In my own life one of the important realizations was that balance is possible and it was mine if I wanted it. What followed was a fair amount of self-reflection, openness, and honesty with myself. Setting aside time to explore my definition of balance, by questioning what was missing and what I was already doing successfully, was time well spent. Since then, I have a good grasp on the various elements of day-to-day life. For me personally knowing my heart and mind are working together is what keeps me balanced. The sense of calm, of being grounded and clearheaded, motivates me to keep my life in balance.

Choosing to create balance will reflect in these six areas of your life:

• Physical
• Mental
• Emotional
• Social
• Financial
• Spiritual
  
  

Each one is important and will require consideration, attention, maintenance, or upgrading throughout your life. Not necessarily at the same time, or in equal amounts; nevertheless, all deserve attention. It would be impossible and unrealistic to believe that each can have a “full service” all of the time. So, choose the area that is being neglected the most at that time and focus on sorting it out. If you choose to socialize more but are not getting enough sleep, you might have chosen the wrong area to nurture. Choose your priorities carefully. All elements are interrelated; balance will be present when all six are respected.

Most of us spend a large part of the day working. Making sure the remaining hours offer some form of nurturing and reenergizing is vital. There is a difference for single people versus married, with or without children, whether you travel, live internationally and interculturally. Choose the area most in need of attention and nurturing.

Thoughts about change usually only occur when life no longer offers you the feeling of being satisfied. They can also emerge when things are basically alright but there is room for improvement. The difficulty frequently lies in finding out specifically what you can improve, what you should move on from, what you should let go of.

Change is not easy or simple. It can only really take place if you are ready to take action. Research shows 90% of the strategies designed for change assume people are ready to take action. In reality only 20% of the people already involved in some process of change are actually ready to take action. This helps explain why so many attempts to keep New Year’s resolutions, lose weight, change behaviour patterns, etc. are doomed to fail. If you have been told you should change, but are not really convinced this is true, you are more likely to fail at completing the process.

It is most helpful and supportive and will increase your chances of successfully completing change if you 

Thoughts that are keeping you awake clearly want some attention. Otherwise, they would not still be lurking around in the back of your head, keeping your mind and body from unwinding and relaxing into a good night’s sleep. Sleep helps process our emotions. I look at a good night’s sleep as comparable to an effective filing system – while sleeping, your mind files what needs to be kept. Your emotions process and discard anything unnecessary.

The emotions have time to settle, and your intuition has a chance to speak to you. A good night’s sleep allows for a fresh mind, the possibility of a new approach, to start the day feeling more balanced.
Thinking habits and problem-solving skills, no matter how good and effective they are, do not always allow for the mind to be at peace every night.

There is only so much you can do with your mind to help relax. Not being able to sleep usually happens when your thoughts are running away with you. These thoughts, more often than not, are from the immediate past or about the future – relating to something that may or may not happen tomorrow.
The best way to shift your thoughts away from worries is to focus on something else and engage your body in the process.

One proven method is to pay close attention to your breathing. Try this:

Hiring a candidate can feel like reaching the finish line of a journey. After weeks or months of recruiting efforts, you finally found the right fit. But it’s not – it’s actually the beginning of a crucial stage of your hiring process: onboarding.

“It is an incredibly vital stage of the hiring process because employees are acclimated to their position, the company’s philosophies, and what the organization has to offer during onboarding,” says Jamie Olson, Head of People & Culture at Continu, a learning amplification platform for teams.

“It also increases motivation, resulting in employees who are dedicated to the company’s success, and promotes the retention of new recruits by making them feel like a part of the team.”

Your onboarding process is the first impression. It can make or break the long-term chances of success of your new team member – it’s when expectations are set and important information is passed along. Olson broke down everything you need to know about how to effectively welcome a new employee to the team. Learn more in the checklist and onboarding tips below.

The ultimate onboarding checklistFirst of all, it’s important not to “wing it.” Onboarding doesn’t consist of greeting your new report and making a few introductions before leaving them on their own. You’ll need to create a streamlined process that is consistent every time you hire someone new. Here is a checklist.
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The morning shapes your day in mysterious ways.
It shouldn’t as there are 24 hours in a day — but it does. Weird. I’m not one of those 4 A.M. cold shower peeps anymore.

I prefer a realistic start to the day. It’s even more important for me because I have no job or boss to report to. So if I stuff up the morning, over time, I can stuff up my life and end up warming an office chair in a skyscraper of broken dreams, dying to escape (again).

Do these things before 8 A.M. to crush your day.

Taking care of ourselves helps us do better work, but it shouldn’t feel like work. 

Well-being is having a moment. What was once considered a soft-news lifestyle topic has, thanks to our collective experience of the pandemic, moved to the center of the conversation about work and life. And as a Chief Well-Being Officer, I’m certainly glad to see this shift (even if I obviously would have preferred a different catalyst). 
Still, when I’m asked questions about well-being, as I often am, I’ve noticed a troubling trend. Very often, well-being becomes just another stress-inducing item on our to-do list. So as we continue to prioritize our well-being, we also need to shift our mindset away from viewing well-being as work. Because well-being isn’t a benchmark we need to hit. It’s not another guilt-inducing metric to measure ourselves by. The whole point of bringing more well-being into our lives is to lower our stress, not add to it. 
With that in mind, here are six ways to prevent well-being from becoming just another item on our to-do lists.

These are a sample of options you have when in need of some stress relief:
​

• Take a break and leave the room. Find a quiet space, even the loo will do.  
• Compose yourself by taking at least 3 breaths. As you exhale, imagine a little bit of the tension leaving your body. (I find visualizing a dark cloud dissipating helpful.)
• Gather your thoughts.  
• Keep your focus on exactly what has been going on that is causing you the stress. Is it the task itself? How about more basic such as hunger or the space around you?
• Does it will involve another person or people… What is missing?  
• Once you know specifically what has thrown you out of balance, think about what can you do now to influence the situation.
• Consider all the steps required to find a solution. Make a list, if only a mental list.  
• What can you do today, right now?  Arrange your list in terms of priority. What has to be done first, then what?  
• Consider the practicalities of your action plan. Is it realistic? Have you the time?  
• Do you need advice or support? If so, whose?  
• Fine-tune the steps you consider necessary to resolve the situation. Keep things realistic to avoid feeling pressure.
• Having thought things through you may find the problem has changed in perspective. Adjust the plan accordingly.

It is most import to ensure that any action you propose to take is in keeping with your personality and can be executed in a style that suits you.
 
 
by Suzie Doscher, Executive and Life Coach, Self-Help Author
​

A scientific study proves self-care can only take you so far.

Forget meditation apps, Tony Robbins seminars and all-inclusive wellness retreats. Happiness’ business model is pyramid-shaped.

A research article in The Journal of Positive Psychology says happiness comes from “making others feel good, rather than oneself.”

Very in fashion with the pyramid scheme model: you can make your first steps towards happiness on your own — read self-help, maybe do some yoga — but if you really want to make it, get your friends and relatives involved somehow.

I think this is a refreshing pivot. Pyramid schemes used to be all about scammy tactics to trick people into buying over-hyped multivitamins and surface cleaners.

Now it could be the model that helps us understand what makes us happier.

Happiness’ secret ingredient is “relatedness,” researchers say
Relatedness is a basic psychological need.
Some people think if we were not restrained by laws and moral codes, society would immediately spring into a rioting rampage of rape and murder and robbery. But our brains are wired to feel good when we nurture a sense of collaboration and community.

We evolved to scratch each other's backs, and given how anatomically difficult it is to do it on your own, I believe Mother Nature wanted us to figure out we need one another after all.
Like in any pyramid scheme, happiness is rigged against individuality.

The researchers tested it: you can’t hack relatedness by sending good vibes back to yourself. And that’s why most happiness-seeking models don’t ultimately work: they lack this sense of community.

Self-help, for one, has ‘self’ in its title
That should be a red flag.

Although I’m not saying we should neglect ourselves. I eat healthily, meditate and exercise, get my hours of sleep and sunshine, and drink lots of water (and since that kidney stone catastrophe of 2019 I’ve been extra diligent with that last one).

I don’t think we could be physically and emotionally inclined to make others feel good unless we’ve done a bare minimum of self-directed work.

But you know. Self-care can only take you so far.

To keep improving your happiness levels, ditch the “self” and embrace the “help.” There’s no “I” in “next level.”

Can money buy happiness?
Getting the millions with a B is another one of those self-centered tactics that won’t work. It’s a pity some of us will remain skeptical right up until we’re crying in our Lambo.

Here’s the thing: material wealth only increases happiness as far as our basic needs go. Once those are satisfied, the Musk bucks and Buffet bills won’t make our lives any merrier.
Speaking of pyramids, do you know about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Money can take you into the first floor of the pyramid, the physiological needs, and up to the second floor, the safety needs.

But once there, there is no more material deprivation to relief. Money can’t buy a VIP ticket to the penthouse of that pyramid: self-transcendence. The pinnacle of human fulfilment, where we find ourselves transcending the ego and focusing on something bigger.

What about going spiritual?
Those who don’t know how to set up funnels to get rich may opt for detachment instead.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons why trying spirituality, studying Buddhism, going monastic, and meditating your way out of the illusion of the self.

But spirituality’s been capitalized into yet another product for the “Health and Wellness” aisle.
And if it were the ultimate solution, I’d expect Andy Puddicombe not to come back from the Himalayas after 10 years, meditating 16 hours a day, to create a subscription-based meditation app.

Some of us just crave the frenzy of the west. As for me, I’m a writer. I need to be one with everything, but through an internet connection — which I suspect is something the Himalayas are in scarce of.

Philosophy can make you wiser — and sadder
Tell me if a cheerful person could’ve come up with the trolley problem:
A runaway train is headed towards 5 workers on a railway line. The only way to save the workers is to operate a lever that would make the train go down a side rail. Problem is, there’s another worker on that one too. So, do you leave the lever untouched and have 5 workers killed, or do you switch the lever, killing the one worker on the side rail, but saving the other 5?

I get philosophy it’s meant to make us wiser, sometimes by testing our moral virtue with thought experiments. But it doesn’t work for me. I’d prefer to imagine the 6 workers and me over a barbecue.
In fact, it seems that if you drift too much into philosophical self-absorption, you’re bound to become depressive about existence. All for something that, in the end, no one cares about.

Or as Plato put it: “That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless.”

Self-centric tactics out of the way — how do we make others feel good?
Here’s how I’m doing it: I don’t try to force it. Because that would be inauthentic, right? That would be the ol’ self-centric impulse showing, trying to hack my way to greater happiness.

Instead, if the opportunity to make someone else feel good presents itself naturally, I take it.
Even the little things can make an impact. In one study, researchers approached people that had just park their cars, gave them a few quarters, and told them to either feed their own parking meter or the meter of a stranger. Participants showed a greater lift in happiness levels when they fed others’ meters.
But again, it’s the genuine gesture, not the quarters, that made them feel good. It’s the magic of relatedness, available to everyone and everywhere.

You don’t need a researcher approaching you on the street after parking your car. Just get your head out of your ass and pay attention to these opportunities.

One final tip from the pyramid scheme canon
Just recruit five people.
You know how it goes: make five people feel good, because if they make five more people feel good, and then those make five more people feel good…

It sounds like an impossibly large chain, but if you do the math, you’ll see we can repeat this cycle only 14 times. After 14 cycles, you run out of people on the planet. That shows the true, shady nature of pyramid schemes — but also, how easy it could be to spread The Good Vibes.
So now you have a legitimate reason to message your aunt on Facebook, without any pressure to segue the conversation into selling her a disinfectant.
Go make those five people feel good.

By Loudt Darrow
​Photo by arash payam on Unsplash (modified by author)

by Suzie Doscher

Feel like you keep facing the same uphill struggle? 

Sometimes you create your own problems with your thoughts and beliefs. It is these particular thoughts that hold you back, keep you stuck and consequently limit you. In my coaching practice, as well as my own personal experience, I have witnessed how a self-sabotage routine can be created with these thoughts and beliefs. If you find that you keep coming back to the same type of situation again and again, it is well worth exploring if, in fact, you are running a self-sabotage routine.
 
To break this self-sabotage cycle, you will need to first determine what this limiting thought or belief is. Once you have figured that out (by yourself, with the help of a friend/boss or qualified coach), consider the information below to help yourself make a lasting change. 
 
The best approach is to replace whatever you are thinking is with a thought that is more positive. For example: 

• "I am not sure how to..." can turn into, "I will find the time to work out how to do this."
• "I do not have the time," turns into, "If I had the time, this is what I would do."

Available in Paperback, on Kindle or as an Audiobook (Audible or iTunes)

by RENATO PROFICO 
The exponential growth of the coronavirus outbreak is terrifying, wreaking havoc on the health and safety of millions of people around the world. Job growth is feeling the pain too, with a growing number of American companies clamping down on their hiring, budgets, and growth plans overall. Moody’s Analytics estimates nearly 80 million jobs in the U.S. economy are at high or moderate risk right now.
Not every company can afford to completely halt their hiring plans, as certain roles may be essential to sustaining and growing the business amidst these uncertain times. And for some industries, hiring is absolutely essential right now. Amazon, for example, plans to hire an additional 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers to keep up with the surge in online orders amid the coronavirus outbreak.

For Amazon and others, virtual recruiting will be a new way forward.
Onboarding is different because it’s the first official impression of a company and typically ....

 By Marcel Schwantes 

Ever wonder if you're true leadership material? Perhaps you've been told you are, but the question is, by what standard? Thousands of leadership books are written each year, many of them with marketing agendas to rehash and repackage what has been talked about for decades.

What is true about leadership that will remain unchanged through the centuries is this: It's about people and relationships. And that requires that leaders have a natural bent for both. If you're not into either, you're not a leader.

And you can start with the proven fact that great leaders aspire to lead by serving the needs of their people. You don't need flavor-of-the-month books and expensive formal training to learn this concept.

But you do need to develop and measure yourself against the standards of great leadership (which I strongly propose to be servant leadership). Here are four top leadership characteristics I have witnessed that float to the top. Do any describe you?  

by Nora Battelle, Multimedia Staff Writer at Thrive Global

76 percent of Americans — a clear majority — said they have or recently had a toxic boss, according to new research conducted by Monster and released today.
A positive work environment is crucial to performing good work — and to managing your own stress — and leadership often plays a vital part in setting that positive tone. 
Toxicity, in the survey, took several different forms, and the numbers on all of them were high: 26 percent of bosses, according to Monster’s survey, are “power-hungry,” 18 percent are “micromanagers,” 17 percent are “incompetent” and 15 percent are simply absent (“What boss? He/she is never around,” as the survey phrased it). 
These numbers are a stark contrast to the 19 percent of employees who see their boss as a mentor and the 5 percent who indicated that their boss is someone with whom they have “the best relationship.” 

Alan Benson, Ph.D., a professor of Work and Organizations at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, explains the significance of these numbers to Thrive Global: “Facing a bad boss can be one of the greatest challenges we can have when managing our careers.” He suggests that there are three courses to take when faced with a bad manager who stresses you out: “Exit the team, voice your concerns to the boss or to HR or just suffer through it.” The choice you make, according to Benson, should “depend on your exact circumstances,” but his advice gives some helpful questions to consider as you decide on your approach.

When to go to HR
“Toxic,” in the survey and otherwise, is used as an umbrella term for a lot of different types of behavior.

by Suzie Doscher, Executive and Life Coach, Zurich, Switzerland

In the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of a “control freak” is “a person who feels an obsessive need to exercise control over themselves and others and to take command of any situation.” The Merriam Webster dictionary says that a control freak is “a person whose behavior indicates a powerful need to control people or circumstances in everyday matters.” One way or another, control freaks are not always easy to be around.
I understand this personality trait could stem from a chaotic childhood. Such experiences can make it hard for people to trust others or relinquish control to others. The fear of falling apart pushes them to control what they can. As their emotions are all over the place, they feel loss of control. For this reason, control freaks will micromanage whatever they can with the belief that this makes them strong. People who feel out of control tend to become controllers.
I imagine each and every one of us is a control freak, or takes on the behavior of such, at some point or another. The fear of failure is what makes it so important to control everything when you do not trust anybody else to do a good job.
 
One difficult aspect of being around a control freak is accepting that he or she does not understand how their behavior and choice of words affect the people around them. Another difficult aspect is not to take it personally. This behavior comes from deep inside and the person is actually quite unaware of the need to be controlling.
 
The attempts to control a situation or environment are intended to offer the controller a feeling of safety. This is a sign of low self-esteem.
 
One of the areas they often manipulate is conversation. A control freak is most comfortable if he or she decides what is talked about, for how long, and how deep or detailed a topic can be. This manipulation is achieved by constant interruption, finishing the sentence for the person, not listening with attention, doing distracting things like getting up and walking around, or even walking out of the room saying, “I am still listening.” A control freak does not consider that he or she is being controlling, but is convinced his or her way is the right way. He or she will have an opinion about almost everything and will disagree with most suggestions that he or she does not instigate.
 
Controllers also control themselves; you might observe obsessive habits in them – whether in a private relationship or at work. 
 
Here are helpful tips to consider when dealing with a micro-manager:

• If someone dominates conversations, allow him or her to finish. Then, in a calm manner say, “I understand what you are saying and now I would like to express my thoughts.”
• If someone continually gives you his or her advice by telling you exactly what you should be doing, again, in a calm manner say, “I value your advice, but I wish to consider my own thoughts on this matter as well.”
• Your goal for establishing a healthier communication pattern with a control freak is to eventually “agree to disagree.” 
• Be as consistent as possible with the style in which you communicate. It will require patience and time, butitcan result in turning the negative communication pattern into one that is more acceptable to you.
• Express yourself assertively without giving the person the feeling that you are telling him or her what to do. Never try to control a controller.
• Remain calm and be consistent with controllers. Getting angry does not achieve anything. Control freaks have no problem with arguments. In fact, they seek power struggles. Remember, in their minds the world should feel, think, and do what they deem is right.
• You can walk out of the room into a better space; they, however, are left with their issues, unless they seek support.

 
A control freak has the ability to bring you down a couple of notches and take the wind out of your sails. They can make people feel insecure. You may want to distance yourself if it is possible. If not,because the person is a member of your family or work colleague or boss, then consider what choices you do have based on the points raised above. 
Raising your awareness to the fact that the person is micro-managing frequently already helps to make the situation easier to handle.
 
The benefits of establishing a manner of communication where you do not allow the control freak to rob you of your energy or drown you with negativity is that you become stronger, more assertive, and empowered. 

In summary, here are helpful steps for handling the moment:

1. Acknowledge that you are in conversation with a control freak.
2. Whenever possible,buy yourself some time by taking a couple of deep breaths after excusing yourself for a minute. If you can leave the situation for longer, take a walk around the block to clear your head. Remind yourself that you are dealing with a control freak.
3. Accept that you are not going to be able to change how the person behaves or who he or she is. Maintain the focus on your reactions and communication style.
4. Remind yourself that you do not know what makes the control freak behave this way, so try not to judge them.
5. In conversations, listen without interrupting. Be calm and patient.
6. Express your own opinion/thoughts. Be assertive, but not aggressive.
7. Once the conversation is over, do something that will nourish you. This might be as simple as taking in a couple of deep breaths and exhaling the negative energy the control freak brings along.
8. Accept that you handled the situation as best as can be expected and that it will take time and practice not to feel affected by a control freak/micro-manager’s behavior style.

 
Being in the company of control freaks can feel like being with Energy Vampires.
Their ability to endlessly bring the attention backonto themselves is draining and exhausting. Knowing what to expect can help you choose how to interact and take care of yourself at the same time. 

Dear Suzie,

Congratulations!

I am stopping by with exciting news. 
Your book, Balance: A Practical Handbook and Workbook for Finding Balance during Life’s Difficult Moments appears in this month’s #AspireMag Top 10 Inspiring Books List along with 9 other visionary female authors.

This month’s Top 10 Inspirational Book List 

Publisher Linda Joy embraces the feminine collaborative model and loves playing, partnering and working with visionary leaders who do the same. For over ten years, she has been supporting visionary female leaders and heart-centered entrepreneurs in getting their message and brand in front of the women they are meant to serve.

In my experience over all well-being and emotional intelligence are linked, it is hard to have one without the other. It is good to know the skills required to grow emotionally can be developed.  
The ability to, not only access your intuition - that gut feeling or inner voice - but also to respect what it is telling you is one of these skills. 
Learning to reshape long-established stifling patterns of behavior allows you to embrace the challenges of life more easily. Part of this is feeling intuitively what is right in a given situation.  
 
You will not gain anything from coaching if you are comfortable remaining passive with respect to difficult situations. Instead of this, be guided, encouraged, supported and motivated in developing your own possibilities to take action.
 
When you step on the path of personal development bear in mind: 

By Monica Torres 
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No good employer is going to outright say that they kill you, but new research finds that too many modern workplaces are grim reapers inflicting a fatal amount of stress on our bodies and minds.
Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, is ringing the alarm that job stress and poor management is killing us — accounting for up to 8% of annual health costs and leading to 120,000 excess deaths every year in the United States.
In his new book, “Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance — and What We Can Do About It,” he explains how long hours, a lack of job autonomy through micromanagement, and unstable health insurance are making us sick to death.
He talked with Ladders about his research and what leads otherwise reasonable people to stay in toxic jobs:

by Suzie Doscher

There are many reasons for having the Monday morning blues. Even if you are an entrepreneur  love your work it is possible to not feel enthusiastic about Monday morning. The blues do not necessarily relate only to disliking your job/company, a stressful work environment or difficult interpersonal relationships at work. Sometimes you simply are working too much, the hours are too long, or you have not made the most of the weekends for re-charging your battery. Lately I have also been hearing more about 'boreout' rather than 'burning out'. People are simply getting fed up with the quality of life at work - or lack of it and getting bored with it!
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Here are some thoughts to help when the blues set in: