Yesterday, my husband and I had dinner at a friend’s house and I brought them a copy of my book “Connecting My Dots” as a gift. As soon as we opened a bottle of red wine I heard the already familiar question: What motivated you to write the book?
Those that have read Connecting My Dots already know the answer. My motivation for writing the book was to inspire young women to balance their priorities and achieve multidimensional success. The Five Leadership Lessons from the book show them examples on how to connect their different dots in a Priority Wheel to achieve success in their own terms.
The best way to summarize the impact of my mentoring lessons is to say that nothing have been more rewarding to me as an author and mentor than to hear personal stories directly from many women who were inspire by my book to achieve their goals.
I want to share their stories of personal success hoping that YOU too will be inspired by their resolutions. I selected five stories from women who had different goals and dreams.
By mentioning these women here I hope that their stories will inspire many other women to achieve their goals.
1- Having a Baby: This young professional woman overcame her fears of having a baby and learned to be a mom while at the same time she continues to advance in her professional career as a financial analyst.
2- Becoming an Author: This season executive woman was inspired to write and publish two books while she continues to have a very successful career as a bank executive. Check her first book Person of Interest currently available at Amazon.com
3- Opening a Business: This young woman who is a mother of two boys decided to follow her longtime dream to open her on boutique while learning to balance priorities between business and family. Check her store Sanaryalba
4- Playing Sports: Looking after my own example of overcoming personal fears, a mother of two decided break with her indecision and started playing tennis in sport club.
5- Losing Weight: A mother of two boys and a very athletic woman could not keep her weight down. After reading my last article about 2010 resolution she finally was inspired to create her own personalized plan and achieved her goals.
Just like these women have done you too can achieve your goals. Use the Priority Wheel and empower yourself to achieve Multidimensional Success on Your Own Terms!
Happy New Year!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Planning Your Next Career Move
People often get tired of working on the same place or doing the same job over and over again for long period of time. In some instances, maybe you have outgrown your current role and want to look for new challenges. I see this happening every day. I had happened to me as I just went through a career change - after working for over 10 years in the eCommerce business I wanted to do something different and test my leadership skills in a different area doing something new where I could mobilize all the experience I have accumulated through my entire professional career.
Although I am not a career coach - I am a mentor and often people ask for my advice about career planning.
For some people the first step in the career planning process is to understand the relevance of their career goals in terms of their multidimensional Priority Wheel. But if you are like me and have already determined to make a change then let’s talk about some fundamental things that you should do.
1) Define your career goals. What are the things you want to do next? What attributes are you looking in your next role?
Sometimes career coaches in the organization will ask to mention what specific role you want next. However, I prefer to think in terms of attributes of the role rather than the specific roles because some of the roles you will enjoy could exist in another area of the organization that you are not aware of or will become available in the future.
2) Perform a self assessment of your abilities. Do you have the skills needed to perform this next role?
Good if you are already but if you don’t have all necessary skills then you will need to set realistic expectations and timeframes to develop these abilities or you will need to revise your goals.
3) Network with a career goal in mind. Do you know people that can help you or guide you to get into this new role? Do you have a mentor?
Do not underestimate the power of networking. Do your homework, develop a professional network and find connections that can help you get into your next role.
Last week attended the HITEC Latina IT Executive panel in Disney World where I shared my formula for success which I call the “4 P” and has helped me achieve multidimensional success.
4 P= Planning, Preparation, Perseverance and Passion
Develop a formula for success that will help you to connect your dots and plan for your next career move.
Although I am not a career coach - I am a mentor and often people ask for my advice about career planning.
For some people the first step in the career planning process is to understand the relevance of their career goals in terms of their multidimensional Priority Wheel. But if you are like me and have already determined to make a change then let’s talk about some fundamental things that you should do.
1) Define your career goals. What are the things you want to do next? What attributes are you looking in your next role?
Sometimes career coaches in the organization will ask to mention what specific role you want next. However, I prefer to think in terms of attributes of the role rather than the specific roles because some of the roles you will enjoy could exist in another area of the organization that you are not aware of or will become available in the future.
2) Perform a self assessment of your abilities. Do you have the skills needed to perform this next role?
Good if you are already but if you don’t have all necessary skills then you will need to set realistic expectations and timeframes to develop these abilities or you will need to revise your goals.
3) Network with a career goal in mind. Do you know people that can help you or guide you to get into this new role? Do you have a mentor?
Do not underestimate the power of networking. Do your homework, develop a professional network and find connections that can help you get into your next role.
Last week attended the HITEC Latina IT Executive panel in Disney World where I shared my formula for success which I call the “4 P” and has helped me achieve multidimensional success.
4 P= Planning, Preparation, Perseverance and Passion
Develop a formula for success that will help you to connect your dots and plan for your next career move.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Success - The Art of Aligning Priorities
Last week I had the opportunity to speak with a group of professionals about the importance of aligning career, personal and family priorities around a goal that you want to achieve.
The problem of balancing competing priorities is very relevant in today’s society and in efforts to minimize complexity we tend to prioritize 1 or 2 priorities often forgetting that the key to achieve Multidimensional Success is to find proper alignment across priorities in each important aspect of our lives.
But how can we be successful when we need to balance so many different priorities at the same?
We all define SUCCESS in different ways because we have different ways to Connect Our Dots.
As I was trying to explain my definition of success and how I use the Priority Wheel to align my priorities to what is important to me at this point of my career and my life, I realize that SUCCESS is a result of finding alignment across your priorities.
The goal is not always to achieve a perfect balance or to maximize one dimension (e.g. career) but to align and calibrate according to significant life events.
Every time we move to a new life stage we need to calibrate the Priority Wheel and the relationship between the priorities and apply the Five Lessons of Leadership to keep these priorities in alignment.
Lesson 1- Define Success on Your Own Terms: Achieving your dreams begins with a definition of what success and happiness mean for you.
Lesson 2- Don't Wait Too Long for What You Want
Lesson 3- Find the Right Partner
Lesson 4- Play Multiple Roles
Lesson 5- Don’t Give Up during Bad Time
The problem of balancing competing priorities is very relevant in today’s society and in efforts to minimize complexity we tend to prioritize 1 or 2 priorities often forgetting that the key to achieve Multidimensional Success is to find proper alignment across priorities in each important aspect of our lives.
But how can we be successful when we need to balance so many different priorities at the same?
We all define SUCCESS in different ways because we have different ways to Connect Our Dots.
As I was trying to explain my definition of success and how I use the Priority Wheel to align my priorities to what is important to me at this point of my career and my life, I realize that SUCCESS is a result of finding alignment across your priorities.
The goal is not always to achieve a perfect balance or to maximize one dimension (e.g. career) but to align and calibrate according to significant life events.
Every time we move to a new life stage we need to calibrate the Priority Wheel and the relationship between the priorities and apply the Five Lessons of Leadership to keep these priorities in alignment.
Lesson 1- Define Success on Your Own Terms: Achieving your dreams begins with a definition of what success and happiness mean for you.
Lesson 2- Don't Wait Too Long for What You Want
Lesson 3- Find the Right Partner
Lesson 4- Play Multiple Roles
Lesson 5- Don’t Give Up during Bad Time
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
What Makes Successful Women Happy?
As I was reading a series of articles in Business Week about women, leadership and happiness I became very disappointed with some of the conclusions presented in the article.
Let’s take the following article “Why Are Women Unhappier than They Were 40 Years Ago?”, which is an excerpt from Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham. I disagree with the article’s claim that modern successful women are not happy with their life and success based solely on the premise that modern women are unhappier than women 40 years ago.
First, I think that setting realistic expectations for multidimensional success is an important aspect that will influence the level of happiness that women will find in their life as they get older and more mature. A large number of successful women I interviewed while I was gathering material for Connecting My Dots felt very happy and satisfied with both their career and personal success. Another important aspect to consider is that given the overall placement of women in the 1950’s and 1960s, women at that time didn’t have high expectations or goals to succeed as CEOs or Senior Executives, and if they did, society wasn’t too encouraging towards women to help them reach such achievements. It wasn’t until World War II when women were beginning to shift from stay at home mom to a working mom. Even then reaching the status of a Senior Executive wasn’t on the mind of women because in reality it wasn’t very plausible.
My grandmother was one of the first three women who graduated from the Medical School at the University of La Habana in 1920. She was one of the few who had the courage and self-determination to do such a thing even though society did not expect this type of achievement from women nor did it make it easy for women to gain such an achievement. She provided an example of women that wanted to have a professional career even when the society at that time did not encourage women to do those things. Was she happy ?
I wondered about what my 23 year old daughter would have to say. I talked to her and she asked if I was happy with my life and career achievements. In my book, Connecting My Dots, I introduced a tool called the “The Priority Wheel” that you can leverage to align your career, life and personal needs.
When I look at the female role models I had in my family and alone my career and I do encourage you to find role models that will inspire you to achieve your dreams and to Connect Your Dots !
Let’s take the following article “Why Are Women Unhappier than They Were 40 Years Ago?”, which is an excerpt from Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham. I disagree with the article’s claim that modern successful women are not happy with their life and success based solely on the premise that modern women are unhappier than women 40 years ago.
First, I think that setting realistic expectations for multidimensional success is an important aspect that will influence the level of happiness that women will find in their life as they get older and more mature. A large number of successful women I interviewed while I was gathering material for Connecting My Dots felt very happy and satisfied with both their career and personal success. Another important aspect to consider is that given the overall placement of women in the 1950’s and 1960s, women at that time didn’t have high expectations or goals to succeed as CEOs or Senior Executives, and if they did, society wasn’t too encouraging towards women to help them reach such achievements. It wasn’t until World War II when women were beginning to shift from stay at home mom to a working mom. Even then reaching the status of a Senior Executive wasn’t on the mind of women because in reality it wasn’t very plausible.
My grandmother was one of the first three women who graduated from the Medical School at the University of La Habana in 1920. She was one of the few who had the courage and self-determination to do such a thing even though society did not expect this type of achievement from women nor did it make it easy for women to gain such an achievement. She provided an example of women that wanted to have a professional career even when the society at that time did not encourage women to do those things. Was she happy ?
I wondered about what my 23 year old daughter would have to say. I talked to her and she asked if I was happy with my life and career achievements. In my book, Connecting My Dots, I introduced a tool called the “The Priority Wheel” that you can leverage to align your career, life and personal needs.
When I look at the female role models I had in my family and alone my career and I do encourage you to find role models that will inspire you to achieve your dreams and to Connect Your Dots !
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