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Today I summed up a few things I had been reflecting about after reading a note from an old colleague. This is what it sparked in me:

In the GREAT stage of life, my role is small and might go unnoticed, if not for the fact that I can put into it that which only I can contribute. And I can do it with so much love and enjoyment that it becomes memorable.

I know the theater reference comes from my recent work as producer/actress for the Mexico Cast production of Fiddler on the Roof. But bear with me. What about the learning opportunity for the larger picture? Lately I have been dealing with people who lock up their own feelings and are not straightforward about their views, forthcoming about their wants or easy to deal with for me. It’s been a challenge, to say the least. My first reaction is to steer clear away from them. I might still! But in my dealings, I have found great opportunity to understand my own slant towards authentic expression, onstage and off.

It’s about how small a role is. You see, in some ways it is much easier to shine and get noticed if you have been assigned a big, juicy lead. Still, in our play there’s the Rabbi that barely says a few words and becomes one of the most applauded actors on this stage. Certainly, he is seen and remembered by the audience. There’s a mastery about him, that comes only from years of work and spotless technique. But I wonder if it is only that which makes for this star power? I believe not. It’s the fact that he OWNS this role. He makes a conscious effort to do it just right. To lend himself to it enough, while remaining reflective enough of its effect.

The more authentic you are in general, the easier it will be to learn about yourself. So, in my dealings with authenticity or the lack of it, the journey inward holds the greatest learning. Am I being authentic? Am I being guarded? What am I afraid of? Is my role too small?

When I become whiny and hide behind victimhood I might feel I am out of place and should go find people I can trust more. Still, there’s this nagging voice in the back of my head: how do YOU contribute to this? My eyes have not been open enough. There is an alternative to being guarded called being aware. Of myself and others. Of what they do and say and what I do and say. Am I making sure I am clear? Am I listening for the music and not just the lyrics?

So today I am thinking that anyone’s role is small in the grand scheme of things. Yet, we can play it big. Authenticity is key to unlocking your very own contribution to others. That special way of being and doing that only you can contribute. It’s there. We need only find it.

I intend to enjoy the areas where I hold a leading role. They are effortless and fun. They let me shine easily. And, if I use them to build my self-awareness, they will guide me to how I might lend light to the smallest roles of life. Those that might go unnoticed or might just make a big difference.

Do I make any sense to you? How can your authenticity guide your way to a significant life? Tell me! I really want to know.

11 days into the new year. Can you tell how it’s going to turn out? It’s an artificial break, I know, but I’m kind of partial to new beginnings. I am a sucker for starting things and love that feeling of a fresh new page before me, waiting to be written or drawn upon. So, I like to use that frame of mind that comes with the new year to sort out my projects and ideas. By now, they are all off and running, taking on a life of their own. So I want to share with you what I have found to be new, renewed and renewable. How can you see your work that way?

New.

What are you doing that truly is new for you? What uncharted territory are you planning to travel. New adventures add some excitement to the mix. In business, they might be something that you haven’t tried before, or a new way of offering your product or service. Think hard: what is truly new in what you are doing? Make sure you are innovating and not just staying on the safe side. With rapid change come rapid opportunities and it is easier to see them if you stay fresh in what you are doing. For my team this year much of the “new” are things we have been wanting to do for some time and now is when they can come to life.

Renewed. 

Not everything is shiny new. Some of the things in our life are vintage. Still, they can be renewed for the starting cycle. Coming back from vacation or from a break, you find renewed strength to keep on doing what needs to be done. For me, renewed energy happens every cycle. Every day (yes, I’m a morning person), every week (yes, I love Mondays…someone said they spell my name! ). Every year. What are you facing now with renewed resolve? Renewed energies can give you that fuel to go the rest of the way on your everyday challenges. I am reminded by the new year that I need those breaks to go on. I am restoring the cycles this year. They had run into one another in 2012 and blurred the lines more than I would like. I am taking those excercise breaks, enjoying those family dinners and using an app to keep activities flowing (30/30 on my ipad. A nice gift on those Itunes 12 days…). Balance renewed. That’s my resolve for 2013 and I am taking it one step at a time.

Renewable.

So I am wondering, how can I build renewable into my new projects. Make them expandable, recyclable, evergreen. It’s good for my business and my spirit to think that way. It makes creating a new project more challenging and fun to be thinking how it could help others, too. It makes great buisiness sense to build customization into our products and it keeps us on our toes to think how we can make each process scalable. In our growing company, we are reaping more and more benefits from that thinking. As my good friend Dave Carpenter always asks: “How can you make (that success) ten times better?” Making it renewable is all about that. And, boy, are we enjoying those rich conversations!

———–

Monica Diaz is an author, coach and facilitator passionate about helping people create great work experiences and organizations sustain incredible results through healthy culture. She can be reached on Twitter at @monedays, and LinkedIn

To book Monica for speaking, coaching or facilitating use this FORM.

MORE about her HERE.

I love the fall! Maybe it’s because my birthday is in October, or because it is the time to harvest. Maybe because in my childhood memories there is all the color and the changing. Maybe it’s the feeling of initiating closure for the year. Or all of the above. But somehow, it gets me thinking and reflecting. It makes me want to move into the next transformation. And here we are: smack in the middle of fall. I can feel it in the air and sense it moving within me. I’m getting that vibe of being ready to change colors. And, lo and behold, I am feeling strong and powerful again. But, what just happened? That’s my expression as I look back on 2012.

This year has been a whirwind! So many things came to be, so many people touched my life and I was able to touch many others. Surely, I will be sharing much of this in posts to come. I expanded my reach in more ways than one and had the opportunity of collaborating with people that I never would have imagined meeting, let alone working with! Life is good. For the time being maybe too good. I am now working on sharing the lovely load, and finding new ways of being the connector, the instigator, the leader I would like for the people I admire around me. I am choosing to use my time differently and reflecting on how to multiply what we have learned together. It’s an exciting ride, to say the least. And I am thankful to have great colleagues to share it with, a loving family for support and a long list of friends near and far. I am feeling loved, and valued and connected.

So now it’s time to fit all the new pieces of my life into familiar places, into spots I want back. To step back into rhythm. Take this blog, for example. Last year it was much more populated by my writing. I was in a groove and wrote most every week. I so enjoy writing and the conversation it opens up with readers! I have been feeling a tug to come back for weeks now. At times the tug was inviting and loving. At times self-critical (as in, What’s wrong with you? Why haven’t you written in your blog?). So today I want to share with you my reflections on this.

Maybe I was just gathering strength! I write about my experiences, in the hope that they can enrich others. And this year, experiences abound. I have been gathering new points of view, consolidating my work and finding new angles to explore. I am looking forward to discovering if these experiences will strengthen my writing, will pour into my expression with you. That is left to be seen. But, considering this possibility I feel much more invited to get back on track here and it makes me wonder:

What have YOU been gathering strength for this year?

Instead of resenting what you have not accomplished or gotten around to, might you see how you are now better prepared to tackle these things? It is not an accident. It has been a choice, made with awareness or not, to spend your time where you have spent it. Now, as the year comes to a close, is a great opportunity to realise what elements you choose to bring back in, which to leave behind, which to add to your life.

I wished for so much that came true this year that I can only be thankful! Today I find myself missing my tribe and wanting to come back, strength renewed, to the place where we can have this conversation. To the writing that heals my soul and shares my feelings. And here you are, dear readers, trusted blog. It feels like a home today!  Thanks for being here.

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I absolutely love my work! I say that frequently, but also, people say it right back. They say, for example, that they can TELL I love my work. Great! To me: that’s what it’s all about. It keeps me looking for better ways to do what I do. It challenges me to turn my passion into a value proposition for people and organizations out there. I don’t know how I could do it (my work) otherwise. But, of course, I am an entrepreneur and fashioned my company to my own expectations, right?

Well, I can remember back when I had a job. It seems so long ago and…No, I didn’t hate my job. I didn’t think of starting my company to get away from an awful boss or dreary to-do lists. It was still a labor of love. I enjoyed each and every day there and look back to those times with joy and pride. I contributed in ways that can still be felt there, though nobody might know that but me! But I always felt a sense of worth, a way of making a difference in every aspect of the job. I went through a few bosses in the seven years I worked there. And some were much better than others. Times got good and times got tough. I cannot say that there weren’t things there I hated doing, people I had difficulty dealing with and aspects I was challenged to contribute to. But all in all, I felt I was expressing my mission. I was learning and helping to learn. I was creating possibilities and making sure that I left a mark. Those things are important to me.

Chances are, they are important to you as well. Wherever you work and whatever your situation is there, making sure that you work with purpose, regardless of the activity, will keep you sane, connected and interested in life. After all, too much of your time is spent there for it to be a pause in your living. Meaningful work is exactly what you deserve to find and it is the best way of contributing to the world. And it’s not about the activity you do, either. I have seen people make a significant difference and find purpose in just about anything. And waste the opportunity, too! Even in the coolest of jobs.

So, while job fit is great to have, while you make that move or find that dream job or start your own company, there are things to find at work right now:

Meaningful relationships. With clients, with colleagues, with bosses or mentors. Find the people that you would like to learn more from, or that you want to connect to and use the time wisely. Do it AS you work, in the act of working together.

Meaningful execution. Don’t just do. Do with gusto! Understand what you do and how it contributes to the end result. Perfect, innovate, take pride. And, it you can, improve continuously until your activity is natural and simple to execute well. Then, leave crumbs so others can follow suit.

Meaningful transformation. See what your current activity teaches you that you can use in life. Does it make you more patient? Will it move you away from shyness? Does it give you structure, or demand creativity? Make sure you put yourself where you learn and grow. It is everywhere to be found, if you stay open to finding that space.

Meaningful experience. The other day I was telling one of my colleagues that everything we did before prepared us for this moment. We had taken on a project that was bigger than ever and just outside our comfort zone. But we were able to do it because of what those little jobs of the past left us with. We were suddenly grateful for the tough years when we earned our chops doing various things that were needed at the time.

So, tell me… what is YOUR work all about?

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This is my post from earlier this week on the LeadChange blog. You can head on over there if you like and find plenty of other interesting stuff:

“The answer is we all do, whether we know it or not! But not necessarily in the traditional sense. It’s all about balance…READ MORE.

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The higher up you coach in an organization, the more politics is a true issue. It’s a base to cover with leaders that turns out to be somewhat of a taboo for some. I have even had people tell me “there are no politics” in their organization. Well, that’s just not so. And “politics” is not a dirty word, either! It refers to shifts in power and the execution of authority in any way in which it appears in your workplace. So, it is the stuff that daily interactions are made of for those seeking influence within the organization.

According to the Politics Portal:

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions on who gets what. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions.

Politics consists of “social relations involving authority or power” and refers to the regulation of a political unit,  and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.

What it does NOT entail is being untruthful, ruthless, sneaky or otherwise dishonest. In its highest sense, it seeks justice and fairness, clarity and consistency across decisions. When done ethically, politics is as fascinating as any aspect of human relations. Who is asking for what? Who feels connected to whom? How do powerful players interact in this scenario? More and more, if you are in a top management position and not conciously “doing politics”, you are not in the game!

Cornell professor, Samuel Bacharach in his straightforward video for Inc. Magazine goes so far as to say “If you don’t do politics, you shouldn’t be a CEO” and considers politics, along with managerial skills essential for top leaders. He claims you must be adept at politics to be successful in a top position. And I can only agree with that.

Understanding what each player wants, why they wanted, what pull or push will they exert to get it is critical to negotiating the right agreements for your organization. It takes thorough understanding of the interactions between the people in power  (whether their power is formal or informally gained) to navigate the sea of connections and bring people together on the important issues. To be great at politics you need to be a good observer, a great listener and a wise participant in the right interactions. Once you get the hang of it, seeing the links can be rewarding, exciting and interesting.  An so can the other aspect of politics: knowing yourself well: your intentions, your reach, your own power and keeping it balanced, true, centered. Welcome to the fascinating world of politics. There’s no way around it, so hop right in!

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It’s all a choice, I remind myself as the work piles up and I start frantically going through it. This is the busy season. I am coaching, training, planning, creating, talking to clients. And it’s all good, don’t get me wrong. I love it all. And if I continue to do it all I will not keep the standard of service I am so proud of. So, enter my wonderful team. They are competent, willing, there. And I need to give away more of what I am doing so we can thrive together.

So, first, I put myself on the task of deciding what I will NOT do. If you are ever faced with an impossible TODO list, this should be on it, before all else. High achievers have a hard time getting things OFF the list, even if they resent the time spent going though it all and even when they experience the frustration of never completing it fully. Letting go is harder than it seems. Just this month, two of my coaching clients were struggling with this very experience. Used to getting everything done, they were both drowning in unsolved issues and incomplete lists of things that should get done. Though each one of them finally moved forward in a slightly different way, I want to share some of the learning that is prompting me (yes, me and not a friend of my coachee) to create my NOT TO DO list effectively.

1. What can my team do just as well as me? It might be more than I had thought. They’re hotshots, too! LOL

2. What will my team be honored to do, challenged to try, happy to excel at? After all, I do love giving people jobs they cherish, experiences they feel excited to try and willing to pursue.

3. What would benefit someone in my extended team and our work at the same time? Expansion is the name of my current game. So, reaching out to people I have not yet hired but would love to work with, on a project basis has worked for me in the past. Also, bringing some old colleagues back is refreshing. Some of them are even more awesome now than I remembered.

4. What do I not do well? Gasp! Yep…there are quite a few things. If they are not taken care of by someone else on the team,  those are better outsourced, automated or really experienced if what you want is to learn more about them. Asking for help can take some time, so maybe I’ll bump a few of those right into that TODO LIST, and add them as a learning experience and expert help combo.

So, that’s that! My current thinking on not to do’s and how I am going about it. More ideas, anyone?

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As many of you know already, I am a huge Social Media enthusiast. More and more I find myself talking about it privately, speaking publicly and sharing what I have learned with more and more others. I truly enjoy tweeting, blogging, participating actively on LinkedIN and Facebook, and nowadays, yes, also pinning! Google+ has been on and off for me, but so many others enjoy it, that I might revisit soon. I still suggest the Social Media Diet as a way to start out and find the balance where it begins to be fun, rewarding, stimulating, worthwhile.

So today I want to talk about another aspect of this. Warning, though… I might go on a few posts with this one.

Let’s talk about Social Media as communication tool, more specifically as AMPLIFIER!

What I enjoy most about Social Media are the relationships I have created with its assistance. There’s so many people I work with, play with, connect with on a day-to-day basis that would not be in my life were it not for my social networks. Then there are other people that have drawn closer because they see me there and we find each other, or Skype regularly, halfway around the world! Yes, I have gotten work opportunities, speaking invitations and writing gigs, but even more I have widened my perspective and deepened my relationships significantly. So many people who only play the numbers game on Twitter, for example, miss out on its potential as a way to expand your existing circle of friends, acquaintances, clients, readers or whatever it is you are looking for.

There are ways of using Social Media that work and others that don’t and we could go on and on about the details of each platform (I just might do that on another post someday, but there is much said about it already on the web if you want to find it). What not everyone tells you is how using these spaces can amplify who you are.

So, if you are great at connecting with others, warm and witty or fun to talk to, you will be so in a BIG way! And if you are awful, only use people transactionally and don’t really care about connecting, guess what? You will turn into a BIG FAT GLOBAL CERTIFIABLE JERK.

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As leaders become more prominent in their organizations, they tend to have much to do and a few key people to do it with. To zero in on their vision, they might create their dream team and continue to explore new ways of changing the world they are a part of. Whether formal or informal leadership is at play, success in getting others to follow creates a new set of challenges for all involved. Especially for leaders. When all is well and they are feeling focused and useful, staying open to a wider perspective is a step that should be taken purposefully, if only because it will not naturally happen.

Today, as part of the LeadChange Group, I wrote this post for the SmartBlog on Leadership! Read the rest of it.

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Marathon runners know it and so do singers, maybe other professions experience the same. In general, it’s a good idea to listen to your body and connect your mind, body and soul for a more fruitful existence, a better gauge of your reactions, more understanding of yourself.  These are three of the many benefits of a close body-mind connection. But being connected does not mean you listen and take everything at face value. There are times when the body is reacting to a perceived threat in a more violent way than necessary. In those cases, it is the mind that can move to a calmer place, the soul that can find peace where there appears to be none.

Now, that doesn’t mean the body is always wrong, so the listening is a good idea. I propose to listen as if to an old friend that you know well: you always pause to hear what they have to say and ponder what they are talking about. When you find they are out of sorts, you move to reassure them and help them center, understand, react in a more productive manner to the outside world. A healthy body-mind connection would be a relationship that goes both ways, so that what is felt and experienced in the body serves to alert you of perceptions of the mind you would otherwise be unaware of, mainly fear, distress and reactions you have been denying in your conscious state. You can feel “in your bones” when something doesn’t add up and your body is trying to express what your unconscious knows. You can aid your decision making processes by understanding more of the situation by checking it in your body. My mentor, Will Schutz, would imagine himself taking different stands on a decision and just checking what changed in his body. Often one choice would make him feel light and natural, the other heavy and with shallow breathing. The power in that is to either decide for the first or create conditions for the second that take care of your own fears and anguish, or proceeding with caution.

So, what about marathon runners or singers? Though not a runner myself, I do have many friends that run in this type of event. They all talk of that threshold where the body wants to quit and feels like it cannot go any further, setting off all the alarms to say: “I can’t do this.” The marathoner has trained hard and knows that this, too, shall pass. That not only can it be done, but there are great rewards in pressing on. So, they tell their body it won’t die and ignore the signals, while being constantly in touch with themselves. As a singer, a long note can trigger this response where the body feels it’s out of air and should stop. But it’s not out of air, and the note can still be sung with time to spare before the next breath comes.

In leadership issues and decision-making, a deep connection with your body will make of world of difference. It will allow you to unearth reactions your were not aware of, to access intuition and subtleties of the relationships you need to be effective. Still, when finances are difficult or your decisions carry much weight, your body will show your just how panicked you really are, sending distress signals through a racing heart, shallow breathing, rapid-fire thoughts of doom. And ignoring it will be to no avail. Rather, know that you are afraid, own it, understand it and take the signal, knowing that you are NOT about to die, only make a choice. Use techniques like the ones shown by the brilliant Randall Krause on his Relax 101 website or our last post (I promise: only the intro is in Spanish! ) to calm yourself, get centered. Now, make sure you touch enough bases to minimize risk or set yourself at ease before you make the choice. Seek assistance, consider options with a calm demeanor and a focused mind. Your decisions will have a better quality to them and your leadership will be more to the point.

You will serve yourself and others better by listening, understanding, balancing mind, body and soul. You are your body, so don’t disown it, make it your ally, your instrument and source of wisdom, tempered by your heart and mind in every way. Listening to your body is a balancing act, one that you can master in time.

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