The leadership blog for successful women

A lot of people are talking about self-care at the moment. 

No wonder - the world has gone crazy in a lot of areas. Many things are getting more extreme - the middle ground seems to get smaller and smaller - and with prices rising and war around the corner many people worry a lot.

The antidote: self-care to not burn out and to make sure that you can be your best self. 

BUT - what IS self-care really?

A lot of advice goes in the direction of

• Doing something for yourself - like a bubble bath or a hike in the mountains
• Exercise to work through the stress
• Sleep
• Meditation
• Take more time off

All good ideas.

Today I'd like to suggest something else. 

Something that goes deeper and has the potential to eliminate sources of stress.

Setting boundaries - a perfect way of self-care. 

That, of course, requires you to KNOW what you are available for and what not, how I tend to phrase it - I found that easier to answer than "what my boundaries are" - the result is the...

This week I had a phone call with my best friend in the US. We talked about the usual topics…kids, our own challenges and joys (like my new puppy) and finally about the currently biggest and most threatening topic: the war in Europe. 

At the end of the conversation she asked: "Are you worried?" (my definition of worry = a chain of negative thoughts about bad things that might happen in the future), and I answered: 

"No, I'm not."

Not because it's not threatening or my personal beliefs about if this will escalate or not. I feel for all the people suffering and I'm very sad that this can happen in this day and age. 

I'm not worried though because it does not help. 

Not me. 

Not anybody else in my life or among those who are directly affected. 

And it definitely does not change the situation. 

In fact, it makes my days worse if I do."

Am I indifferent to this awful situation? Or cold like a fish?

Neither. 

I used to worry a lot. 

...

Are you ready to take charge?

Are you prepared to walk into some discomfort?

There is a reason I ask those questions - because if you're not - this podcast is not for you.

Admittedly we all cringe when being confronted with what most of us would call "negative" or "bad" emotions. 

Many of us rather pull our fingernails out than talk or even deal with that kind of stuff. 

I get it - it's uncomfortable, it might even create some fear ("how the heck do I deal with it anyway?"), but quite honestly - I've experienced that the whole topic is much easier to deal with than I thought years ago. 

And still, many people don't know the HOW and just want them to go away. 

Pushing them away comes with a price though. 

AND there are convincing reasons why all of us better talk about this topic. To be precise - in this podcast, you'll learn about 6 of them - pretty sure there are even more. 

So, here's what I'm talking about:

1. The 6 reasons WHY it's so...

What? I can't be serious, right?

Who the hell likes adversities?

Well, listen in to learn why and how they can be extremely useful and what kind of human superpower you can develop and practice while experiencing adversities. Extremely powerful how I find. And one that helped me in even seemingly catastrophic situations. 

Enjoy and let me know what other topics you'd like to hear about - just drop me an e-mail to [email protected]. 

Quite honestly: 5 years ago I did not have a clue what Personal Leadership was. As I simply did not give it a thought. The definition that is.

Instinctively though I realized that there is something wrong with the way of how we learn to lead.

When I had just passed my mid-twenties and I worked for a start-up in the IT business (not that we called it like that 25 years ago) it was the first time that I managed a team. I had 3 people in a sales team to lead. And I failed miserably.

None of my team was in the slightest inspired by me and I had simply no idea what I was doing. Even when I read up about what I could do how and tested things out, it did only marginally get better. The second time around leading a team in a different organisation went better, still not great though.

Well, I could have assumed that I was simply a lousy leader. I realized later though, that I had started at the wrong end.

Start leadership at the right end 

What is the right end then?

Quite simple on one...

I bet that triggered your interest…what’s she talking about – would have done the trick for me :-).

So, I start with a spoiler and disclose the answer right away: A COACH.

In fact, at least one.

Of COURSE I would be saying that  - I'm a coach myself and just want to sell my stuff, right?

Before you let judgement settle in right away, bear with me for a second (well, probably a few minutes, unless you’re one of this super readers).

I have two

Coaches that is. Not seconds.

Not because I am particularly rich or…ehmm… incapable ;-).

I will explain why in a moment – let me tell you a little story first:

My idea of building up a different and new business came up about a year ago. Even a tad before that, come to think of it.

So, I made a plan (hey, after all I AM a business woman with decades of experience), decided what I had to learn (how to build lists, how to create a course, how to shoot an effing video….and how...

It was about a year ago when my son had just finished an internship after his high school degree. At that stage, it was clear that his plan A – studying in Scotland – had not worked out. Well, and there was no plan B.

The latter did not seem to bother him too much. Life was good. Sleeping in, making music, getting food served (well, most of the time) and supposedly not having a worry in his life.

Except for his nagging mum – me.

Project "Help"

So I...

- Organized regular “meetings” with him, talking about how he intends to move on, giving all sorts of options

- Trained him in regards of how to organize the next and necessary steps, after he decided that studying is still the future of choice

- Set up a Kanban board with him in his room so that he could see at any time what has to be done and to remind him of stuff (even at 20, the teenage typical forgetfulness seems to be pretty prevalent).

- Had long conversations with him to help him finding his WHY

-...