Wander Woman

Creating a great experience can be the worst thing you do for yourself. You can design a memorable event and enjoy it as well. Here's how.

Every hour, the Chinese News gave me 5 minutes of global news, then 55 minutes of good news. If this is propaganda, I would like some of it back home. This changed my perspective of the world.

When you find yourself obsessing about a problem, step back and ask this question to see a new possibility.

After finding cat food strewn around the kitchen floor with globs of it dropped in the water bowl, I realized we had a raccoon invasion. This continued for several nights even after we put the cat food in the kitchen sink. I called my brother in San Francisco who has had a continual problem with raccoons breaking in through his cat door. He said there was nothing I could do except

I saw the leaders of the future in a hotel in The Hague. When I checked into the hotel, I was disappointed that I would be spending a week far from the city center with snow expected almost every day. I was teaching a leadership class so I would have little time to explore the city. The view out my window was populated by bare trees and a distant skyline. Yet inside,

I had an amazing thing happen TWICE in less than 24 hours that had me questioning how we judge if the world is a safe place to live in or not.

My excuse is predictable--I haven't posted much lately because I'm working to meet my book deadlines. Life is too busy, too chaotic and unpredictable to stay in touch. Sound familiar? Yet after watching the movie, An Education, I am grateful for my crazy, full life. It wasn't too long ago women had so few options in life that marriage seemed like a good escape from a colorless future. Not that nursing

Judgment takes up real estate in your brain. Your working memory has limited capacity. When you are judging others or yourself, you are limiting your creativity. You are also decreasing your sense of humor and fun. When you negatively judge someone, you can barely hear what they have to say. Tip #1 Take in and release your breath slowly to clear your mind. You might find the person who is annoying you isn’t

I would have thought that High-Achievers looked at life as an abundant well of opportunity. After reading Lloyd Thomas' article on Scarcity, I have a different perspective. Kahil Gibran writes: "to be thirsty when your well is full is a thirst which is unquenchable." A scarcity mentality is when, no matter how much you have, it is never enough. You remain continuously unsatisfied. High achievers feel this way when they have a gut sense that there is always something more to achieve. Therefore, you might have a belief that your accomplishments, or the recognition for what you can achieve, will never be enough. The upside is that you are driven to accomplish great things; the downside is that you limit your celebration of what you have created so far in your life. If it's not good enough, it's not time to celebrate. When you come from scarcity, you tend to limit your consumption. This includes drinking in the beauty of your life. On the darker side, you may feel resentment about others who have what you lack (grander achievements). This further serves to effectively exclude you from feeling proud of what you have accomplished so far. To reverse the psychologically damaging effects of a scarcity belief, you must engage in paradoxical behavior. In other words, whatever you need, give it away. Give someone else recognition for something you could have done yourself. Help other people today even though they could outshine you tomorrow. Create celebrations of achievement for others so that you may reflect on your own path. Help others feel acceptance, significance, joyful and proud. What grander accomplishment can you create? Does this sound strange? As Lloyd says, "If you don't understand any of today's column, simply explain it to somebody else." It's time to stop and appreciate what wonders you have created to date in this life. There are many more things you can and will do. And, you truly have time to take a moment to sit back and admire who you have become.

I am attending a marketing workshop. Although there are signs that the economy is at least flattening out if not turning around, the room is still full of negative and scared energy. Obviously, we can't control the story of our lives. Yet we can control the mood of the main character. When it comes to business, it's the companies that "spend their way out of the recession" who become the champions.