Day #41 – Turn Difficult People into Easy Allies

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dealing with bad behavior, dealing with difficult people, executive coaching. transition coaching, life coaching, Mary Lee Gannon, overcoming emotional pain, Pittsburgh, starting over, starting over after divorce, starting over again, starting over now, Turn difficult people into allies, when bad people get in the way, when you feel threatened

365 Ways to Start Over: Day #41 – Turn Difficult People Into Easy Allies

Who at some point in their life has not been affected by the bad behavior of the people around them? It might be someone you love choosing to go down the wrong road. It might be someone you work with treating you unfairly. It might be one of your friends irritating you with a biased perspective.

Basically when another person upsets you it is because something they are doing is threatening you. A loved one who is making a bad choice threatens your hopes and dreams for him or her. A colleague that challenges your work threatens your ability to succeed or other’s perception of your success. A friend who disagrees with you threatens your need to build consensus among your shared friends.

We all know the theoretical fixes to this situation. “Don’t let it bother you.” “Let it go.” “It isn’t important.” Intellectually we accept that this is what we need to do but often it is difficult to execute. There are a few concrete strategies that can actually achieve the goal of letting go but also work with the situation for greater results.

How to Turn Difficult People into Easy Allies

1. Take nothing personally. Anyone who has a problem with you has a problem with his or herself that is brought out by something you are doing. Don’t internalize their reaction to you because it could put you in a defensive posture whereby you react instead of responding thoughtfully for a better outcome.

2. Identify what you fear in this situation. What is it in you that you feel you are in threat of losing in this situation? Behavior is secondary to feeling. Bad behavior stems from feeling fear of something. On a basic level people generally fear three things – pain, death and abandonment. Abandonment is the most common fear.

3. Identify what they fear. What is threatening the person you have difficulty with?

4. Envision what they would be like without that fear. Envision that person in a chair with a shower curtain that represents their bad behavior between you and them. Now whisk that shower curtain aside. What do you see? What good lies beneath the surface of their fear and bad behavior?

5. Define how you will ease their fear by a change in your behavior. Instead of continuing to tell a loved one who fears not being accepted and disappoints you that you are angry at what they are doing might you ask them, “How could things be different to make you feel more accepted?” Instead of squaring off at a meeting with a colleague or plotting passive aggressive tactics offline, might you give this person who fears lack of control some control back by offering more than one choice – both of which you can live with?

Being curious and compassionate to the fears of others and ourselves will turn difficult people into allies. Start now!

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Mary Lee Gannon is the president of StartingOverNow.com and Gannon Group – a full service coaching and consulting firm that creates productivity solutions for people and organizations who are “stuck” in transition. Individual clients are addressing: Life transition, Divorce, Life Purpose, Five & Ten Year Plans, Career Change, Relationship Shift, Loss, Empty Nest, and Work Life Balance. Corporate client services include: Strategic Planning, Public Relations – Brand Positioning, Cultural Accountability, Meeting Facilitation, Vision Creation, Strategy Execution, Stress and Time Management, and Negotiations. Mary Lee’s personal turnaround came as a stay-at-home mother, with four children under seven-years-old, who endured a divorce that took she and the children from the country club life to public assistance from where within a short time she worked to the level of CEO. Her book “Starting Over – 25 Rules for When You’ve Bottomed Out” is available in bookstores or at Amazon. Get her FREE ebook – “Grow Productivity – A Leader’s Toolbox” on her web site at www.StartingOverNow.com.

Day #39 – Create Your Purpose from the “End of the List”

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business coaching, Creating a Life Plan, creating solutions, executive coaching, finding life purpose, finding love, finding my purpose, idea generation, life coaching, making changes, Mary Lee Gannon, Pittsburgh, problem solving, starting over, Starting Over - 25 Rules When You've Bottomed Out, starting over again, starting over in life

365 Ways to Start Over: Day #39 – Create Your Purpose from the “End of the List”

If you want to change some things in your life you have to change some things in your life. Start by changing the way you look at your challenges. Use creative thinking to make a long list of possible solutions to your challenges and then critical thinking to narrow down the most effective ideas. You can apply this to problem solving in business, defining your life purpose, finding love, team building around an issue and much more.

The List that Rocks!

Creative Thinking:

1. Make a long and extensive list of every single possible crazy wild idea that describes “WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS AND FEELS LIKE” as it relates to your dilemma. No judgments. No closed off thinking. No “I can’t becauses.” Come up with at least 50 solutions. Cluster these into theme areas and combine.

2. After this list is created – keep going. Throw out the most outlandish ideas you can think of. This “End of the List” list is where revolutions are made, new industries are created and wild ideas become things like Facebook, Groupon and iPad. Empty your mind for unless it is emptied, it cannot be filled with new thoughts.

Critical Thinking:

3. So what is the real question you need to have answered? Do not let your mind wonder to solutions. Just define the question. Is this question different than you originally thought?

4. Generate useful answers by narrowing down your list. Prune down the ideas from numbers 1 and 2 in this exercise to uncover the most effective solution to answer your question from number 3.

Lists help you realize things that lie beneath the surface and un-vetted. Create your lists without inhibition and watch your possibilities take off. Start now!

Visit Mary Lee’s web site with more free information on meetings and leadership at www.startingovernow.com.

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Mary Lee Gannon is the president of StartingOverNow.com and Gannon Group – an executive coaching and consulting firm that produces higher individual and organizational performance through Executive Leadership Coaching, Organizational Development, Board Retreats, Visioning, and Planning. Mary Lee’s personal turnaround came as a stay-at-home mother, with four children under seven-years-old, who endured a divorce that took she and the children from the country club life to public assistance from where within a short time she worked up to the level of CEO. Her book “Starting Over – 25 Rules for When You’ve Bottomed Out” is available in bookstores or at Amazon. Get her FREE ebook – “Grow Productivity – A Leader’s Toolbox” on her web site at www.StartingOverNow.com.

Day #30 – Seven Questions to “Reboot Your Life”

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365 Ways to Start Over: Day #30 – Seven Questions to “Reboot Your Life”

Find a few quiet moments and sit down with a fresh piece of paper and a pencil. The answers you are about to generate are so revealing you won’t want to scribble them on scrap paper or pencil them in between other notes you are taking. Make sure there are no distractions around you visual or auditory – just pleasant inspirational things to look at or listen to. The answers to these questions may have many parts so have extra paper near by.

Reboot Your Life Questions:

1. Now what is the one wildly out of reach aspiration you would do if you knew you could not fail?

2. What do you keep telling yourself is the reason you can’t do that?

3. What are you doing instead?

4. What has this mindset and the behaviors associated with it cost you?

5. How would the results be different if you reached your aspiration?

6. What would you be doing differently in this fulfilled state?

7. When you are in this totally rewarded and satisfied place where everything in your life is in unison and energy flows effortlessly through you as you live your life purpose every day – what empowering thought is going through your mind?

The secret to Rebooting Your Life” is simple. Replace #2 with #7. Here’s how you are going to do that.

Reboot Your Life Plan:

1. Write the statement from #7 in bright colorful letters on index cards or paper (I call these – Reboot Reminders) and tape them everywhere you spend time: the rim of your computer screen, bathroom mirror, refrigerator, dresser mirror, desk, in your car.

2. When the limiting head trash of #2 comes flooding back into your mind, erase it and replace it with #7. Go to tone of the Reboot Reminders that you posted and write down something differently you have done to reboot your head trash toward life purpose and date it. These dates and notes will remind you that you CAN make change – sustainable change. You already have! Start now!

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Mary Lee Gannon is the president of Gannon Group – an executive coaching and consulting firm that produces higher individual and organizational performance through Executive Leadership Coaching, Fundraising Coaching, Organizational Development, Board Retreats, Visioning, and Planning. Mary Lee’s personal turnaround came as a stay-at-home mother, with four children under seven-years-old, who endured a divorce that took she and the children from the country club life to public assistance from where within a short time she worked up to the level of CEO. Her book “Starting Over – 25 Rules for When You’ve Bottomed Out” is available in bookstores or at Amazon. Get her FREE ebook – “Grow Productivity – A Leader’s Toolbox” on her web site at www.StartingOverNow.com.

Day #29 Focus on the Harvest in Your Own Pasture

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executive coaching, jealousy, life coaching, life isn't greener on the other side of the fence, Mary Lee Gannon, Overcoming Adversity, overcoming jealousy, Pittsburgh, transformational coaching

365 ways to Start Over: Day #29 Focus on the Harvest in Your Own Pasture

The roots of the grass on the other side of the fence aren’t visible from your view and the gate to get there may not swing both ways. Besides, wooden fences have splinters. Nurture your own crop. You know what goes into your soil. Cultivate your abundance. You drive the plow on your own land. Start now!

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Mary Lee Gannon is the president of Gannon Group – an executive coaching and consulting firm that produces higher individual and organizational performance through Executive Leadership Coaching, Fundraising Coaching, Organizational Development, Board Retreats, Visioning, and Planning. Mary Lee’s personal turnaround came as a stay-at-home mother, with four children under seven-years-old, who endured a divorce that took she and the children from the country club life to public assistance from where within a short time she worked up to the level of CEO. Her book “Starting Over – 25 Rules for When You’ve Bottomed Out” is available in bookstores or at Amazon. Get her FREE ebook – “Grow Productivity – A Leader’s Toolbox” on her web site at www.StartingOverNow.com.

Day #28 – The Rock Your World Quiz

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business coaching, creating a plan for your life, executive coaching, finding your life purpose, Goal setting, life coaching, living your dreams, Mary Lee Gannon, Pittsburgh, starting over, starting over now, time management, work life balance

365 Ways to Start Over: Day #28 – The Rock Your World Quiz

This is a lesson on how to break things into purposeful chunks so that you can move the mountain in front of you out of the way.

1. What one really far out there, totally off the wall, extravagant, beyond your reach thing could you get done that would part the clouds and rain a parade of sunshine into your life? This goal should be something you never thought you would accomplish and should be an act of purpose that you have dreamed about. Just the mere thought of it sends an exhilarating jolt up your spine and through your veins, emulating energy from you that lifts you right out of your chair. It’s the view from a magic carpet 30,000 feet above your life where you see, smell and hear yourself fulfilled, joyous, serene and peacefully making a difference that lies to rest every unsettled urge that ever existed in your spirit. In this place your strengths are at play in full capacity. What you are doing is in total alignment with your values. Your smile stretches right off your face and onto the face of others. This is your life’s purpose.

2. Now, on a scale of one to ten how close are you to getting that done?

3. What one thing could you do that would move you one notch higher closer to 10?

4. What are you working on that takes your time away from your purpose? (If you are answering emails and working late are you working for yourself or on someone else’s project? Can you truly be of benefit to others when your own purpose is not fulfilled?)

5. What are you going to do differently tomorrow than you did today?

If you have definitive answers to each of these questions, you will soon be doing things that rock your world. If not, you won’t. It is difficult to create new habits. But a strong vision of yourself in a place that fulfills you will keep you on track. Passion is not enough. Set goals. And work yourself closer to your goal everyday by eliminating what is not in alignment with your values. Start now!

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Get Mary Lee’s articles Change – Here’s How! and Values – How to Define Them and Live Fulfilled.

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Mary Lee Gannon is the president of Gannon Group – an executive coaching and consulting firm that produces higher individual and organizational performance through Executive Leadership Coaching, Fundraising Coaching, Organizational Development, Board Retreats, Visioning, and Planning. Mary Lee’s personal turnaround came as a stay-at-home mother, with four children under seven-years-old, who endured a divorce that took she and the children from the country club life to public assistance from where within a short time she worked up to the level of CEO. Her book “Starting Over – 25 Rules for When You’ve Bottomed Out” is available in bookstores or at Amazon. Get her FREE ebook – “Grow Productivity – A Leader’s Toolbox” on her web site at www.StartingOverNow.com.

Day #25 – Slide Down the Hall in Your Socks

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being happy, executive coaching, Feeling joy, have some fun, how to be happy, how to stop worrying, life coaching, life transition, Mary Lee Gannon, starting over again, starting over now, Stop worrying

365 Ways to Start Over: Day #25 – Slide Down the Hall in Your Socks

When is the last time you were so absolutely elated about something that you cranked up the radio as loud as you could and danced your heart out? When was the last time that you threw back your sun roof, rolled down all the windows, tossed in your favorite CD and cruised your favorite sites while singing like a rock star? When was the last time you were so revved up that you raced down your hall in your socks like you were master surfing a wild tube in Kawai?

Do it today. What are you waiting for? Five years from now the thing you are worried about will be a distant memory. But feelings of joy will not. There are people who cannot drive a car, hear music, sing, or swim who would love to have these feelings. Life is grand. Get going!

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Mary Lee Gannon is the president of Gannon Group – an executive coaching and consulting firm that produces higher individual and organizational performance through Executive Leadership Coaching, Fundraising Coaching, Organizational Development, Board Retreats, Visioning, and Planning. Mary Lee’s personal turnaround came as a stay-at-home mother, with four children under seven-years-old, who endured a divorce that took she and the children from the country club life to public assistance from where within a short time she worked up to the level of CEO. Her book “Starting Over – 25 Rules for When You’ve Bottomed Out” is available in bookstores or at Amazon. Get her FREE ebook – “Grow Productivity – A Leader’s Toolbox” on her web site at www.StartingOverNow.com.