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Sharpen your Resiliency and Lead with Impact

Have you been curious about the difference between my group coaching and individual coaching?

I provide both!  If you are curious about the Resilient Leadership Group vs individual coaching here are three benefits for participating in groups:

Diverse Perspectives and Peer Support: 
In a group coaching setting, you can interact with and learn from a diverse group of peers who are working towards similar goals. This diversity can bring a variety of perspectives, experiences, and insights to the coaching process. Hearing about others’ challenges, successes, and strategies can provide valuable insights and alternative approaches you may not have considered in individual coaching. I provide the space for interaction.

Cost-Effective: 
Group coaching is often more affordable than individual coaching. Since the cost is shared among participants, it can be a great option for individuals who might not have the budget for one-on-one coaching sessions.

Accountability and Motivation: 
Group coaching can provide a powerful sense of accountability and motivation. When your part of a group, you’re more likely to feel motivated to work towards your goals because you have peers who are also striving for success. The group dynamic can help keep you on track, inspire you to act, and celebrate your achievements along the way.

Join a Like-Minded Community: Starting on Wednesday, January 10th, 2024, you’ll embark on a transformative journey alongside fellow Resilient Leaders who share your aspirations. Email me at janemckeanbcs@gmail.com

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Groundbreaking Resilient Leadership Group

Do you feel overwhelmed, stuck, or burnt out in your career? Are you struggling to stay focused on your goals and aspirations?

If your answer is YES, then you are ready to embrace your role as a Resilient Leader.

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of our groundbreaking Resilient Leadership Group on January 10th, 2024.

With over a decade of experience as a career and leadership coach, I’ve had the privilege of helping hundreds of individuals elevate their careers to new heights. My secret? RESILIENCE. I will teach you the six essential drivers of resilience in the workplace.

By joining our exclusive community of Resilient Leaders, you’ll:

  1. Invest in Yourself: Take a pause from the chaos of your daily routine and invest in your personal and professional growth. Building your resilience muscle is an investment that pays dividends.
  2. Enjoy the Journey: Learning and practicing resilience doesn’t have to be a chore. We’ll have a blast while honing these essential skills together, fostering a supportive and engaging environment.

Join a Like-Minded Community: Starting on Wednesday, January 10th, 2024, you’ll embark on a transformative journey alongside fellow Resilient Leaders who share your aspirations. Email me at janemckeanbcs@gmail.com

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Are you ready to be a Resilient Leader?

Then I am your coach. I help professionals become Resilient Leaders, so they can have careers that have clarity, purpose, and intention.

Being a Resilient Leader can help you with the following:

-your career goals so you can flourish
-your team so they can flourish
-your company so you have a culture of a flourishing company.

Here are my offerings:
One-to-one coaching – sign up for a consultation
Group Coaching Resilient Leaders, sign up for a consultation to make sure you are the right fit for the group.
Customized presentation or group coaching for your company.

A Career is like a Road Trip

Building resilience is a skill that can be strengthened with practice. It is an
essential work skill to use so you can flourish in your career. So you can
have a flourishing road trip.

To tap into self-compassion in relation to a career transition or to become a Resilient Leader, email me at janemckeanbcs@gmail.com for a 30-minute complimentary consultation. 

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Do you believe that you can succeed? When you are given a task, do you believe that you can do it?

Self-efficacy is the belief that you can succeed. You can do it. This is our fifth leadership skill in being a Resilient Leader

Efficacy is the ability to make things happen. “Self-efficacy is the ability to do it for ourselves. It is the ability to move with the agency through life toward our goals,” says Albert Bandura. 

To build self-efficacy, here are four areas to tap into: 

  • Mastery of Experiences – remember your past achievements,  obstacles that you overcame, goals achieved, and skills you acquired. This builds confidence. Write them down, say them out loud, and tell a friend.  
  • Role Models- you learn from your role models. we learn from observing. Who do you admire, and what do you learn from them?  
  • Support Team – It’s the idea that one’s environment affects one, and the environment includes other people. Surround yourself with people who believe in you, have confidence in you, and can help you overcome doubt and fear when facing challenges. This is your support team.  
  • Believe – “I can do it.” Negative thoughts and feelings are temporary, and you will overcome them. The belief that you can succeed overrides thoughts and feelings. You may feel uncomfortable or afraid however, you know you can do it.  

Email me or call me if you would like to build your own self-efficacy.  Everyone has it, and you must use it to strengthen it. I am on your support team. Contact me!

RECAP: We are Resilient Leaders. We face many challenges at work, at home, and in our communities. We know we can overcome these challenges by using leadership skills. Here are five skills that can help build your resiliency.  

To tap into self-compassion in relation to a career transition or to become a Resilient Leader, email me at janemckeanbcs@gmail.com for a 30-minute complimentary consultation. 

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When you are stressed do you see the optimistic side of things?

To be a Resilient Leader, we need to flex optimism.

I am here to remind you of this power: optimism. When you are planning a meeting, a project, and your career, ask yourself, “What is the optimistic vision? What could  go right?”

As a Resilient Leader, it is our job to remember what could go right, or what I call the optimistic vision. We naturally think about obstacles and what could go wrong because our brain is protecting us.

We want to give our brains the equal opportunity to see the glass half full (optimism) and to see the glass half empty  (pessimism). As Resilient Leaders, it is our job to ask both  questions: 

  • I am focusing on all the negatives that could happen when I talk to my boss. What could go right?
  • I see we are talking about all the things that could go wrong. How about we shift to what could go right?
  • I see we are so excited for this project to launch, and we are doing our best work. Let’s take a moment to notice any obstacles that could come in our way.

It’s not about having blind optimism or persistent pessimism, it is about the balance of both.

If you find yourself thinking about only the obstacles or the pessimistic side, challenge yourself to think about the optimistic vision. Plan your day with your optimistic vision in mind.

Having a hard time focusing on your optimistic vision or your team’s optimistic vision? Is fear ruling your head?  Send me an email, I can help.

 

To tap into self-compassion in relation to a career transition or to become a Resilient Leader, email me at janemckeanbcs@gmail.com for a 30-minute complimentary consultation. 

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Do you give yourself self-compassion?

Do you give yourself self-compassion?

Do you give yourself self-compassion? 

Self-Compassion is the third driver of Resiliency. Please email me or send this email to a friend who would like to tap into their own self-compassion so that you can be a resilient leader! 

Kristin Neff (https://self-compassion.org/the-three-elements-of-selfcompassion-2/) defines self-compassion as having compassion for oneself is no different than having compassion for others. First, to have compassion for others, you must notice that they are suffering. Second, compassion involves feeling moved by others’ suffering so that your heart responds to their pain (the word compassion literally means to “suffer with”). Having compassion also means that you offer understanding and kindness to others when they fail or make mistakes rather than judging them harshly. It means that you realize that suffering, failure, and imperfection is part of the shared human experience. 

When you are suffering give yourself self-compassion. This will boost your resiliency. 

Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring your pain with a “stiff upper lip” mentality, you stop to tell yourself “this is really difficult right now,” how can I comfort and care for myself in this moment? 

How do you give yourself self-compassion? There are many ways to practice self-compassion. Here are a few that I discuss in the video below. 

To give you a work example: Remember Joanne who has had two bosses in the past year and is getting ready for her third boss? She was overwhelmed and felt like a victim. To help her move through these feelings, we worked on her self-compassion. When we met for our session, we did a brief RAIN meditation from Tara Brach. Here is Tara Brach’s flow on a self-compassion meditation: 

R- recognize what you are feeling 

A- allow yourself to feel these feelings 

I- investigate where you feel these feelings in your body. Place a loving hand on where you are feeling these feelings. 

N- nurture this area with a massage. Also, tell yourself nurturing thoughts like, “I am safe,” “I know what I am doing,” “I got this.” 

See Tara Brach’s video below: 

Joanne told me that this meditation helped her move through her complex feelings of having a third boss. She felt more resilient when the meditation was over so she could face and work with her third boss. 

When you are feeling stuck with thoughts like, “Ugh my boss told me I had to do x, y, and z, and I still need to do a,b,c.” Take a self-compassion break and do a RAIN meditation with Tara Brach. You are not alone; we all face these overwhelming feelings, especially at work. We need to take care of ourselves with self-compassion. 

To tap into self-compassion in relation to a career transition or to become a Resilient Leader, email me at janemckeanbcs@gmail.com for a 30-minute complimentary consultation. 

For a self-compassion circle or retreat, please contact Donna Daniell, LCSW https://women-in-transformation. com/Donna  

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Do you have influence over your emotions?

Do you know you have influence over your emotions?

Today we are talking about Emotional Regulation and how to use it so you can be resilient.

Positive Psychology defines emotional regulation as: 

[T]he process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express their feelings. Emotional regulation can be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious, and may have effects at one or more points in the emotion producing process.” (Gross, 1998, p. 275).

A key component of emotional regulation is your self-awareness as you are feeling an emotion. When you practice being curious about what you are feeling – or being a witness to what you are feeling – you can Pause – Process – Proceed.

For Resilient Leaders, emotional regulation is the ability to pause, notice your feelings, and the process in a constructive way, and then proceed to choose a healthy and productive response that aligns with your values. This is what I discuss in my coaching sessions on emotional regulation. Here is an example for additional clarification.

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Cognitive Agility

What is cognitive agility?

I am sharing the skills that make up resiliency so you know when you are being a resilient leader. Awareness is key, so you can do it again. We are building our awareness and vocabulary around resiliency.

Last month I shared a graph from BU Labs. The five skills that are making a difference today include: cognitive agility, emotional regulation, self-compassion, optimism, and self-efficacy.

Today we are talking about cognitive agility.

If you or you know of someone that would like to tap into their resiliency, please forward them this email. Email me (janemckeanbcs@gmail.com) or text me (202) 491-5487 to set up a free 30-minute consultation.

A 2018 study by Jared Ross defined cognitive agility as the capacity of an individual to easily move back and forth between openness and focus. Improving cognitive agility has the potential to increase emotional intelligence by increasing an individual’s ability to move between highly focused states to levels of broad, outward awareness, which enables dynamic decision-making and enhances personal communication skills.

I like to tell my clients cognitive agility is shifting your perspective from seeing the forest to seeing the trees. I see the big picture, and I also see the details. Work is constantly changing. We need leaders to be able to shift their thinking to adapt to new challenges. One thing that is always constant is change. So, what does this look like in real life?

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Career assessment - the MBTI assessment

Career assessment – the MBTI assessment

Today I am going to talk about a career assessment, the MBTI assessment. This assessment has many assessments underneath the umbrella of MBTI. You can look at the website elevate.com, and check out the assessments. I use the career assessment, and then I also use another MBTI report for leaders. Today I am going to talk about the people who want to change careers or pivot in their careers.

The MBTI is a great resource to understand yourself better, so you can make better decisions about yourself and for your future. It is the most widely used personality assessment. We all have stories of when we have taken it before and what we think we are. Most people can’t remember, however, it’s a great conversation to have. It’s in 70 different countries, so it is worldwide, it is well known and it is valid and reliable. It is a great assessment, except it’s not the end-all-be-all. It really is a research tool for you to become more self-aware about yourself and to process it with a coach.

I really like the story about it and how it was founded. The theory is from Carl Jung, who was a Swiss psychiatrist. He developed the theory of personality. He knew that personalities were not random traits rather we all had preferences.

The differences were patterns. He became involved and put types to these patterns. An American woman named Katharine Briggs was really enthralled in his research and she studied this for over 20 years. And she learned a lot about his types and different personalities and how they work in different areas.  The areas were in work, home, and in life. She had a daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, and the two of them took all of Jung’s work and all of Brigg’s work and developed questions that became the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or the MBTI.

Now, we can actually know what type of personality we have. I think that’s really cool. So in a nutshell, there are four pairs of opposites, like our left and right hand, we use both but not with the same amount of ease. I’m right-handed and I was born right-handed. I could learn how to write with my left hand, however, I would prefer to write with my right. That is what the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator gets to. What is our first preference? What were we born with? They all are great types, there’s no one better than the other, they all have positives and negatives to them.

The four opposites are extrovert or introvert, where we focus our attention and energy. Extroverted people focus on the outer world, introvert focuses on the inner world. Sensing or intuitive. The way we take in information and the kind of information we like and trust. Sensing, people like facts and experience. Intuition prefer future possibilities and insights. Again, you would use both, but maybe you would have a preference over the other. T and F, the way we make decisions. Thinking, we make our decisions on objective logic. Feeling, make decisions on personal priorities and relationships. J and P, our judging and perceiving. Our attitude toward the outer world and how we orient ourselves to it. People who prefer judging, want the world to be organized and orderly, and people who prefer perceiving seek to experience the world not to organize it. You can see how this would play out in a career.

If you are going through a career transition or wondering what you would like to do next in your life, the MBTI can shed light on that personality and give you some information for your next career. When people come to see me, they really want to know themselves and make a thoughtful decision for their next choice.  The Myers-Briggs is only one little piece of information to take in while you’re making your decision. It’s not the end-all be-all, it’s not going to tell you what you need to be and you’re going to be very, very happy. I would be a billionaire if I had an assessment like that. It really sheds light on your own insights about yourself and that you can process it with a coach.

You do need to be certified to administer the Myers-Briggs, and I am certified. If you do not do it through me, make sure your administrator is certified. That is a priority if you want that. And then, send me your email and information and we can set up a consult, a free consultation. If you want to learn more about it, if you want to take it, it is pretty powerful information. I really look forward into talking to you about it, because I do think it helps in how you make decisions in your transition into a new career. It also sheds light on how you are working and how you’re presenting yourself today. So you learn a lot about yourself. Alright, everybody. Thanks a lot. Have a good day. I’ll see you next time.

I want to thank these six women who ran for President in 2020.

I help adults uncover their possibilities in their careers.  Whether you are designing the next chapter in your life or you are a leader at a company, I can help you clarify your vision and with your hard work turn it into a reality.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude that this year we had 6 women run for the Presidency of the United States of America.  They had a vision for themselves and decided to be brave and compete for the highest position in our land.

I want to thank these six women who ran for President in 2020.

Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard, Mary Anne Williamson, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Kamala Harris, who is now the Vice President-elect of the United States of America.

As a coach helping women and men achieve their own possibilities. I would like us to pause and take in this moment. Breathe.  Breathe in your possibilities.  Breathe out your possibilities.  Breathe in the world’s possibilities.  Breathe out the world’s possibilities.

The world needs to know that this moment matters for all of us.

As Kamala said on Sat night:

“And to the children of our country (which is all of us), regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message: Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourself in a way that others might not see you, simply because they’ve never seen it before.  And we will applaud you every step of the way.”

So real quick – To all the CEOs and Leaders out there:

  • We want diversity and inclusion
  • We want to keep this momentum going
  • We want to make a positive difference
  • We do it every day.

Now we can see our possibilities turn into a reality with Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris who is on the world stage.

This matters!

It gives all women and men hope that we can believe in ourselves and work hard toward our own vision.  That we are all human beings deserving equal opportunity to our goals.  When we hit obstacles which is inevitable that we overcome them with help from our brothers and sisters.

Thank you to the men and women who made this Vice Presidency a possibility turn into a reality!

If you have a vision for yourself and you need a partner to help you overcome your obstacles, I can help.  Please call or email for a free 30-minute consultation.