I’d Be More Happy & Successful if Only I Were Better at __________.

How Would You Fill In the Blank?

Last week we introduced you to our over-committed client Mary, and the Life Satisfaction Assessment. Now we want to know what you discovered.

What would you change about your life in order to be more happy and successful?

Why am I so nosy? Simple: I WANT TO HELP! I have weeks worth of incredible content but it means nothing if it’s not what you need right NOW.

So please take a moment (more like 90 seconds) to respond to a short questionnaire. Click here to go to the survey.

I’ll Trade You A Book for Your 90 Seconds

And since I know how hard it is to motivate you to take those 90 seconds, I’d like to offer a free gift. Anyone who responds to the survey will receive our acclaimed ebook: Conversations for Brilliance AND be entered in a drawing to receive a free 1 hour coaching session with me. I don’t even offer private coaching so please take me up on this special offer and enter the contest.

Share Your Story!

Want to submit two entries to the contest? Just send us a story about how the eGuide, How to Say No With Grace, Not Guilt has inspired or helped you. You can email your stories to info@brillianceinc.com or on our online Contact Us Form.

Here’s to your Brilliance!

Warmest Regards,

Denise

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How to Say No With Grace, Not Guilt

My new client Mary described herself as “super-busy.” She told me, “I’m not sure what I want to work on. My life is pretty good and I’m overall pretty happy.”

I asked her to take my 3-minute Life Satisfaction Assessment and we’d go over it in our next session. When we talked next she said she was stunned: she didn’t realize that her satisfaction was so out of whack in some very important areas of her life.

Her life was full…but not fulfilling.

Mary was suffering from the results of saying yes to so many people and things, that she didn’t have the capacity to say yes to things that would create a truly fulfilling life.

Can you relate?

If you worry about how to say no so that you maintain relationships and credibility, take the assessment yourself and take one step closer to the life you deserve. Click to get your Life Satisfaction Assessment and Instructions.

Here’s to your brilliance.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

~ Annie Dillard

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Are You an Ambivert?

Don’t Believe Every Assessment You Take

As a leadership coach, you might think I’d like personality assessments. But I don’t. It’s not that they don’t have some value.  I just think that they’re more limited than people allow for: that humans are more complex than any automatic assessment can capture.

And I don’t care what their creators and promoters say about how precise they are, I get different results depending on the time of day, what’s going on my life, and how much coffee I’ve had.

Perhaps you’ve felt boxed in by one of these reports. According to at least two instruments, I’m an Introvert. And sometimes that feels true: I do sometimes like to think quietly until I’ve fleshed out my thoughts. Other times, though, I spew nascent ideas as fast as I can think them. At times I do gain energy by being alone. But after a while I need to get up and be with people.

About 7 years ago, I came across an assessment called the Highlands Ability Battery that promised to measure innate abilities that didn’t fluctuate after the age of 14.

That was when I heard the term Ambivert for this first time. Finally, I felt understood by an assessment. It was actually worth the painstaking three plus hours to take the tests.

We Ambiverts can be very confusing to others. We can be gregarious one moment, meditative the next.  We get a charge from being with people and working on a team…until we don’t.  For me, this really resonated. I can lead a day-long workshop with passion and deep empathy. After, you can find me in a fetal position in my car, recharging my batteries.

For you all you Introverts and Extroverts, I have a message: it’s not personal, and we’re not crazy.

So What Can an Ambivert Do?

Let people know about your style: that your behavior fluctuations are not about them, just about you needing to manage energy.   Be realistic about your needs. When you need to recharge, don’t feel guilty stepping away. You’ll be more useful and nice to be around when you return. And when you’re in the mood to talk out loud, say that these are early thoughts and that you’re tossing them out. On the other hand, if you need time to think before responding, say so.  People will be less confused, and will make fewer wrong assumptions about your intent.

Think you’re an Ambivert? How can you tell? What advice do you have for others?

Book: Don’t Waste Your Talent by Don Hutcheson

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Plan Well- You Want Them to Accept It Not Applaud It

We’re delighted to re-print this article written by Liz Weber, CMC – Weber Business Services, LLC

What, No Confetti?

I recently experienced the same thing I tell my clients, and honestly, it was a bit deflating.

Yet, it was the right feeling. It meant success. It meant the board’s efforts in developing its strategic plan, debating objectives, defining strategies, and nit-picking select words had been worth the effort. The new board member with whom I reviewed the plan, simply said, “Thanks for that overview. It makes sense to me. It seems pretty straightforward, but it covers a lot of ground, which it needs to. How can I help?”

That was it.

He didn’t applaud. He didn’t say, “Wow Liz. This is amazing! It’s the most concise, focused, yet results-oriented strategic plan I’ve ever seen!” He wasn’t awed or tantalized by the plan. He didn’t appear ready to start an organization-wide campaign to “get everyone on board” by creating new banners and giving out buttons. He simply wanted to start moving it forward.

And because of that, the plan is already working.

Effective strategic planning (or for that matter any project planning) is only effective when it creates a clear roadmap for the team responsible for making it happen.

When it creates excitement, shock and awe, but confusion, chaos, conflicts, and frustration are soon to follow.  And this is why many of my clients have painful memories of prior strategic planning initiatives. They were well intentioned. They felt good and right during the process. But they yielded a document of little value, that caused more headaches than value because no one remembers what they meant as the various pieces of the plan were created. Their plans sound nice, but require subsequent meetings to discuss what was meant instead of actually working the plan.

Because of this all-too-common focus on creating lofty plans intended to inspire instead of clarify, I tell my clients:

If we’ve developed your strategic plan well, the rest of the team will understand it and accept it when it’s shared with them. However, be prepared: they won’t be amazed or barely able to contain their applause, because it won’t be awe-inspiring: it’ll be clear but challenging. In fact, some of them may say, “It took you how many meetings to come up with just these few sheets of paper?” And, that’s the type of reaction we want. We don’t want them to be amazed, in shock, awed, or paralyzed by fear. We want them to hear it or read it, and “get it.”

Because if they “get it,” they have a pretty clear picture of what we’re asking them to help work towards. When they “get it,” they aren’t paralyzed by confusion.

They can help make it happen.

And that’s the purpose of a well-developed plan. Even though the planning teams wouldn’t mind just a bit of applause….

Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2012 – Liz Weber, CMC – Weber Business Services, LLC – www.WBSLLC.com

You can see the whole post, resources, and comments on Liz' blog here.

You can connect with Liz on Facebook and Twitter

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Upgrade Your Life

Our Most Useful Tool for Change

At Brilliance Inc, we’re dedicated to helping leaders change for good. Want to know how you can use our most powerful technique to get better results in any area of your life?

Watch the video to find out why no amount of will-power is enough to sustain change, unless you do this first.

And if you’re arriving here from YouTube, get the tools below the video and begin your assessment now!

While you’re here, leave a comment and SUBSCRIBE to this blog so you don’t miss valuable information and tools.

Here’s to your success!

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Right click on the “Download the tools” then click on the “Save Link As” and save the tools

Bonus: My Health Team

Here are some of the amazing resources that my beliefs about health have led me to. Please add your resources in the comments section!

Allergy & Auto-Immune

Body Worker

Chiropractor:

  • Leo Cannone (San Leandro): 510-352-6033
  • Beth Marx (Oakland) 510-834-1557

Cranial Sacral & Visceral:

MDs

Vision Correction (Lasik)

Books to Upgrade Your Beliefs About Money, Health, Aging & Possibility

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