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How To Embrace Your Uniqueness & Beauty

Embrace & fully express

Everyone knows the importance of loving yourself, but it is also something that we forget and neglect to do on a regular basis.

Just think about it. When was the last time you thought something positive about yourself like, “I am so good at keeping the clothes folded around here”? Now, when was the last time you had a negative thought about yourself like, “Why can I never be on time”?

It seems far easier to be critical of ourselves than it is to think of the positive. This reminds me of the “Magic Ratio” made popular by Dr. John Gottman. If you don’t know what the Magic Ratio is, this is how it works. The ratio is 5:1, as in, you need to have 5 positive interactions with your significant other for every 1 negative interaction to maintain a stable relationship. Now, I know we aren’t talking about relationships with others right now, but I think this logic still applies.

To have a healthy relationship with ourselves, we need to remember to think of the positive more than the negative. It’s like a muscle that we have to strengthen. So today I have a challenge for you. Every time you notice yourself thinking something negative about yourself, try to think of 5 positive things about yourself. Doing this will help you remember that you are truly unique and beautiful, both inside and out!

To dig into some other ways to not only embrace but also express your own unique massive beauty check out our Co-Founder’s most recent project by clicking on the image below!

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8 Why’s To Have People Development as Priority 1

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What if development of people became our organizational raison d’être?

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”   ― Friedrich Nietzsche

What is the purpose of business?

Milton Friedman, a Nobel-prize winning economist, wrote that the purpose of business is maximizing profit for the shareholders.

Peter F. Drucker said that “the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer” and “the purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things.”

Blaine Bartlett, bestselling author of “Compassionate Capitalism” says that “the purpose of business is to uplift the quality of life on this planet.”

This is my personal favorite:

“Business is where you practice your human skills. It’s where you grow.” Andrew Cherng, Co-Founder and Visionary, Panda Restaurant Group, Forbes’ 2015 America’s Best Employer.

Part of Panda’s expressed mission is “becoming a world leader in people development.”  According to Vipul H. Shah, Regional Director of Operations at Panda Restaurant Group,Panda exists to better the lives of people, and we build an organization to allow that to happen.  How we do this is selling American Chinese food.”

Andrew Cherng has more to say about that: “I’m talking about everyone who works at Panda. They’re inspired to better their own lives.  We’re not really selling Chinese food, you know. Our real purpose is about developing people.  You have to grow! You grow as a person, and then you will grow in business.”

Why would we, as leaders and visionaries in Conscious Organizations, want to make development of people our raison d’être?

8 Why’s To Have People Development as Priority 1:

  1. When an organization is committed to transforming people’s life, people bring back to work their transformed self along with new mindsets, behaviors, and ways of being.  As a consequence, they produce results and create solutions that were not possible before.
  2. People become more fulfilled, confident, happy, and self-expressed, often finding a clearer sense of direction in life.  Their personal life and relationships improve which, in turn, positively impact their achievement and satisfaction at work.
  3. Transformation and growth is challenging.  As people begin to dig deeper and learn about themselves, they start to understand who they really are and why they do what they do.   Their sense of purpose crystallizes, resulting in clearer focus in their work.
  4. People develop a better understanding of others, causing communication and connectedness to drastically improve.  As a result, R&D and Sales work well together, and so do Accounting and Marketing.  Teamwork, collaboration and effectiveness skyrockets.
  5. As people grow, they become willing to “play big,” step outside the box, take on challenges, make mistakes, fail, get up and try again – knowing the company has their back.  They achieve results and performance levels that could not have been achieved by “playing safe” and staying in their comfort zone.
  6. As people are being challenged, how they learn to respond to challenges (rather than react or retract) becomes important.  This builds resilience and stamina.
  7. Everyone in the organization begins to take responsibility and ownership of their work and their roles.  This results in a company-wide “buck stops here attitude,” free of blame or finger-pointing.
  8. When everyone takes full responsibility and 100% ownership of any situation, there is no space for anyone to be a victim.  Leadership becomes not a title of authority but a chosen mindset.

This sounds like an organization I want to be a part of!

Bottom line is this: if we make development of people the purpose of our business, all other purposes fall into place:

  • Shareholder profit is maximized
  • Customers will be kept and created
  • Common men and women will be enabled to do uncommon things
  • The quality of life on this planet is uplifted

How could this apply to your organization?

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Divorce and Friendships

Playing guitar on the beach

Playing guitar on the beach

I’ve gotten divorced twice…and twice found myself facing the same curious situation.

All of a sudden, many of the people I’ve been friends with for years just drop off. We didn’t get into a fight or disagree.  We just stopped spending time together.  I have wondered ‘why’ for years, and I think I may have finally figured it out for myself.  Can you relate to my own answer?

Part of the reason for my second and more recent divorce, in particular, was that my then husband and I had grown and changed in ways incompatible or inconsistent with continuing the marriage.  Sometimes society calls it “growing apart.”  Even the path itself, leading to the difficult and final decision of divorce, was for me a path of massive growth and change.   I looked the same, but I was not the person I used to be – emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. My evolvement in becoming more and more of who “I” am — as an individual — was afoot, and probably became pronounced in my ways of being in the world.

I realize now that it must have been very challenging for my longtime friends to have found, all of a sudden, that the person they used to be friends with (the married Alexandra) didn’t live here anymore.  I look the same, but something was significantly different, and they can’t quite put a finger on it.  This must be tough…to see somewhat of a stranger inhabiting your once-known-friend’s body.

So, it gives me peace-of-mind to now understand that it isn’t like my friends no longer want to spend time with me: it’s simply that the Alexandra they used to hang with left town and there is a new and evolved “me” they have the opportunity (choice) to now meet and know.  Like a very real budding friendship with someone new, they probably simply feel a bit apprehensive and in heightened-alert.

Thank God for those willing — after many years of what, in the first half of life, can become same o’ same o’ relationships — to explore a Back Forty of getting to know and grow with the new beings we all have the opportunity to become.  Some have come around, and some (God bless them) may not.  Using words from an unknown author, whether old friends or new, “let the friends be the friends of your deliberate choice.”

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