Self awareness

Lei’s Six New Year Aspirations – Trust, Try, Learn, Evolve, Laugh, Give

by
Lei's new year aspirations

I started this tradition last year and really liked how it influenced my decisions and actions the rest of the year.  I am doing it again this year to define my new year aspirations

1. Define ways to build new habits instead of setting goals.  I found this is helping me evolve into a better human being. ...  read more

Happy 2017 – Say Yes

by
hot chocolate 15K 2017

Happy New Year!  Sunday was my annual Hot Chocolate 15K race.   My friend Agnes got me into it 3 years ago.  It’s a great way to start off the year – a long run (9.4 miles) followed by a nice cup of hot chocolate and an amazing natural high all day.

Well, I didn’t go this year.  I woke up at 6:30am and it was POURING. San Francisco had flood warning all weekend.  While the race was still on (I couldn’t believe it), I have never ran in pouring rain before and couldn’t imagine being drenched for an hour and half.   I was packed but at 7am I decided not to go. ...  read more

Career Advancement – How Louis Quadrupled His Income

by
career advancement

Mastering soft skills is critical to your career advancement.   Louis Johnston, one of our executive authors, agrees.  He shared in this interview how mastering certain soft skills helped him skyrocket his career and quadruple his compensation.

Louis started as an Online Marketing Associate, 10 years ago.  He has since been promoted to Manager, Director, Senior Director, and now Head of Growth. This may sound like a straight-forward success story.  It is not.  He didn’t just happen to become super successful by working hard or hitting all his marketing numbers.  On the contrary, he was hitting his numbers, but not getting much credit for it.  Louis was stuck at the same level for awhile. ...  read more

Who Would You Rather Be – Elsa or Anna?

by

Lei:  I am excited to introduce a new Executive Author to our Soft Skills Gym – Cindy Wong-Zarahn.  I only met Cindy last year but feel like we have been old friends for years.  She has close to 20 years of experience in the corporate world with plenty of battle scars as well as very sage advice.  I already personally benefited from her advice for my own career. Click here to read her bio and why she wants to join our community.  You can also follow Cindy on twitter @CZarahn    ...  read more

How to Deal with Stereotypes at Work – 4 Tips

by

A friend shared this Youtube video with me and I literally cried.  It talks about one stereotype that we all know about and how it affects us.  It’s amazing how stereotypes are so common in our society. Sometimes people use it intentionally in their communication to put down other people out of insecurity and other times people use stereotypes in their conversations and don’t even realize it. ...  read more

Are You a “Pleaser Achiever”?

by
pleaser achiever

A month ago, my boss mentioned that everyone on our team is a “Pleaser Achiever”?   I have been meaning to write about it ever since.  So what is a “Pleaser Achiever”, you may ask?  Well, let’s start with a simple quiz

  • When someone comes to you for help at work and your boss tells you you can say no, do you still try to help them?
  • When your manager gives you feedback on where you could improve, do you think about it extensively?
  • If you have a bad meeting with your boss, does it affect you the whole week?
  • If you have conflicts or disagreement with anyone at work, do you think about it at night?
  • Are you quick to apologize?

If you say yes to most or all the questions above, then you are a “Pleaser Achiever.”  Here are the common traits ...  read more

Growth Mindset Example – Learnings from My 4-day Cleanse

by
growth mindset example

A few months ago, I did a veggie and fruit cleanse for the first time in my life.  Why?  All the usual reasons

  • Vanity – I wanted to get back to my college weight after having two kids.
  • Peer Pressure – My husband and my friend were doing it that week
  • Efficiency  – I didn’t have to worry about what I will eat for 4 days.  Everything was pre-prepared by our friend.  That actually helped a lot as I was starting to have meetings all day long.
  • New experience – I have been curious about doing a cleanse for the last two years.    I almost did a juice only cleanse once last year, but backed out the last minute.  I realized I rather still chew during a cleanse.

This article is less about the cleanse and more about what I learned during the experience.  First of all, I actually didn’t expect to last four days.  This is because I had some very strong pre-notions when it came to food and cleanses. ...  read more