What you do need to know is below. My friend Suzanna wrote that part, and the reminders I will send over the next few days. The series starts Monday, November 15, and ends Friday; and my interview will be broadcast on Wednesday. I have  created an incredible offer for you – read on…

It's an old saying …

———————————————————————————————————
"Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug!"
——————————————————————————————————–

Yes, sometimes you succeed.

At other times … you FAIL!

THAT'S LIFE.

———————  THE BIG QUESTION …———————

So, how do you turn your failures, frustrations, challenges, and setbacks into SUCCESS?

How do you OVERCOME the obstacles in your way?

How do you get BEYOND the past … and remove the barriers that have held you back?

That's what my friend Suzanna Abbott is asking me when she interviews me during her "FAILURE TO FEARLESS" telesummit series.

http://tinyurl.com/2gyzdgb

You get to attend and listen in for FREE.

In fact, you can attend ALL 22 calls in this telesummit series as my GUEST.

Register here:

http://tinyurl.com/2gyzdgb

I think you'll LOVE my interview with Suzanna.

But, I also think you're REALLY going to learn and grow from the other 21 guest experts as well.

Grab this opportunity while it's available.

Register NOW:

>>>

See you on the call …

Laurie
 

Yvonne, an executive, felt paralyzed by her boss' new rules that required her to get approval for even the smallest expenditures. Yvonne was also representing her company in merger negotiations. The potential partner considered her boss expendable, and asked her to stick it out until their process is complete. The negotiations were going slowly. She wondered whether to get out or stay on, hoping things would change. 

Marianne's new boss did not trust her. All her routine requests for staffing changes were returned with demands for additional irrelevant information. For several months Marianne complied gracefully with all requests. She finally realized that other work was suffering as she tried to comply with these demands, and she was still not getting the staffing she needed. Marianne considered resigning, but was only months away from being vested in her pension fund. 

With the agreement of the executive committee, Louise, vice president of human resources, assured her branch managers that remarks they made during a managers' staff development retreat would be kept confidential.

After the event, she learned that two executives who disliked the resulting report were pressuring managers for details of the meeting. When she protested during a subsequent executive committee meeting, the two executives ridiculed her concerns. 

Decisions about whether to stay in difficult business or personal relationships can feel excruciatingly difficult to resolve. 

Balancing potential losses against maintaining dignity and financial stability are some of the most common issues faced by my clients. There are no simple answers, but following the process they used to make their decisions may help you through a similar situation. 

Each first clarified the outcome she most desired. Yvonne wanted stimulating work and recognition of her talents. Marianne wanted to stay with her company at least until her pension was vested. Louise wanted to be treated with dignity. 

Each decided to do everything possible to change her own situation. As coach, I helped them choose appropriate strategies to communicate their  dissatisfactions. 

• Yvonne asked her boss (the company president) to change the procedures

• Marianne decided that even if her new boss tried to fire her, her pension would be vested by the time that could take place, so she politely refused further demands to stop her other work to produce additional reports. 

• Louise spoke privately to each member of the executive committee about treating her and all members of the company with dignity. 

They all evaluated the results of their actions. 

• The president of Yvonne's firm changed the subject when she talked to him. 

• Marianne's boss became so frustrated and she made herself look bad to her own boss. She was given orders to treat Marianne differently. 

• Louise was told by the company president that she should adjust her values to match the values of the other executives. 

They made decisions by balancing all of these elements. 

• Yvonne developed an outside consulting practice while waiting to see if the takeover would happen. She was prepared to resign and eventually did. 

• Marianne developed a reasonably respectful working relationship with her boss. 

• Louise resigned and eventually found a new opportunity. 

If you enjoyed this blog post The Integrity Course will provide much more information I believe will be useful to you. Included in this course are stories of how over 25 people confronted issues about integrity in the workplace. Learn more here.

Richness is created from diversity. Sometimes survival depends on it. A series of exercises were once devised to simulate being lost on the moon, lost in the Arctic, lost at sea (in a lifeboat) or in some other life-threatening situation. 

Teams were given a list of resources and told to choose those that would be most important for their survival. They needed to reach consensus about which few items they could keep. Their choices were compared with choices made by true experts in each situation.

Research showed the teams did much better when everyone contributed their knowledge. When they deferred to "experts" on the team, important information from less knowledgeable players was omitted and team scores declined. The livelier the discussions (arguments???), the better the team scores seem to be.

Some things you can do to make this work on your team are:

• Describe the differences of opinion or perspective that you notice 
• Respectfully ask questions to clarify those differences
• Listen to the answers without unnecessary interruption
• Interrupt only to ask clarifying questions
• Do your best to understand the reasoning that leads to the differences
• If you disagree, challenge the idea and not the person
• Allow enough time to complete these important conversations.

Remember, when every one thinks alike important information is usually omitted. When everyone has the same skills tasks are completed in a lopsided way. When everything looks the same the view is boring. Go for the richness.

Free Mini-Course: Integrity — Use It or Lose It!

Free Mini-Course: Secrets for Turning Difficult Conversations into Amazing Opportunities for Cooperation and Success

Richness is created from diversity. Sometimes survival depends on it. A series of exercises were once devised to simulate being lost on the moon, lost in the Arctic, lost at sea (in a lifeboat) or in some other life-threatening situation.

Teams were given a list of resources and told to choose those that would be most important for their survival. They needed to reach consensus about which few items they could keep. Their choices were compared with choices made by true experts in each situation.

Research showed the teams did much better when everyone contributed their knowledge. When they deferred to “experts” on the team, important information from less knowledgeable players was omitted and team scores declined. The livelier the discussions (arguments???), the better the team scores seem to be.

Some things you can do to make this work on your team are:

• Describe the differences of opinion or perspective that you notice
• Respectfully ask questions to clarify those differences
• Listen to the answers without unnecessary interruption
• Interrupt only to ask clarifying questions
• Do your best to understand the reasoning that leads to the differences
• If you disagree, challenge the idea and not the person
• Allow enough time to complete these important conversations.

Remember, when every one thinks alike important information is usually omitted. When everyone has the same skills tasks are completed in a lopsided way. When everything looks the same the view is boring. Go for the richness.

Communicate skillfully about sensitive subjects. Http://www.DareToSayIt.com Laurie Weiss, Ph.D., is a Master Certified Coach and communication expert. Dr. Weiss has spent 35 years helping clients resolve conflict in business and personal relationships. Email feedback@laurieweiss.com
[tags]Business Communication, Leadership, Making Decisions, Management, Managing Conflict, Self-Management, Telling the Truth[/tags]

There are always more things to do than you have the time or money to manage. How you are able to cope with this situation determines whether you have a chance of becoming a successful business owner.

Two opposing styles cause the most problems. One is doing everything your master demands of you. The other is rebelling against these demands and abusing your freedom.

Renee is her own slave. She works over eighty hours a week and eats, breathes and sleeps her business. She is determined to get every single item on her to do list completed. She

• attends several networking functions every week
• collects business cards
• follows up with letters about her business
• makes all necessary phone calls
• and does her paperwork in the middle of the night.

Customers are delighted with her services, and her business seems to be thriving, but she isn‘t. She is “losing it!“ She is exhausted and burned out. She keeps promising her husband and children that she will take time off, but whenever she does, all she can do is sleep.

Six months after she started her business, her chronic sinus infection became so bad that her doctor suggested surgery.

Allison decided that it made sense to run her business from her home. She dutifully prepared a business plan under the guidance of her mentor. She, too, has a long to do list.

However, Allison has trouble getting started in the morning. She loves to linger over coffee, read the newspaper and do a morning exercise class. About eleven she reviews her list and gets to work.

She chooses the easy items so that she can get them out of the way. After a lunch break, and an extended phone conversation with a friend, she gets back to work. Just as she is really getting warmed up, the children arrive home from school and demand her attention.

Allison wonders why her business is getting off to such a slow start, and her savings are running out.

Renee and Allison each need to borrow some elements of the other‘s style.

Renee has created so much structure for herself that she almost literally has no room to breathe. She does not have a life, only a business, and her body/mind system is breaking down under the strain. She needs to learn to prioritize and include her own personal and family needs on her to do list.

On the other hand, Allison treasures the life she is enjoying so much that she is unwilling to sacrifice very much of it to do the work necessary to make her business successful. She needs to follow the structure of her to do list and not abandon it each time something more enticing comes along.

Making these changes may be emotionally challenging for each of them. Renee derives much of her self-esteem from producing superb results, and Allison derives her satisfaction from not allowing anyone to tell her what to do, not even herself.

They will both need to reevaluate their priorities, and find a way to feel satisfied and happy with doing things differently. They will probably need friends, coaches, or support groups to help them sustain the necessary changes.

If you are or intend to become a business owner, you will need to steer a course between these extremes in order to have a business and have a life.

Developing and maintaining personal integrity is critical, while seeking business success. Working with your own Coach, as these women did, is a powerful tool for increasing your Emotional Intelligence that helps you learn to trust yourself to maintain balance and integrity in your relationships with yourself and others.

Free Mini-Course: Secrets for Turning Difficult Conversations into Amazing Opportunities for Cooperation and Success

[tags]Coaching, Emotional Intelligence, Making Decisions, Self-Management[/tags]

1. Show Up and Choose to be Present

Show up means nobody is allowed to come as an empty chair. Be present.

2. Pay Attention to What Has Heart and Meaning

That means pay attention to the things that sing to you. We have so many things demanding our attention in our lives. There is advertising coming at us thousands of times every day. Everything we encounter, everything we look at, shouts come here, look here, give me your eyeballs. We are also constantly exposed to our own inner conversations and judgments. It is often very difficult to focus on what is really important to us.

3. Tell the Truth without Blame or Judgment

This is not just telling somebody else the truth, it’s telling myself to my own truth.

Example: I say to myself, “She is so wrong she is (expletive deleted) because…” It helps to ask myself the question, what in me is like her? How come I got so upset by that? I need to tell the truth to myself about me before telling my truth to others.

4. Be Open to Outcome, not Attached to Outcome

Be interested in what’s happening, but don’t be attached to it. Be open to whatever happens, knowing it doesn’t have to happen in a particular way. When you start an important conversation it doesn’t have to end up in any particular place. Once concerns and feelings are talked about, the original concern may no longer be important.

Learn more about communicating with integrity in The Integrity Course, an online, multimedia home-study course to help you say what you think without getting fired or losing your friends.

[tags]Business Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Integrity, Leadership, Making Decisions, Self-Management, Telling the Truth[/tags]

Dialogue, a technology for creating understanding in groups, is different. Dialogue is inclusive instead of exclusive. Dialogue is based upon the premise that there are many ways of approaching any issue, and that no single one is correct. The aim of Dialogue is to create a forum in which ideas can be explored, expanded, deepened and illuminated until new meaning and understanding emerges. Instead of trying to create support for their own positions, people engaged in Dialogue listen to and question each other, attempting to deepen their understanding of all of the information being presented.

Methods of creating and facilitating this process have been studied and practiced by a group of committed professionals in Colorado for the past several years. The principles are simple, but not easy to put into practice. The challenge is to listen with care to each statement or question that is offered, and to respond in a way that deepens the investigation of the topic that is being explored. You may offer a statement of your own understanding, or ask a question to focus the exploration in a new direction.

Being clear is more important than being right.

Instead of trying to prove that your idea or position is correct, your task is to explain your beliefs carefully, so that others can understand them. As others come to understand your position, they may ask questions to clarify their understanding or offer observations of their own that will allow you to better understand other aspects of your original ideas. Eventually a shared understanding is developed from many contributions, and the idea comes to belong to the entire group instead of to any single member of the group.

If it is necessary to make a decision about the issue being addressed, it is done after the exploration is completed. Often such decisions emerge quickly and easily without any need to debate different positions. Everyone present has had the opportunity to be heard and acknowledged and has made a contribution to the outcome. Committment to such decisions is high (NOT just business as usual).

Exploring different perspectives on the truth instead of arguing about which is correct can best be accomplished in a protected environment. It takes time to practice the skills of listening deeply and asking questions instead of advocating your favorite positions. Setting aside uninterrupted time to explore issues, without expecting to achieve any particular result, and agreeing to simple rules like allowing each speaker to complete a statement without interruption are basic conditions necessary to begin the process. Learning to say “I wonder what would happen if…” instead of “I think we should…” is an important part of establishng an environment for Dialogue. Trained professional facilitators can help a group learn how to implement these procedures.

Free Mini-Course: How to Have Important Conversations that Build Working Relationships

[tags]Business Communication,Difficult Communication,Making Decisions,Managing Conflict[/tags]

Yvonne, an executive, feels paralyzed by her boss‘ new rules that require her to get approval for even the smallest expenditures. Yvonne is also representing her company in merger negotiations. The potential partner considers her boss expendable, and has asked her to stick it out until their process is complete. The negotiations are going slowly. She wonders whether to get out now or stay on, hoping things will change.

Marianne‘s new boss did not trust her. All her routine requests for staffing changes were returned with demands for additional irrelevant information. For several months Marianne complied gracefully with all requests. She finally realized that other work was suffering as she tried to comply with these demands, and she was still not getting the staffing she needed. Marianne considered resigning, but is only months away from being vested in her pension fund.

With the agreement of the executive committee, Louise, vice president of human resources, assured her branch managers that remarks they made during a managers‘ staff development retreat would be kept confidential.

After the event, she learned that two executives who disliked the resulting report were pressuring managers for details of the meeting. When she protested during a subsequent executive committee meeting, the two executives ridiculed her concerns.

Decisions about whether to stay in difficult business or personal relationships can feel excruciatingly difficult to resolve. Balancing potential losses against maintaining dignity and financial stability are some of the most common issues faced by my clients. There are no simple answers, but following the process they used to make their decisions may help you through a similar situation.

Each first clarified the outcome she most desired. Yvonne wanted stimulating work and recognition of her talents. Marianne wanted to stay with her company at least until her pension was vested. Louise wanted to be treated with dignity.

Each decided to do everything possible to change her own situation. As coach, I helped them choose appropriate strategies to communicate their dissatisfactions.

Yvonne asked her boss (the company president) to change the procedures.

Marianne decided that even if her new boss tried to fire her, her pension would be vested by the time that could take place, so she politely refused further demands to stop her other work to produce additional reports.

Louise spoke privately to each member of the executive committee about treating her and all members of the company with dignity.

They all evaluated the results of their actions.

The president of Yvonne‘s firm changed the subject when she talked to him.

Marianne‘s boss became so frustrated that she made herself look bad to her own boss and was given orders to treat Marianne differently.

Louise was told by the company president that she should adjust her values to match the values of the other executives.

They made decisions by balancing all of these elements.

Yvonne is developing an outside consulting practice while waiting to see if the takeover will happen. She is prepared to resign.

Marianne has developed a reasonably respectful working relationship with her boss.

Louise has resigned and is looking for a new opportunity.

Learn more about communicating with integrity in The Integrity Course, an online, multimedia home-study course to help you say what you think without getting fired or losing your friends.

[tags]Telling the Truth,Managing Conflict,Making Decisions, Management, Management Development,Integrity,Conflict, Difficult Communication,Business Communication[/tags]

As Katy was assessing whether she wanted to continue in practice after more than twenty years, she described the kind of clients she enjoyed serving. “I like people who listen when I tell them what I believe is possible to achieve in their cases and who keep their agreements to provide materials and information I need — people who take responsibility for themselves. I also like getting paid.”

Katy admitted that she had often accepted clients whom she felt had been treated unfairly, and needed the kind of representation she could provide, even when they did not meet her criteria. Often, in her desire to help them, she ignored warning signals that the client could not or would not cooperate in achieving a successful outcome.

It did not take her long to develop her own early warning system. She has developed an ethical and respectful system to enable her to still be helpful to clients she does not want to accept.

In one case she saw all the warning signs: two previous lawyers, a necessary custody evaluation, the potential client who lived out of state and could not afford to travel, and who was a victim of a spiteful ex-husband. Katy decided that she would be willing to take the case only if she was paid fairly for her work. She quoted a realistic, but fairly large sum to take the case, and the client said “no, thank you.”

To turn down another similar case, she told the potential client, truthfully, “This is a very complicated and time consuming case. I only handle one case like this at a time, and I have one now. I would be happy to refer you to another attorney.” She made the referral, and the potential client called back to thank her for her help.

Katy happily reported that she has more energy, is now enjoying the clients she does have, is working fewer hours, and still running a profitable practice.

Coaching Tip: It is often possible to increase energy and happiness by eliminating an energy drain.

Learn more about communicating with integrity in The Integrity Course, an online, multimedia home-study course to help you say what you think without getting fired or losing your friends.

[tags]Self-Management, Telling the Truth, Making Decisions, Integrity,Business Communication, Coaching, Conflict, Difficult Communication[/tags]

As we explored her models for relationships, she explained that her parents had a very traditional and very happy marriage. Her mother never worked outside her home, had many interests of her own, and when her dad was home, focused her attention on him. Gillian realized that she was imitating their relationship, without any conscious thought.

She assumed that it was her job to keep Bob happy by doing whatever he wanted to do. Gillian "just knew" that Bob wanted her constant attention, although they had never discussed the issue.

The problem was that working over fifty hours a week, and focusing so much attention on Bob left her almost no time for herself.

She made a list of about a dozen things that she missed doing in her life and started doing some of them. She started with reading books she enjoyed while Bob watched TV in another room. He did not seem to notice.

She progressed to taking a weekend trip with her sister, and their relationship went on pretty much as it had before. She even took the risk of saying she would prefer to play the piano when Bob was working outdoors. He didn’t mind at all, and even started a couple of projects that did not include her.

Several weeks later she cautiously stopped doing some of the little extra tasks she had taken on at work. She cut back her hours, and to her surprise was offered a promotion.

Gillian reported that the most important thing she changed as a result of coaching was to decide that she did not need to be all things to all people.

In fact, the more time she took for herself, the better all her relationships seemed to be. She finally said "I can’t believe how happy I am now. Others are asking me how I changed so much, and I tell them I am now taking as good care of myself as I do of everyone else."

Coaching Tip: When clients understand that behavior patterns are often based on automatically copying past experiences, they find it easier to experiment with new activities.

Additional Information: Visit our blog on Personal Development.

[tags]Self-Management, Telling the Truth,Life Transitions, Making Decisions,Emotional Intelligence,Coaching[/tags]