Archives for December 2011

Clear your clutter

December 30, 2011 by · 1 Comment

The great leaders of our time know how to insulate themselves and focus on what matters most. One of them is Jim Collins. Last month’s Economist recounted Collins’s story to success. He rejected desirable careers as an academic and consultant and set out to go back to his hometown Boulder, Colorado and work on the sole question of ‘what makes great companies tick.’ He churned out bestseller books every four years (i.e. Good to Great, Great By Choice, How the Mighty Fall and Why Some Companies Never Give In). He logs how much time he spends on creative work and mundane tasks. He spent his weekends mountain climbing, applying the same rigor to his hobby as his writing.

My ritual each December is to ‘clear the clutter’ in my life so I can stay true my core work and insulate myself in the New Year. Clutter clearing isn’t only about cleaning my closet, it’s about clearing physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Offline? I’m clearing my closet, my drawers, my wallet, papers on my desk, etc. I’m clearing my old goal sheets and task lists and making way for new ones. I’m clearing my body with a detox (I sure need it after Xmas in the South) with veggies and coconut juice (see this 21 Day Cleanse).

Online? I’m clearing my inbox (see email ninja tricks for tips). I literally spent 2 hours today clearing out all the junk email listserves I was subscribed to. I cleared my Twitter  feed and updated my Evernote files.

It feels really refreshing and spacious to clear my clutter. Successful leaders like Collins remind me how important it is to take the time to do this before the New Year.

So I hope each and everyone of you clears your clutter this holiday season! Here’s to a warm New Year!

My challenge for you for 2012: Find out what you want to do and GO DO IT! Being a next generation leader is about DOING the work……that matters to you.

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ForbesWoman: How Women Executives Who Leave Their Roles Affect The Next Generation of Women Leaders

December 22, 2011 by · 1 Comment

It’s been over three years since the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the downfall of CFO Erin Callan. Yet the underlying unfair media portrayal facing women executives who leave their roles continues in cases like Carol Barsh and Sallie Krawcheck this year. What I care about most is how the media’s disservice to women executives given the portrayal of them when they leave powerful positions affects future generations of women leaders.

Check out my most recent piece in ForbesWoman entitled How Women Executives Who Leave Their Roles Affect the Next Generation of Women Leaders. I hope you can share your perspective and thoughts as well.

Filed Under: leadership, Women · Tagged With: , , ,

Own Your Time

December 18, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

“We spend 2/3 of time answering email, going to meetings and doing our job. Our competition has figured out that they need to spend time doing remarkable art.” –Seth Godin, Medicine Ball session, Dec 9, 2011

Last week, I attended marketing guru Seth Godin’s Medicine Ball session. It got me unstuck, ready to rethink and focus on producing remarkable art in the world.

Before the event, my biggest ‘challenge’ or ‘excuse’ was that there wasn’t enough time in the day to produce my art in the world: to build a women’s leadership business, start a Bollywood dance company, and finish graduate school. The truth is: I OWN my time, I make choices about how to spend my time and ultimately what works of art get done done.

Timezones were invented 120 years ago and the notion of synchronization worked well in a factory-oriented world. Today’s connection economy is asynchronous, success is about producing remarkable art, presenting it to the world, and eventually people caring enough to pay for it.

Here’s my top four list of nuggets that Seth taught me about ‘owning my time’ to produce my art in the world.

1)   Set up your calls and meetings only 2 days a week. The other days are for your work, your time, your art.

2)   Have less meetings. Meetings don’t make decisions, leaders make decisions. When you have less meetings, more work gets done. Check out Al Pittampalli’s  “The Modern Meeting Standard” for more tips on effective meetings.

3)   Follow the 7pm rule. Why do we work past 7pm? We make rules to have lunch and shower, so when did it become optional to go home at 7pm – it’s the end of the day! Take the time you need to recharge and you’ll produce better art.

4)  Schedule hours per day for various tasks. Set a scheduled time each day for the work that matters most. Plan everything else around that precious time. Owning your time is about making time for the art that matters.

So get to work and OWN YOUR TIME! More tips from Seth are to come in my upcoming blog posts. And if you have other tips on how to own your time, please comment and share!

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Highlights from TEDxWomen

December 4, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

This post was cross-published at Levo League.

TEDxWomen was an inspiring day packed with female change agents and innovators. More than 100 TEDxWomen gatherings convened all over world, including the first ever TEDx event in Libya. The themes of the day were Resilience, Relationships, ReImagine, and Rebirth. My favorite speakers were many of the Gen Y women who took the stage: Claire Sannini, a 8th grade girl who spoke about her experience with girl bullying alongside Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out, and Busisiwe Mkhumbuzi, an amazing 17 year old girl from Johannesburg and V-Girls action team leader.
Here are some of my most memorable quotes from the amazing group of speakers:

  • Gayle Lemmon, writer and journalist: “If you see the word micro finance most people think women. If you think entrepreneur most people think men. We must move beyond micro hopes and micro ambitions for women…Women can no longer be both 50 percent of the population and a special interest group.”
  • Jennifer Newsom, producer of Miss Representation: “The media is killing our daughters’ ambition and destroying empathy and emotion in our sons..3 percent of decision makers of media are women, 97 percent of decisions are made by men. For the 97 percent, I challenge you to mentor women up the ladder and help promote them. Let’s demand a media culture that uplifts us all, inspires our daughters to be president, our sons to be empathic partners.”
  • Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out: “In a 2006 study, 74 percent of girls were under pressure to please everyone. If we want girls to be resilient, we have to give them the skills to navigate.”
  • Shahira Amin, Egyptian journalist: “Women are the future of the new Egypt; they will lead, and men will follow.”
  • Gloria Steinem, author and feminist activist: “My generation thought life was over at 30 and your generation feels like you have to be successful before 30.”

This is just a small dose of an incredible set of women and men that came together to hear groundbreaking ideas to advance women and girls. Stay tuned as TEDxWomen will publish the various talks online in the coming days!

Filed Under: leadership, Women · Tagged With: , , ,