Midlife Without Crisis

5 Strategies Teleseminar Series - a Peek Behind the Scenes

I love to interview people. I think it's because I'm always curious about the people I meet. I'm curious about what they think about. I'm curious about how they would approach and solve specific problems. As a radio personality I've gotten to do lots of interviews over the years and yet I still enjoy interviewing people.

This week I get to interview a different person each day about a topic discussed in my upcoming book 5 Strategies for Staying Employed in Today's Economy. I carefully chose the people I wanted to interview and I'm thrilled that they were willing to join me for this exciting series.

Rethinking Today's Job Interview and Career Outlook for Over 40 Job Seekers with NY Times best selling author and executive career strategist MARTIN YATE

Monday, September 14, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Martin Yate CPC, NY Times bestseller and author of the job search annual Knock-em Dead The Ultimate Job Search Guide 2010 has a global reputation as the gold standard for job search, resume and interview strategies. He has published twelve books in the last twenty five years, each addressing a different aspect of job search and lifetime career management. Yate teaches his readers intelligent ways to safeguard their careers, integrating this advice with the practical nuts and bolts of how to write resumes, land job interviews, answer the tough questions, and turn those interviews into job offers. Martin Yate has a deep compassion for the challenges we all face in surviving the twists and turns of a half-century work life. Widely recognized for his comprehensive contributions and cutting-edge thinking on work issues in a volatile post-industrial world, you'll find he takes his work and your situation very seriously, but never himself.

Soft Selling With Social Media: How to Turn Everyday Conversations Into Lucrative Opportunities with Social Media Expert Nancy Marmolejo

Tuesday, September 15, 9:00 a.m. Pacific time

Everyone is using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but can you really make valuable connections for business and career advancement?

Join social media expert Nancy Marmolejo as she outlines the 4 most important things you must know for social media succes.

Nancy Marmolejo is the award winning founder of Viva Visibility, a coaching and consulting company that helps entrepreneurs get known. A gifted strategist with a heightened sense of intuition, Nancy's specialty is raising the visibility level of entrepreneurs so they can market themselves as recognized, credible experts.

Her company provides social media, branding, and PR strategies for individuals and companies wanting to take their messages to bigger audiences. Her clients include thought leaders in business, the arts, niche markets, and personal development.

Nancy has been named one of the Top 50 Most Influential and Powerful Women in Social Media and is the recipient of numerous business achievement awards.

A recognized expert herself, Nancy has shared expert commentary with numerous media outlets including SmartMoney.com, Hispanic Business, Latina magazine, Univisión TV, KPBS radio, Redbook, The Fresno Business Journal, The Orange County Register, Orange Coast magazine, the Arizona Republic, and many more.

Known for her creative and spirited style, Nancy is all over the web as an avid social networker and trend watcher in the area of visibility for entrepreneurs. She lives in Southern California.

How to Rev Up Your Image To Get Hired, Promoted, or Keep Your Job with Joseph Rosenfeld, AICI CIP, Certified Image Consultant

Wednesday, September 16, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Today's economy has put a lot of stress on the purse strings of corporations and businesses and on people's pocketbooks. These days, it's challenging to seek a coveted position in a competitive environment. Cash-strapped corporations have been hard-pressed to reward or promote promising employees. Even well respected employees are threatened with a loss of job security. Despite all this, there is something everyone can be doing to help improve her or his situation, and it has to do with making your presence known in the best possible way, every day.

During this interview with nationally known and certified image consultant Joseph Rosenfeld, you will gain tips and insights into how to rev up your image to get hired, promoted, or keep your job.

Joseph Rosenfeld [josephrosenfeld.com] helps executives, professionals, and those wanting more career or personal success by developing effective personal visual brands through customized image development sessions.

As the only male Certified Image Professional in North America, and just one of three men with this designation in the world, Joseph is a rarity among image consultants.

In addition to working with individuals, Joseph conducts image development programs for businesses throughout the United States, and mentors other image consultants to be more successful when working with male clients.

Joseph wrote the 'Style' column for the Metro — Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper for two years, and was named one of Silicon Valley's "40 Under 40" by the San Jose Business Journal in 2008. He has been interviewed and quoted by vastly different media from monster.com to Forbes to Vogue Hommes International, and writes his own blog, The Image MENtor, [josephrosenfeld.blogspot.com] focusing on image issues with an angle appealing to men.

Building Confidence in Changing Times
The 3 Things You Must Know with Sandy Goodwin,
The Inner Confidence Coach

Thursday, September 17, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

It's time to get confident! Everywhere you turn, you're bombarded with messages of doom and gloom. Today more than ever, it's critical to develop the confidence in yourself and your ability to manage change and reach your goals.

In this program, Sandy Goodwin, The Inner Confidence Coach will share the 3 things you must know to build your confidence in changing times.

Sandy Goodwin, The Inner Confidence Coach, specializes in helping solo entrepreneurs and service professionals build their confidence so they can stop waiting and start taking action to achieve their goals.

As a life coach and former college instructor, Sandy has over 25 years experience gently supporting and guiding others through their doubts, fears, and worries into a life of certainty and confidence.

She is the author of "I Think, Therefore I Doubt — 12 Key Principles to Build Self-Confidence and Self-Trust: for Perfectionists, People-Pleasers, & Heart-Centered Women."

A number of people suggested that I also be a speaker.  This wasn't the original plan, but I decided to add myself to the roster of speakers:

How to "Push the Reset Button" on Your Health and Your Career with Nina Price, Business and Wellness Coach

Friday, September 18, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Many electrical or electronic products have reset buttons. You usually push the reset button on a computer or other device when everything else you've tried hasn't worked and it's stuck. The analogy to people is clear. We get stuck too. We have pain. We get depressed. We paint ourselves into corners. We get used to doing things in ways that no longer serve us. We get used to seeing situations from one perspective, even though there are plenty of other ways to see them. When you push your reset button you open up the possibility of resolving what's stuck.

Once all of my speakers had accepted my invitation to participate came the work of building web sites, writing copy, press release and writing more promotional copy. My thanks to all who helped with this endeavor!

Getting the word out to people who would want to participate in the series was also a significant task.  We got the word out about the series several different ways: Many of my clients and friends kindly invited their friends, we posted announcements, invitations and press releases on many websites and to many lists.
Thanks to all who helped get the word out!

The logistics of a series like this are significant and the details are numerous - but well worth it.

To register for the series go to   http://www.fivestrategies.com/teleseminar/

For additional information go to http://www.fivestrategies.com/vip/

What’s Confidence Got to Do With It?

Having confidence and staying confident is a huge issue whether or not you have a job. When you're between jobs it often becomes a challenge.  Any time other people are judging you and can potentially reject you, your confidence is on the line. When your ability to support yourself and/or your family is at stake, it’s easy for your confidence to get shaky. When you’re facing losing your home, everything you’ve worked for, even losing your family -- believing in your self is critical.

Confidence is Both About Doing and Being

Doing Confident is your outer confidence, what people see and hear when they’re with you. It’s your smile, the way you look, your eye contact, your posture, your firm handshake, the way you stand, move, greet people – all the outward manifestations of you. You can often fake outer confidence when you don’t feel it and sometimes faking it is the best you can do. In many instances you can get away with just doing confident, but for your own sake it’s best to both do and be confident.

Being Confident is your inner confidence. This one is harder to fake. It’s what people sense about you when they’re with you. How do you feel about yourself, your skills, your abilities, your talents, your value, or your life? Being confident is believing in yourself and feeling confident.

What’s the magic formula for feeling confident?

I suspect each of us has our own magic formula whether we realize it or not. Take a moment and remember a time when you felt incredibly confident, on top of your game, bulletproof, successful, as though you’d accomplished something BIG, or completed something that you’d struggled with and won. Take a moment and remember how you felt. Feel the feelings you felt at that time, and just enjoy them. That experience and the feelings you felt is the doorway to feeling confidence for you. When you need to access confidence, remember that experience and access those feelings.

Take a moment to look at what you did when you originally felt that feeling of confidence.
How can you do more of that?

Things You Can Do to Promote Confidence

Take good care of yourself:  What do you need to do so you can feel and look your best? Be sure to do these things daily.

Remember what you’re good at.  If you can’t, ask 5 people to tell you what they think you’re really good at. (You may be surprised at what they tell you.)
Once you know what you’re good at:  How can you overplay these strengths to your advantage?

Address your weaknesses: Admit to yourself what you could be better at.  How could you improve?  What could you do this week to take the first step to improve on one of your weaknesses? After you've taken the first step, then take the next step, keep going until you've made all the improvements you need to. Then ensure that the improvements stick, create new habits if necessary.

Copy someone you think is (both outer and inner) confident.  Think of a person you know who you consider very confident. How can you be more like this person (both outer and inner confident)? You can ask this person what they do to feel so confident. Start being more like this person.

Give yourself challenges, opportunities to accomplish things – then achieve them. When you stretch yourself even a little bit and achieve what you set out to achieve you feel as though you’re making progress and you feel proud of yourself. Finish what you start and celebrate your achievements.

Work out regularly – after an intense workout when your endorphins are coursing through your system, you feel as though you can do anything! Work out regularly so that you can reap this and other benefits.

I've noticed that some people seem to find feeling confident a bigger challenge than others do. If you are one of these people, cultivate confidence daily by practicing the suggestions above. Better yet, develop your own confidence cultivating tactics and share them as comments.

What Does it Mean to "Push Your Reset Button?"

Many electrical or electronic products have reset buttons. You usually push the reset button on a computer or other device when everything else you've tried hasn't worked and it's stuck. The analogy to people is clear. We get stuck too. We have pain. We get depressed. We paint ourselves into corners. We get used to doing things in ways that no longer serve us. We get used to seeing situations from one perspective, even though there are plenty of other ways to see them. When you push your reset button you open up the possibility of resolving what's stuck.

As a coach, a lot of the work I do with clients is to help them get unstuck so that they can achieve what they want to achieve, but haven't been able to. I loosen up my clients' assumptions and perceptions by asking powerful questions.  I ask them to look at a situation from various perspectives so that they can see things differently. Usually my clients gain perspective and self-awareness through this process. They also let go of what no longer serves them. What no longer serves them can include: negative self-talk, incorrect perceptions, old habits, old beliefs, being stuck, and a host of other things that keep them from being who they want to be. This allows them to move forward and achieve their goals.

As an acupuncturist, a lot of the work I do with clients is to help get their energy unstuck so that they can be free of what ails them. This is another way of pushing the reset button. An acupuncture treatment is a physical reset. It encourages your body to heal itself, and correct what's not right. It may unblock blockages, reroute energy in the right direction, clear pathogens or do other things. One day a client came in to her appointment crying, feeling despair. She left my office after the treatment laughing and feeling hopeful. Other clients come in feeling pain and leave pain free. Our bodies have an incredible capacity to heal themselves when we let them.

Pushing your reset button is about getting rid of what no longer serves you. It's also about moving forward toward becoming who you want to be and living the way you want to. Pushing the reset button on your career involves looking at several aspects of you and your career, seeing what's working and not working, and making positive changes. Some people I've worked with have made a few very powerful changes which have made a huge difference.  Others have decided to reinvent themselves and change more aspects of their professional life. If your career or professional life is causing you pain, just like an acupuncture treatment, pushing the reset button will ultimately ease your pain, and best of all you'll be in the driver's seat!

Three Secrets to Staying Employed in Today's Economy

It seems like every week I'm hearing about layoffs, downsizing and other changes going on at local companies. Some months at least one of my clients or friends is involved in one of these changes each week!

The good news is that there are a number of things you can do to improve your chances of staying employed, or to make the professional changes you want to, even in this economy.

As a former high tech professional myself, and as a healthcare provider who works with corporate professionals, I've noticed what savvy professionals are doing to take care of themselves and their careers; and I want to share those strategies with you.

Join me on either:

Thursday, June 18th from 6:45-9 pm at NewLogic Solutions, 1685 Westwood Drive, San Jose, CA 95125

or

Saturday, June 27th from 12:45-3pm at Integrated Healing Arts, 4153A El Camino Way, Palo Alto, CA 94306

for this full scholarship workshop where I'll share just 3 key secrets to staying employed in today's economy.

If you live outside the Bay Area, I'll be offering this same information in teleclass form. If you're interested write me an email nina@ninaprice.com and make me aware of your interest and we'll set up the teleclass!

How Others Perceive You is a Reality You Can’t Afford to Ignore

Like it or not your colleagues’ perception of you is a reality you can’t afford to ignore

What if you were clairaudient, someone who could hear exactly what the other people in the room were thinking about you, during their first meeting with you?

What would they be noticing? Would they notice that you forgot to brush your teeth this morning? Or your grey hair?  Or that you’re due for a haircut but haven’t made time to get one?  Or your mismatched socks? Or the twenty extra pounds that you’re carrying? Or your un-ironed shirt?

Hopefully your colleagues were so dazzled by your expertise and the excellent solution you proposed, that they either didn’t notice or weren’t bothered by these distractions.

Remember that your colleagues’ first impressions of you are crucial to how they relate to you in the future.  If your colleagues are enthralled with your appearance, but they don’t think you know what you’re doing, they probably won’t pay much attention to your proposals. They may ignore you, or even work around you. Your mission during the first meeting is to establish your credibility and your value. You also want to build the foundation for an ongoing relationship with these colleagues. At the same time, you want to minimize any distractions.

Distractions

A distraction is anything that captures another person’s attention, which blinds them to your real talents and expertise.  Whether it’s hair in the wrong places, a sweaty palmed handshake, an arrogant demeanor, an absence of rapport or energy in the conversation, or something else, you could be jeopardizing your credibility with the people you just met. Sometimes the consequences become apparent right away and sometimes they aren’t apparent until later. Why risk your credibility if you can take some easy steps to protect it?

Whether you’re new in your job or in your company, or have been there for years, it’s important to have a consistent positive presentation which enhances your credibility and others’ positive perception of you. It never hurts to be seen as a helpful, trusted, high value colleague, with good ideas.

Ongoing Relationships
Once you’ve established your credibility and your colleagues think well of you, be sure to continue to cultivate their positive perception of you. Just because you dazzled them the first time they met you, doesn’t mean that you’re safe the second time they deal with you. A distraction or something you say that injures your credibility can still hurt their perception of you.

Perhaps these colleagues gave you the benefit of the doubt because you were new to the company or to your job when they met you the first time. But maybe you haven’t gotten up to speed fast enough by the time they meet you the second time. You could lose the ground you gained in terms of their perception by not “getting it” the second time they see you in action.

Perception can be fickle so watch your step.  Don’t risk damaging others’ perceptions of you.  Once the damage is done it can take a while to repair. Why not spend the time building positive ongoing relationships rather than doing damage control?

Why Try Acupuncture?

In a recent interview I gave a very comprehensive answer to this question, which i get asked frequently. I thought I'd share my answer here as well:

You're a licensed acupuncturist and practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, how does that allow you to do more for your clients?

Nina Price:
 I studied acupuncture because in my coaching and massage practice I kept noticing that my clients always seemed to have underlying health and stress issues. I wanted to be able to help them with those issues as well. People come to see me for acupuncture treatments and they may end up getting acupuncture and some coaching, or people come for coaching and we may decide that they need to do some health related treatments as well.

    I'd like to talk for a minute about some of the key benefits--I think most people know about acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), more and more folks in the United States have actually tried them, but I think people don't always realize some of the key benefits they should be considering.

Traditional Chinese Medicine is Holistic: it looks at the whole person and what's happening in their whole life. One of my clients was noticing that he had excruciating back pain but medical exams and testing show no reason for the back pain,  the real problem was his job situation. His boss had recently cut back his work hours significantly and he was very concerned about how he would pay his bills. He really needed to be working to address the problem with his job and what his next steps were there. We treated the back pain and did some coaching around an action plan for his job situation.

Pain is usually your body trying to get you to pay attention to something, whether it's a physical injury or arthritis or other problems.

Mentioning arthritis made me think of another patient I worked with, who had very painful arthritis. The man had been a professional athlete. He was retired now and had arthritis in his hips and in his legs. It was so bad that he could hardly walk. When I met him and worked with him, I asked him about his diet, because I had a hunch that maybe there was something in his diet that was an underlying cause or issue. When I asked him about his diet I asked him if he ate a lot of sugar, or a lot of dairy products, or if he drank alcohol. It turned out he did drink quite a bit of alcohol, and he asked, “Do you want me to cut back?” I said, “As a matter of fact I'd like you try an experiment here. I really would like you to cut back on your alcohol and see what happens.” So he cut back on his alcohol intake very significantly, and he noticed that the more he cut back on his alcohol intake, the more the pain and the swelling went down in his leg and hips. He was a wonderful person to work with because he was willing to make the changes, but he was also wonderful because he saw the link between his behavior and the outcome he didn't want. He ultimately chose to change his alcohol intake on an ongoing basis so that it would help his pain and his ability to walk.

In addition to looking at the whole person, Traditional Chinese Medicine offers more specific diagnoses.  What I mean by this can be illustrated when you think about catching a cold.

Have you ever noticed that everyone catches a cold their own way?

Most of us catch colds. From the perspective of Western medicine we say “I have a cold”. In Traditional Chinese Medicine there are many kinds of colds and they’re all different.  You could have a “Wind Cold”, or a “Wind Heat”, or even “Lung Heat”. To the TCM practitioner they look different and are treated differently. You use different acupuncture treatments and you prescribe different herbal remedies for each one of the ten or twenty kinds of colds. It’s a much more precise diagnosis and a much more precise remedy.

One of my clients is a teacher. Most teachers dread catching a cold, but since they work with lots of young people they’re exposed to plenty of colds. She says:

“As a teacher I can’t afford to be sick.  When a cold, or flu is going around at school I’m careful to take preventative measures. Nonetheless every now and again I get sick. I’ve learned that the best way to recover from a cold, cough or flu is to make an appointment with Nina for an acupuncture treatment and then follow it up with Chinese herbal remedies. The amazing thing is that with acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine I always get better faster than all of my colleagues who are relying on Western medicine, and I actually feel stronger after I have fully recovered.” 

My clients are always amazed to discover that there are Chinese diagnoses that don’t exist in other types of medicine that precisely describe their problems.

One of my clients, a very health conscious lady, went to visit her older sister in another state. When she returned home after a week at her sister’s house she was glad to be home, but found that she had a very unusual cough. She mentioned that visiting her sister was often trying and this visit was no exception. The cough she had puzzled her because it felt as though there was something in her throat, but she couldn’t cough it up or get it to descend from her throat.  I explained that in Chinese medicine this is a textbook case, and I showed her the description in my textbook for what’s known as “plum pit throat”. She was amazed that Chinese medicine had a name and a remedy for this problem and sure enough, it worked.

Another case of a Chinese diagnosis and treatment that worked involved a young graduate student who had very unusual stress-related digestive symptoms. She had every test that Western doctors could think of for the symptoms she had, including an endoscopy to make sure that she didn’t have stomach cancer, but no one could come up with a conclusive diagnosis. One of my teachers treated this young woman for “blood stagnation” with acupuncture and two Chinese herbal formulas. The symptoms, which had plagued her for eighteen months, completely disappeared.

Chinese herbal formulas offer non-pharmaceutical solutions that are often more effective. One of my clients had a very high stress (high tech) job and noticed that she was getting a lot of urinary tract infections. When she relied on antibiotics to treat her symptoms she would get a secondary infection because the antibiotics killed off the good bacteria in her system. When we treated her with acupuncture and Chinese herbal antibiotics, she got better faster and never got a secondary infection.

Bottom line: I use Traditional Chinese Medicine for any problems that I wouldn’t take to an emergency room.

What Are You Looking for in Your Next Job?

It's a common interview question, but what's the real intent and what's the best way to answer it?

You're probably quite clear about what you're looking/hoping for in your next job. However, regardless of whether you're really looking for a promotion, a raise, or a chance to work at a more prestigious company, this question in fact, may have nothing to do with what you want at all.

My tongue-in-cheek paraphrase of a famous John F. Kennedy quote provides a clue:

"Tell not what this company can do for you, tell what you can do for this company..."

A good way to talk about what you're looking for in your next job is to make your interviewer aware of what you can offer his/her company. As you answer the question be sure to share skills you have and your past results that would be of value in this position.

Consider the following:

What value can you uniquely add in this situation? (be sure that understand what you can do for them and the benefit of hiring you)

Are you offering this company the latest and greatest skills? (if so be sure to sell that, if not - what would you have to do to have the latest and greatest skills?)

If you don't have the exact skills, can you offer this company something else that is of value to them (e.g. in depth industry knowledge)?

Are you the kind of person they like to hire? (this assumes you've done some homework)

Is this a fair exchange? (are your skills worth more or less than what they're offering?)

Is this a good fit from their point of view? If so make sure they see that!