Tip #1013 – There is No Such Thing as the New Normal…

September 5, 2016 By Liza Marie Leave a Comment

Since moving to Tampa, from Washington state now three years I found myself, saying I’m living the new normal. My city of. Tacoma was replaced by Tampa. Our school Lighthouse was replaced by Cambridge. We belong to the country club named Carrollwood, we used to belong to Canterwood.

Many things in our past life seemed to be simply renamed in our new life here in in Florida. I actually thought I was living “the new normal”

I was wrong. I was wrong because there is really no such thing for me because without a change in me, there was nothing new.

When I realized this, I realized that although you can change all those things around you, if you don’t learn to completely change who you are, you are exactly in the same place whether you relocated across the country or not.

How to change yourself, here are 5 ways how to be the “new” you:

Don’t live up to someone’s else’s expectations.
Family, friends, community may be well meaning but just because they have pegged in a round hole, it is up to you to define yourself even if in that definition you are far from who those around you see you as.
Analyze if what you are doing is working for you?
Dr. Phil has made a living saying “how’s it working for you”? Whether you like him or not, he is right. Just because you can defend your position and may be justified in your current actions, if you are experiencing the same issues in your life, you need to change, no question.
Listen to your critics?
What do your critics say about you? This is a hard pill to swallow, especially if those critics are people you don’t respect or care for. However there might be something of validity in their assessment of you. This might be a big “might”, but nonetheless if you believe you can learn something from everyone in this life, this is another area you could look to to make a change.
Assess your current schedule, are you really living your priorities?
If you write down your top 3 priorities, take a look at your daily or weekly schedule and circle those activities that target these priorities? If you aren’t living what is priority to you, then certainly your life is off track for you.
Act as if you are a newly hired employee
Remember how it felt when you started a new job or took a new position. You had an openness to change and a new way to approach your work ethic. Sometimes if you feel your work life is stagnant it is because your behavior is. Act as if you were a new employee and perhaps tackle a project or position in a refreshed way.
Last, don’t look in the rear view mirror, what does this help? If you keep looking forward in gratefulness for all you have, this alone with change you and begin forming you into the “new” you.

Here is a quote I love:
“THE SINGLE GREATEST THING YOU CAN DO TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE TODAY, WOULD BE TO START BEING GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW” – Oprah Winfrey

What is confidence?

March 3, 2016 By Liza Marie Leave a Comment

Young girl spreading hands with joy and inspiration facing the sun

I was surprised today while playing golf with someone I believed had a ton of confidence.

She looks confident, she is uber successful, she displays all the body language of confident people and most important when she speaks she speaks confidently!

So I was thrown when she displayed a lack of confidence on a particular subject and it got me asking the question to myself, what is confidence?

Since I’ve been a female business owner for many years and my work required me to travel 80% of the time, I had to possess confidence in order to travel alone to unknown cities and stay in unknown hotels. I had the confidence very early in my career to sit in a hotel restaurant or bar alone and begin friendly conversations.

This is one definition of confidence.

Another definition would be the ability to speak in front of a small or large group of people. I know for many this type of confidence is out of the question, however for me as my job required the presentation of technical training I also found this confidence.

For me to define what is confidence, is really for me to define what is a confident trait of mine only. Each one of us defines confidence in what we perceive to be those actions that stretch us or causes us to reach out into what makes us uncomfortable.

So is confidence the ability to over come the comfortable? I think so!

If you only live what you can do today, you will never be more than you are.

February 16, 2016 By Liza Marie Leave a Comment

Woman eyes

I didn’t google this but I’m sure multiple people have said it. I heard the concept as I watch Kung Fu Panda at the movie theater with my daughters over the holiday.

So the key here is growth right? Or is it to not be complacent? I think about someone I know, a former friend and collegue who is so caught up in what she used to be that she has no use for embarking on developing further. She is anxious to get back what she lost, anxious to be her former uber successful self. For her, since she won’t change, she will surely never be more than she is today, for this statement fits her like a glove.

For myself however, when I don’t feel exactly excited about potential opportunities or I don’t feel especially charged about the direction of my business or my career, it is time for me to step back and see what is it that I can try differently. I step back and see what it is that I’m not doing that I need to try!

In order words, I try to find, what it is that I’ve never done before. I then plan to see if I can master it and see if it will bring a new talent into my skill set so to speak. Perhaps it might be something that is a catalyst for good, for growth and could benefit me and my company for years moving forward.

The statement that “you will never be more than you are today” is a statement that I’m afraid of quite frankly. This is a good fear because this fear is what motivates me to make sure that I’m constantly evolving, constantly learning and in the end I’m optimistic that my best days are yet to come…… No, more than optimistic, I am 100% sure of it!

A New Year; A New Chapter

December 29, 2015 By Liza Marie Leave a Comment

I found myself saying this morning “I love this time of year!”
Why, because I’m an organizer, an organizer of my daughters activities , an organizer of my management teams priorities, an organizer of my home, and office spaces but mainly I’m an organizer of my life and all that it encompasses.

The beginning of a new year is that month for me that starts all things new. I’ve always been one of those people who set New Years resolutions and other than a few “dark” years when these milestones came and went, I most defiantly would achieve them.

If people are at odds at the ending of the year and beginning of the next, I wouldn’t know it. The end of the year deadline for me is that time set in stone when all bets are off, you have either accomplished your goals from the previous year or you have failed. Yes I’m one of those people who hate to fail, so I find satisfaction in my accomplishment as I make my new resolutions.
What the New Years brings to me is that I have a blank calendar (purposely left off standing conference calls in January) with NO commitments, NO meetings, NO out of town trips. I buy a new planner, to integrate with all things tech because I’m still a little old school and I look at the clean fresh pages left open to all the opportunity the New Year brings.

I love this time of year because I organize the old right out the door to bring in the new. I find myself looking for opportunities to better organize things around me knowing this will help my sense of peace in my surroundings. I love this time of year because as we change from the holidays to the New Year we are bombarded with things from the 2014 to reflect back on. For me reflection on the past is an opportunity to scrutinize those things I can do better next time and it is very much an opportunity to grow from.

“It’s all in the perspective” I find myself saying this all the time, so for me this time of year is the time to put the past year in perspective and plan for the next best thing, the next best new year to come!

GOOD CRAZY BUSY; DEFINING COMPANY GOALS

September 30, 2015 By Liza Marie Leave a Comment

When it comes to hiring…it comes right down to hiring the right people, training them, and essentially cultivating the team.

Since, after all, these are members of the same tree.

Each cherry picked.

Each a part of me and what my company represents.

As I’ve been pouring myself and our executive management’s time into preparing for our very first Annual ECS Conference #EAC in the gorgeous Palm Springs California…I am side tracked by one employees laissez-faire way of communication with a client.

The primary goals of this conference are:

1. Define our company values

2. Train/Educate,

3. Motivate, inspire and build our team.

The timing of this conference comes at a critical growth period; my team has been working very hard.

I know we will have a huge upswing in more business so I’m using this conference in order for us to get ready for the crazy times ahead.

Its great to be “crazy busy” – we want “good, managed, never missing a beat” kind of crazy busy though!

So today, as I’m on my way to this carefully planned out EAC event (which starts with a fabulous dinner tomorrow evening), I peruse through a string of emails. Some that I feel could have been handled in a more effective way.

But, as with most things, challenges like these only force us to collaborate as a team and ultimately clarify what is and what aren’t our team values.

From there, we move forward.

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ROUTINE

August 24, 2015 By Liza Marie Leave a Comment

Older-Kids-in-Classroom-52125430

This blog might seem fairly obvious, because many parents feel the way I do, as this week school resumes for many in the East Coast.

Routine, routine, routine, gotta love it! I certainly do! For me when my daughters go back to school and then resume their extra curricular activities to include involvement in Chess Club, Basketball, Swim Team and Spelling Club, our home because a very oiled machine.

For obvious reasons my daughters routine drives my work life to an extent and certainly drives our family life. Why I think routine is a positive thing is that for me and my daughters it drives us to be better organized and find priority and importance on our daily tasks.

For example, this past weekend we had a meeting, meaning I called my daughters together and said we needed a conference. My oldest daughter termed it a “P to K” meeting, (parent to kid) I love it.

During this P to K meeting we discussed how we can find at least 40 minutes during the work week or in their school week to find reading time. Their school told us that C students read 1 minute per day, B students read 5 minutes per day and A students read 20 minutes per day. Both my daughters are A students and my expectation was that they read 40 minutes per day at a minimum. So together we decided that on their ride to and from school they would read, this should get them to 40 minutes at best and at least I knew they would get in their 20 minutes.

This being efficient with their time idea is how we make our schedule work, and of course it doesn’t hurt that my daughters love to read and we always have at least 40 books in the back of my car (at least 40).

So due to the demands of the “routine” of school, which can be likened to the “routine” of being on endless conference calls or the “routine” of hours of email processing, this demands that we look at making all we do as efficient as possible….at least during with work week!

Saying that, I have to end with….All bets are off on weekends!!!!

Liza Marie Garcia

Speaker, Author, CEO