Author: Deneen Kipp

(2 minute read time)

Several years ago I agreed to make the party favors for my sister’s birthday party.  I’m not really a crafty person and I did not realize there would be 40 people in attendance.  I ended up having to sew 50+ burlap bags, adorn them with hand cut appliques, and fill them with goodies.  

The initial bags required my full attention and took about an hour each.  By the time I neared the end I was able to complete a bag in about 20 minutes and watch TV while I did it.  

I was able to increase my efficiency and reduce the attention required through repetition.  My brain got good at the task.

At this point in your adult life, your brain has delegated conscious acknowledgment of many activities.  And that’s a good thing, we do not want to walk down the street thinking “Pick right leg up, put right leg down”.  We want to increase efficiency at things that we have figured out how to do well.

I want you to think of your brain like an employee.  Like most employees, our brains just want to do a good job.  The problem is we rarely tell it exactly what we want it to do.  Your brain doesn’t really care if it thinks negative or positive thoughts. It’s just a thinker.  If it’s been told a lot of negative things its whole life, that’s what it knows how to do really well.   

Too often, we delegate conscious awareness to things that really need our attention.  As a result, our brain becomes very good at whatever it repeats – for better or for worse.

You can make your brain’s drive for efficiency work for you instead of against you if you take the time to manage it.  It will do what it’s told to do.

As leaders, we are responsible for managing our employees.  We use our brains to do this. But are we managing the most important, VIP employee we have?  Are we managing our brains?

There are several ways to do this but the easiest starting point is awareness.  I recommend each of my clients take 5-10 minutes a day to write out everything they are thinking.  

The next, critical step is to recognize that every single thought is optional.  Pick one or two thoughts from what you wrote and ask yourself a few questions:

• Am I thinking this on purpose?
• Do I like this thought? Do I want to keep it?
• What else might I want to think instead?

Think of it like cleaning out a closet.  First, you pull everything out. Then, you decide what you want to keep and what you don’t.    

Speaking of closets… I went into mine and found one of those bags I made – here’s a picture 🙂

Want to see how thinking on purpose can serve you?  Click here to schedule a free 30-minute coaching session.    

(2 minute read time)

“Everything in my life gets just the right amount of time and attention”: said no one ever.  

Often, when we think of a balanced life we think of having all the time we need to do all of the things we want to do.        

You all know I think nothing is impossible.  So, I am not falling for the whole “balance is unattainable” argument.  At the same time, I am consciously NOT pursuing it. I am not sure it’s worth it.    

We all get 24 hours each day.  I do not want a life where those 24 hours are somehow uniformly doled to the different areas of my life.    

Instead, I like to think of priorities and accept that there will be seasons in my life where a lot of my time is intentionally going to a certain area.    

Years ago I was pursuing my college degree while working full time.  During that season, my priorities were work and school, work and school, work and school.  It wasn’t that I did not care about other areas of my life. But, I wanted to pay for my degree at the same time I was earning it in order to avoid a boat-load of debt.   My life was very UN-balanced and I wanted it that way.

Gaining forward momentum on that thing you have always wanted to accomplish or achieve often means having to direct most of your energy towards it.  At least for a period of time.

Letting go of the idea that we SHOULD have balance is so freeing.  It’s much easier to decide what to do with our time when we have a conscious priority.

I am not suggesting that we carelessly ignore the other areas.  Instead, look at each area of your life and determine what is the #1 most important thing for each.  Then, focus on those. Rinse and repeat.

Have you consciously chosen your priorities?  Or, are you running around trying to squelch the loudest voices and feeling desperate for some “balance”?  I can help.

Click here to schedule a free 30-minute coaching session.    

(2 minute read time)

No matter if you are a seasoned leader or just getting started on your leadership journey, leadership involves fear.  Heck, let’s be honest LIFE involves fear whether you are a leader or not.

Forbes magazine cites several fears leaders face:

• Criticism
• Failure
• Making decisions
• Public Speaking
• Responsibility
• Having to be perfect
• Having to be 100% fair
• Motivating people
• Being accessible 24/7

Let’s start by defining fear.  I Googled it and found the following definition:

“an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat”.

If you have read any of my work, you know I teach that thoughts create feelings.  If you agree with that, then you will join me in the idea that fear comes from our thoughts.  

The definition of fear above supports this theory.  It literally says the emotion of fear is “caused by the belief” that something is dangerous, may be painful or is a threat.  The definition does not say that the threat is real.

If we can latch on to the idea that it is our thoughts creating the fear we can experience so much freedom from the fear.  Why? Because we get to think anything we want to.

Recognize that fear is just your brain doing it’s job.  It’s supposed to warn you of imminent dangers. But, you have to ask yourself “Is what I am afraid of really dangerous?”.  Most of the time the answer is no.

Now you might be saying to yourself, “That’s nice Deneen, but am I really just supposed to think a happy thought about my fear and then it will go away?”

My answer is: You don’t have to be fearless to take action.  You can acknowledge the fear and move forward anyway. Don’t let fear mean stop.  At the same time, just know the thing causing the fear is what you are thinking. All thoughts are completely optional.  All of them.

There is not one thing on the list of fears above that you can’t handle.  And if your fear is something else that’s not on the list, I suspect you can handle that too.        

Let’s tackle your fears together.  Click here to schedule a free 30-minute coaching session with me.     

(2 minute read time)

Early on in my leadership career I had this one “problem” employee, let’s call her “Julie”

In my mind, Julie was just miserable and she was determined to make everyone around her miserable too.  Everything she said was negative – what wasn’t working, what was wrong, what could go wrong.

I wanted to like her, I just didn’t.  

I will be honest.  I never did learn to like her when she worked for me.  But, I did not know then what I know now.

Julie was never the problem.  People never are.

The real problem is that our brains like to be right and they look for evidence to support what we already believe.  

I mostly had negative beliefs about her and my ability to change anything about this situation.  All of this only added negativity to the situation and made it impossible to move in a different direction.    

Most of us think in order to feel better about a situation, the situation has to change. It just isn’t true.

I did not have to wait for Julie to be happy, or better, or “normal”.  

The only thing we need to do is recognize that what we are feeling now comes from our thoughts and acknowledge we are choosing those thoughts.   From that place, we can choose better feeling thoughts (believable ones of course).

Here’s some I could have used back then:  

Julie is perfectly human .

I am willing to continue working towards a solution .

Julie is unhappy about _____, and that’s ok.

I am a good leader, even if Julie is having a bad day.

It’s possible that ________.

I could be wrong about _____.

Want to learn more about how to feel better about a situation you’re in?  Click here to schedule a free 30-minute coaching session with me.   

(2.5 minute read time)

You may be thinking I had a little too much eggnog this holiday season.  You may be asking yourself “Why would I want to earn haters??”

Here’s why.  

It means you are showing up in the world in an authentic way.  

Let’s be clear.  I am not talking about going out there and deliberately trying to be disruptive, rude, disrespectful, hurtful.

What I am talking about is being brave enough to be you, the real you.  To stop putting some version of you out there that you believe people will like.

Brene Brown calls it “Wholehearted”.  People who live from a place of worthiness, of being enough.  People who are willing to be vulnerable because at the end of the day, it does not really matter if someone likes you or not – you are still enough.

Our human brains are literally wired to seek acceptance, to avoid rejection at all costs.  Guy Winch Ph.D. describes it this way:  “In our hunter/gatherer past, being ostracized from our tribes was akin to a death sentence, as we were unlikely to survive for long alone…[therefore] the brain developed an early warning system to alert us when we were at risk for ostracism”.  That’s great because it got us to this point in our evolution. The problem is that wiring still exists and rejection no longer equates to certain death.

As leaders we make difficult decisions.  We share unpopular news or policy changes. We have concern about how theses decisions and changes will be received.

I am not suggesting that we disregard how our team members receive our messages.  I am not suggesting that our leadership styles do not matter. What I am suggesting is that the opinions of others have everything to do with them and nothing to do with your worthiness as a leader or a human being.  Your worthiness, and theirs, is already decided – it’s 100%.  

When you show up as your true self, there will those who appreciate who you are and others who do not.  If your authentic self is willing to be bold and brave, you may even earn some haters.

My coach often says “You can be the juiciest peach in the world and there’s still going to be someone who doesn’t like peaches”.  

By the way, I do not like peaches.  At all. Even the smell is awful to me.  That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with peaches.                

Let’s talk some more about this or any other leadership topic you are facing today. Click here to schedule a free 30-minute coaching session.    

(2 minute read time)

Have you ever felt overwhelmed, frustrated, annoyed, irritated and thrown your hands up and thought or said “Why me???”

Why do I have to experience this hardship, this difficulty?  Don’t I have enough going on?? Now I have to deal with THIS too??  

Sometimes, it just all feels like too much.  

I have found in those moments it is easy to wallow in the muck and mire.  I can find lots of evidence for why it should not be the way it is.

But, when I do that all I am doing is arguing with reality.  Byron Katie says “When I argue with reality, I lose – but only 100% of the time.”

My track record, and yours, for surviving the bad days and the tough times is literally perfect.  You are here, reading this. That means you survived every single day prior to this one.

Of course it’s you who gets to take on the challenges of your day.  You are the one who can do something about them. And it starts with believing, really believing, you can.

Feeling overwhelmed (or any other emotion) comes from our thoughts. Take a few moments to explore what you are thinking and it will become very obvious, very quickly why you are feeling overwhelmed.

So today, consider the challenges you are up against and instead of asking “Why me?” ask yourself “Why NOT me?”.  

Sometimes we have a hard time seeing how we are uniquely wired to address the challenges we face, we struggle to see the good in ourselves.  If that’s you, I can help. Click here to schedule a free 30-minute coaching session with me.    

(2 minute read time)

In the last few posts I’ve written about setting and achieving goals.  This time we are going to dive a deeper into what it takes to make your goal a reality.  

Nothing becomes reality without action.  But, not just any ol’ action will do.

For example, a friend of mine has gotten into Stand-Up Paddleboarding.  Have you seen this or tried it? It looks much easier than it actually is!  

Let’s say I wanted to learn to paddleboard as well as she does.  There are a lot of things I could do. I could read about it, watch videos, talk to people who are good at it.  I could also take lessons and I could practice.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for how to become a proficient paddleboarder.  But I am pretty confident in saying that no one has accomplished this without actually getting on a paddleboard and falling off – a lot.  

As you have read through my work you know that I teach thoughts create feelings.  The next important, critical piece to understand is that our feelings drive our actions.  Feelings and emotions are not something commonly discussed or examined in many environments – the business world included.   I find this unfortunate because they are the thing behind everything we (and our employees) do – or don’t do.

When I tried paddle boarding I fell – hard.  In order to get back up and try again, I have to have an emotion that would drive me to take that action.  Determination perhaps. If I felt discouraged or hopeless I am not likely to get back up and try again.

In order to feel determination, I have to think thoughts that create it.  

The same is true for you and your 2019 goals.  

Once you think intentionally about your goal and generate purposeful emotion you will find yourself taking the right kind of actions that support it.  

Not all of the actions you take towards your goals will get you there.  We have to have a commitment to keep taking action until we reach the desired outcome – my coach calls this Massive Action.  

Massive Action is different from the intellectual action we often take by reading a book, taking a class or watching a video.  Sure those things are actions, and they are not all bad. But really they’re Passive Action. It’s just gathering ideas about the Massive Action you could take one day (if you felt like it).                 

Want to explore how to make Massive Action a part of your plans to make your 2019 goals a reality?  Click here to schedule a free 30-minute coaching session with me.  

(3 minute read time)

We are 9 days into 2019.   How are you doing on that New Year’s Resolution?  

In my last post I gave you 4 reasons why you want to set a goal.  And in this one I am going to give 5 steps to see it through.

Lots of studies have been done and we all know most resolutions don’t stick and goals go unachieved.   So how do we stop this?

1. Make sure your goal is meaningful to you  – the goals someone else gives us or thinks we should achieve are often not compelling.  Take some time to hang out with yourself and ask yourself what you would do if you were not too busy, too fearful, too tired.  Imagine all of it is possible (because it is) and then pick the thing you are most drawn to. Don’t spin in confusion here, just pick one.    
2. Know your WHY – Think about the reason you want to accomplish the goal you chose.  You will need this to fall back on when you don’t feel like doing what it takes to get there.  Simon Sinek, in his famous Ted Talk implores us that “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”.  The same is true for ourselves. We don’t buy into just the outcome of our desires, we buy into WHY we want it.  Why do you want to lose the weight? Get the promotion? Earn that advanced degree? Run the marathon? Whatever it is – know your why.
3. Anticipate obstacles – Think about everything that could get in the way of the finish line.  This includes “not feeling like it”. Write these all down. Next, and most importantly, develop realistic strategies for every single obstacle.  Write those down too.
4. Ditch the To Do list – To Do lists are a waste of time.  Get rid of all your To Do lists. Use your calendar.  If you are already using your calendar, stop treating your calendar like a To Do list.  Only put appointments on there you intend to actually do during the time slot they are in.  Treat your appointments with yourself the same as an appointment with an employee, friend or colleague.  Do NOT put it on your calendar with the mindset of “I might do it if the day goes smoothly” or “If all goes well” or “If I feel like it”.    
5. Go do it – No matter what.  Develop your sticktoitiveness (such a fun word isn’t it?).  Merriam-Webster defines sticktoitiveness as “dogged perseverance”.  What does dogged perseverance look like for you? What would you have to do to say you doggedly persevered in pursuit of your goal?  Think about it this way…. Most of us would doggedly persevere in pursuit of staying alive. We are pretty committed to that. We would probably do almost anything including foraging for food, living in the woods, running feverishly away from a dangerous animal.  Are you THAT committed to your goal? That truly is really the kind of commitment we need. Especially if our goals are big enough!

There is a lot more that can be said here about time and priority management.    If you want some help click here to schedule a free 30-minute coaching session with me.   

(2 minute read time)

It’s New Year’s Eve so if you are going to make a resolution or a goal for 2019, today is a really good day to decide what it’s going to be.  

In my last post I shared my belief that accomplishing goals or resolutions will not make us better or happier.  So the question naturally becomes “Why bother then?”

Today I offer you 4 reasons you want to bother…  

1. Maximizes potential – Your purpose and mine are the same, to evolve into the next version of ourselves.  To ask more of ourselves and remove the obstacles that preventing us from knowing how great we really are.   
2. Gives us direction – When we have something we are working towards achieving, it gives our brain direction.  Our brains operate naturally on the Motivational Triad – seek pleasure, avoid pain and expend the least amount of energy possible.  Without purposeful direction, like goals, we will easily recycle the same lives we already have.
3. Life is more interesting – Whether we set a goal or not, we will have a mix of good and bad, ups and downs in our lives.  As we work towards a goal we get a new mix of good and bad, ups and downs. If we are going to have a positive and negative experiences in life anyway, why not make them new and different ones?
4. Results – Achieving the results we want doesn’t just happen on accident.  Goals are a way of deciding what you want the results to be instead of doing life haphazardly.  You envision the life you want and then go get it.

Any result you want to achieve in 2019 is totally and completely possible.  I encourage you to think big. Have a moonshot goal. Choose something you currently think is impossible and challenge yourself to go after it wholeheartedly.  The only thing between you and that goal is your thoughts about it. Let’s live out 2019 on purpose.

Would you like some help setting and achieving your moonshot goal?  Click here to schedule a free 30-minute coaching session.    

(2 minute read time)

New Year’s Eve is upon us.  Many of you are thinking about 2019.  Thinking about what you want to achieve and accomplish.

Many of you might also be thinking about how great life will be once you have achieved that goal.  You imagine how wonderful it will feel once you get the promotion or lose 10 pounds or pay off the bills from the holidays.  

As Debbie Downer as this may sound, it won’t be better.      

Here’s how I know.  

1. Achieving a goal does not create happiness.  Happiness, like any other emotion, is a byproduct of our thoughts.  Thoughts create emotions, not completed goals. If you agree with me on this then accomplishing a goal is not required to experience happiness, pride or a sense of self-worth.  We have the capacity to experience happiness now – even with the goal in it’s unfinished state.
2.  Achieving a goal does not make us better people.  Consider for a moment that there is no human who is “better” than another.  What if we were all equally worthy? I pose this question to my clients often – and I take it to the extreme.  Could Jeffrey Dahmer and Mother Theresa be equally worthy? Most of us would say NO. I say YES. If there is some system to rank the worthiness of humans it only exists in our minds.  And if that is true, where do you fit in? Do you fall closer to the saint or serial killer side? We can’t operate in a world with a ranking system and not rank ourselves. I vote to eliminate the fictitious ranking system instead.  

All of us create the lives we have based on what we think.  The results we have are no coincidence.

The problem is that no one ever really teaches us how to choose thoughts consciously.   Instead, we live at the effect of unintentional thinking. Often this causes us to create unintentional results.      

Clients they often ask me  “If I am not going to be better or happier why should I bother setting goals at all then?”.  I am a HUGE fan of goals and I am so excited to answer that question in the next post – stay tuned.  Until then, think about the goals you want to set for 2019 and think BIG!