In the movie Ever After, Drew Barrymore’s character, Danielle, asks Leonardo da Vinci, “A bird may love a fish, signore, but where will they live?”

There are some of us who like to exist more submerged, exploring inner space and our emotions like a scuba diver or that cool deep-sea vehicle used to examine the Titanic wreck on the ocean floor. Others fly through the air and live high above the clouds flitting and fluttering this way and that, getting a brief overview of it all and only experiencing the external surface of the world. There are landlubbers, jet skiers and snorkelers who operate somewhere in between. Which one are you?

An adult human is about 60 percent water, so it makes sense to spend a little time in the metaphorical H2O to get in touch with your feelings and desires, an honest assessment of what’s going on within, even if it’s not your regular place to hang out.  The ideal is to have the best of both worlds, to be able to move between the two when the situation demands – to be either a bird who can swim or the much rarer fish that can fly (but they do indeed exist). Or maybe just change your name to Ariel. 

But if you’re a little afraid of the abyss, don’t have the right gear or if you need an expert dive instructor, I’m your gal. Or perhaps you’ve been down there a while and are ready to come up for some oxygen and explore new vistas; if so just give me a buzz, and like the great Italian master (just change the o to an i) assures Danielle, “Then I shall make you wings.”

(*Today’s PGG was originally posted on August 24, 2010)

Read more about me and my work in these past PGG’s:

All Roads, Same Place | And Now, A Word from Our Sponsor | Strong Medicine | 10,000 Hours

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If you like what I write, you’ll love what I have to say in person!   Click on above links for info about my coaching and speaking services and contact me today.  Read over thirty 5-star “Yelp” style reviews here

Join Mailing List
 

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE Personal Growth Gab (PGG) Volume One FROM AMAZON

FEELING STUCK IN YOUR CAREER? CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO!  

Last November I was one of the career experts featured in a panel discussion hosted by The Muse.  Here is the full length video where you can hear my thoughts on career transition, working with a coach, building confidence and handling emotions in the workplace.

Commitment is the new black. ~ Andrew Sullivan

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell studied highly successful people and came up with the theory that applying 10,000 hours of dedicated practice was required to perfect a skill or master a field. He talks about how the Beatles played hundreds of concerts in Germany before they performed on Ed Sullivan, Bill Gates had access to computers years before most, and Tiger Woods was swinging a golf club from the age of three.

I have also read how Beyoncé was singing and dancing in heels since she was around ten, and heard Megan Trainor talk about writing something like 2000 songs before making it big.  And what about those Olympic athletes?  How many breaststrokes or back-flips did Michael Phelps or Simone Biles have to do before winning their gold medals?

Whether the “10,000 Hours” rule is accurate or not, it speaks to dedicating oneself to their work, their craft, their art or sport in a serious way over a significant and consistent period of time.  With our 24/7 world of distraction and superficiality, it is getting increasingly difficult to focus and commit oneself to anything: whether it is a career path, a specific skill or habit you want to develop, a new relationship, or reading an actual book or even full-length article!

In the big picture of things however, the most important commitment you can make is to yourself. Knowing, accepting and loving who you are and the cycles of personal growth and TIME it will take to become your very best in order to maximize your potential and prosperity – this is the root of all the other commitments. If you have done that, only then you can think about and be successful in what specifically you want to “practice” as part of the journey. What can you commit (or have been committing) 10,000 hours to right now, remembering that this can change as your life grows and evolves?

Over the past few months I’ve been feeling like I’ve hit a turning point professionally in my work with clients and thinking about this concept, that perhaps I’ve hit my 10,000 hours?  And then on Monday LinkedIn reminded me it was my 9 (?!) year anniversary as a professional coach.

I really didn’t know what I was doing or what I should call myself when I started back then, and have no formal training or certifications, but hundreds of you have trusted me over these years with the honor of helping you get unstuck and on the right track with your career and life, and in turn that has fulfilled me in mine.

I have always approached my work in a very organic way, and the title that currently seems to fit is holistic career coach. My ability to quickly and accurately assess and advise clients about who they are and what they should be doing with their lives has blossomed more that I could have imagined, yet at the same time deep down I trusted it would evolve in a way that would best serve those who sought my services.

That in and of itself has been an interesting journey for me, and the results are reflected in the feedback I have received. Here is some of the most recent:

The 30 minutes we spent discussing my general career malaise and concern over what to do next were infinitely more helpful than the hours I’ve spent discussing this with other people in my life.

By the end of the conversation, I had an actionable plan, a timeline and confidence to invest in myself that I’ve never had before.

Her questions really got me thinking and she made me aware that my some of my goals were not actually out of reach but with hard work could be obtained.

After the session I felt so empowered and revved up, I felt like I was ready to take on the world! – and I still do. Kristina really listened and provided insightful feedback to get my life back or going in a more positive direction that will ultimately make me happier.

My hour with Kristina felt more like a therapy session than a career coaching session, but it turns out that is exactly what I needed!

She’s great at identifying the root cause of a problem (even when you think you might have had the answer to begin with) …. I can tell you after about 20 minutes of her asking all the right questions, she wrapped everything up for me in a nice package in the final minutes and BAM I had a breakthrough.

I have a new focus for my career, and I will continue to leverage her knowledge in order to find that perfect job!

I came away feeling empowered, more confident about who I am as a job seeker and more aware of my strengths.

After working with Kristina for over a year and landing my dream job, I can say that I feel joy with every dollar I earn.

She’s not going to tell you what you want to hear, she’s going to tell you what you NEED to hear. A great listener and motivator. Time and money well spent. 

And how timely that just this past Friday, right before my anniversary, I received an email out of the blue from someone who I only did a half hour session with weeks ago with this simple one-liner message:

Kristina, Thanks for giving me a new look on life.

What can be a better job than that? 🙂

A great big THANKS goes out to all of you who have ever worked with me – your trust and faith in my abilities has allowed me to put in my “10,000 hours” and I would have never gotten this far and been able to do work that I absolutely love and suits me best without your support. I look forward to working with many more of you over the next 9 years and beyond!

Read more about my journey and work in these past PGG’s:

All Roads, Same Place | And Now, A Word from Our Sponsor | Strong Medicine

Read over thirty 5-star “Yelp” style reviews here

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If you like what I write, you’ll love what I have to say in person!   Click on above links for info about my coaching and speaking services and contact me today.

Join Mailing List
 

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE Personal Growth Gab (PGG) Volume One FROM AMAZON

FEELING STUCK IN YOUR CAREER? CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO!  

Last November I was one of the career experts featured in a panel discussion hosted by The Muse.  Here is the full length video where you can hear my thoughts on career transition, working with a coach, building confidence and handling emotions in the workplace.

Tell me what’s wrong with having a little faith in what you’re feelin’ in your heart.  ~ The Dixie Chicks (via Patty Griffin)

I try not to think as much as possible. This serves me well for many reasons. First of all, I am somewhat dyslexic, so the more I stay out of my head, the clearer things are for me. And forget about speaking; whenever I do my seminars what I say has to come from my heart and gut, otherwise I would get super-confused and choke from stage fright and the fear of sounding stupid. I have learned to operate this way more and more; it reduces stress by keeping me connected to myself and in the flow of life, in harmony with who I am and what I need or want at any given moment. It is the best motivational, decision-making and communications tool I possess, because I have harnessed and developed it as such.

In the movie Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise confronts Cuba Gooding, Jr . about why he has not yet been offered a $10 million dollar contract, citing that the way he is off the field is how he needs to be on the field. “You play with your head, not your heart. in your personal life? Heart….Play the game, play it from your heart and you know what, I will show you the kwan. That’s the truth man, can you handle it?” Jerry knew that if Rod did what he loved with love, then, and only then, would he be able to show him the money.

And that doesn’t just hold true in the movies. Steve Tisch, a proud owner of the NY Giants, declared that the key to their big victory this past weekend was that they ” …played with more heart, more passion, and more love for each other and for the game of football.” Does that negate, replace, or even diminish all the hard work, training, strategy, talent and skill necessary to achieve such great heights? No, of course not. But it’s the thing that will make the difference between a good team and a great team, a good life and a great one.

Most of us are taught to live by our heads, logic and ego, not by our hearts and guts. But only when we listen to our hearts and put love into everything are we our most authentic selves, which means living our truth. And when we are living our truth, we can then more easily speak our truth, and stand in our truth. And that is the best way to guarantee peace and prosperity in our lives, no matter what the circumstances.

Million dollar contract, Lombardi Trophy or not, we are all players the Super Bowl of Life – so are you playing with your head or your heart?  Give me a buzz and I’ll make sure that unlike Tom Cruise in his confrontation with Jack Nicholson , you can indeed handle the truth and start living in alignment with who you are and what you want to make happen both on the field and off!

(*Today’s PGG was originally posted on February 7, 2012)

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If you like what I write, you’ll love what I have to say in person!   Click on above links for info about my coaching and speaking services and contact me today.

Join Mailing List
 

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE Personal Growth Gab (PGG) Volume One FROM AMAZON

FEELING STUCK IN YOUR CAREER? CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO!  

Last November I was one of the career experts featured in a panel discussion hosted by The Muse.  Here is the full length video where you can hear my thoughts on career transition, working with a coach, building confidence and handling emotions in the workplace.

There is a tree outside my window that marks the passage of time with its cycle of leaves that float to the ground in Autumn, whose branches remain bare throughout the Winter until one day I wake up to find they have sprouted buds – which eventually become the lush greenery of Summer before slowly turn yellow, fall off, and go dormant again until Spring. No matter how extreme the weather is – and we’ve had some doozies lately – my little tree never ceases to amaze me with its remarkable and reliable transformation year in and year out.

Those of us who are either born or became city slickers find ourselves existing in a concrete jungle filled with technological wonder and have to make a conscious effort to get our green on. But spending time in Nature is not just about breathing fresh air and taking a hike in the forest or swim at the beach: it’s about realigning ourselves with how the world really works, not how us humans have manipulated or want it to be.

It’s easy to forget that we are made up of the same elements as the trees, birds, oceans and stars and have within us an innate nature that, if we tune into it, will always serve us exactly as it should. But this means we must tune out the loud voices and headlines screaming for our attention telling us how we should feel, what we should do, who we should fear, or what we should buy; we need to block out the many warped perceptions of how long things should take and in what way they should transpire.

Spending quality time with yourself each day strengthens your “you muscle” so you can get to know, love and accept who you are and operate accordingly. Music is a powerful tool to counteract the “noise” of the day and get you into your own space, so make sure you are feeding your soul with a good dose of melodies, harmonies and/or lyrics that uplift, soothe or energize depending on what you need at that moment to create peace in your little world.

What if you don’t quite fit in the status quo? For example, being an introvert and a night owl living in a society that favors and rewards extroverts and early birds might require more effort to go against the grain, but the more you go with your own flow and march to the beat of your own drum, the less stressed and more rewarding life will be.

You can then experience the joy of synchronicity, because it is when you are so connected to yourself and the Universe that “magic” happens: You see a scene or hear a line in a movie or come across a book that speaks directly to you; you find out about an event or run into a person that helps get you your dream job; or perhaps receive an unexpected check in precisely the amount you needed just in the nick of time. It all comes down to having trust and faith in yourself and your path – and trusting in the very process of life itself is the best way to honor being alive.

Those of you who know me know that one of my favorite sayings is that everything happens “in time and on time”. In Eastern philosophy, this goes hand in hand with the concept of wu wei, loosely translated as “non-action” or “effortless doing”. I am also here to remind you to have patience, because life doesn’t happen overnight or like an instant message; there is ebb and flow, a shedding and a blossoming, and an unfoldment that is under the control of something far wiser than our little pea brains.

Feeling a bit tone-deaf trying to find your own rhythm in a world of distraction and dissonance? Give me a buzz and I can be like a piano teacher with a fancy metronome who gets you back in the groove to make beautiful music in every area of your life!

(*Today’s PGG was originally posted on April 30, 2013)

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If you like what I write, you’ll love what I have to say in person!   Click on above links for info about my coaching and speaking services and contact me today.

Join Mailing List
 

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE Personal Growth Gab (PGG) Volume One FROM AMAZON

FEELING STUCK IN YOUR CAREER? CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO!  

Last November I was one of the career experts featured in a panel discussion hosted by The Muse.  Here is the full length video where you can hear my thoughts on career transition, working with a coach, building confidence and handling emotions in the workplace.