Kit Prendergast, PCC
Kit brings you a wealth of expertise and experience as well as a wonderful spirit, energy, and a gift for inspiring you to create the life you truly want for yourself.Kit's Tips & Books
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Author Archives: Kit Prendergast
Remembering Names the Easy Way
Remembering people as individuals is the cornerstone to building powerful personal and professional relationships. Start with remembering their name with a word picture. Our minds usually think in pictures. And it helps to exaggerate your picture so you will remember it quickly. Remember this picture is just for you – don’t share it.
Now that you remember someone’s name, let’s have a meaningful conversation with this person. Pretend you are at a business event and you are talking to someone new. Practice on them. Stop any distractions by maintaining good eye content with the person. Listen closely and really hear what they are saying. Be curious and focus, focus, focus!
- Listen for information about these six general areas: where they live, family and friends, paid and community work, travel adventures, unique interest and finally their ideas.
- Ask about any other areas that you are curious about – be interested in them as an individual.
Now create a word picture in your mind to remember what you just heard. Dale Carnegie calls this “conversation links”. Create a picture – the more exaggerated the better- that links together these pieces of information. Dale Carnegie trainers give hysterical examples in the live training. It works! You don’t forget the picture or the individual and their unique story.
Eat, Move, Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes
Eat, Move, Sleep How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes, Tom Rath (Author of StrengthsFinder 2.0), MissionDay Publications. 2013.
I have always been a strong advocate for the strengths-based approach to the challenge of motivating and engaging others as well as ourselves. I have all of Tom Rath’s previous books but have never seen him write about his personal journey with a rare cancer he’s had since he was 16 years old.
This book is fascinating from that standpoint but has a larger message applicable to all of us. By choosing three small changes each day and weaving them into an upward spiral we can make big changes in our lives. Set your intention, identify your benchmarks of progress and put the “pedal to the metal” to maximize your success. This is a great project for August for all of us!
Create An Upward Spiral for Yourself
Initiating changes in our lives takes work. And it’s easy to get discouraged if we are striving for a big goal that seems overwhelming to achieve. We may even be tempted to not start in the first place justifying it to ourselves in multiple ways.
But we can be successful in attaining these bigger goals if we are willing to use our time, energy and creativity on a daily basis in a very strategic way. Using the core philosophy of Tom Roth in his newest book Eat, Move, Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes we can use the power of choice to build upward momentum. Here’s how . . .
- Clarify one thing that is really important to you right now. For example, physical health may be a priority for you at this time.
- Identify three choices you could make on a daily basis that would complement each other and lead to improved physical health. For example, eating more fruits & vegetables; walking each morning and increasing sleep by 30 minutes each night.
- Commit to doing these three actions each day for one week. Keep a written log or use another accountability system (ex. check-in with a friend) that works for you. Do all three each day giving each equal attention.
How do you feel now? Hopefully, your efforts have had a significant ripple effect all week so that each subsequent day was even better than the day before. It’s amazing how the momentum of one change affects the other changes you are making. You are sleeping better so you feel like walking in the morning and then the exercise helps you chose healthier food throughout the day.
The result is you feel better all day long and into the next day as well. Each choice works together rather than in isolation increasing your success rate substantially.
3 Ways to Retrain Your Brain Each Day!
All through my professional work history as a child abuse social worker, psychotherapist, corporate trainer and career/leadership coach, I have always embraced the power of positive emotional health. It is critical in all areas of our lives. And we as individuals have the responsibility to protect but also strategically develop our emotional well-being each and every day.
Taking care of ourselves in this way has a wonderful positive ripple effect on our families, our work and in our communities. Here are my favorite 3 ways to retrain our brains each day.
- Before you get out of bed in the morning – identify 3 things that you are grateful or thankful for in this new day.
- Do a small act of kindness each day . . . and don’t tell anyone else about it.
- When you go to bed at night – identify 3 things that went well that day (Seligman’s What Went Well exercise).
Do these three things for a full week. What do you notice? How has your thinking shifted? I hope you are noticing less negative thoughts and a few more positive ripples in the chatter we all hear in our heads during the day. Enjoy the change!
Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being
Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being, Martin Seligman PhD, Free Press, Simon & Schuster Inc. 2011.
Martin Seligman’s newest book is fascinating! Seligman (world renown for his work in positive psychology) takes his past extensive studies of “authentic happiness” and expands it into the concept of “well-being”.
Seligman’s believes that one’s own sense of well-being has five measurable and sustainable elements: positive emotion, engagement, relationship, meaning and achievement. And this is not only true for individuals but equally measurable in businesses, teams, families, neighbor communities and even for whole countries. I was intrigued to read the research findings on which of 23 EU countries ranked the highest in citizen “well-being”. Pick up the book to see where we all should be moving! Leadership.
Posted in Kit's Resources & Book Reviews
Tagged Career, change, energy, Leadership, optimism, Positive Psychology, strengths, transition
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