Uncovering Brilliance

08/01/2023

What made you laugh today? Laughter is a social signaling system that may help people better connect and build deeper relationships.https://buff.ly/3KohLWN

09/28/2021

05/28/2020

Great article/slideshow from WebMed on how to ensure your bedroom prompts sleep with the result of a brilliant tomorrow:

Mattress quality, lights, noise, allergens … chances are, your bedroom is due for a checkup. Here's how to make your room a healthier place to sleep and hang out.

06/28/2019

5 Ways to Increase Self-Awareness

Self-awareness and being crystal clear on your superpowers of identity is one of the most important things you can do to improve collaboration, reap innovative results, and sharpen leadership effectiveness. Superpowers of identity mean confidence in the gifts you are uniquely bestowed with, those you have sharpened and use to contribute to the world and help make it a better place!

Sounds lofty? Sound fluffy?

It’s not. Self-awareness is hard work but important work!

My latest blog explains how to increase your self-awareness: http://www.janeschuette.com/5-ways-to-increase-self-awareness/

Here's to a brilliant YOU - supercharged with self-awareness!

--- Jane

Self-awareness and being crystal clear on your superpowers of identity is one of the most important things you can do to improve collaboration, reap innovative results, and sharpen leadership effectiveness. Superpowers of identity mean confidence in the gifts you are uniquely bestowed with, those yo...

06/19/2019

In working with high school teens and teams in corporations, my leadership and team building sessions start with questions designed to explore the need for self-awareness.
The answers are thoughtful and always very conclusive – being self-aware is important for achievement as a team member and essential for effective leadership. Not being self-aware, well that is just plain annoying to be around!
Yet self-awareness expert Tasha Eurich states, “In my team’s multi-year research program on self-awareness, we learned that even though most of us think we’re self-aware, this skill is in remarkably short supply.”
Doing the research for Building Your Brilliance: Move from Stressful Survival to Joyful Living, renewed my conviction and passion to help people uncover, claim, and celebrate their unique gifts.
Check out my latest thoughts on self-awareness: http://www.janeschuette.com/are-you-wasting-time-on-self-awareness/

Here's to brilliant self-awareness that never is a waste of time!
--- Jane

In working with high school teens and teams in corporations, my leadership and team building sessions start with questions designed to explore the need for self-awareness. What does it mean to be self-aware? How do you know if someone is self-aware? What impact does it make if a person is or isn’t...

04/29/2019

It's Here! Building Your Brilliance

Is “BUSY” your usual, one-word self-description?

Is it hard to find the motivation and time to take care of you?

Are you STRESSED?

My latest blog introduces, Building Your Brilliance, my new book which outlines a simple method for assessing your level of self-care and then figuring out just what to do for quick, stress-beating, results. It uses the metaphor of a House to help you organize all the researched best practices to beat stress and bring out your true brilliance.

Check it out: http://www.janeschuette.com/building-your-brilliance/

Here's to brilliant, joyful living!

--- Jane

02/13/2019

According to the website Ranker, competition reality shows are among the most watched programs on television. The site indicates that “high-pressure situations, 24/7 filming, and clashing personalities ensured frequent drama as alliances and enemies were created and destroyed.”

That says it all!

Survivor Mentality Teams often have:
• high-pressure stakes meaning its deliverables are critical to the success of the organization
• need to be on call 24/7 due to the nature of your business (or it seems like it due to the cultural norms)
• clashing personalities and let’s face it, if you have more than one person on the team, there will be clashing personalities at some point in time

If your team meets any of those Survivor characteristics you will want to create a culture free of competition and move it to one of collaboration.

Research indicates that the number one skill needed by workers in America is collaboration. To do this effectively means we hone our ability to effectively communicate! An article posted on CNBC stated that “As businesses increasingly rely on cross-company collaboration, they are placing a heavier emphasis on interpersonal communications. Unfortunately, this is a job skill that many American employees are lacking, according to LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.”

And with all of the emphasis on winning and being number one, it is no wonder we are lacking in collaboration and communication. The Ranker website also provides ranking of the best of the Survivor "survivors" describing them as: “people who outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted everyone else in the sneakiest, smartest, or just plain most ruthless way.” I am pretty sure this is the opposite of what Jeff Weiner in the CNBC article was referring to as collaboration and communication.

How Moving to Gilligan’s Island Will Help
Turns out Gilligan’s Island, as quirky and unrealistic as the sitcom was, might have some ideas for us to create a culture of collaboration and give your team the competitive advantage after-all.

Building a Culture of Collaboration

1. Create and communicate a clear goal and compelling vision. The Skipper, the Professor, and the entire group knew the goal and the vision was clear and engaging – Survive while we all work together to get off this island!
2. Listen empathetically to the good the bad and the ugly. We are humans and being human means having feelings. Without this piece, you cannot move toward the goal. Skipper and the Professor got sick of the complaints, yet they listened and acknowledged the feelings and brought each person back to the goal.
3. Get to know your team: skill sets, individual strengths, personalities, values, communication preferences, learning styles, and personal preferences such as food, pop culture, and hobby interests. Think about it, if you have watched the reruns of Gilligan and his shipwreck buddies, you probably know a fair amount about each member of the island in only a few short episodes. Do the same with your team.
4. Help each other. This is the true movement from Survivor to Gilligan’s Island. For starters this means NO GOSSIP. After that, it means finding the good in each team member, not matter how opposite you are from them. Work to see things from their perspective. And finally, work together for the goal!
5. Make a plan and have some fun along the way! Map out your plan for meeting your goals along with a compelling vision and then celebrate! Make sure the journey is fun and that even small steps are celebrated. Post a joke of the day, host themed parties, be silly! Whatever it takes to bring light-hearted laughter into the day.

This is your chance to create a collaborative, winning, and may I add, brilliant team! Think Gilligan’s Island and how you can not only encourage collaboration but also, enhance communication. When you do so, success and winning will ensue for not only you but the entire team!

01/23/2019

January is the time we set personal improvement goals and business goals designed to drive production and profit. Yet by Super Bowl Sunday, it is estimated that 80% of us have already fallen off the resolution bandwagon.

What is the secret of achievement?
Intelligence!

Read how to use your emotional intelligence for goal achievement and brilliance that shines throughout all of 2019!
Check out my latest blog -

January is the time we set personal improvement goals – a.k.a. New Year’s Resolutions. We also set business goals designed to drive production and profit. Yet by Super Bowl Sunday, it...

12/13/2018

The holidays conjure up a special extra dose of stress.
Make a list and check it twice: Holiday shopping - Secret Santa - Elf on the Shelf - Concerts - Parties - Hostess gifts - Holiday Cards - Wrapping gifts - and on and on and on!
How can you get a handle on your holiday and everyday stress? I have just the cure and with the holidays approaching I thought it would be a good time to share a sneak peek from my upcoming book, Building Your Brilliance, available in early 2019. The book outlines tools experts, psychologists, neuroscientists, and researchers suggest to manage stress.
After almost a decade of collecting and trying out stress management tools, it became evident that I needed a method to organize the list. Growing up with family in the building industry it seemed only natural to “build a house” to store the tools. A house became a metaphor for the organization of the stress management tools.
The House! Every floor and every room in the house outline ways to manage your stress and in turn – care for yourself so you can let your brilliance shine! For instance, the kitchen is all about eating and drinking healthy. The office is about time and money management. The windows are for visualizing a bright future and for staying mindful of the gift of the present.

Below is a taste of the tips in the house to help you manage holiday stress:

1. Strengthen your foundation – This means knowing yourself, your values, your personality traits, your spiritual base. For the holidays, strengthening means spending time bolstering that base. One of the best ways to reinforce your inner core is to meditate daily, even if only for five minutes. Another way is to write down, each day, three things for which you are grateful and why.
2. Take care of your body –Make time to rest (the bedroom), eat and drink sensibly (the kitchen) and exercise at least three times a week (the workout room). Even if your normal routine of caring for your physical health is off due to holiday events, take a quick quiet time, eat some fruit or vegetables, and go for a short brisk walk or pause to do some yoga.
3. Feed your mind – Don’t over-schedule yourself or your family (the office). Take the time to read something inspiring or watch a feel-good holiday film (the library).
4. Stay in the present – Practicing Mindfulness is a key to managing stress. Secrets 4 and 5 represent the windows in the House of Building Your Brilliance. Make sure you are not spending all of your time planning and fretting over your “to do” list. Use your five senses to soak up the sounds, sights and pleasant odors of the season.
5. Visualize Positivity – And while you need to stay in the present, planning for a bright future takes some thought. The Visualization window is about detailed imagining of a happy, bright future. I like to use Olympians as the example. To gain a competitive edge before competitions, you will often see the athletes rehearsing the upcoming competition in their head, even making slight body motions to help train their brain and body for peak performance. You can do the same in everyday life to create a less-stressful edge to your upcoming events.
6. Nurture Relationships – Relationships are in the gathering room. For the house metaphor it means not only spending quality time with others, but it also involves setting a boundary. You can say no when it comes to doing everything you think, or others in your life think, are necessary to make the holidays wonderful. Remember to deliver the message of “not now”, or “not this year,” with respect and kindness.

Using these secrets, as organized in the House, will help you manage stress throughout the holiday season and into the new year!

Here’s to a brilliant holiday season and 2019!
And here’s to the publication of Building Your Brilliance – available in 2019!

11/30/2018

6 Practices to Stop Complaining in Its Tracks

Devil’s advocate, critical fault-finder, realist, or simply providing important feedback.

Whatever you want to call it – it’s not fun to be around for long periods of time! It’s easy to complain when you’re doing the whining, however, it’s annoying when you're the one listening to the chronic complaints.

This weekend I was in an assisted living complex and noticed that it was enjoyable being around the residents and staff who saw the lighter side of things rather than the dark, doom and gloom side. Both exist. It’s your choice on which side you want to reside.

The same is true at work or anywhere for that matter.

So, how can you move from the resident crab to the positive person people want to be around?

1. Analyze what is wrong and what can be fixed - then fix it! What about the things out of your control, the things you do not directly have an impact on to fix? Use the next 5 steps to LET IT GO!
2. Vent to one person – not 10! Experts suggest venting is good but telling the same sad story to several people will actually start having negative effects. Venting is much like a tea kettle on a burner, after it begins to whistle, you know it’s time to get it off the burner. After one complaint or venting session, it’s time to get off the burner and fix the problem.
3. Reflect on your values. Chances are when you are irritated and find yourself wanting to complain, it means a tightly held value has been violated. For instance, if you do not like the decision made by your boss, it very likely that something within the decision flies in the face of your values. Walk the timeline backward until you are able to identify the point of irritation. Once you have an understanding of where the angst comes from, you can make an intelligent decision as to what to do about it.
4. Find the humor in the situation. Usually, there is at least one thing that you can laugh about to lighten your mood. Take it from Joan Rivers, who had a thing or two worthy of grumbling about throughout her lifetime, “if you laugh at it, you can deal with it.”
5. Be Grateful. The act of gratefulness, according to Robert Emmons, a scientific expert on gratefulness, means to affirm that there are good things in the world and to “recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves.” So say “thank you” to someone and/or make a list of things, people and events for which you are thankful. Research indicates that when you are grateful your body will reap both mental and physical benefits.
6. Give a compliment. Take a page out of the Minnesota Golden Gophers Head Football coach, P.J. Fleck’s “playbook” after his team’s loss to Nebraska last month, “These guys are really good coaches . . . . That’s how you do it as a coach. I got outcoached.” He gave a compliment and didn’t give excuses.

This past week, Fleck and his team captured the “Paul Bunyan Axe” back from the Wisconsin Badgers. A feat the Gophers have not accomplished since 2003. Maybe Fleck’s positive thinking and non-complaining are what helped his team meet success. I say join the Golden Gophers and stop the chronic complaining and let your brilliance shine.

11/14/2018

Thinking clear and staying calm in stressful confrontations is a rarity. Often the best antidote for calming the air is open, honest communication. In other words, not ignoring the situation and wishing it was different.

If we can accomplish open, honest communication, life can be much more productive and peaceful.
Let me explain.

Airports are one of those places that seem to be filled with plenty of stressful situations. There are all kinds of reasons we may behave badly while traveling, but in the end, the main reason is usually that we are tired and just want to be home or at our final destination sooner than later. We have set up in our mind an ideal that just isn’t reality and we are disappointed.
Recently I was on a long flight to London that had already been delayed by several hours. I hadn’t flown internationally for a while, so I was a bit nervous. To my dismay, my seatmate took up all of his seat and some of mine. I was not happy! Nine hours in an already small space and now I am giving up even more to a stranger. I was feeling stressed, so stressed that I had almost stopped breathing.
It was at this time, maybe my blue face prompted it, the kind gentleman reached out his hand to introduce himself and asked if the seating arrangement was going to be okay for me. He was so courteous and gracious! The key, however, was instead of ignoring the situation, he opened up dialogue to see how I felt. I couldn’t believe it. Instead of making it worse, I totally calmed down and had a spatially tight, but very emotionally comforting flight to London that night.
Why?

Because a person started a dialogue with an open, honest conversation. He had the decency to talk about a potentially uncomfortable situation without judgment.

Six key points to calm the air:

1. Breathe deeply – move (maybe take a walk) and do a short meditation
2. Name it to Tame it (coined by Dr. Daniel Siegel) – name what you are feeling and what is or is not happening that you wish was different
3. Use gracious words - “call out” what you see is happening in a kind way
4. Be aware of your tone of voice – genuine, not too harsh, but not “fake” either
5. Ask a question - how is the situation impacting you?
6. Listen to the answer - be open, non-judgmental about the feelings and meaning the others involved have placed onto the situation

Next time you find yourself in a stressful situation with others, try an open, honest conversation that can calm the air and move the situation to peace and a productive result. Let your brilliance shine with honest open communication!

10/30/2018

Check out my latest blog posting on professional development! http://janeschuette.com/professional-development-reflections/

There are currently 37 “awareness topics” for the month of October. Sadly, “Professional Development” did not make the list.