When you look up "thinking" in the dictionary, you get definitions like: "Opinion. Judgment. The action of using your mind to produce ideas, decisions, memories, etc." Thinking involves lots of areas of our brain. Our prefrontal cortex is Read More >>
What else is possible?
I had the privilege of working with my niece in a workshop a few weeks back. We were asked to give a 3-minute presentation on a topic from our books (Raise Your BAR and Raise Your BAR #4Students). Baillie and I chose one of our favorite questions, Read More >>
The best way to reduce anxiety
Do you want to stop the worry and anxiety in your life? It's easy. Just practice making decisions. Yes, that's right. Just make a decision. Most people who suffer from anxiety or worry a lot have a little bit of a problem making decisions. Read More >>
Thank you very much
Last week I talked about how easy it was to erode your confidence in two easy steps. Now for the real bit for people who aren't into sarcasm. Discounting is a huge problem for people who lack confidence. As a reminder, discounting is when Read More >>
How to erode your confidence
There's a simple way to erode your confidence and it's a great way to ensure you never get a promotion as well. Here is your lesson in Eroding Confidence 101. First you must master the art of discounting. You must be very good at deflecting Read More >>
Questioning Authority
The other day my friend reminded me of the urgent need for NLP skills for doctors. She was having surgery and her anesthesiologist told her that the medication that he was giving her to put her under was the "same stuff Michael Jackson liked." With Read More >>
Air-Warrior Mistakes
Living in Southeast Asia, there are a lot of business people who travel the region regularly. When you ask them where they live, the answer is often 12A. The problem is that consistent changes in environment often cause the routines we normally run Read More >>
Mini Attack on Mindfulness
There is a trend in the self-improvement industry about Mindfulness. It's the idea that we need to focus on the "now" rather than having our heads in the future or worse, the past. I love being the outsider in my field, so I don't agree with the Read More >>
Harry Connick Jr.’s Mistake
I watched an episode of American Idol the other night. My husband and I record the show during the week and watch it on weekends so I was unaware of the tussle between contestant Quentin and Harry Connick Jr. until days after it had Read More >>
5 Reasons to Work on Your Weaknesses
I know a lot of corporate trainers and coaches that use the Strengths Finder Model to guide their clients to success. The idea is if you work on your strengths and use them every day then you will be a better leader. I say, "RUBBISH". Here are Read More >>
Does this ever happen to men?
I was walking up the hill behind my apartment complex to start my run. And as I was walking up the hill, I came across a man walking towards me. It wasn't necessarily unusual for me to see someone on this road. It's frequented by runners, Read More >>
Raise Your BAR
It is the end of the 1st quarter of 2015. How are you doing on your goals? For the people that took my Raise Your BAR Strategic Planning Workshop at the beginning of the year, I've been sending out reminders to them to make sure they check in Read More >>
Niche Marketing vs Knowing Your Customers
I've worked with some marketing and sales experts as an entrepreneur and all of them just love niche marketing. It is that idea that you have a client base or product line that is an inch wide and a mile deep. The smaller your niche (to some Read More >>
Walking Away From Life’s Drama
I learned a valuable lesson from Darren Hardy, in his book, The Compound Effect. Darren is a firm believer of eliminating all needless drama in life. And the first on his list of things to go is news. You know, the news programs that come on at Read More >>
Beliefs That Help
I have a lot of beliefs other people find weird. One of these is my belief that if my knee hurts, then I need to exercise it. Most people believe that if something hurts you stop exercising. I'm a rebel. I just can't think like that. A few Read More >>
Gratitude
Yesterday was my husband's birthday (and I promise, this is the last birthday post). So this entry is about gratitude. People have been doing gratitude challenges of Facebook for some time now. A friend would challenge another friend to post 5 Read More >>
Father Person
It is birthday month in my family. Today is my father's birthday (affectionately called Father-Person) so my post today is dedicated to him. My father taught me the value of challenging yourself. This is a lesson I learned the hard way. Whether Read More >>
Cows & Sheep
Happy Chinese New Year! It is the year of the sheep (it is a goat actually but that's just being picky) and it reminds me of the story of my husband and I on his farm in New Zealand. On the farm there are cows and sheep (and a few wild deer but Read More >>
Love Strategies
It is the time of flowers, chocolates and red hearts. Some call it a marketing gimmick designed by the florists to make us spend more money. Valentine's day, whether you choose to celebrate it or not, is a day about love. What type of lover are Read More >>
Happy Birthday Mom!
Today is my Mother's birthday and I'm dedicating this post to her. She is the most amazing woman that I know. She's been "retired" for quite awhile now and she moved to Texas to be near my sister and the grandchildren many years ago. In Texas, my Read More >>
Productivity Crunch
Here is an interesting article on the growing labour shortage issues in Singapore. From a productivity perspective, it shows that the labour controls put in place are doing more to hurt productivity than to help it. I believe the idea was that if Read More >>
Child Abuse
I was walking through the park the other day when it happened. I was just minding my own business walking by this father and son. I wasn't really paying much attention to what the son said to the father and then BAM it happened. The father hit the Read More >>
Strength in Numbers
Imagine a bamboo stick. It's a pretty hard substance. I mean, you wouldn't want to be caned with it, would you? But even though it is strong, if you put it in a river and stand on it, the strength of the bamboo wouldn't hold you up, Read More >>
3 Myths of Goal Setting
I was chatting with my friend the other day and she said something to me that made my ears perk up and say, "OOOH, tell me more…" She said that her and her husband give each other goals each year. "You mean you tell your husband what you want him Read More >>
5 Ways We Sabotage Ourselves
Probably the first thing that came to your mind when you read "sabotage" is procrastination so that's the one I'm not going to cover. Why? Because there's a simple solution. Schedule it and get it done. Now on to the other 5 ways we sabotage Read More >>
Broken Resolutions
Do you set New Year's Resolutions? I do. Well sort of. I don't actually call them New Year's Resolutions. I call them FLOW Goals and they are part of the Strategic Planning I do each year. This year, I was determined to get one of my personal Read More >>
Cultural Diversity or Individual Programming?
There are a lot of corporate development programs focused on cultural diversity or cultural inclusion. For me, I tilt my head to the side and say, "Really?" Is it really the culture that needs to be included or celebrated for its diversity or is it Read More >>
Leadership Self-Discipline
I've noticed a few people around me who claim to be leaders in their given field display an amazing lack of self-discipline. The details are irrelevant. What is relevant is the behaviour. What I was noticing were these self-professed leadership Read More >>
One Step at a Time
I was in a wheelchair when I got off the plane. I had been in a skiing accident and I fractured my tibia plateau & tore both my ACLs (ligament in your knee). I had 2 separate surgeries and had been in a wheelchair for two months. I returned Read More >>
Agitated by my Environment
Recently I took a trip to Bali to attend a friend's birthday party. The first few days, I stayed at this lovely villa with a plunge pool, large living and dining area and massive bedroom. I was relaxed, energised and at peace with my surroundings. Read More >>
Bad Dreams
I used to have this really bad dream that my husband found a younger, thinner, more impressive women and left me for this upgraded model. It was a reoccurring dream that was reeking havoc on my relationship. Not only was I angry and hurt while I was Read More >>
Generally Speaking
It sneaks into most of my workshops. It pops up in a lot of my conversations. It’s the big hairy beast of generalizations. “Don’t you find that all men think like that?” “Women are more emotional than men.” “Everyone does it.” “It is like Read More >>
Big Picture or Detail
I have a friend who told me a story about making a conscious decision to let his boss fail. You see, he was in charge of an event for his organization and the person assigned to handle registrations on the day of the event was called away on a Read More >>
Is GPS Destroying Our Ability to Plan?
My friend was running late for lunch. I mean, really late. Like 45 minutes late. Why? Because her GPS gave her the wrong directions to the building where we were having lunch. I told her where lunch was and gave her the landmarks around the area to Read More >>
Don’t choke on the feedback sandwich
In my corporate program, Coaching for High Performance, I emphasize the importance of getting rid of the "feedback sandwich" and sticking to the 4-1 rule. For those of you who have never used or been given a feedback sandwich, it sounds something Read More >>
Metaphorically Speaking
There’s an advertising that pops into my inbox every once in awhile on the art of war (Sun Tsu) as it applies to business. It bothers me. Metaphors are powerful mind benders. They are used in conversational hypnotherapy, advertising and by Read More >>
I’m Just Trying to Help!
I like helping people. That’s why I do what I do. And I can’t help people that don’t want to be helped no matter how frustrating it is for me to see someone else struggle. Take my husband. We’re in a car in Malaysia and he’s having problems Read More >>
Is Maturity Less Common than Common Sense?
I read a story in Fortune Magazine about the changes brought on by the Gen Y workforce. What I read made me want to puke! The story was about a graduate of a prestigious US university who had accepted a job with the leading accountancy firm. And Read More >>
I am…
I am a speaker. I am a trainer. I am a wife. These proclamations describe my identity. Who I think I am as a person. They can be more descriptive. I am passionate. I am caring. I am loving. They can be fleeting. I am bored. I am confused. I am Read More >>
One More Hill
I run a few times per week through the parks near my house. A few weeks back, I was doing a 1-4 session after being off the track for over 2 months. A 1-4 session means I was jogging 1 minute for every 5 minutes I was out in the park. 1 minute jog, 4 Read More >>
Gym Clothes on the Toilet
Is it hard for you to exercise regularly? For a lot of my clients the answer is “YES!” They know the benefits; all those great neurochemicals racing around making you feel good, mind-body connection, improved muscle tone & coordination, etc. And Read More >>
Buzzing Thoughts
When writing my book Raise Your BAR, the proven system to stretch yourself to success, there was this persistent thought that kept buzzing around my mind. Like a bee waiting to pollinate its next flower, this thought kept buzzing around my mind until Read More >>
Cleaning Up Your Environment
I don’t like cleaning. It’s really hard work. I cleaned my apartment last Sunday and spent 6 hours sweating. I fell asleep at 8:30PM because I was so exhausted. When I got up the next morning to a shiny home, I was peacock-proud of myself. Well done Read More >>
Intuition Wins Again!
Recently I was visiting my father in the USA and was helping out with some chores around the farm. Several trees had come down and I was pulling logs off the tracks in the woods as my father cut section with his chainsaw. Much to my dismay, my Read More >>
Other People’s Stuff
I’ve noticed there are a lot of pregnant people in Singapore. I never had children. I actually don’t like them. Some children are nice. They belong to other people and that’s the way I like it. This is my ‘stuff’. You don’t have to like my opinion Read More >>
Overwhelm to Oversee
My client sat before me an absolute wreck. She had been beaten down. By what, I had not yet heard. Her face was ashen and her eyes red and puffy. I could tell from these signs and her slumped posture that things weren’t going well. “What’s Read More >>
Boundaries
I hate firing my clients and yet, I still do. I fire my clients. I let them go, make them redundant, or however you want to say it. Some of you may be confused at this point. Some of you may be saying to yourself, “She fires her clients? Why would Read More >>