Everything Happens for a Reason – Do you Believe it?

No matter what happens in our lives, they happen for a reason – for us to learn, grow, and have a better path than the one we envisioned. My belief in fate is especially powerful and helpful when something unexpected and seemly negative happens.

Fate is defined as forces outside of your control that make things happen. An example of fate is when you miss your bus and meet the person who will turn out to be your spouse while you are standing on the platform waiting on the next bus. ...  read more

Focus on What I Want Instead of What I Don’t Want

stressful work

Work has been stressful. At a macro level, there are massive organizational changes in motion and definitive news of layoffs coming this year. At the micro level, my leader resigned last week and I have to deal with lots of politics, ineffective processes, and incompetence.  I guess “work” is not called “play” for a reason.  🙂 ...  read more

April Coaching Call – Examples of How We are Coping with the “New Reality”

I feel blessed to be able to talk to some members through our monthly coaching calls. Last months, we touched on two subjects

  • How to Build Your Reputation Remotely with Your Manager
  • How to Build Mental Toughness during this “new reality.”

I am thankful for members who shared their personal experiences with all of us. Here is the 15 min discussion on the second topic above. I will be sharing the recording for the first topic next week.  ...  read more

I Have Been Crying a Lot and It’s Okay

I have probably cried at least once a week since March 13, the first day of our voluntary “Shelter in Place.” It always happens unexpectedly. The first time was when my 8 year old showed me her first eLearning homework. She wrote about the “3 good things” from the weekend. It was simple and lovely. As soon as she left the room, I cried uncontrollably. I didn’t even know why. I think it was because  ...  read more

7 Unexpected Blessings from “Sheltering in Place”

How are you doing with “Sheltering in Place”?  It’s day 48 for our family. Believe or not, I am starting to like it. We have developed a mentality to be thankful for what we have and a routine that maximizes our social distancing and cleanliness

  • We still go out but not everyday – My kids have been unusually happy just to hang at home; My husband do most of the grocery shopping and I look forward to my run outside by the water as well as our weekly farmer’s market on Saturaday. Once in awhile, we bring our kids out to play soccer or frisbee at the park.
  • We don’t bring outside clothes indoors – We put everything we wear outside on our balcony includes dipping our shoe soles in bleach water. We clean everything we bring back from shopping with either bleach or food wash and put it all in our own containers
  • We meet all family and friends virtually or outside at a distance – We contemplated visiting our neighbors whose routines are even more stringent than ours. They politely refused, which is very understandable. We also decided for now, visiting others who have less stringent routines is just not worth the risk.

While I still worry about the threat of coronavirus and absolute chaos created by our own government leaders, I know the best I can do in Nov is to make sure everyone we know votes and for now just live a simple and content day to day life. I practice gratefulness everyday both in my mind as well as when I speak to my family and friends. I discovered 7 unexpected blessings from “sheltering in place” ...  read more

A New Reality Created by the Threat of Coronavirus – 7 Tips on How to Cope

Another week has gone by in this new reality – First the Bay Area and then the entire state of California is told to “Shelter in Place.” I breathe a small sign of relief – finally we are deciding to act before the numbers get bad. While there is no cure for this novel (aka new) Coronavirus, we can now perhaps buy enough time  ...  read more