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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Frequent flyers in the job market already know how this easy question could sometimes become quite daunting. During an interview coaching, I ask the clients to answer it first. Interestingly ...
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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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Among so many articles about work-life balance, this one in HBR, the Imperfect balance between work and life caught my attention today. The main idea is 1. Pick a few ...
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A client of mine is in the job market for a while.  A bit frustrated by the lack of success, he called me this morning wanting to find more ideas.  ...
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Do you often feel overwhelmed? Do you wonder why it happens? Understanding how our brain works might give you some ideas. The part of the brain behind our forehead is called the prefrontal cortex(PFC). PFC is ...
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My friend Amy calls herself lazy as she is always running behind her infinitely long to-do list. Even when she is sitting down she feels guilty that she was supposed to ...
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In my 1:1 coaching and group classes, I have been teaching this concept from TED on how to create your own vision (what do you want) and design baby steps ...
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I sometimes wished one fine morning I will get the results I always wanted; I will get the solution to my problems. But alas it never happened that easily!  My grandma used to ...
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Last week I saw two relevant posts on this topic, one in the Forbes magazine and the other in the TEDx talk. I have been wondering where these article/talks were a few ...
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I have been busy with this week’s webinar. The topic is from the Power of TED; Empowerment is all I have in my mind. I even empowered myself to be ...
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Carrot and stick - reward and punishment- is an age-old technique for getting things done by others. The corporate world has adopted this mantra almost as the panacea for employee ...
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