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Worried social media is robbing you of your greatness?

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In my line of work, I find many people ask about prioritization and time management. It’s something that all busy professionals and business owners struggle with.

Adrian’s no different. Consider his question which I am sure will resonate with you.

“I want to be blatantly honest with you Sarah, I struggle with priority setting and time management, but priority setting in particular. It’s true, I do say yes to a lot of things because you know how I give you all trouble about saying yes to too many things. But especially work that I love. I love to say yes to freelance photography. And it’s not that I have no time. I have perhaps too much time. I have a great team that also works with me at the gallery, and I will pass things over from them from time to time. I’m doing more outreach these days, and I just don’t know if what I’m doing is effective and paying off. I use about 15 different forms of social media, and I do occasionally get people in the gallery saying they found me there. But again, not that many people, and I’m not sure if all my efforts are effective. Any ideas?”

Do you have the same question? Can you relate?

There is so much pressure – on individuals, organizations, and entrepreneurs – to create content and to be out there on many social media platforms. But many feel they don’t have the time or can quantify their efforts to create ROE (return on effort). Not to mention the worries about your privacy, impact on your lifestyle (e.g., cutting into fitness time), and attention taken away from family and friends. These can leave you feeling depleted, frustrated and ineffective but it doesn’t need to be.

Social media has many benefits. It builds and reinforces your brand so you’re ready for the next opportunity (e.g, prospective employers, clients, and relationships). It is free and easy to use with almost no learning curve to get started. It’s also millions to billions strong (depending on the platform) so guaranteed, it can help to build your credibility if you’re putting valuable content out there.

Here are three tips to be sure, like Adrian, your efforts get you results:

1. Choose the social media platforms

Rather than try to be on every social media platform, decide which ones you feel most comfortable with and adds value. For example, I don’t serve youth, so you won’t find me on Snapchat (much to my teens’ glee!)

Ensure the ones that you choose are matched up to where your prospective employers and customers are. Get really good using the ones you choose and you’ll find not only do you enjoy it more, but you’ll also be able to find ways where you can maximize it, such as sharing from one site to the other, rather than creating organic content for all of them.

2. Monitor your analytics

Have you looked at your analytics lately? What posts get the most interaction? How many people follow you? What followers’ level of engagement is with you over time? If you find certain social media platforms have low engagement, maybe you can take a “holiday” from them. Or, try to boost those analytics such as having a call to action on your posts (e.g., share the post, tag someone). You can even try giving away free, valuable content or encourage in-person visits (such as in Adrian’s business he wants more foot traffic).

Take note of what posts tend to get the most interaction and by knowing this will help you make some really conscious choices about how you spend your time on social media.

3. Delegate to your team

Social media posting is time-consuming and requires diligence, persistence, and consistency so your audience comes to know and expect your content and your brand. But the good news is, you don’t have to do it all yourself.

My virtual assistant, Caroline, handles all of my sharing and posting of these weekly posts (in fact it’s part of a broader system of connecting with you weekly that I spoke about in last week’s post). Because of her system, she is super efficient and more effective at it than I am, therefore I can work on other aspects of my business given she has that covered.

I hope you found these three productivity and time-saving hacks really helpful. If you have other questions or comments about how you can maximize this, jump over to my Facebook group, Greatness Biz. It is especially helpful if you are considering starting or expanding a business. In this community, we discuss many aspects of business because productivity and time management is essential to your success.

Should I have a VLOG? How to Spread your Greatness Through Video

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In January 2017, I released my first VLOG (video blog) and it was bad! The lighting, the rambling, the sound quality, well, let’s just say I have striven to improve.

As I’ve shared before, perfect is the enemy of progress. So, it’s still up there and rather than take it down, embarrassed and beating myself up, I remember anything new needs work. And, I go back to the original intent: add value every week to my connections to elevate their greatness in work, family, and life. In other words, VLOGing is not about me. So, pushing ego aside, the VLOGs stay…all of them.

You may have the same intention of adding value to those you serve, and want to break into VLOGing but aren’t sure how. I get it. It can feel daunting, that only people who speak for a living or communications professionals can do it. Or maybe you feel the investment in equipment or to learn editing is too great. Or maybe you’re just worried, “what if no one watches?”

What if I shared with you that people don’t necessarily want perfection? They want to listen to people they know, like and trust and are actually not as caught up as you might think on wordcraft, sound, lighting, etc. They just want to learn and be inspired, and you have that in spades (however if you don’t offer it, they can’t receive it!) What if you could find people to help you produce the videos so they don’t take more time and energy? What if the right people watched and you made a huge difference in their lives?

Leaders, what if your employees watched your VLOGs and felt more connected to you? Support departments, what if your internal stakeholders watched your VLOGs and were less confused, more consistent and felt more supported by you? Sales professionals, what if your clients watched your VLOGs before you got on the phone, making those sales an easier conversion?

Do you see how VLOGing is for everyone?

So, if you see VLOGing may be for you (or your team or organization), the next question you may be asking is how? I’ve learned a lot from trial and error as well as learning from experts. Here’s six tips to allow you to serve in a way that is fun, sustainable and credibility-building:

1. Plan your content

What is at the core of what you do? What topics and questions do your clients have related to that? What processes, tips or advice could you provide that would make their work and life easier? What do people ask for repeatedly that would allow you to serve them immediately without filling up your calendar answering the same question repeatedly?

TIP: Keep a list of tips/hacks, frequently asked questions and trending information you could turn into a VLOG.

2. Consider if it’s actually an investment

Sometimes I hear, “I don’t have the money in my business/department to invest in this.” Maybe so, however, have you also considered how VLOGing is also an investment, such as saving you time answering the questions? Is it a way to generate the right pipeline of clients, enhance your organization’s reputation, or build your credibility? Is it a way of saving money in another way if folks have timely access to a library of VLOGs?

TIP: You don’t have to do the production and distribution yourself. Hire a videographer to film and edit and have an assistant share it to the relevant groups. In fact, batch film VLOGs to maximize your time and the professionals you work with.

3. Speak to your audience

Who needs to consume your content? Have a very clear picture in your mind, perhaps even speaking with your target client/audience about what they most want to learn from you. If you’re not clear, wait until you are, but this is the perfect time to get clear as to whether you work for yourself or in an organization, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not being crystal clear who your primary customer is.

TIP: Make a list of the 10 things that keep your target audience up at night, and make those the focus of your first VLOGs.

4. Share Valuable Resources

You are the expert, and whether it’s an internal process, hack you’ve come up with, or a trend recently published in your field of expertise, share the wealth through your VLOGs. The more unique value your audience gets from watching your VLOGs, the more they will come back for more.

TIP: Keep a folder with relevant articles, hacks, and resources you would like to cover in future VLOGs.

5. Use a Template to Plan Content

So that you organize your ideas and create compelling content, use a template to organize your thoughts. In one page, you can map out a brief VLOG (and brief is good if you want to keep busy people’s attention). If you’d like a copy of my template, just email me info@greatnessmagnified.com; I didn’t start from scratch (thanks Martin Latulippe and Dan Martell for sharing yours with me).

TIP: Start with a template then make it your own so it feels fun, authentic and makes sense based on how your audience likes to consume content.

6. Maximize the Investment

When you create and work so hard to produce these videos, make sure that you’re really maximizing them. We have our videos transcribed using Rev.com, so for a dollar a minute, we have them transcribed into a written blog post and LinkedIn post. Or you can modify it to be a newsletter article, all-staff announcement, PR release. Here’s another opportunity to leverage experts (for example, my wonderful virtual assistant, Caroline Davidson uploads all VLOGs to YouTube, tags them, creates the weekly newsletter, publishes a post to LinkedIn, and shares to social media). You don’t have to consider this just to be one 5-minute video, but rather the start of valuable content you can share in a myriad of ways to serve your customers.

TIP: To truly maximize your investment, ensure the end of your VLOG has a call to action, meaning what you want people to do as a result of watching this video. Is it to sign a petition, book an appointment with you, follow you on a particular social media site, book a health exam, cuddle their kids more? When they do something as a result of your VLOG, now you have ROE (return on effort)!

Have you found this helpful? If you have, why not subscribe to my YouTube Channel so I can add more value to your life every week.

“How do I keep my recognition program alive?” 4 Easy Tips

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I had a call from a client recently who had a really successful launch of a recognition program. One of the most successful corporate launches to date! However, just a year later, participation and engagement had drastically fallen. She was disheartened and wondered what she had done wrong.

She’s not alone.

So many of my clients work incredibly hard to bring a new recognition initiative to the workplace but are surprised to see how easy it is to lose momentum. But think about it. Most of us get excited about starting something, especially when it gets resources, attention, and support. But like many corporate initiatives, once the launch happens, attention and focus move elsewhere; there are just so many competing priorities. There are so many distractions in our work life and those the program is designed to support. So expecting this, and not judging yourself (or your culture) if the momentum wanes allows you to question: What has worked and what could be tweaked to revitalize our recognition efforts?

Like any corporate or team initiative, your program needs to stay fresh, consistent and meaningful. Here are some simple, easy tools and strategies to keep recognition momentum going in your workplace!

1.Going Beyond Passive Kudos Boards

You may have a board for people to write kudos cards to each other.

Some ways to keep it fresh and know it’s current is to have folks date them. Make them visible (for example, BestBuy has them in a public area). And mix it up (take a leaf out of Home Depot’s book) by having people turn the kudos card over with the person’s name on the back; it allows anyone to see if new kudos have been added lately and it also creates a buzz, “Hey Larry, on your way to break check out the board…someone left you a note!”

2.Putting Recognition Into Teams’ Hands

Another tradition some Home Depot stores do is to have a team-based award. At the weekly stand-up meeting, a department that was recognized the week before passes the team trophy to the next department. It allows your high performing teams to be looking for examples of great teamwork, collaboration, and service (anything you want to see more of) to choose which department is most deserving of recognition. It also motivates teams to earn recognition.

3.Pop-Up Recognition Campaigns

Some inspired leaders at North York General Hospital, after doing some training on recognition, realized that they had the perfect way to make Patient Safety Week real, not just for the staff and physicians at NYGH, but also for the patients and families they served. They posted a sign about it being Patient Safety Week and requested everyone write down someone or a team who practiced safe patient care. They provided little frog cut-outs and markers to write down these comments as well as tape to attach them to the windows in the front lobby. Not only were staff and physicians using that opportunity to celebrate their colleagues, but they were touched when they read, or someone told them to go read, about a comment posted about them. The windows were covered by the end of the week. People and teams were allowed to keep their frogs at the end of the week if they wanted to (how nice to look at it later) and it created a ripple effect of folks recognizing other things that were working in their teams and in others well after the week was over.

4.Fuel Positivity & Productivity in Meetings

Meetings usually make people roll their eyes and scour their brains for an excuse to not go. But what if it wasn’t something to dread? Whether it’s a daily huddle, monthly team meeting, annual planning event, or awards ceremony, imagine if the first thing was to ask people to reflect on what was working, who deserves acknowledgment and successes? It begins your meeting with positivity, but clients who have adopted this have also found there is a higher attendance rate, less complaining and more creative solution-finding. A perfect example is St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto. At a quarterly staff breakfast, everyone received cards with the organization’s core values. Individuals were asked to write a person or team that demonstrates it and specifically how. These were posted and then distributed to the recipient of the recognition. It brought energy and commitment to more recognition throughout the organization as well as helped people connect to how they live the values of the organization.

What strategy do you think you would like to try in your team or organization to freshen up recognition? And do you have some other ideas of what has worked? Will you share it with us in the comments below?

For more recognition ideas and tools for your workplace, why not check out this link on my website or tune in daily for a tip here.

Sarah Interviews Piyush Patel, Entrepreneur, Best Selling Author, Speaker, and Angel Investor.

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Sarah:

Hey, everyone. Very excited about interviewing Piyush Patel. He is a rockstar entrepreneur and has released this book that I cannot put down, “Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work“. And Piyush, first of all, I was just sharing with you how much I absolutely love your book, both from a culture standpoint but also your message around valuing your talent. It’s so powerful. I’m just wondering if I can just throw back to you, did you always feel this way or what’s your journey to have gotten to the point where you’re writing this book?

Piyush:

No. Recognition and culture was not where I started. I started as a sixth-grade science teacher and got thrown into the entrepreneurial world. Really, it boils down to how do you want to be treated, how do you want to treat other people.

Sarah:

I couldn’t agree more. And of course, I’m sure you’re treating your students very well like that. So how come that just didn’t beautifully translate into the business world?

Piyush:

Well, there’s this idea that because I own a business and you work for me, that by me paying you should be enough, right? And now it’s your duty to do your part. And we don’t do that in a classroom environment, right? In a classroom environment, we do a lot of nurturing, a lot of caring because we ultimately have the same goals. I think a classroom and a business ultimately have the same goals. They have things to achieve. Why change it up?

Sarah:

What happened to make you want to change it up?

Piyush:

I got to the point where I hated going into the office. It’s one of those things. You ask a lot of entrepreneurs, “Hey, would you go back and do it again?” And a lot of them will say, “No, knowing what I know now, I just realized I was too dumb back then to know what I didn’t know.” And so, I got into this process and suddenly I wake up one morning and it’s, “I don’t want to go to the office. I’ve lost the joy of running the company. I’ve lost the joy of connecting with my customers and people,” and it really boiled down to my core values were not passed on into the business. For me, I thought there were some aspirational values that I needed to have to make a lot of money and that was the only purpose of the business. And really it turned out the purpose of my business was to help people. And as a result, we ended up making money.

Sarah:

And so here you are, you’ve left behind a job that you loved, teaching, and then you started a business that you loved. And then you find out that you don’t love it anymore. Was there a turning point that helped you, sort of like an “A-ha” epiphany moment that allowed you to get back on track to living your values and figuring out what you really wanted to do for the “rest of your life?”

Piyush:

Yes. It really was a catalyst moment. I remember sitting at a business conference and this guy got up and started talking about core values. And I was thinking, “Oh, yeah. We’ve got those. We put ’em on the board.” And then he said, “I don’t really care about your company core values. What are your core values?” And I thought, “Wow, nobody’s really ever asked me what mine were.” And I never really connected the dots that mine are the company’s because it’s my company. I’m the only shareholder of the organization so I’m trying to be somebody I’m not for the majority of the day, and I just realized I don’t want to be that person. I need to be genuine, I need to be who I am. In the book, I talk about core values, not in the sense that you need to have my core values ’cause that just brings you right back to where I was. It’s really going down the journey to find your core values and then how do you present those and live them in your business.

Sarah:

What I value about what you’re sharing is that although we’re talking about your entrepreneurship journey, of which has been an incredibly lucrative journey … not only were you making a lot of money then, what folks may or may not know about your story, and if they don’t know they should look it up … in fact you do a lot of speaking, so some people may have already heard you speak or hear you speak in the future … it just expedited your business’s financial success once you got clear on this. What’s so powerful, though, about people hearing that, even if they can’t relate to the entrepreneurship component, “I need to have this lesson as an entrepreneur,” I’m sure so many people tuning in to this will say, “It’s like he’s talking to me about my career. I’m not really feeling like my values are showing up in my job as a leader, or my job as a frontline staff member.” Did you feel that, once you figured this out about yourself as the business owner, that you also noticed that same thing with your staff and the leaders who work for you?

Piyush:

Absolutely. I mean we started to attract the right kind of people. And the right kind of people aren’t the hardest working, the smartest in the business. They’re the ones who fit my core values. And what I find when I go visit with other organizations and help other companies really break through that flat-line plateau of where they are to where they want to be, the biggest thing that I see is things like core values of honesty. But everybody lies in an organization. It’s the first thing I see. I see transparency on their list, and I go, “Great! Are you an open book?” And the first thing they do is look at me and go, “No, why would we do that?” “Because you’re not transparent. That’s why you don’t do that.” And that’s what happens. Let’s talk about honesty, ’cause it’s fun to talk about honesty. I sat in a lobby one time and I heard the person I was going to meet with telling the receptionist, “Hey, tell everybody that I’m out of town.” Yet, clearly, he’s standing right in front of me. And then we go have our meeting. We started talking about core values and he said, “Well, one of our main core values is honesty.” I said, “That’s interesting. Tell me more about that.” And he said, “Oh, you know, we’re really honest with our customers and our staff, and how we run the business.” And I was like, “That’s great! But, you know, you just asked the person answering the phones to lie.” “Oh, well, I mean …” And he tried to kind of justify, “No, that wasn’t a lie. This is a lie.” Well, what happens is, when you say honesty is your core value, you attract the most honest people on the market to come work for you. And then they get there and realize, “Wait a minute. This is not real.” And that’s how they start behaving. And so what I told him was, “Hey, you should make your core value, ‘We are habitual, hardcore liars. And you will go hire the best liars in the business.’ Why are you trying to attract honest people? Just attract liars and invest in your business!”

Sarah:

It brings it back to the point that so much of these exercises, why people don’t believe in them and value them, and they roll their eyes when it happens, is because folks have seen this happen before where we put the values up on the wall and people don’t practice them. And what I find even more difficult to swallow, and I’m sure that you see this too now that you’ve sold your business and you’re doing consulting work, is that then when leaders talk about, “We need to hold people accountable around here to living the values,” and yet they’re not doing it themselves. It just creates this downward spiral of distrust and frustration and lack of recognition. Because then it’s like, “What do we value around here? What do I support and what do I appreciate?” And that’s when you really have that lack of your “BAM formula”. Tell everybody about your “BAM formula”.

Piyush:

People work for five things. They need food, shelter, so that’s pretty much handled by every employer with a paycheck. We pay somebody; that money is used for food and shelter. You need that. You need safety, which most companies provide in the form of some kind of health insurance or life insurance or retirement. Some kind of safety feeling. Every employer gives you that. After that, people only work for three things, and we made the acronym “BAM”: Belonging, Affirmation, and Meaning. People want to belong to something bigger than themselves. They want to be affirmed for their work. And I don’t just mean, “Hey, it’s 3 o’clock. Walk around everybody and pat ’em on the head and say, ‘Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Keep it up. See you tomorrow at three.” Right? That’s not affirmation. We know what your base affirmation … your listeners are tuned in to recognition, so they are really mastering that. I also think when people aren’t doing the right thing, it’s our duty to acknowledge that, pull ’em aside, coach ’em. And that’s part of that affirmation as well. “Hey, I’m going to have to have an uncomfortable conversation with you.” And then the last one is meaning. It doesn’t matter if it’s somebody answering the phone or somebody doing the most critical, important work. They want their work to mean something. And the hardest thing to do is to take a company full of individuals and create that environment, but classrooms do that every day. And so we just brought that classroom feeling with an instructor who’s a leader and say, “We are all here to accomplish something big, so we’re going to give you belonging; we’re going to tell you that you’re doing great ’cause we’re going to put those stickers on you and say ‘good job, good job’, and when you’re not doing great we’re going to coach you so we can say ‘good job, good job.’ “And our meaning is part of our mission, which is we’re going to go change the world.” I think when people say, “We’re going to go change the world,” they’re thinking of the entire planet. I think you look at it in microcosms. My world was people who make movies and video games, and so I didn’t want to be something to everybody. I wanted to be everything to someone.

Sarah:

Every person can connect with that, right? ‘Cause that’s honestly why they’re coming to work. Yes, absolutely, there are lots of people that would work even if they won the lottery. And the rest of us, it’s BAM that really gets people, not just coming to work, but also coming to work with your greatness, your talents, your passions, your virtues that make you want to elevate your true potential at work. Because you can do it at work, you can do it at home, you can do it in the community. There are many different places you can do it. Or you can do it nowhere, of course, and then you really have deflated folks and that’s where we’ve got mental health challenges and folks who just feel so lost and stressed and frustrated. I just love how you concretely put this into practice in meetings with folks. When you talk about the values story. Can you tell us about how people can make the connection between values and affirming people through that really helpful formula of a value story?

Piyush:

I’m a big, big believer in tribes. Everything that’s going on in the world right now is because we’re all different tribes, right? You and I may have completely different views on every single thing in life, and we can be neighbors, and we hate each other. Right?

Now, you pick us both up. You put us in the same town T-shirts, and you drop us off in Germany. And we bump into each other. All of a sudden, we’re now best friends. “Wow! We have so many things in common!” That’s all tribal. All of a sudden, we found somebody of something similar to our tribe in a world that’s different.

I recognized it and I created that same thing in my environment. Our monthly meetings were called Campfires where we all come together and have a full staff meeting, and we open with, “Everybody’s going to share a story around one of our core values. Now you can share one of yourself or you can share one of the ones you saw.” What are the rules? Everybody plays. We don’t go around; we go in whoever would like to go, that way everybody matches their comfort level.

But we practiced this every single day. At 9 o’clock every single day, we sit down and do this activity called “The Three Happy’s”. And The Three Happy’s allows every employee to create BAM for themselves, and it’s really simple. It’s just a name and date, and then there are three things. Two things at work that made you happy in the past 24 hours, and one thing personally that made you happy in the past 24 hours. And what happens is I now, as an employee, I’m telling everybody in my team, “Here are two things at work that created belonging and meaning for me. And now I’ve self-affirmed, and I’ve self-affirmed because I’ve said it out loud and you’ve listened.” And so we teach every employee on their first day of employment this activity called “Listening is an Act of Affirmation”. And so to be a great listener, you’re affirming somebody. And we do this every day, 9 o’clock; you could set your watch to it.

Sarah:

And so, when you teach the art of listening, I would be curious to know how many people brought that home and had better relationships in their family lives, as well. Did you hear any stories about that?

Piyush:

Oh, my gosh, so many. And doing The Three Happy’s with the kids and wife or husband at home at dinner, and just doing it with parents, and just creating this movement around, “Let’s just pause for a second and be really happy for what we have.” “We’re a bunch of nerds and we sit in front of a computer. How hard is life?” It’s just a little bit of perspective.

Sarah:

Well, and one of the things that I think you have done in your culture, that you work really hard to build … I’m sure this wasn’t oh, you had an awakening and then overnight you had, “Oh, I’m going to do Happy’s and I’m going do core value stories.” I’m sure it was a lot of soul searching to get to this place, and when you arrive there, what it comes down to, are basic human needs. I know you were talking about a framework of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that we need certain things first before we can get to that point of self-actualization and meaning. Absolutely people need meaning in that, and you’ve taken it one step further to talk about “What is an every-person need?” No matter what your education level; no matter where you live; no matter what type of work you do, this transcends all cultures.

And so I’m really hoping that folks take that away. They start doing their own Happy’s each day if that’s how they feel that their level of influence is at this point. Do it with your closest colleague; do it in a team meeting. Try it once, see how it goes, because what’s the worst that could happen? And really, all of the things that you’ve been talking about is what people who’ve read my book and my co-author book, and people who come to my sessions, they realize it starts with self-recognition first. Your Three Happy’s is another version of you also get to acknowledge yourself, and in your core value stories. People can choose to talk about themselves or each other.

And when we feel filled up with who we are and what we’re contributing first, we can see all the contributions all around us. And it just becomes so much more authentic, and that goes back to living our values too, right? Because it’s coming from that place where you are your most resourceful and the best version of yourself. Incredible. Any last words of wisdom to share with folks before we wrap up?

Piyush:

I think you did a great job, Sarah, of reinforcing that everybody can start. Honestly. And if they feel pressured that they can’t start in their office, they can definitely start at home.

Sarah:

So powerful. And, you know, that’s a great place to end because, just last week when I was doing some speaking for a really large community, all staff and leaders were invited, it was “mandatory” so you know how thrilled a few people were showing up. And I’m not sure why some people feel they need to declare it to me that they have to be there, but I guess it’s their way of saying, “I’m not thrilled to be here.” But by the end, a couple of those folks said to me, “Okay, I’m not going to guarantee I’m going to do anything differently at work, but I am going to try some of this stuff at home.”

Wherever we need to shine and be our own version of great, that’s perfect. Isn’t that the best place to start? Focus where you’re most comfortable? Thank you so much. It’s just been such an honour to speak with you, and I’m going to make sure that we include in our comments section here, how people can get a hold of you. I’m sure that they’ll want to chat with you more, learn about the type of work that you do now, as well as potentially find out about your speaking, as well, because that would be amazing to have you share this message. We are in the midst of a talent shortage, I tell everyone. I know I talk about this all the time. You do such an amazing job of talking about how it’s one thing to recruit great people; it’s another thing to recruit great people to your culture.

Connect with Piyush

Website:  PatelOKC

www.facebook.com/patel.ok

www.twitter.com/ppatelokc

www.linkedin.com/in/patelokc

www.instagram.com/patelokc/

Amazon Book Link

How to Handle Grief: Leveraging Recognition to Survive Loss

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Using recognition, even in times of our greatest grief, can provide comfort and touch people lives.

My Auntie Sue had not even reached her 60th birthday when she passed away from cancer. She was an incredible person, full of life, positive, happy, had many friends; we couldn’t believe her life was cut short. A year after she passed, my family gathered for a celebration of life. We knew we wanted to remember her, but we didn’t want it to feel forced or awkward. So, we took a leaf out of Auntie Sue’s book and we made it fun.

We used F.R.O.G. Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness™ to honour my Auntie Sue.

We took a frog charm with a pink ribbon for breast cancer. Whoever was holding the charm shared a memory, a funny story, an attribute or gift she had, or a story of how she had touched their life.

By the time it got to her husband (my uncle), he was choked up. “I wish that we had done this when she was alive.” One of my kids looked at him and said, “Well, why don’t we that for each other now?”

Out of the mouth of babes, right?

So that’s exactly what we did. We had a bit of an awkward moment of trying to guess each other’s favourite colours (turns out we don’t know that about each other!) Then, we took turns being recognized. Each member of the family passed around our charm, again sharing a funny memory, story or what they most admired in us. They honoured our greatness. And by it being sparked by commemorating Auntie Sue and because she would have loved to be a part of that, it honoured her too.

Now, some of us felt more comfortable receiving public compliments than others (I for one, surprise, surprise had no problem!) However, we did it for her. And each one of us experienced that endorphin rush when you experience positive things. Who would have expected to feel better leaving a Celebration of Life than when you came in?

A few weeks later, I received a text from my cousin. She shared how much the day meant to her and her dad. And, she attached a picture. It was a shadow box containing four FROG charms – my aunt’s, my uncle’s, hers and her fiance’s. Today that is proudly displayed in my uncle’s front hall and it’s one of the first things you see. It’s apparently a common source of inquiry, and how lovely to retell the story of the day we all recognized Sue’s greatness together.

How can you honour your family’s greatness? How can you bring recognition into your family gatherings? How can it comfort you during a loss? How do you already do these things? Will you share your strategies and ideas below?

If you felt that this was powerful for you, or you know somebody who is looking for an idea about how to celebrate somebody that they’ve lost, why don’t you share the video or post with them? A problem shared is a problem halved, isn’t that what they say?

Sending you warmth, support, and comfort if you’re going through a difficult time. Recognizing your greatness in how well you’re handling it.

But I’m Exhausted: How to Recognize Yourself and Others’ Even in Overload

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An interview with special guest, Christine Laperriere, owner/founding partner of Leader In Motion and Executive Director of Women of Influence Advancement Centre. Christine is passionate about Women’s Advancement and helping them learn how to stay happy despite being so busy.  Learn more about the mindset and strategies needed to get through it all.

Sarah:

Today, I’m pleased to introduce you to my amazing colleague Christine Laperriere, the head of Leader In Motion. We were going to talk about something that we’re so passionate about- women’s advancement and the lack of recognition – but here’s the thing; we’re both showing up at 4:30 in the afternoon at the end of the week exhausted and we’re exhausted! Instead, we’re going to have a real conversation here about what it’s like when you are fatigued and the lack of recognition that comes when that happens.

Christine:

We can definitely have a talk about that because that is top of my mind right now. Doing all this work with the Women of Influence Advancement Centre is a big part of my day job. I coach women through their careers to help them move into promotions. It’s amazing because here I am; I’ve got a screaming toddler and an eight-month-old baby who’s teething right now. Basically, I’m juggling it all. Sometimes the idea of advancement in the first place is just exhausting.

Sarah:

It’s fleeting moments when we consider: why would anyone want to advance?

Christine:

True, When you are thinking, you have more than I can possibly handle. Please, I don’t need anymore! I see this a lot when I’m coaching women. I see them struggle with being exhausted and under these incredible demands and feeling like they don’t want any additional responsibility. They don’t want any additional leadership. I just got off the phone earlier this morning when a coaching client went from an individual contributor to over the last year and a half she was given a team of 10 and then another team of 10 and then another team of six.

Meanwhile, she’s a busy mom at home raising children. She just said, “All I need to do is get as much done as I possibly can in a day so that I can get home and be a mom,” which is another important job for me. Sometimes I think to myself, “How do we do this? How do we do this all?”

Sarah:

I too see with coaching clients that they internalize this: if I can’t get it all done I’m a bad contributor or I’m a bad mom or terrible spouse. It’s amazing how many of us look around and think others must have it figured out. Not only is it rarely true, but it also robs us of the opportunity to recognize our greatness, what we are doing well and what we are doing right.

Christine:

It’s definitely a matter of understanding how to manage the standard that you’re going to hold yourself to when you’re juggling more than one thing. I think one of the things that I was talking to her about was how, before I had kids, it was easy to find four extra hours. Not that my life outside of work wasn’t very important, but there were other things that I could try to delay, move or reschedule. Unfortunately, I can’t reschedule a teething eight-month-old! I don’t get the luxury of coming home from work and finding four additional hours while I’m juggling a teething eight-month-old. It’s interesting how the idea of balance, like the standard that we set on ourselves, it has to be modified for the number of demands that we’re carrying. The bar that I used to jump in my career was much higher. Today, it’s got to be a little bit lower so that I can manage it all. I need to be pretty good at a lot of things versus awesome at everything. I’ll raise the bar again next week when his teeth are here.

Sarah:

Maybe we realize the expectations don’t have to be that high anyway. Maybe we actually have much higher standards than we need to. Because one of the things that I’ve learned through the work you do in supporting women’s advancement and the research is that what holds women back is that we put our heads down, keep working harder, and expect our blood, sweat, and tears will eventually pay off. Not advancing? We do more. Then the bar is higher, not just for ourselves, but others have a higher bar for us too. We expect it’s going to get us noticed, but that’s not what happens, is it?

Christine:

Right. To bring it all together, I’m finishing a book called “Too Busy To Be Happy.” Ironic. Maybe you’ll understand why I feel like I’m an expert on this topic being too busy to be happy, but at the end of the day it’s juggling all of it and let’s say the bar that we put on ourselves, I still come back to, can you answer the question, “Are you happy?”

When we set expectations and standards that are so out of reach and then we start on that treadmill and we’re running, running, running, we end up losing sight of actually just being happy. I’ve made it a passion of mine to figure out how to be busy and happy. Somewhere along the line, the idea of this work-life balance thing came along and it made me feel like I needed to have a life on the top of a mountain and meditate for nine hours a day in order to be happy.

I felt like I was conflicted because I really love my busy life, but there are just moments where I no longer am happy. For me, it’s just trying to find out how do we be busy and happy. Not feeling quite so exhausted all the time.

Sarah:

It’s so important to be both busy, and not feel guilty about that, and happy. When we aren’t, we often aren’t living our greatness and not recognizing ourselves. What are some of your best tips for people to be able to recognize themselves even when they feel like they’re busy and perhaps not getting it all done? How can they still recognize themselves?

Christine:

I think it’s going to sound really simple, but the prioritization of the things is important. When you look at the amount of energy we’re trying to expel on so many different priorities at the same time, the first thing I end up doing when I’m talking to somebody is coming back to, what are the most important things? Such as, “Okay. I need to be an awesome mom and deliver fantastic results at work, but are those are the only two things or do you also want health, friendships, and other things? What are the things most important to prioritize?

If you have a sick parent, over delivering just isn’t in the cards, right? It’s about survival. Understanding what are those two or three most important things that have to get done right now. It’s funny. You can take a look at your day where you’re spending your time and see how well aligned you’re spending your energy and time with the two or three things that are most important. To me, it’s the fastest way.

One of the things I do all the time is I’ll say, “Open up your calendar. Where have you been for the last week or so? Let’s take a look at where you’ve been spending your time.” It’s almost instantly an “ah ha” moment for people when they’re feeling too busy to be happy.

Sarah:

I just want to take a moment to acknowledge, Christine, that in your busy day, you still valued and prioritized our relationship and our conversation.

Christine:

One of the things I’ll say on that note, it’s so funny because I’m very particular about where I spend time and energy. But if a relationship is bringing good energy and it actually raises my energy level versus depletes my energy level, I prioritize it. That relationship goes way up in my importance of things to do. I think that’s been one of the biggest things that actually helps me manage my stress levels. Our relationship is energizing for me. It made the top of my list when I did have a free moment to do a VLOG. Thank you so much for being a part of it. And thanks for the great work you’re doing helping people leverage recognition in themselves and at work.

Sarah:

If you want to learn more about Christine and her website is www.leaderinmotion.com. And we’ll be sure to keep you updated on Christine’s new book that’s coming out in early 2019! Christine, I hope you’ll come back for another interview!

Christine:

You’ve got it!

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