Self Confidence — How Does Body Language Affect it??

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Rosemary Cardno

Interesting article, describing how Body Language can make you feel more self-confident, and also make you appear more self-confident to others.

Self Confidence – The Management Pocketblog

This is the first part of an extended correspondence course in management. You can dip into it as you go, or you can follow the course, right from the start. If you do that, you may want a course notebook, for the exercises and any notes you want to make.

Self confidence is the starting place for any manager. Your promotion to managerial role has probably been triggered more by your expertise in doing your previous job, your reliability, and your character, than by any specific evidence of your managerial capability. And that’s fine, because it is the way most of your colleagues were promoted too.

But it can leave you feeling a little nervous about your suitability to manage and, when your boss tells you to ‘get on with it – I have every trust in you’ you can feel a little isolated. Your boss leaves you to it, your new management peers don’t yet trust you, and your team are wary of how you will treat them, now you have become a manager.

Here are three exercises to help boost your self-confidence.

Exercise 1: A Reassuring Word

In your notebook, complete the following sentences:

‘I earned my managerial role because…
‘My three most valuable managerial assets are…
‘The managers I learned most from are…
‘I will know I am doing a good job as manager when…
‘Things will go wrong; that’s life. If they do, the people I can go to are…

Exercise 2: Seeing Success

Imagine it is Monday morning and you are in work, ready to start the day. In a minute, close your eyes and picture yourself there. Picture your first few conversations and meetings going well. Notice yourself handling the situations effectively, feeling well-prepared. As you go through your morning, picture everything you do going as planned. At each stage, notice how good that makes you feel. At the end of your morning, imagine how positive and confident you will feel.

Now, close your eyes and play that movie in your head for several minutes.

When you have done this, make a note in your notebook about how you felt at the end of each part of your morning. Write down what you did to achieve your successes.

This is an exercise to repeat several times over the coming days. Each time you do it, choose another day and either the morning or afternoon. Every time you do it, you will increase your base level of confidence.

Exercise 3: Power Poses

One of the reasons some people feel more confident than others is simply levels of hormones in their bodies. For example, increased testosterone levels increase confidence, whilst increased cortisol levels decrease confidence. Perhaps it is surprising, but your gross posture affects levels of both of these hormones and, whether you are a man or a woman, you can increase testosterone levels and decrease cortisol, by adopting power poses.

You can do these poses for two or three minutes before going into a stressful situation and you can maintain confidence-boosting hormone levels by maintaining upright, open postures during your day.

Power Poses

Stand upright, legs apart – slightly wider than shoulder width – and put your hands on your hips. If there is a table, counter or a solid back of a stable chair available, place your hands firmly on it, about 70-80cm apart (wider than your shoulders) and lean forward. Adopt these poses for two minutes or so.

If you have a chair to sit on, try sitting upright, legs apart, with feeet firmly on the floor. Plant your hands firmly on your upper thighs, with elbows outwards. Lean your body back a little, with head a little forward. Or try putting your feet up on a table, leaning back in your chair, with your hands clasped behing your head, elbows splayed out. Adopt one of these for two minutes.

If these poses remind you of a typical ‘old-school alpha-male boss’, they should. The difference is that you will adopt these poses privately for a few minutes at most, to boost your confidence for the next meeting; rather than maintain it in the meeting to intimidate your colleagues.

Upright Postures

For all-of-the-time posture, keep to standing with feet at hip or maybe shoulder width, head upright, as if pulled by a puppet string, and arms by your sides. This open body, coupled with upright posture, will not only make you feel more assertive, but will enhance your breathing, your vocal tone and projection and present your image as confident and authoritative.

New Year’s Resolution: To Lose The Blinders And Walk Towards The Light

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Rosemary Cardno

Love this inspirational post from Mark Armstrong…

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Rosemary Cardno

Great insights for all of us today…..

Veranda Lane Success Blog

One of the most painful questions that I’ve ever been asked:

“What are you hobbies?”

Why? Because, it makes me squirm. My go-to answer has always been “Work. Work is my hobby, because it’s all that I have time for.” What an awful life I was living! I woke up, went to work, came home, did more work, slept, then started it all over again. During those days, I abandoned the other aspects of my life: family, spiritual growth, community involvement. All of these were a distant second to climbing the corporate ladder.

View original post 337 more words

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Rosemary Cardno

Good Advice for All of Us …..

Fun Goods for Awesome Living

If you don’t travel that much, chances are you’ve had no problems greeting others with a handshake, a hug, or a simple “how are you,” regardless of their culture. But at holiday parties, the mix of strangers, friends of friends of friends, extended family, and other unfamiliar persons might lead you to encounter someone from another culture whom you might not be all that sure how to introduce yourself to or converse with. Though it’s impossible to cover every culture you might encounter, here’s some of the basic body language rules to keep you from becoming acquainted with no one’s friend, trouble!

The Handshake

Most countries have conformed to the Western introduction of the handshake. Even then, there are many variations with the duration, strength, and what should or can accompany the handshake. For example, you might smile when you shake the hand of a Chinese person, but they might…

View original post 429 more words

Is Your Life a Masterpiece or a Meaningless Existence?

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Rosemary Cardno

At this time of year, it seems normal for all of us to look back at the year, sometimes several years, and reflect on where we are and where we want to be. Sometimes we feel satisfied, other times we are disappointed in our progress. This year, as we end 2012 and begin 2013, read the story of Bob Geldof – of where he began and where he is today. It gave me profound inspiration, and hope – I hope it will do the same for each of you. – Rosemary

Is Your Life A Masterpiece Or A Meaningless Existence?

Written by Jeff Bullas
Categories: Purpose and Passion

I had the pleasure to hear a keynote presentation from the enigmatic

tonight and I was mesmerized by the passion, dreams and the vision that permeated his words. The topic:

“Reaching your Dream: A World Icon’s Insight On the Secret To Success”

English: Bob Geldof (Photo credit: Wikipedia

He told how his mother had died when he was six years old and how he and his sisters had to cope as his father, the travelling towel salesman was absent from the family home while travelling all week to support his family. He attended good schools due to his fathers sacrifice as Bob and his sisters coped at home on their own. His passion and purpose for making a difference started when he was 13 when he and a friend started a movement against apartheid in South Africa. The reason he started this was the intellectual absurdity of judging or making someone less of a person for the color of their skin.. he saw this as being as stupid as making someone less, for wearing a strange colored jumper or for having orange hair.

At the age of 16 he was working in soup kitchens in his city in Ireland to help the disadvantaged. He left high school feeling like a failure with his father wondering where he had failed his geeky son. He proceeded to travel and started a newspaper with great success in Canada despite being an illegal immigrant and was consequently discovered by the Canadian Mounties and then thrown out of the country by the authorities.

Back in the UK he thought “I am quite good at this publishing thing” and started another publication and went to the bank to borrow some money and was told to come back when he was 40. Out of desperation he started a band and the rest is history. For the next 10 years his band “The Boomtown Rats” went on to be one of the most successful bands in the world.

In the mid “80′s” he came home after his latest single was not turning into the success he was used to. On coming back home he turned on the television and happened upon a BBC documentary about a famine in Ethiopia, with sudden insight his life before this moment suddenly seemed meaningless.

He flew to Africa to observe the situation first hand, then returned to England and gathered numerous British pop stars together to record a charity single under the name Band Aid; that song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” became the best-selling U.K. single of all time, and inspired a similar 1985 U.S. single “We Are The World”.

His life had become a masterpiece. The essence and kernel of his passion had emerged when he was 13 and he hadn’t realised it then, but as the German Poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said:

“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”

Are you following your passion or are you just turning up?

PROMOTE YOURSELF

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Rosemary Cardno

Promote yourself!

02SundayDec 2012

Posted by Susana Gonzalez in Business, Social Networks

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Blog, LinkedIn,Promotion, Social Media

Although individual users were the first to use social media, only companies have given a strategic role to these new tools, integrating them into their marketing plan. However, not being the director of a company doesn’t mean that we cannot promote ourselves. These are the four principles that will help you achieve this:

Myself Inc

1. You are your own business

Actually, you are the director of the company Myself, Inc. As a company, you have designed a business model. You have specific professional and personal interests and you are aware of your abilities. You know how you differ from other people, what products or services you offer and what problems you help to solve.

Obviously, you need a strategic plan. You have a personal and professional goal in the medium/long term that points the next phases to follow and the resources you will need in this journey.

2. The company you work for is your client

If you are your own company, the company you work for is, therefore, your client. The time when people joined a company at age 20 and left it at age of 65 is over. The company is not a second home, but a client we offer our services to help them grow up.

This approach is useful to always maintain a professional relationship with our company. Some workers tend to think that, by the fact that they have worked for a company for 10 years, they can take certain liberties and neglect professionalism. This is a mistake.

Obviously, this relationship with the company demands a higher level of self-demand, but at the same time, it also offers a higher degree of autonomy because we know that our job security doesn’t come from the company but from ourselves.

3. Invest in yourself

Like any business, you have your own program of Innovation and Continuing Training. With an open mind, you are always willing to improve, learn and explore new fields.

Your training program is not limited to the training offered by the company you work for. Your goals go far beyond because they are related with your own business model and your strategic expansion plan.

Try to be aware of new trends, identify what knowledge and skills could make you more competitive. Attend seminars, conferences, trade shows. Identify the leading experts and learn from them. Search your competitors and analyze their offer.

4. Create your own brand

Obviously, you also have your own marketing strategy. Use all the knowledge and know-how accumulated over the years in your daily work and other activities to make yourself known and to create a reputation.

Design a blog and offer your knowledge, take care of your LinkedIn profile and try to join groups related to your professional interests, engage with your community, advice other professionals.

***

Some companies may feel threatened by those employees who adopt this strategy of self-promotion. They may prefer traditional employees, who are nothing more than pawns. However, this perspective, besides being wrong, is negative for the own company.

Employees who promote themselves, who are a referent, are not only getting notoriety for themselves, but they are also helping to promote the company they work for, because a company with great employees is perceived as a great company.

How to Social Network Like the Presidential Candidates (Infographic) from CareerEnlightenment.com

Posted on November 9, 2012 by Rosemary Cardno

by Guest Writer, Heather Huhman

While becoming President of the United States isn’t your typical employment situation, even our presidential candidates know their success lies in networking. Although your dream job may not be in the White House (or maybe it is!), even everyday job seekers can take a page out of the presidential candidate playbook when it comes to landing their ideal position.

It’s true: In the presidential race, candidates use some of the same networking tactics that can help even regular ol’ job seekers on their search for employment. That means taking advantage of online resources like email, video, blogs, and social media to tap into the right networks. After all, some say Barack Obama won his first election off the back of social media–he hosted the very first White House Google+ hangout and revolutionized fundraising with the power of the Web. This year, Obama has sent out 600 emails in just the past three months alone, and Mitt Romney’s YouTube channel has already garnered 260 million views.

Job seekers everywhere can tweak these networking tactics and incorporate them into their own job search. The infographic below, compiled by Jackalope Jobs, a Web-based platform that combines search, social networking, and the overall user’s experience to provide relevant job openings, details even more techniques used by presidential candidates.

Have you used any similar techniques in your job search? What are some other networking tactics you’d suggest for everyday job seekers?

Heather R. Huhman is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder & president of Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for organizations with products that target job seekers and/or employers. She is also the author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships (2011), #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for numerous outlets.

REMEMBER TO VOTE TODAY!!!!!

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Rosemary Cardno

GO, GO, GO out to VOTE TODAY!!! …..Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012…..

Today’s the day, everyone!! Please, everyone be mindful of your privilege and responsibility to VOTE today! So few around the world have this right – we MUST use it to express our opinions and support regarding America’s future!!!!! Whatever your preferences, VOTE TODAY!!!

I’m on my way out now, how about you?? I’ll let you know about the lines in Atlanta, GA — please let me know about your voting experience today!!!

ROCK THE VOTE!!

Rosemary