I was interviewed on a TV show The Daily Connections about how to avoid burnout and create work life balance. In this interview, I talked about the signs and symptoms of burnout, and how to use my C.P.R. for Balance model to manage stress, maintain inner peace despite chaos, and consciously create the kind of work life balance that's aligned with your values and priorities.

If you feel like you're heading toward burnout, perhaps it's time to give your life a little C.P.R. Watch this video and you'll learn how. I'd love to have your feedback.


Call to Action:

1. Watch the video now.
2. Please leave a comment here on my blog.
3. If you have a YouTube account, please post your comment on YouTube, and give a rating too! Thanks!
4. Forward this to anyone who could benefit from watching this video.

Enjoy the video!

Labels: awareness, coaching, conscious choice, inner peace, personal development, perspective, priority, Resources, stress management, time management, work life balance

Last week, I attended a business development training offered by iPEC Coaching for its graduates. At the beginning, Bruce Schneider, the founder of iPEC Coaching, asked how many of us belong to a mastermind group that's dedicated to building our businesses. Surprisingly, very few coaches raised their hands. I myself belong to a coaches mastermind group that meets once a month. We hone our skills as coaches and share resources for building our businesses. It's wonderful to have my mastermind group keeping me motivated and updated on the coaching business.

One of the exercises we did was to identify our key talents and skills in running a successful business. Four key areas were identified: speaking, networking, marketing and sales. These are the four basic skills or areas an entrepreneur needs to be successful.

Next step, we were asked to identify our #1 skill and the one area that we have the most challenge with, and wrote them on our name tags.

We all have at least one or two things that we can do effortlessly. Perhaps you are a great public speaker. Perhaps you are an amazing "connector", a brilliant marketer or a convincing salesperson. Oftentimes we take our gifts and talents for granted, because they come so easily for us. We underestimate our gifts and talents, because we can do them effortlessly. We thought "everyone else" could do just the same. It's often when we hear others' compliments over and over again, that it begins to dawn on us that perhaps we do have some unique skills that others don't possess.

At that training, we were asked to walk around the room and find people with complementary skills. We were to find people we could partner for projects, mastermind groups, or even become business partners. The point is, instead of trying to be everything and do everything ourselves, it's much more effective, not to mention more enjoyable, if we could just focus on doing what we do best, and find someone else to do what we're not so good at. That way, everyone gets to leverage his/her unique gifts and talents, and everyone wins.

So, we were walking around the room looking at everyone's name tags, trying to find those who possess skills we don't have. Soon it was obvious to everyone that we've got a roomful of speakers, and very few salespeople. That didn't come as such a shock to me. Well, think about it, we are all coaches, and most coaches are also speakers. However, it presented a great challenge not to have enough salespeople in the room for us to partner with. We all got the point. Obviously, we all need to reach outside of the coaches community and look for other qualified marketing and sales professionals to complete our mastermind & business teams.

So, this is what I've been working on lately - looking for strategic alliances as well as admin help to complete my team.

How about you? Have you identified your key strengths? Are you leveraging your unique gifts & talents? Do you have your A-Team assembled?

P.S. This post is included in the following blog carnivals:

Twelfth Edition of Carnival of Improving Life hosted at ImprovedLife.ca

Carnival of Healing #140: Questions to Ask Yourself is hosted by the carnival owner Phyl at the Carnival homepage About.com About Holistic Healing.

Labels: accountability, coaching, getting support, mastermind, personal development, productivity, stress management, success, time management

This is a funny (although a little violent) stick-figure video about the dire consequences of not maintaining work-life balance. Enjoy!

Labels: fun, priority, stress management, work life balance

Please join me in the We Are One World Healing session today, May 20, 12:00-1:00 pm EST.

We Are One World Healing monthly healing sessions was initiated and organized by Astrid Lee at Therapeutic Reiki. She wrote:

"During the sessions, from wherever we are, we collectively send loving, healing energy to all people, animals, all other sentient beings and our beloved planet Earth. We hold the vision of a healed world. Every full moon."

This Month’s Session
The next ‘We Are One World Healing’ session is this coming Tuesday, May 20, from 9-10 am Vancouver time, or your time-zone equivalent. Please join in.

At the opening of the hour, give unconditional love/Reiki to all participants (including yourself) to heal & to connect with each other. Then we jointly we send the energy as one synergistic beam to the planet, nature and humanity.

Participating is easy: just meditate, put yourself in white light, radiate unconditional love (or Reiki or other positive healing energy if you are so empowered), and hold the vision of a healed world (whatever that mean to you, spiritually and literally.)

I encourage you to be there for the full hour. I will send a lot of extra healing energy (read: free Reiki sent ahead of time) to those who participate the full hour.

For More information about this movement and other resources, visit Astrid's blog. The blog is a magnet for people to join us, in part because of its 100+ articles on healing & spirituality that might interest you too. Recent articles of note:
How to save the planet year-round

How to be a No-Limit Person-- 6-part video series by Wayne Dyer on how to be the best you can be, or as he calls it, to be a NO LIMIT person.

How to use crystals for meditation

Reiki in the News -- a bit of press news about Astrid

Labels: awareness, Blogging, compassion, empowerment, giving, healing, making changes, Resources, spirituality, transformation

A good friend of mine sent this to me for Mother's Day. It brought a smile to my face.

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THE COST OF CHILDREN

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition. But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

$8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month,
or $171.08 a week.
That's a mere $24.24 a day!
Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice says don't have children if you want to be "rich.." It is just the opposite.

What do you get for your $160,140?

Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
Glimpses of God every day.
Giggles under the covers every night.
More love than your heart can hold.
Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
A hand to hold, usually covered with jam.
A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sand castles, and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.
Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies, and wishing on stars.

You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking the training wheels off the bike, removing a splinter, filling a wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren.

You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost.

A very happy Mother's Day to every one of you. You've earned every penny!!

Labels: inspiration, love, parenting, relationship

To all the moms:

Happy Mother's Day!

You have worked so hard, all year around. I hope you get to take a day off, and enjoy your special day. I hope you love the festivities and/or any loving gestures your family bestow on you. Even if none of your family is around to celebrate this day with you, I hope you make a point to do or have something you love today. Hey, this is your special day, and you totally deserve it.

I just called my Mom in Taiwan. None of us could spend Mother's Day with her, and my dad had to attend a meeting today. I was so glad to find that Mom was in a good mood, nonetheless. I said, "Well, Mom, since Dad is not home, you've got a day off! How are you going to celebrate your special day?" She told me cheerfully that she's got some ideas -- she might visit this or that city, do some shopping, visit her favorite coffee shop, etc. She was getting herself ready to go out and enjoy her free time. I'm pretty sure she is going to dress up and have fun out on the town. Way to go, Mom! That's the spirit!

Motherhood is life-changing. I'm positive that you'd agree with me. Being a mom has changed me on so many levels. It's the most challenging job I've ever taken on, and the most amazing journey I've experienced. I'd never trade it for anything in the world.

Before you go out for your Mother's Day celebration, here are some thoughts for you to ponder.

You are loving and caring... You give your children unconditional love, the highest level of love in the world. You are the go-to person when anyone needs TLC - a hug, a kiss, some encouraging words, or chocolate chip cookies. You are love, personified.

You are patient... Reading "The Little Engine That Could" for the 1,000th time, with the same level of joy and enthusiasm (even when you were so tired you could barely keep your eyes open); getting your toddler potty trained; helping your child with challenging homework; sewing your child's school play or Halloween costume... that takes patience.

You are committed... Hey, you took on a life-long commitment to be a mom, didn't you?!

You are strong and you persevere... Think about what you had to go through to bring your child to the world -- the pregnancy, the labor pain, the adoption process -- need I say more? Think about all the challenges you've gone through to take care of your children and make sure they are healthy, safe and happy. You are much tougher than you give yourself credit for.

You are disciplined... You get up every morning to take care of your family, cooking, feeding, bathing, cleaning... day after day, after day. If that's not discipline, I don't know what is.

You take charge and get things done... You are the one who organizes and coordinates everyone's schedules, and make sure nobody misses doctor's appointments, soccer practice, band concert, birthday party, anniversary dinner (even if you have to plan it yourself).

You know when to say no and stand your ground... You have no problem telling your toddler or teenager what they are not supposed to do, even if you know they are not gonna like you.

You are creative... You've created a loving home for your children. You use your creativity in the ways you show your love, the foods you cook, the stories you tell, the imaginative plays, the silly songs you make up, the garden you planted and all the family vacations and memories you help create.

You are powerful... You were given the power and privilege to co-create a life (your child), to help your child reach his/her full potential and create a better world. That's enormous power and responsibility.

You are beautiful... Have you ever looked deeply into your child's eyes and see your own reflection? You are absolutely beautiful... no laugh lines or stretch marks could ever diminish your beauty.

I hope you take a few moment here and let it all sink in.

Next time, when someone else, or that nasty little voice in your head, tells you that you are not loving enough, strong enough, pretty enough, disciplined enough, or that you are too "selfish" for taking care of yourself, or whatever, tell them to get lost. They simply don't know any better.

You are perfect and whole, just the way you are. You deserve to be loved and adored, just like you love and adore your children. Now, go ahead, and celebrate this day the way you truly deserve.

Forward this message to any moms you know who could use a little validation or encouragement. As moms, we ought to support and empower one another.

Take good care of yourself... you are irreplaceable!

Love & Blessings,
Hueina

P.S. If you wish you had a Fairy Godmother, come to my Teleclass next Friday, May 16th, at 12:00 pm EST. We'll talk about how to "Write Yourself a Fairy Tale Ending". Stay tuned for more details on how to register for this Teleclass.

P.P.S. Found this funny poem about motherhood. Enjoy!

Labels: empowerment, inspiration, Intensive Self-Care, love, parenting, relationship, self love