Have you ever wanted something so much that the mere thought of it made you giddy?  Well, that’s how I feel about Apolo Ono.  Seriously.  Ok, not just him as a person, although I do think he’s really cool, amazingly cute and pretty damn integrated.  I mean really, the man can relish in the face of massive competition, focus and win like nobody’s business and then he can turn right around, give this amazing smile to the crowd, dress up and go dancing that night.  Ok, pretty much my dream man, I admit.  But that’s not totally what I’m talking about here. 

Alaska airlines recently offered a sweepstakes to win a 5-day, 4 night stay at the Grand Wailea in Maui and as part of the prize, you get to attend a Luau with Apolo Ono.  I can’t tell you what happened to me when I entered this contest.  I’m not joking here, I couldn’t stop smiling.  I was giddy the whole evening.  My husband was chuckling at me because I was so happy and I hadn’t even won (yet).   I entered about a month ago and they haven’t yet announced the winners, but just the experience of wanting this trip has felt amazing. 

I dream about it almost every day.  I’m not consciously “trying” to think…I just can’t help myself.  Imagining a child-free tropical vacation with my husband, hanging out with Apolo and having him be captivated by my charm, squishing my toes in the sand and putting that little drink flag up on my sun chair where the cute waiter comes by and says, “Yes, Ms. Yao…what can I get you?”  Oh man…I can just taste it.  THIS is living.  . 

I haven’t been this excited about something for awhile.  I almost don’t want to know if I won or not, because I’m enjoying THIS process so much.  You know why?  It’s because I’m completely, unapologetically utilizing my power of receiving.  My story is a perfect example of how simply WANTING is powerful.  Just being in my desire of this trip alters my brain chemistry, it makes everyone I tell smile, it immediately changes my day and my interactions with people.  It makes me more magnetic and then others want some of that.  Tell me that’s not powerful. 

Only one person (out of the dozens I’ve told) said, “But what if you don’t win.  I just don’t want you to be disappointed”.   Poor guy…he missed the point. I know his heart was in the right place, but I’ve no longer bought into the notion that wanting is inherently dangerous or disappointing.  I know the power of being in my desire and I know I’m a hell of a lot closer to getting more of what I want, even if I don’t win this contest.  But who knows…maybe I just will!  Did I mention my dear husband entered the contest too without me knowing it…just to double our chances?  Now, that’s love. 

Won’t you join me in wanting something so much it can’t help but make you happy?  Let me know what it is and I’ll want that for you too.

Our house was broken into last week. They came in through an open window and stole all our small electronics, some of my jewelry and – perhaps most offensive – took bites out of the Top Pot Donuts my brother in law had brought us! And in the course of finding their chosen loot, they made a mess of our house.

We asked friends to take our sons Ethan, 7, and Logan, 3, for the evening so we could work with the police and secure the house. After the dust settled a bit we picked up the kids. As you can imagine they had a lot of questions. Ok, mostly Ethan had the questions! He said he was scared that the house would look different. We told him, “It does in some places.” I gave him a tour the house and of course he was most concerned about his room. All toys and piggy banks were intact, so all was well for him.

Then I took him to the master bedroom. He looked at the clothes strewn about, the dresser drawers turned over on the floor and pieces of jewelry scattered everywhere. He was quiet. He walked to our closet only to see that every inch of the floor was covered with papers, keepsakes and clothes. After a moment, Ethan turned to me and said, “I feel so sad for you and Daddy.” There it was…the cleanest use of nurturing I had experienced in a long time.

In the 12 Elements of Power model, the third pair of Elements is about “How We Relate To Ourselves and Others” and the two Elements in that pair are Nurturing and Providing. Providing is all about fixing, helping, paying for, or some other version of taking action to help someone else or oneself. It’s an important Element for sure, but it’s terribly overused in our culture. We so over-provide that we forget the power of simply caring…the power of Nurturing. Ethan tapped his power of Nurturing because he’s only 7 and doesn’t know much about his ability to Provide yet. He’ll learn about Providing soon enough, but until then I’m reveling in how great it is to receive his Nurturing.

The next time something unsavory occurs in your life or to someone you care about, I invite you to experiment with just Nurturing. Say things like, “wow, this must be hard” or “how are you feeling?” or even, “I really care about you”. Notice what comes up as you offer nurturing. Later, you can ask things like “what can I do for you?”, but just try for a little bit to simply care FIRST. I think you may be surprised at how powerful that can feel. Having been on the receiving end of both a nasty event and some clear, clean Nurturing this week, I know that someone simply caring can absolutely hit the spot.

I just got another wake-up call to understanding how unreliable or lopsided official media coverage (and even their access to information) can be. This just in from a dear friend living in Honduras to do service work: "Just a quick update. As you may have heard, Zelaya, the ousted Honduran president is back in Tegucigalpa (the capital city). Although there is nothing going on here in San Pedro Sula, we are home under curfew from 4pm yesterday until 6pm today, as is the rest of the country.

It’s WILD, because earlier last night we channel-surfed the local channels watching what appeared to be a balance between the pro-Zelaya protest coverage and the Michelleti comments (head of the interim government). Later on, however, I listened to a guy outright lie to an English-speaking station on a phone interview. He claimed this is a human rights issue and that none of the pro-Zelaya protests were being broadcast—that these stations were being blocked.

He then said that over 70% of the Honduran people are for Zelaya, but everyone I’ve talked to from people at the airport, to the teachers at the school, to the people we've met out on the road all say that only a few people are for Zelaya and that Zelaya’s administration pay poor people to protest on his behalf. I’m sure I don’t know the full story, but I now have first-hand experience of how distorted the message can become."

In absence of the full story - in this case and in most others - may we send the best thoughts we can imagine for everyone concerned. With judgment and blame, we can be off-base. With hope and healing and intending the best for all, we use our power of nurturing and we'll never need to "take back" our messages or intentions. Peace.

Ethan, my almost 7 year old recently started 1st grade. New school, new kids, new routines. Ethan’s a little like me in that transitions aren’t the easiest thing for him. Every morning it’s been the same routine: Ethan complaining about how his stomach hurts or how he doesn’t feel well or how he just wants to sleep. I believe that he’s sincerely not feeling well because he’s so anxious about the day. So I give him room to talk about those feelings and the house rule remains the same: get dressed, go to school and if you STILL don’t feel well, then you can have the school call me. So, there we were this morning having the same conversation we’ve had for the last 10 days. Can I just say how exhausting this is?

I asked him how he wanted to feel and he said “good”. Phew, at least he wants to feel good. That’s a start. We talked about things that might help him feel better…things like eating breakfast, thinking of something funny or something he’s looking forward to. Then we did those things. We were on the path to feeling better. Then I remembered what Ethan’s karate Sensei said to the class yesterday. She referenced the book Brain Rules (because the author, John Medina’s sons are also students at USA Karate) . She told the kids their brains are so much smarter when they exercise and get their blood flowing.

I thought that getting our blood flowing this morning might help shift Ethan’s mood a bit. So, he reluctantly agreed to dance with me to Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” (you know, the early Michael days?) Ethan was used to this from me because typically on Friday nights we have “Friday Night Dance Party” at our house where the four of us (Mom, Dad, Ethan and Logan) dance in the living room. So we had a mini-version of dance party this morning, got our blood flowing, acted a little silly and guess what? Yep…Ethan felt better! And so did I.

The next time you’re not feeling great, maybe you’re anxious, maybe you’re tired or just a little off, try these steps:

1. Ask yourself how you want to feel
2. Move in that direction by taking little steps that might make you feel better (hint: it commonly starts with a biological need like eating, drinking or sleeping)
3. Get your body moving…and if you can make it fun that’s even better!

These steps may seem simple or even remedial, but when we’re in that stuck place like Ethan was this morning, the simplest things are often the most powerful tools to moving us forward. Good luck!

A big study in Germany recently found that kids, too, really need the unscheduled time we call “white space” and frequently prescribe for our clients.  Researchers found that boys who don’t have regular free time are more than twice as likely to get headaches than those who do.  In fact, researchers say, lack of down time causes more headaches than do family quarrels.

As for adults, we're working on our White Space ebook and we're leading a free class to test out our ideas.  Interested?  E-mail whitespace at workingwithpower dot com (no hyperlink so we don't get spiders rsvp'ing for the class).  You'll get all the class details, and we'll send you links to the recordings, in case you can't  make it at class time.

Oprah magazine has this column on the back page:  “what I know for sure” from Oprah herself.  I think we would each be well-served to write down at least once a week what we know for sure.   I’ve been realizing lately that my entire career and life could be charted as “times I lived my knowing” and “times I forgot what I know for sure.”  It’s not really that the truths I know become less sure (yep:  the day always goes better when I’ve written in the morning and nope: Kurt and I should never talk about money after 9 pm).  It’s that I lose sight of them.  Could it be that the secret to my feeling consistently content, vibrant, lucrative, and well-loved is to simply remember what I know for sure?  I’m going to play as if it is:  recording what I know, adding to the lists, and re-reading them.  If you do the same, let me know what you know and how remembering it changes things.

If you can, that is!  See, I couldn’t talk my way out of a can, when it comes to sports.  I usually wind up laughing nervously and muttering “oh, yeah!” with feigned enthusiasm when people enthuse about last night’s game (whatever sport got played last night)!  But Sara and I recently met an amazing woman who can teach all of us to Talk Sporty in a way that’s fun, feminine, and utterly authentic. 

Her name is Jen Mueller.  She’s so cool in ways I never could be:  she’s actually a football referee in a beautiful female body.  How’s that for integrating your power?  Jen also produces and reports on sports for FSN Northwest, so she has to be up on all these things.  But her enthusiasm is contagious and she really convinced me that being able to talk sports isn’t a fake way to schmooze:  it’s a doorway to fun and connection, with men and women alike.  So that’s useful in business, right?  And if you aren’t already connected with the partner of your dreams, being able to Talk Sporty might just help you hit a home run in that department (Did I just make a sports analogy?).  Seriously, just in our conversation, I was able to ask Jen about some terms that had baffled me (What’s it mean to say “in your roundhouse”?) and l know that at her Talk Sporty to Me events, women have a blast learning together. 

The next one is coming up Tuesday August 11, so I had to tell you about it.  I can’t make it this time, so I’ll remind you again for a future event, when I am going, so you can join me if this Tuesday doesn’t work for you.  But either way, do learn, if only for me, so you can Talk Sporty To Me. Hee hee!

I’m not one to quote Ronald Reagan often, but I love this visceral metaphor:  “I know it's hard when you're up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp.”  And I sure have been up to my… (something!) in alligators lately.  The past year or two have brought us so many opportunities to walk into companies, engage with leadership teams, and truly serve them.  They hire us for a number of different reasons, but what we know is that we’re there to drain the swamp.  The #1 thing we can do to serve them is help them see and feel the depletion that, like the swamp water they swim in, is invisible to them (and not even smelly any more!).  They’re running on fumes and they think the solution is to just run faster.

We know  better.  We know – at some level – that we’ve got to help them drain the swamp.  But, see, what Sara and I have remembered in the past few weeks is that draining the swamp takes a deep remembering that there is such a thing as dry ground.  We are the ones who’ve come in to drain the swamp, but at times we’ve let ourselves be snapped at by the same alligators – time pressure, intense cultures, oppressive working norms, communication silos – that plague our clients. And we, like them, sometimes hopped around just trying to save our hineys from those gators.  We forgot our real job. 

Such is the nature of helping with change.  Whether you’re supporting a child to learn something new, helping a leadership team make better decisions and shift their culture, or working with your partner to build a more fulfilling relationship, you step into the swamp.  Your job is to drain it, but to do that you have to remember why you’re there and hold tight to the vision of dry ground.

I have a long history of getting in over my head.  Starting my own business at 23.  Writing promo material for events, filling them, and THEN figuring out what to actually present.  Always skiing with guys, so I had no chance to indulge my vertical fears; I just had to hurl myself over the edge and banzai if necessary.  One could say that this reckless, audacious approach has been one of the secrets to my success.  And one would be right, in a way.

Problem is, this habit of building capacity by putting myself out there in situations beyond my capacity has also exhausted me.  When we were remodeling our house and I lost my yoga space, I didn’t realize that would be devastating to my well-being until that devastation took place.  After my son was born, I underestimated the challenges of being a working mother, holding my mind in two places at once while my body focused on making food for Cooper.  My inner critic (I call him Morty) says my career has been a series of fits and starts.   “You have no staying power!” he berates me.  In fact, I’ve had to have extraordinary tenacity and resilience, mostly because I wear myself out doing things beyond my capacity.

So it was very inspiring this morning when Rainey, my yoga teacher, talked about the paradox of building capacity in our yoga practice.  We pull in, with our muscles, at the same time as we’re reaching out.  We create a container (for instance, pulling our arm bones back into their sockets with our shoulder muscles) that allows for a strong and sustainable expansion (in this case, extending our arms in front of us and above our heads).  From a more contained place, we have more capacity than if we just hurled ourselves out in the direction we want to go.  I had a visceral, inspiring sense of what this means, both on my yoga mat and in my life.  My clients build careers the same way I did, too:  they dive in over their heads and figure out how to swim. 

So more power to us.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t keep going for it. What I am saying is that we can cut some of the high costs of our initiative by investing in our capacity in less violent, less dramatic ways.  Often, people are one way or the other.  “Ready, Fire!  Aim???” has been my mantra.  Others might be more “Ready, Aim….. Ready, Aim… Ready?”  and go-getters like me are terrified our successes would evaporate if we over-planned.  Instead, let us keep reaching out, but from a grounded place.  Let us contain enough energy to make our efforts sustainable, even as we audaciously reach for the next thing that others think is impossible.  That’s the recipe for sustainability.

In practical terms, here’s what that looks like for me:  Making sure I have time and bandwidth to cook dinners.  Dinner is the canary in my coal mine:  it goes down the tubes when I’m moving so fast I’m ungrounded.  For sure, it also means getting in 2 yoga classes, a Nia class, and 1-2 Pilates sessions each week.  It means enough sleep.  It means morning pages (a la Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way).  And it means mostly-daily touch-base with Sara.  When I do those things, it’s like engaging my arm into its base, so it can reach for the sky … and keep reaching and reaching with no need for fits and starts.

(Quick note:  this entire conversation refers to women as well as men.  Sad truth is, however, that when we’re talking about executives, most of them are still men.)

I coach a lot of “nice guys” and some who wonder why people don’t realize how nice they are “on the inside.”  And here’s the sad part:  often the ones who others perceive as “nice” are working for the ones who are… er, in their own words… “misunderstood” by others.  That is to say, other people often think these leaders are domineering jerks.  But that interpersonal roughness is the edge of a skill set that gets them promoted over and over.  And it gets them promoted over the “nice guy” who might also be considered for the job.

Why is that?  And how can people win when they’re both ambitious and committed to being kind, courteous, and connected with other people?  Here’s the bottom line:  Being “nice” only holds you back when it stops you from addressing key issues with bottom-line importance.  Consultant Eric Allenbaugh taught me, years ago, a valuable distinction:  You can be soft on issues or hard on issues.  And you can be soft on people or hard on people.  True jerks are hard on people, no matter where they stand on issues.  The most promotable people are always those who’re hard on issues.  Unfortunately in most corporate cultures, they can be hard on people and still rise.  It’s my mission, however, to help people become truly extraordinary leaders:  hard on issues, while being soft on people.  That is to say:  keep the “nice” approach to people, but without confusing “nice” with indirect, indecisive, or following consensus. 

My “misunderstood,” hard-on-people, hard-on-issues clients are learning to build in warmth, connection, and empathy so they are just as tough on issues, but softer on people.

And my “nice guy” clients are learning that they finish first when they lean into the goodwill they’ve generated by being soft with people.  They risk a little of that social capital they’ve earned in spades, by being direct and decisive, and teaching other people how to deliver what they want.  What they find is that the risk pays off:  they begin to earn the same respect accorded their tough-guy bosses, but with all the fun and connection of a nice-guy approach.  No one gets mad or says, “wait!  I thought you were nice!”  They thank them for the guidance and clarity.