what those Martian boys have that helps them get a different perspective on each skirmish – they are in the game to win, and losing a skirmish can, if you let it, teach you how to play with more skill, more resources, and more power —if we can remember not to sweat the small stuff, and on the journey to our vision, it’s all small stuff, just minor course corrections as we stay on track toward our life passion to those Big Dreams of yours.  (Check out www.onpurposeliving.com for more ideas on how women do and can play the business game.)

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by | September 8, 2011 · 8:32 am

Never Compromise your Dream

by Sheryl Eldene, MA, MBA

“If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all is left is a compromise.” (Robert Fritz, The Path of Least Resistance).

 In working with the Sweet Spot material, after the background check to determine your strengths, your beliefs, and your life purpose, the next big step is to determine what goal you will work with as you move through the process.

When we allow the “How” to be part of the “What” discussion, we open ourselves to a compromise between what we really want, and what we understand how to create. What if Mother Teresa, as a child was asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” She might have responded, “I want to be the pope”.

Let’s imagine that her mother, well schooled in the principles of the law of attraction. said, “Great, honey – what is the first step you’d like to take in that direction?” Little Teresa might have asked to attend a Catholic grade school, supported by nuns where she could share the vision of the life dedicated to the church. As she grew, with her eye on serving the Church as Pope, she joined an order that allowed her to serve globally and learn all that would be needed to become Pope. Along the way, she would have learned that the Pope job is reserved for men only, and, she could take on changing the gender attitudes, or she could chose to serve the Catholic Church in a way that pleased her and used her keen talents of working in the church structure and caring for children.

In a difference scenario, her mother might have said “Oh, I’m sorry, dear, you can’t ever be Pope, that’s only for men”. Then little Teresa might have decided to work in a day care, with little kids, since that seems like a compromise between serving God in a global way and being a woman in today’s world.

Yes, this is a highly unlikely scenario, but I ask you, what goals are setting for yourself, simply because you can see the “how” and you are allowing yourself to dumb-down your dreams to meet your current skills, resources, experience, or expectation? If you actually could do, be, or have anything your mind can imagine, what might that be. Chapters on how will come much later. If you try to mix how with what, the result usually is a stalemate, a stuck in what is, and all that is left is a disappointing compromise. Dream Big, it’s your soul’s birthright.

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by | August 11, 2011 · 8:00 am

Low Hanging Fruit

Sheryl Eldene, MA, MBA

I live in the Northwest where we have lots of wild (annoying) Himalayan Blackberries. While I was walking the other day, I spotted a large, juicy, very ripe berry about eight inches off the ground. As I was reaching for it, already salivating with anticipation, a picture from a few years ago flashed in my mind.

I used to have a loyal Beautiful Abyssinian cat that would follow me around.  I just adored him and loved hanging around outside with his company. One day, I was picking blackberries in the field next to our house, and he backed up and sprayed everything his little sprayer could reach. With that picture in my head, I decided to leave that low hanging fruit right where it grew, thank you very much.

It made me think about the recommendation that we hear so often to pick the low hanging fruit first. Yes, it is the easiest to get to, takes the least energy, but is that really the best use of time?

Had Bill Gates chosen to pick the low hanging fruit, he probably would still be picking easy fruit, and wondering where his Big Dream disappeared to. What are the visions that you have that require you to stretch? Maybe that would be more fun, taste sweeter, and support your business better that the easy target?

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Filed under Business Planning, Motivation, Passion & Potential, Sheryl Eldene

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