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Are You an Emerging Leader Seeking Next Level of Growth?
Are you an ambitious mid-career professional in tech, STEM, or any high-paced culture? Do you long to make a meaningful, fulfilling impact? Many, like you, sometimes wonder what else they must do to propel themselves to the next level. Given that everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, we can’t scale ourselves just by working more hours. Our brain can’t stay productive like that anyway. So what can we do about it? Like the famous book title by Marshall Goldsmith, “What got you here won’t take you there,” there is something else that will prepare us for the next level of growth. After coaching so many senior leaders,…
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Career satisfaction, Coaching, Happiness, Leadership, Self-leadership, Stress Management, Work-life integration, WorkLife balance
Foundation for Growth: Four Simple Practices Make My Clients Successful
People come to coaching for many reasons. Some want to lead a significant change management initiative, while others want to improve team productivity or develop leadership skills for the next promotion. Whatever the reason, one needs to create the foundation for growth to achieve these outward goals. These building blocks – mindfulness, intentional focus, reflection, and self-care – are essential for coaching success. 1. Mindfulness Mindfulness serves as the cornerstone of this foundation. In a world where we often operate on autopilot or react to external demands, we must pause and ground ourselves. By incorporating bite-sized mindfulness practices, my clients gain the capacity to observe their thoughts and emotions rather…
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How an Embarrassing Setback Helped Me Become Better
When we hear advice like “turn setbacks into growth experiences,” we often dismiss it as cliché or unrealistic for ourselves. However, a few years ago, I was in an embarrassing situation that ultimately helped me improve my skills significantly. I share the story below, hoping it will inspire my readers. The Setback Story It was 2019 when I was in an advance coaching class with experienced coaches across the globe. We coached each other before the class and later got their feedback. When my turn came to be the coach, something rattled me, and I was gripped by a sense of paralysis. Despite attempts to steady my nerves with deep…
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Preparation, Not Luck: Pfizer’s “Moonshot” Lessons Applies to All Of Us
I’ve been diving back into the pages of “Moonshot – Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible” for the second time, and the narrative continues to captivate me, just as it did two years ago. I was amazed by how their clarity, simplification, and courageous actions prepared them for an otherwise impossible endeavor. Even though it is a story about a corporate giant achieving groundbreaking feats in the face of a global crisis, it is also relatable to our personal and professional lives. I took away these three main points from the story. 1. Clear Priority When CEO Albert Bourla took over, he gathered the top one thousand…
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Celebrate Yourself Through an Year-End Reflection
As the year comes to a close, many of you are cherishing precious moments with family and loved ones, possibly enjoying a well-deserved trip to a delightful destination. Amidst these joyous festivities, moments of downtime, and self-care activities, taking a pause for a year-end reflection can add a meaningful dimension to your year’s conclusion. It serves as a valuable opportunity to gain insights, close the year thoughtfully, and prepare for the challenges and triumphs that await in the coming year. Now is a good time to contemplate, “How did the year unfold for me?” However, relying solely on memories may not paint a comprehensive picture of the entire year. To…
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Career satisfaction, Coaching, Executive Presence, Happiness, productivity, Stress Management, Success Strategy, Time Management, WorkLife balance
Are You Sabotaged By Your Inner Hyper-Achiever?
A tech leader, let’s call him Jason, said, “I can’t relax; I always have to do something useful. Nobody makes me do so; it’s me. This is how I am”. Jason is not alone. Many of us have such hyper achievers in us, pushing us to do more. This trait may have helped us be where we are, yet its overuse can cause more harm than good. Growing up, we all developed different traits that kept us safe, got us what we needed, and helped us succeed. Other than the hyper-achiever, there are several additional traits: pleaser, perfectionist, and victim, to name a few. My top two are hyper-achiever and…
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Want to Take Your Career to the Next Level? Manage Your Attention Wisely
“I don’t have the time to pause and think; my days are filled with back-to-back meetings. When someone asks me a question, I tell them what I know and go to my next meeting. I feel like I am fire-fighting”. Adrian, a senior director of a Fortune 100 company, told me this during our recent conversation. He is not alone. If you are even moderately successful, back-to-back meetings are a reality of your life. The more damaging part is that this constant demand for our attention reduces our ability to deep thinking. As a result, we end up exhausted, creating the same old results we did the last year. There…
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Are You A Go-to Fixer For Your Team? You Are Not Helping.
Elizabeth was a long-tenured senior officer at a commercial bank. She had a high sense of responsibility. Most of her time was spent fixing problems created by others both at work and in her family, leaving no time for herself. Friends stopped inviting her to get-togethers as she said “no” many times. The irony is that despite helping others, her relationships with her family (her adult siblings) and colleagues were also pretty strained. Ben, a high-achieving retired physician in his early seventies, volunteered for a cause close to his heart. After a while, he realized that instead of fulfillment, he felt guilty and overwhelmed most of the time. The sense…
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Job Searching for a Career Path Change? Act Like a Farmer
A job change is a daunting task. It becomes even more challenging when it involves a discipline, industry, or role change. A common misconception is one can do it by keyword search and then submitting resumes through the job boards; it is like throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. For those wanting a career path change, this rarely gives a positive outcome and becomes very frustrating. I met a leader at a non-profit; let’s call her Tricia. Tricia wanted to move to the for-profit sector. She had been applying through the job boards but didn’t get much traction. On top of her super busy schedule, this was…
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Idea Dating: Tap Your Network for Clearer Insights
During a recent coaching session, my client Francis had an eye-opening moment. Despite consistently positive performance reviews, he no longer found satisfaction in his current role. When I asked what he wanted, he sighed and said he didn’t know exactly. However, he did have a clear image in mind: It entitled a broader scope, involving strategy and collaboration with a close-knit small group of passionate people. He thought he should look for job openings in small companies and interview. But the prospect didn’t encourage him at all. Shifting gears, I inquired about his past experiences with making changes. He mentioned that friends and former colleagues had been instrumental in sparking…
