This pandemic has exposed the vulnerability in every system, both large and small. Working parents with young children are one example. Three key points came up from the parents' and ...
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Confidence is a common topic my clients bring to coaching. Anyone working on it knows that confidence is not a simple binary thing. It shows up as a part of ...
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This pandemic has done one magical thing; families, far and near are coming together via video calls. Like many others, my family is spread globally across six time zones spanning ...
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Tara (not her real name) from our finance recently rang me on a late evening for online approval of a bank transaction. It was unusual because we encourage people to ...
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It's been a few months since we are in the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. No matter how hard it is to accept, this is going to be a ...
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A few years ago, the BBC Dad video went viral on the internet, evoking compassion, some criticism, and mostly, amusement. Ironically, in these last two months of home quarantine, we all got ...
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We all are going through an enormous challenge. Almost every country in the world is now affected by this COVID-19 pandemic. The way we know life has come to a ...
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A client of mine said she is always too busy with other peoples' requests and she struggles to complete her own work. Her manager advised her to say "no" more ...
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How far are we from machines replacing humans? While much of the corporate research and development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is happening under Non-Disclosure Agreements, a recent demonstration of a ...
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What are the most common traits among successful leaders? What process did they all go through? What’s the must-have quality of a successful leader? How my grandmother became a leader? ...
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There are not many days like this. Yesterday it seemed like an out of the ordinary perfect day for me. Client #1 made significant progress in an area he was ...
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Imagine your boss is saying, “I have some feedback for you” - notice what reaction you get. Very often it feels like a threat, as “We have a problem”! According ...
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Do you often wonder why people behave negatively (rude, mean, unpredictable)? Do you often stress a lot? Do you want to improve professional and personal relationships? Do you want to ...
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"How can we make good decisions when there is insufficient data"? During a seminar a few weeks back, I got this question from the audience. As someone giving the talk, ...
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This year I have made a commitment – I will be more accountable to myself. I found a paper notebook is helping me in this regard. Every day/week I am ...
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I was in the waiting area of the dealership while my car was getting an oil change. Tony, one of the service reps saw me and asked if I had ...
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Those frequent flyers in the job market already know how this apparently easy question could become quite daunting at times. During an interview coaching, I ask the clients to answer ...
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I have worked within the high tech industry for over a decade and I have always wondered why a large number of the great hires end up disengaged, identified as below ...
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It will be rare to find someone who never heard "coaching" and yet it is one of the most overloaded terms today. Starting from sports coaching, tutoring or mentoring a ...
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[Look for a special discount code inside -Sharmin] Background Story - Last year I attended a global conference in Warsaw with a few hundred International Coach Federation (ICF) leaders from across ...
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During my corporate career I once attended a class on “how to show up confident”. It had quite a few tips I don’t remember those exactly. But today I remembered ...
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Few years back we went to Zion national park in Utah. We hiked on a mountain in the scorching 80 degree heat. The destination was the “upper pool” a small body ...
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Today is the 5th anniversary of my post-Microsoft life :). Hard to believe how time flies! It was not just a new career I wanted to pursue; I also wanted ...
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If you are a corporate employee, notice the feeling you are having when you read the word “Feedback”. “I have some feedback for you” often creates the same or worse visceral ...
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“Reality is reality, there is no point to sugar coat it “– a friend of mine uttered with a great sigh! I agree and there is more. It reminded me of ...
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In the corporate world, people often complain about too many emails. It is a modern-day challenge for sure, however, over the years I have noticed a few underlying causes and possible ...
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A few weeks back I was giving a talk at a big tech company about focusing on the vision. As usual, someone asked this basic question- “I don’t know what ...
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Everyone knows this interview tip: “Don’t bad mouth about your employer”. But interesting enough this happens quite often. I got some clue when I was talking to my client Tom ...
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[Key point: I have described  how vision focus works as a great parenting tool for me. It not only helps to manage the current situation more gracefully, it gives a ...
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I often ask this question to my clients and class participants: Describe some occasions from the recent past when you felt excited and fulfilled. The common responses I get are, ...
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“I don’t get it, how do people mix passion with their career? I do love to paint but I can’t even think of taking it as a career and doing it ...
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Last year, an engineer, let me call him Tom, came to me. He looked very tired and unhappy. “Sharmin, I am working long days, late nights, still my manager wants ...
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Common wisdom goes as we do paid work for money and volunteer work to fulfill other needs. Whatever we do, paid or volunteer work requires some commitment from our part ...
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"Some people have lots of time in their hands", "I could have used the time for something more useful", "Let me check on Facebook/Internet/email quickly before I start doing my ...
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If you are reading this you might be like many of us who suffer from procrastination. But don’t stop there - this is just the tip of the iceberg, the ...
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In January, the common topic of the office kitchen conversation is the New Year’s resolution. Until recently I never actually did much of planning for the year, so when asked ...
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Last week I was describing the concept of “Living from inside-out” to my class participants in a high tech company. The example I gave - If you target to become ...
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The other day at the end of my class, people got quite hyped up to make time to do something for themselves. Few of them made a commitment to start ...
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A few weeks back I wrote this blog post, Feeling- A vital part missing from the thinker’s head. Since then Tom made some progress. These days on the feeling question he ...
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