Even though I wasn’t attached to winning (I represented the older generation), once the ball touched my hands I felt the urge to show off what I knew about bowling. I was never an expert bowler, but I was a respectable league member in my twenties. Never mind that I had not bowled for thirty years. It’s like riding a bike, right?

My confidence quickly melted. I knocked down one pin in my first frame. Six in the next and then back down to two in the third frame. Halfway through the game, my score was a measly 21.

Nothing I did seem to work when I tried to adjust my throw. So I quit being frustrated, laughed at myself and decided to bowl backwards. I moved across the alley and threw the ball from the other side, opposite from where I was used to.

This time, I threw a spare. Then I had two strikes in a row. Then another spare. I ended the tenth frame with a spare as well. I cheered as I my final score of 115 showed up on the screen.

This was a great reminder to me that when I give up knowing, pushing and expecting, magic can happen.

When I quit knowing what to do and believing I know better how things get done than my family, friends and colleagues, I am free to explore and learn. I am free to see new possibilities. I am free to have fun.

What can you give up knowing today?

Life is much more fun and magical when you are curious to learn and experiment instead of already knowing what to do.

I just spent two days as emcee of an amazing workshop for authors. I co-chaired the event which means I have been working on it for a year. Then I was so wrapped up in making sure the experience was perfect that I forgot I was also a participant who was there to enjoy the day.

I remember thinking this after my wedding years ago. I wanted the event to be “just right.” this focus took me away from the moment and the joy of the experience. My memories are a blur and unemotional.

When you feel responsible for an event, whether its as big as a conference or as small as a gathering of friends, do you get so wrapped up in making sure it is perfect that you forget to be present? What do you do to find moments to enjoy what is going on?

At the women’s conference in Trinidad, I kept telling the organizer, Giselle, “Breathe and soak in the moment. Your work is already done.” She thanked me for the reminder.

So why didn’t I heed my own advice? After my event this past week, I loved that so many people told me what a wonderful time they had. I wish I could have felt the depth of that experience with them instead of standing on the side the entire time. I’m sure the little details would have worked themselves out regardless of my constant scrutiny.

Taking my own medicine, I should have practiced my famous “Outsmart Your Brain” formula:

1. Relax (you have to breathe and release the tension in your body if you want to release your mind)

2. Detach (let go of being the one who has to make everything “just right”)

3. Center (focus on your point of strength just below your navel)

4. Focus (choose the emotion you want to feel and let it flow through your body)

When I practice this formula and choose joy, gratitude or happiness to flow into my bones, I can’t help but be present to what is wonderful in the moment.

I hope you enjoy your day!

I always endeavor to do good work. Yet I don’t expect my work to be perfect. I would never call myself a perfectionist. However, I am a completionist.

I remember how hard it was to pull myself away from unfinished work to drive home from the office. Now that I work from home, I have to schedule the time to turn off the computer to enjoy my evening. Even then, I have to distract my mind fully or my unfinished work will haunt me. I have to hide my cell phone so I don’t see the flashing red light telling me there are emails waiting to be read.

I know I am a bit obsessive. I also know I’m not alone.

I have found this same pattern of behavior in many of my clients. From our discussions, it seems this pattern can start at any age. For me, I was always the first to turn in my assignments at school. I wasn’t showing off. I just wanted the tasks off my to-do list.

Some of my clients said they weren’t like this until the past decade. The more they were bombarded with email and things to do, the more they felt the need to get their lives in control. The irony of this behavior is that the more they tried to control their inboxes and lists, the less control they felt they had, leaving them feeling overwhelmed.

Even though we aren’t perfectionists, the way to manage our “completionism” is similar: let go. We have to find ways to let go of shoulds, coulds and so many “have to’s.” We need to identify when the obsession to get things done is causing stress and anxiety and choose to honor our health over our work.

The next time you keep telling yourself that it is vital you do one more thing before you can divert your eyes from your phone or computer, listen to your justification. Is it really a good reason or just an elaborate rationalization?

What is the worst that will happen if you get up now and walk away? What might you do better if you left it for tomorrow?

If you are a completionist, here is your challenge: Walk away from the computer. Hide your phone. Do something to relax our body as well as your mind. Do this at least twice a day, three times if you are brave.

You will still get enough done. You will still be accountable to others. You won’t be missing anything important.

Become the master not the victim of your lists. Then share with us what you did and what happened. All of us completionists need your inspiration!

A number of people questioned the justification for defining a female-specific model. As Mike Henry Sr. asked, “Wouldn’t any leader regardless of gender be perceived to be a good leader if they had the same qualities?” These people said the model should portray a balance, as Katie Snapp said, ” … focusing on the female traits of compassion, inspiration, empathy and collaboration combined with more-masculine traits of bottom-line thinking, focus, directness and healthy competition.”

Offering another perspective, Dr. Christine McDougall says there is something good about accepting different models of leadership for men and women. She says, “We are not the same by nature, nor should we aspire to be.” McDougall believes that if men and women can stand side-by-side as co-leaders, honoring each other’s strengths and vulnerabilities with “…no shame, blame or righteousness” we will model great leadership.

Honestly, after years of NOT wanting to be recognized for my gender while working in male-dominated corporations, I have come to appreciate my feminine qualities and recognize the strength they bring to my work. I like that we honor our brilliant differences!

Therefore, even though I had many responses claiming a “one-size-fits-all” model of leadership should be set out for men and women, I still think it is good to identify the qualities that women can aspire to be as leaders building on the innate strengths they bring to the table.

Naomi Caietti shared this quote from the Corporate Gender Gap Report 2010 based on a survey of 600 of the heads of Human Resources at the world’s largest employers, “… the idea that most corporations have become gender-balanced or women-friendly is still a myth.” They cite the lack of female role models as one of the top three barriers to women’s rise to positions of senior leadership.

The question remains: Is a role model a position, a person or a way of being?

There were some women mentioned as role models, including Carol Tome, the CFO of Home Depot; Sandra Bullock for her graceful handling of her recent life chaos; and a chorus of incredible sisters, daughters, mothers and business partners. The entries were a great testament to the women who take charge with strength and grace. Thanks to Debbie Brown, Joyce Lansky, Lee Wennerberg and Susan Steinbrecher for their heartfelt contributions.

The winning entries, according to me, were from Frances Flynn Thorsen and Caroline Ryan. You can either read their original submissions here (scroll down to the comments) or read the synopsis in the Huffington Post article (scroll down to the shaded area). Both of these women profiled a real woman in a leadership role, identifying the behaviors she demonstrates and recognizing the mindset she has that makes her so remarkable.

Do we need to honor our models of female leadership or seek one model for all? I believe we can do both, but never forget what wonderful qualities men and women have to offer as we stand as different genders, side-by-side.

Marcia Reynolds is an executive coach and teaches leadership around the world. Check out the thoughtful reviews for her latest book, Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction.

Metaphorically, of course.

My book is launching June 15th. The closer the date gets, the more I feel paralyzed to do anything. The list of launch activities on my desk is yelling at me. I’m slow to respond.

I know why. I’ve been here before. I’m putting my piece of art on display. What if the response is lukewarm? What if all my hours of labor in writing and marketing fall flat?

High-achievers love taking on projects where they know they will succeed. I can write a book. I can create websites and promo materials. I can inspire my friends to cheer for me.

I can’t control a faceless audience.

My brain is doing its best to take me to a screeching halt. I have to do my best to overcome it in spite of the unknown future, which of course can be wonderful…who knows?

So I keep reminding myself that the stress and trepidation means that something is trying to be born. This force has taken me this far. It’s time set it free to create whatever is next for me.

I also have the pleasure of reminding myself that no matter how strong I am on the outside and how confident I am in my abilities, I have a soft spot inside that that suffers from bad reviews and fears disappointment.

I am human.

Sigh.

Now, off to work. And please consider purchasing Wander Woman on June 15th. If you send me the receipt, I’ll send you a bonus Workbook. Thanks…I can now check one more thing off my launch list!

1. We are intelligent beings astute at creating excuses for not remembering what we know.
2. Every human is an artist. We create our lives every day. We are angry, depressed and frustrated when we think we can’t create. Instead of striving to end your suffering, what will shift you into feeling creative?
3. Truth exists with or without us. We don’t create it; we see it when we choose to clear away the fog of fear and the superstitions someone told us to believe. Then open your heart with love before you ask the question, “What do I know to be true, really?”
4. Change who you believe you are and your world and the story you tell about it changes.
5. We should not tell other people what their story should be. Instead, inspire them to be their own beautiful story.
6. Your physical body is a biological machine. It gets sick, it breaks down, it is attacked by viruses and bacteria and it eventually dies. The only thing you are responsible for is to stay as healthy as you can. You did not attract and are not responsible for everything else that happens by nature. But remember… What happens in your body is truth. How you deal with it—what happens in your mind—is choice.
7. The best you can do in relationships is to respect others and do not tell lies. This goes for how parents should relate to their children as well.
8. Celebrate life. Your heart is drumming in this celebration. Let your mind sing in harmony to the beat.
9. Do not mourn death. If you are around someone dying, they will most likely ask you to stay happy and appreciate the life you have. Honor their request.

And my favorite insight from the day…

10. As a coach and teacher, I am responsible for what I tell you. I am not responsible for what you understand.

You may have heard most of these pearls from someone along the way. Yet, as don Miguel said, we brilliantly forget what we know. So when your intelligent brain works against you, what will you do to remember?

Please post here the bits of wisdom you have heard or read that you love and what you do to remember to live by them.

The problem is that in the last three years, as their members scramble to get business and survive, they lose touch with broader more theoretical missions of their organizations.

What about you?

• Have you upheld the message of your mission (and can you articulate what this message is–if not, read my Huffington Post article on Are You Serving a Calling or Feeding a Craving if you need some help)?
• Are you living the values you teach others every day?
• Do you know what image you display to others and does this image represent your highest values?

The two professional organizations feel compelled to outline terms of public engagement for their chapter leaders to ensure the integrity of their image is preserved. Whether or not it works for leaders to dictate this behavior in others, this is good practice for you on a personal level.

• What do’s and do not’s would you commit to in both your business and personal life?
• How will you hold yourself accountable?
• How will you deal with others who do not respect your boundaries?

In this age of Social Media where we are putting our thoughts out for the entire world to see, it’s even more important we are sure about how we want people to judge us (and they will) and what messages we present with our words as well as our deeds on all the social sites.

Every morning, before writing one word or choosing how to spend your time, ask yourself:

• Who am I being today?
• How will I present myself?
• What will make me most proud even when people disagree with or don’t like me?

Take a moment to share some of your do’s and do not’s here. Share your terms of engagement to help us all refine our lists. Who you are being will affect what you create and attract. Choose to act in integrity with your message instead of reacting to circumstances. This alignment is good for your soul.

Click here for the latest updates on Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction (June release).

What’s similar about these women who reject the notion of work/life balance is the level of passion they have for their work. When they find their work gives them a strong sense of purpose and satisfaction, they happily work from early morning to late at night. Even if they squeeze in time for self-care and family, they don’t see the need to equally balance their schedules.

One woman told me she felt lost before she found the job she over-commits her time to. She works for a no-kill animal shelter. When not at work, she thinks about how to improve the care of her “children” and raise funds for the shelter. Before she found this work, she spent more time with friends but often drank too much and then squandered her weekends nursing hangovers. She still shares moments with two good friends and visits her sister’s family on holidays, but loves her active life at work. She is happily out of balance.

Instead of working on equally balancing activities, I work with these clients on balancing their minds and bodies. They can happily live with their passionate obsession if they don’t tip into mental and physical fatigue. Here are some tips for maintaining mental balance when you reject work/life balance.

In order to sustain an active mind while passionately doing what you love:

1. Keep your body healthy. If you want to maintain a long work schedule, then you need to keep your body in good working order. Start the day with exercise so you don’t end the day with no time for the gym (go outside before you read your email!). Make sure you eat healthy meals instead of what you can gobble down in quick breaks. Sleep at least seven hours so you are at your peak for the other seventeen.

2. Maintain social bonds. No matter if you think you don’t need anyone’s help, you are a human with social needs. In his book, Born to Be Good, Dachel Keltner claims that true survival of humanity is due to our need for belonging and our need to have people care about us. Also, when you have good interactions with others, you activate the brain regions that improve health and increase creativity and productivity.

Whether it’s your family or your friends—hopefully both—nurture a few significant relationships at work and away. If you go to a movie once a week, enjoy some time after the show talking about what you saw. Eat meals together. Take walks. Lay on the ground and watch the sun cross the sky. Your social connections will help you do you do your best work.

3. Regularly notice the world around you. I get acupuncture once a month to reset my overtaxed body. It was my acupuncturist who first told me that I was disconnected. He then prescribed a daily dose of going outside, smelling the air, appreciating the trees and feeling the ground beneath my feet. When I reconnect with nature, I reconnect with my soul.

The beauty of these tips is that you can combine them by going for walks with family and friends. You can still work into the night and wake up excited about the work you will do next. Balance your body and mind if you would rather not balance your activities by breaking for exercise, breaking bread with those you love, and taking moments to connect with nature.

Marcia Reynolds is a coach who teaches leadership classes worldwide. Her book, Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction will be released June 2010. Read more at www.WanderWomanBook.com

On a more personal level, I found some great insights in the article to help me better communicate or at least better understand left-brain thinkers. I’ll share a few points here.

But first let me say that yes, there are men who access the right side of their brains proficiently, and even compulsively. However, there have been many studies that indicate that especially under duress, men tend to primarily access their logical, fixate-on-one-point-of-view-and-solve-the-problem-from-here left side of their brains. I talk more about how this plays out in the workplace in this week’s Huffington Post blog entry.

Due to both our biology and our upbringing, women tend to be more balanced, accessing both their right and left hemispheres when solving problems and communicating to others. Or if they lean to one side of the brain, they rely more heavily on their right hemisphere which leads them to focus on nonverbal as well as verbal cues, see interconnections among all parts of an issue, consider social and emotional impact as well as logical outcomes, and relate circumstances to metaphors and stories.

The result? Men and women often have a failure to communicate.

We can argue or be self-righteous all day about who offers a better perspective. The truth is, if we are talking to someone who processes information differently than us then we need to alter our style in order to be heard. I continue to learn this lesson as I teach predominantly left-brain men how to be good leaders. Here are some tips I’ve learned to heed:

1.  Women like to talk about relationships and feelings. We like to converse about progress and the details that led up to the results. We like the give and take of talk, but we also like our viewpoints to be validated. Men might tolerate this, but they first want to know what the point is of the conversation. They want to know why “what happened before” is important to the result before listening to the stories. They want their viewpoints validated too even if we think they need more information. Therefore,

• Find common ground first. Agree to the headline and the goal of the conversation.
• Respect each others’ viewpoints.
• Don’t keep talking when the other person mentally checks out.

2.  Although men use complaining as a way to vent their emotions, women get emotionally hooked by their words. In other words, when a man complains, the woman worries. Therefore, before reacting women should

• Ask what the man needs right now to feel better about the situation.
• Ask if the situation requires any action or if he is just describing an annoyance he has to live with. If he just needs to rant, you have nothing to worry about.
• Ask if he would be open to exploring other perspectives. If he isn’t thrilled by the idea, don’t push it. And don’t try to make him stop expressing himself. Go do something you enjoy doing instead of listening if his words bother you.

3.  Women use small talk and personal compliments to bond. In the middle of a conversation, I might compliment a woman on her hair or her purse. This might lead to a conversation about stylists or shopping before getting back to the topic. Men don’t get that this is about bonding.

• Bond with a man by complimenting what he is saying, not what he is wearing. If you can’t compliment his ideas, ask who, what, where, when, and “what else” questions. Deepen the conversation instead of distracting from it.
• Men like personal compliments, too, but not in front of a group and not when it is out of context.
• If giving a personal compliment could imply a hidden agenda, even if you have none, don’t give it. Men aren’t used to compliments so they sometimes assume you want something from it.

There are a lot more tips available all over the Internet. Some are good. Some promote unfair stereotyping. I think the best advice is to try to discover how best we can connect individually and then honor these differences as natural mental habits. Do have any tips to add?

When you want to make a change in your life, you usually want to feel something different than what you are feeling now, right? You may have a desire to feel something more, such as more passion, contentment, joy, pride or peace of mind. Or you may have a desire to decrease stress, regrets, anxiety, sadness or an unclear longing in your gut. You may visualize the change as a new job, house or relationship, but underneath is the desire to feel something more or something less.

Lots of people offer sound advice on taking steps to change your life, however…The success of your change depends on how badly you want to feel differently. You have to want the change in emotions enough to overcome the discomfort, boredom, confusion, embarrassment and worry that pops up to stop you from growing.

One of the strongest emotions that leads to change is anger; this includes making positive changes in your life. An intense negative reaction to your circumstances revs up your internal motor more powerfully than a lightly held wish. Through extensive research, Jennifer Lerner and her team at the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory found that anger both encourages people to believe they can control their futures and then motivates them to take risks.

There are many times I have asked a client, “Are you finally mad enough at yourself for allowing this to happen, again?” The question serves to focus the anger on their own avoidance mechanisms, disarming the blocks they had for changing. When you adamantly say, “Enough,” you may be angry about your circumstances but probably you are just as angry at yourself for standing in the mud with two good feet.

However, anger can be damaging to our health and relationships over time. The skill is to, after you begin making the changes you want, shift the focus of your anger away from the external circumstances to instead focus on what you strongly desire to feel within yourself.

It is not the flaky boss or the overwhelming responsibilities that make you scream at strangers while you drive. You should be angry that it has taken so long for you to realize you have the power to change your circumstances. If you then channel the energy of your discontent toward what passion, happiness, freedom, respect, or peace of mind you choose to feel, you will be using your anger to initiate positive actions.

Therefore once you commit to a change you want to make, you should shift your focus away from what is missing in your life to what you want to passionately and positively create. Adamantly wanting something to end is a good way to kick-start the process. Yet once you are off and running, you need a positive obsession to sustain your efforts. To help make the shift, answer the questions below:

Exercise: Giving Voice to Your Emotions

Understanding what is at the source of your emotions will help you focus your energy toward positive change. After you experience anger, disappointment or disgust, ask yourself:

• What do I feel I have lost?
• What do I feel I should have?
• What are people not giving me that I deserve?
• What am I doing to keep myself small?

Now ask yourself how badly you want what you deserve and what you are capable of creating:

• What do I want more of in my life? What do I want to say “yes” to now?
• What is the gift I most want share?
• What are the new conversations I would like to create?
• What is my heart telling me to do?

Now, picture what is possible for you. Make your declaration public by sharing it with someone. Determine what you can do to ensure your commitment to this change. Then every day, focus on what is working and the outcomes you achieve, even tiny ones. Putting positive emotions in service of what you desire will help you sustain your journey.

Excerpt from Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction. Berrett-Koehler, June 2010.