Written by: Leslie Gaudet, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. It’s that time of year again when people start to look back over their year at what they’ve accomplished or what they haven't and it’s usually about this time that the panic sets in. You look back at the goals you announced (out loud) that you were going to achieve by this time of the year, and yet when you look at your list, you become disappointed and discouraged because the only goals reached seem small and insignificant. But is that really true? You see, it’s because we hold to this mindset that if the goal achieved isn’t a huge goal, then it must not be important or at least not as important as the other goals on our list. Let me give you some peace of mind and let you in on a little secret that I have come to discover. Every goal accomplished, no matter the size, is important and should be celebrated because when you are in the doing of your life and going after your goals (even the small ones), it means that you are not sitting on the sidelines waiting for life to happen to you. No. What you are doing is allowing life to happen for you and you’re getting involved and immersing yourself in the day-to-day and learning and growing and seeking out answers to questions and marking each task as complete. What I have often found though, is that if we don’t actually anchor in those accomplishments by celebrating and creating celebration memories, that is when we get stuck yet again, and we forget that we are resourceful and have maybe even accomplished some of these tasks, or a similar one, previously. I feel like we live in a society that creates to do lists and check mark done and then we move on, and we don’t allow for time to celebrate that we did something; that we created something, and then accomplished it. Why is that? I believe that I have found the answer and I’m sure you have thought about this yourself. Simply put. We live in a world of More and Now. We want to achieve more and more and whether that’s accumulating things, or experiences, the next part to this puzzle is that we want it Now because we have been told that no goal is too big and if we work hard enough for it, we can have it. But with that wanting of More comes impatience because we start to look around and see how everyone else is crushing their goals and it looks like they are getting what they want (and more of it) Now. So that takes us down a path of comparisonitis and we start looking at what everyone else is doing and comparing ourselves to what others have accomplished and if their accomplishments look better (if what they created looks better than what we are doing), we start to feel insecure, maybe even scrapping our dream altogether. Looking outside at what others are doing is not meant to hold you back or make you feel bad. Looking outside at what others are doing is meant to inspire you and to give you hope that if they can do it, so can you. That’s something I learned as I was growing my coaching business alongside being an independent contractor and serving as a Post-Closing Paralegal to a team of Lawyers and Paralegals in California. I learned that in order for me to achieve my goals that I had to learn to celebrate others accomplishments because that was proof right there that if they could do it, so could I and by adopting a celebration for others mindset, that lead to inspiration. I learned to visualize in a way that allowed me to pull on what others had accomplished and take from that ideas that inspired me to continue dreaming and building my own coaching business. I wish I had known this when I first started my coaching business 4 years ago, because for the first 2 years I struggled with comparisonitus, imposter syndrome, and I chased after every magic pill thinking that there was a secret that every successful person knew about that was illusive to me. This kept me on the perpetual entrepreneurial hamster-wheel. I kept myself believing that you could only be successful if you were in that secret club of entrepreneurs that had the magic pill, the answer to everything, the answer to success. What I’ve found, once I dialed it in (and got coaching of my own), is that yes there are secrets or rather mindsets that most successful people have and that’s this. They are willing to stay in it for the long game. They understand the reason why it is important to have a Big WHY for what you do; for what you are passionate about; your purpose. They understand that having clarity about their Big WHY for what they are passionate about will help them stay in it for the long game. They have learned to trust their intuition and when Fear pops up, as it will for anyone from time to time for anyone who is reaching for bigger and better, they understand that if they want to reach a goal, that procrastination won’t serve them. So, they will do preliminary research and if they see a chance of succeeding, they will take action for they know and believe that waiting for life to happen to them won’t serve them. In other words, taking action in spite of fear of the unknown, of the what if’s, of the “what if it won’t work out thoughts”, and being okay (in fact more than okay) with the result because it will be more evidence for them to learn and grow. Look at Thomas Edison for example. According to the Franklin Institute, “By January of 1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison had built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light. It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting. Still, the lamp only burned for a few short hours. In order to improve the bulb, Edison needed all the persistence he had learned years before in his basement laboratory. He tested thousands and thousands of other materials to use for the filament. He even thought about using tungsten, which is the metal used for light bulb filaments now, but he couldn't work with it given the tools available at that time. One day, Edison was sitting in his laboratory absent-mindedly rolling a piece of compressed carbon between his fingers. He began carbonizing materials to be used for the filament. He tested the carbonized filaments of every plant imaginable, including baywood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax, and bamboo. He even contacted biologists who sent him plant fibers from places in the tropics. Edison acknowledged that the work was tedious and very demanding, especially on his workers helping with the experiments. He always recognized the importance of hard work and determination.” Thomas Edison, himself said this which I believe is because he allowed himself to keep on going, in spite of fear, and in spite of his first attempt only getting himself so close to his goal but not knowing how long it would take to reach it. "Before I got through," he recalled, "I tested no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths, and ransacked the world for the most suitable filament material." "The electric light has caused me the greatest amount of study and has required the most elaborate experiments," he wrote."I was never myself discouraged, or inclined to be hopeless of success. I cannot say the same for all my associates." "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." I absolutely love his enthusiasm because I believe that that’s another secret that successful people tap into. Being inspired and being enthusiastic about every step of the way and acknowledging the before, the now, and what’s possible. In his famous quote about his journey and the things that didn’t go right, when asked about the things that didn’t go right, he said this: “I have not failed 10,000 times—I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” This to me is another clue I have learned about successful people. They are willing to learn from their mistakes, tweak it, and get back at it because they don’t give up on themselves. I believe that timing is far more important than the deadline that we put on our goals. I of course, believe that we should have a date set in mind because it gives us something to work towards. But I also believe this. When you recognize that timing is far more important than how long it took you to get to where you are, you will realize that you are right where you are meant to be, right now. This is meant to inspire you so that as you look back over your year and start taking what I call an Annual Accounting of Your Life, be kind to yourself. It’s not easy going after goals, especially the ones that are so far out and where we have the potential to get discouraged if it hasn’t happened yet. Sometimes the goals we had in mind for our lives, when we intentionally take the time to really think about them, are not as important to us as we once thought they were. In fact, if you were to look at your goals, some of which you may have started but not finished or may not have started at all, would you still want them as badly today or has your mind changed because something bigger and better has revealed itself? That’s a question that I have pondered over the last 2 years and I have come to realize that some of the things that I wished for, that I dreamt about, were just part of the picture and that when I allowed myself to get quiet and reflect and visualize what I really wanted, I found that my desire for my life was and is bigger and better than when I first started down this entrepreneurial path. I’ll leave you with this quote I wrote a few years ago as I was thinking about what I wanted my life to look like. Your destination is in your journey and your journey is ever evolving. You will learn more about who you are and what you want when you allow ourself to continuously move forward. You must also be open to and accepting of change because change is inevitable and if you allow yourself to accept that pivoting may be part of your journey, then you will in essence allow yourself to step into your own greatness and you may even surprise yourself by realizing that what you thought was your dream is so much bigger because your picture keeps growing. Leslie Gaudet Remember this as you continue down your life path. Learn to embrace that your life is a journey and that it keeps growing as you evolve and as you get clearer on your purpose and then everything you do will come from that place. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Leslie! Leslie Gaudet, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Leslie Gaudet is a Mindset and Emotional Awareness Coach for women. She helps her clients achieve self-awareness around their emotional triggers by shifting their mindset to make better decisions when they respond, allowing them to bring more balance, peace, and harmony into their lives. Almost 4 decades working as a Legal Assistant and Paralegal in the corporate world left her feeling emotionally and physically drained. That’s when she decided that she had to make some changes for her to live the life she loves. Those changes involved learning to love herself (without judgment or criticism). That mindset is the key to everything because our mindset influences our thoughts, and in turn, our thoughts dictate our words and actions. Thru her journey to self-love and self-acceptance, Leslie became certified as a Life Coach and attained further certifications in Group Coaching and Emotional Intelligence. She works closely with her clients, starting with mindset because that is the foundational piece to self-love and self-acceptance. She teaches her clients about triggers and how they affect us emotionally by helping her clients tune into, spot, and understand their own so that they can become more self-aware of their trigger moments and emotional responses. With proven tools and techniques and with her guidance, her clients tap into and discover their true potential to living their life and loving the life they are living. Leslie believes that you will transform your life when you Change Your Brain (the way you think).

Written by: Emi Olausson Fourounjieva, Senior Level Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. The world is speeding up, transforming and triggering historic shifts in human behavior and technological development. Economic instability, global recession, rising inflation ‒ the rules of the game in Business and Life are changing. Some businesses are going to massively grow, some others are not flexible and strong enough to survive. Leaders today are facing tremendous challenges and a lot of stress, often in the personal and professional areas at the same time. The highest chances to succeed belong to the Businesses and Self-Aware Leaders that embrace change, innovation and creativity, those who care about the Human factors and Soft Skills. It is impossible to overestimate the value of the Winning Mindset in Business and Life. Mindset is so profound – it is the single most important factor which defines whether the person or business will succeed or fail while navigating periods of instability and taking advantage of the arising opportunities. Every Modern Leader should adopt this progressive way of thinking and being in order to thrive. To stay competitive in the face of any disruption means disrupting yourself ‒ from inside ‒ before disrupting the Business. Enabling and encouraging innovative thinking, new ways of ever-green learning, acquiring and developing new skills is crucial. The Winning Mindset opens doors to Successful Leadership and Business Growth, by activating critical abilities, such as: Making fast and tough decisions Being in charge of the chosen strategy Being open to incoming information Considering risk as a necessity for Growth Being courageous and resilient Getting rid of everything that is holding back Business Growth requires a Winning Mindset, and the great news is that You have the power to change Your Mindset! To analyze, find and replace the pieces of the existing Mindset with the Winning Mindset might take time, effort and some practice but in the end of the day it will be worth it as Mindset defines Your Success! I helped many leaders and can help You to overcome fears and limiting beliefs that have been holding you back, to tap into Your Inner Power. This is the perfect time to activate the Winning Mindset so that you can achieve your ambitious Business goals and take the Leap with ease. Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Read more from Emi! Emi Olausson Fourounjieva, Senior Level Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Emi Olausson Fourounjieva is a Transformational Coach, Digital Transformation Leader with extensive experience in Digital Analytics and Marketing, Visionaire, Educator and Global Speaker, Advisor on the Advisory Board of two global professional networks. Her strength is to create synergy effects using resources and technologies to get optimal business results in a data-driven, customer-centric way. Emi's initiative "Digital Transformation for Humans" reflects her passion for the intersection of Technology, Business and Human Factors. Her professional experience has led her to the conclusion that Digital Transformation must be boosted not only by the power of data, research, algorithms and technologies but also by human intuition, creativity and adaptability, in order to obtain harmonious and sustainable development. Through her coaching, Emi empowers Leaders to combine their Intelligence and Competence with Soft Skills, helping them become more confident and self-aware, feel positive, have more impact, and achieve goals with ease and joy. Emi sees Mindset as a critical part of any successful Leader's toolbox, which is why she has developed her signature coaching program, "The Winning Mindset for Leaders in Digital".

Written by: Dr. Shahram Maralani, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Digital Entrepreneurs are often recognized by their ability to harness the reach and power of the internet to offer products and services for profit. But today, Digital Entrepreneurship has gone beyond building an online business, and become an ability crucial for all professionals including entrepreneurs as well as intrapreneurs. In this article, I explore why you may feel left behind and how you can bridge your competence gap in the era of digital entrepreneurship. What is Digital Entrepreneurship Let us start by finding out what is the digital entrepreneurship meaning, and who is a digital entrepreneur. From among different definitions, I find this one from International Business School in Barcelona the best. “A digital entrepreneur harnesses the reach and power of the internet in order to offer products and services for profit. They possess all the characteristics of a traditional entrepreneur – vision, determination, persistence, and creativity – but also a number of other key traits.” Digital entrepreneurs pursue online businesses, offer different kind of products and services, and use innovative ways of funding and marketing. Common digital entrepreneurship businesses include e-commerce, creative sector, and advisory. Other well-known digital entrepreneurship examples include webshop, authorship businesses publishing books and e-books, social media marketing services, online training, digital content creation, and other digital services. My definition of a digital entrepreneur is however slightly different. To me, Digital Entrepreneurship is to simply be able to do thing digitally, and digital entrepreneurs are those who can create value by getting things done in a more efficient or effective way using digital enablers. Why You Should Become a Digital Entrepreneur Digital entrepreneurship is an ability to use digital tools and technologies in solving business problems. Being it creation of an online business, digitalizing an existing business, or improving and automating business processes, digital entrepreneurs use available digital solutions to address the business challenges they and their company face. It was said in the past that literacy is about generic literacy, language literacy (especially English), and basic computer literacy. Today, the basic computer literacy is an expectation to any citizen, especially those living in cities and more digitalized societies. What could have created an edge in one’s competence a decade ago, is no longer an advantage, but a hygiene factor. All industries are in the process of digital transformation. More and more, business processes and systems become automated and use more advanced technologies to operate and serve their customers. Professionals working in these industries need to have a great level of understanding about these digital solutions and their enabling technologies. This is the only way to stay relevant in the professional market, being a business owner or working in the corporate world. People with specialist career path can pursue their professional developments by becoming an expert in a particular technology or platform. Generalist on the other hand, can follow their professional development by increasing their competence in business strategy and digital transformation. Digital Entrepreneur and Digital Intrapreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value (Wikipedia). Professionals who use different means to create and extract economic value are all part of a business. In that sense, intrapreneurs are no exception. Great intrapreneurs are in fact entrepreneurs who happen to work for a corporation. That is why, the importance of digital entrepreneurship is not only limited to business owners. Professionals working in the corporate world must pursue a similar path, increasing their knowledge and skills about digital enablers for businesses. Digital entrepreneurship for business owners is about their competitiveness and survival in the digital world in front of them. For intrapreneurs on the other hand, digital entrepreneurship is about staying relevant to their current and future employers. For them, digital entrepreneurship is the enabler to go beyond their traditional professional expertise and act more like an entrepreneur. Digital knowledge and skills can also provide both groups, opportunities to pivot to a new business or a new career, if that becomes a spotted opportunity or a necessity. How to Become a Digital Entrepreneur Elon Musk is no-one ordinary. Becoming the richest person on the planet through his at times groundbreaking and even controversial ventures and acts, he is far from being easily followable. But he can well be a source of inspirations for any professional. Elon would read two books per day in various disciplines, starting from his early teenage years. Fast learning in a very wide range of disciplines opened his mind to think out of (any) box. Some of us may not want or have the intellectual capacity to be like him (at least I know I don’t). But to become and stay a digital entrepreneur, expending our understanding and knowledge in certain domains is crucial. To be able to do so, one need to train his brain to be able to think and have a relatively good opinion about certain topics, and to be able to answer to questions like the ones below. How does X work? (replace X with any subject in business or technology) How does business Y operate? (replace Y with any business you come across) What competitive advantages does business Y rely on? What is the role of the business model they use in creating those competitive advantages? What is their primary business strategy? What kind of technologies (especially digital technologies) do they use in (a) creating and offering their products and services (b) creating and enhancing the customer experience (c) improving and automating their business and its processes? Ability to answer to these questions is what distinguishes a digital entrepreneur from other professionals and the wider crowd. To be able to educate yourself to answer these questions for any business, you need to increase your knowledge about various domains, at least the ones below. Top technological developments and trends (especially the few close to your domain as a specialist or a range of them for you as a generalist) Business strategy fundamentals, terminology, models, and techniques Business processes, how are they created, operated, analyzed, and improved New businesses and how their genuine ideas have been shaped using new technologies or business models, or both Conclusion Digital Entrepreneurs are recognized by their ability to harness the reach and power of the internet to offer products and services for profit. Digital Entrepreneurship of today has however gone beyond building an online business and has become an ability crucial for all professionals including entrepreneurs as well as intrapreneurs. Today, Digital Entrepreneurship is about the ability to create value by getting things done in a more efficient or effective way using digital enablers. With digital transformation affecting all industries, business processes and systems become automated and use more advanced technologies. Professionals need to have a great level of understanding about these business processes and their digital technologies. For business owners, this understanding and knowledge is to create their competitiveness and survival in this digital world. For intrapreneurs on the other hand, digital entrepreneurship is about staying relevant to their current and future employers, going beyond their traditional professional expertise, and acting more like an entrepreneur. Digital knowledge and skills can also provide both groups, opportunities to pivot to a new business or a new career, if that becomes a spotted opportunity or a necessity. Expending your understanding and knowledge in certain domains is crucial in bridging your competence gap digital entrepreneurship. General curiosity on how things work, interest and skills on how successful and modern businesses of various sizes operate, the business models, and knowledge on business strategies and digital technologies they use, are among those domains. Following technological trends and developments, learning business strategy terminology and fundamentals, business models and techniques, acquiring the ability to analyze and understand business processes, how are they created, operated, analyzed, and improved and upskilling yourself to be able to figure out how genuine businesses ideas have been shaped are some of the key learning areas in the path to become a digital entrepreneur. Online Business Builders Club Online Business Builders Club (OBB Club) is a membership program for people with passion to ideate, build, and transform businesses using digital technologies. Our mission is to enable founders and owners of small businesses including solo entrepreneurs. We help them understand the possibilities they have in creating digital businesses or digitalizing their existing businesses using available solutions and tools in the market. The Founder of Online Business Builders Club is Dr. Shahram Maralani who has more than two decades of experience as a Corporate Leader. He is also an Author, Public Speaker, and Business Mentor, helping entrepreneurs establish & digitalize their businesses. His mission is “To help thousands of entrepreneurs shape, and operate online businesses", as part of their portfolio career, or as their main occupation. To learn more about OBB Club, visit our website here. To contact the author, you can send him a message on his LinkedIn profile. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more From Dr. Shahram! Dr. Shahram Maralani, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Dr. Shahram Maralani is a Corporate Leader with more than twenty-five years of experience in a wide range of disciplines and across multiple industries and geographies. He is also an Author, a Business Mentor, and a Professional Speaker. Shahram is currently senior vice president and chief digital officer in Nemko Group A/S. In addition, he helps entrepreneurs to establish and develop Online Businesses. He is the author of the book “Build an online business in 24 hours”.

Written by: Dr. Hynd Bouhia, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. “Every woman was born a leader. All she has to do is believe that, and act on it.” This is the first sentence of my new book Believe Act Lead where I share my journey about rising to a position of leadership and navigating through all the challenges. As a little girl growing up in Morocco, I longed to contribute to growth and development and abolish poverty the world over. But to have that kind of global impact would mean going abroad to get my education, a dream my family saw as an impossible flight of fancy. I continued to believe in my dream, and in myself. So, I went to Harvard and got my Ph.D. in Sustainable Development, to the World Bank headquarters in Washington D.C., where I worked on the development and the fight against poverty, before going back to my motherland, Morocco, where I worked with the Prime Minister, built multiple businesses, and created the Believe, Act, Lead coaching method to help women rise into leadership positions at every level and across every sector of society. That doesn’t mean it was easy. There were sacrifices, disappointments, and painful losses along the way. It was the necessity of navigating through the challenges and the process of self re-definition that followed, however, which inspired me to create a simple, repeatable method to help women like myself unleash their inner leader: Believe, Act, Lead: BAL. That method became the basis of an internationally renowned leadership coaching business, As well as my new book ranked 1 new release in four categories overnight, Believe, Act, Lead—Your journey to success, wealth and making an impact. ¹ What is the BAL Method? I created the Believe-Act-Lead Method (BAL Method) to take you to step by step to greatness. It is a well-proven method—with many success stories—to help every woman become empowered and attract abundance and success in her life. I was looking for an approach and a process to become your savior when you feel overwhelmed with life, with work, and you need that little something to reach the level of wealth and success you know you deserve. If you feel you have done everything and it’s still not working, it is in the realm of the mindset that you will find the key. And if you feel that you don’t know what to do, it is both about mindset and strategy, and the secret lies in the right combination of both for you. The first thing to do is to understand the importance of balance in your life and in everything you do. The BAL Method is articulated around three phases to create a magical and lasting transformation. The first phase is about making you believe in yourself again and in your dream. The second phase is to act by mastering the strategic tools and accessing financial intelligence. And by the third phase, you know how to lead, become an empowered leader and an unstoppable entrepreneur, creating wealth and opportunity and building a lasting legacy with a sustainable impact. After twenty years of experience in strategy and finance, I have condensed all my expertise and experience to design a thorough method to empower women and help them create wealth and make an impact. For that, I structure a three-step method for every woman to Believe in her dream, Act on it, and Lead with it, using the Believe-Act-Lead Method (BAL Method). The three transformational phases of the BAL Method The BAL Method helps reverse engineer what it takes to be an empowered and an empowering leader and successful entrepreneur by becoming more confident in your decisions, more in tune with your purpose, and creating a life of financial freedom. 1. The first phase is to Believe in yourself and in the possibilities. Everything starts by knowing who you are. It’s only then that you will be able to imagine and define your personal and professional goals. Your purpose will then find its way to you. This first part is essential to get the right mindset for success and great achievements. 2. The second phase is about taking Action and structuring a clear strategic plan. Creating the life of your dream and becoming an empowered leader takes discipline and consistency. By acquiring business skills, decision-making schemes, and branding, you will get access to financial intelligence and build the foundation for success. 3. The third is about mastering how to Lead with your talents and gifts. This phase focuses on harnessing leadership skills. It also integrates the understanding of making an impact in the world and building your legacy through your business and your expertise. This method gives you the foundation to structure a great offer based on the value you provide. By understanding the meaning of service, you can not only unlock the secret to wealth and fulfillment, but you will become a magnet, attracting amazing wins in your life. Leading women to change the World Hundreds of women have mastered this method and attracted amazing wins and incredible changes in their lives, and this year we are reaching thousands. These women have reclaimed their power, becoming leaders of their own lives and in control of what is happening to them. Julia was able to leave a job she never liked and started her own human resources consultancy when she boosted her self-image and connected with her inner strength. Julia is an example of how phase one of Believe and mindset can change someone’s life. Sarah worked on her branding and positioning and started attracting premium clients for her copywriting business. This illustrates how, by acting and working on the branding and showing up as an authority in your market, you can attract more money in your business and that’s phase two of the method of acting. Judy found the right investor for her start-up operating in the clean energy space. As we got to phase three about leading, Judy embraced the leader in her, she leveled in her network, and found herself in the same rooms as high-level investors. I love these examples because they illustrate how each phase covers different layers of transformation, crashing the glass ceiling and breaking free from any preconceived barrier. They humble me and inspire me to fine-tune the method and make it more crisp and adaptable to the incredible diversity that women bring. I’m celebrating in my new book ² those amazing women as they level up and create incredible changes in their lives. They are paving the way for many in the process of leveling up, creating positive changes in their lives, and attracting success in their lives. For more info, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and visit my website! Read more from Hynd! Dr. Hynd Bouhia, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Dr. Hynd Bouhia has cumulated more than 20 years of professional experience in high-level and leadership positions, covering investments, financial structuring, entrepreneurship, and sustainable development strategies. Hynd Bouhia was nominated by Forbes among the 100 most influential women in the world in 2008 and among the most influential women in Business in the Arab World in 2015 and honored as a member of the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in 2018. References: [1] Available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BKGW1667/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1 [2] Believe Act Lead : your journey to success, wealth and making an impact

Written by: Christina Marlett, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Your beliefs about time impact every second of every day. In this article, learn why what you think and say about time is far more important than your time management and organizational skills. In Part 1 of this article, we discussed how if you have underlying negative beliefs about time, no matter how many time management strategies or organizational hacks you apply, you’ll likely still experience stress, worry or anxiety. However, everything changes when you treat time like your best friend. Since time is a form of energy, the only way you can truly shift your experience with time is to cultivate a great relationship. Why would you want a great relationship with time? Number one, you’ll dramatically reduce the stress and tension in your life. Number two, you’ll become far more productive with way less effort. Number three (and you may not have even heard of this point), time will give you gifts. Gifts of Time Since we’re using the premise that time can be your best friend, consider this. In an epic, loving relationship, there’s an exchange of energy and that can sometimes look like gifts going back and forth. When I started shifting my feelings, thoughts and words about time in order to befriend it, I noticed something unexpected. I started receiving gifts of time. For example, when my kids were younger, all I wanted to do was go on a date with my husband. Even though we had lots of family around us, for some reason, it was just really challenging to organize the childcare to get ourselves out of the house to enjoy each other’s company. Either we would have the idea to go on a date but it wouldn’t materialize or we would make plans and something would go awry. It was so frustrating. Everything changed, though, when I started improving my relationship with time. All of a sudden, grandparents would say to us, “You two should go out. We’ll look after the kids for the afternoon,” and away we would go. It seemed like a miracle; the gift of time. In my work life, I noticed something similar. There are days when I seem to think I have superhuman capacity and I’ll book in too many clients or accept too many assignments. I might start to feel a little stressed and then a client will say, “I need to reschedule,” and ‒ voila ‒ some time opens up in my schedule. More gifts of time. Maybe you would also like to receive gifts from time. Here’s what you’ll want to do. Watch your Thoughts and Words As you start to develop an awareness about your relationship with time, you might notice that you think or say things about time that are really not what you want to be saying to your best friend. Think about it: if you said to your BFF, “You know, there’s just never enough of you,” they probably wouldn’t feel very good about themselves. And they probably wouldn’t want to be your friend, either. Our culture seems to idolize not having enough time. There are countless expressions that essentially put time down, which you won’t want to do anymore in your new friendship. Here’s your assignment. Notice the thoughts you think and the words you speak about time. If they have the flavour of lack (not having enough), then bring yourself over to the side of abundance, because in truth, all we really have is time. There is more than enough. If you find yourself saying something like, “Life is short,” pause and reconsider. Personally, I choose to believe that life is not only long, but it’s also wide and deep. Since it’s a choice, why not believe something that makes you feel good? About Being Busy Maybe you’re under the impression that you’re very, very busy. Find out if you’re too busy here. Did you know that the word busy essentially means stressed? Do you really want to go around saying and thinking that you’re stressed? I certainly don’t. Instead, I like to say, “My life is exciting!” Give it a try. See how it feels in your body when you say, “I’m so busy.” You’ll probably notice a kind of contracted sensation. Your shoulders might even slump in defeat. Now try, “My life is exciting!” To me, I feel expansive and lit up on the inside. Plus, if someone asks you how you are and you reply with, “My life is so exciting right now,” a much better conversation will ensue than if you just say the same old, “I’m so busy.” Once I eliminated the word busy from my vocabulary, my life got discernibly better. Go ahead and give it a try. You’ll notice a difference. Can you think of any other expressions or thoughts you might use that convey ‘not enough time’? As you become more aware, you’ll notice even the subtle ways that you’ve been living more in lack than in abundance as far as time is concerned. If any words fall out of your mouth about time that is really just fancy ways of saying there’s not enough of it, go ahead and correct yourself. You might say something like, “If only I had more than 24 hours in a day,” and then you realize that in truth, you have plenty of time to get everything done. You can then say, “Oops, what I meant to say is that I’m going to choose to say no to that for now because I’m practising creating more space in my life.” See how much more empowering the second option is? Set the intention to become aware of all the ways that you think and speak about time. Then set another intention to make time feel as loved and appreciated as possible with your thoughts and words. Although it might seem like it won’t make a difference, shifting your thoughts and words about time truly changes everything. Perfect Timing Another idea that will help you create more time in your life is to affirm that you have perfect timing. Say it to yourself as often as possible. Tell other people that you have perfect timing. You’ll start to notice that it does indeed become true. Once I adopted that affirmation, I noticed that I would get to the bank and walk right up to the teller. When I turned around, there would be a long line of people. Perfect timing! Or I would get to the train station just as it was pulling in. Perfect timing! Or I would be seated right away at a packed restaurant because someone would leave right when I was ready to sit down. Perfect timing! At other times, it can feel like you definitely don’t have perfect timing, and those are the ideal moments to remind yourself that you can’t see everything that’s going on, so you just have to trust that somehow, your timing is perfect. Once I had a meeting with a woman who wanted to talk with me about self-care. She was a high-powered lawyer and I was a little nervous to meet with her. Although I left plenty of time to get to her downtown office, there was no parking to be found. I ended up being late after circling the block over and over. It didn’t feel like perfect timing at all. It felt stressful, so I reminded myself that I had perfect timing and I took some deep belly breaths. When I finally got to her office, it turned out that she didn’t have our meeting on her calendar, but she would be free if I could wait for 10 minutes. Perfect timing after all! Make Time Your BFF As you practice tuning into your feelings, thoughts and the words you speak about time, you’re going to notice a shift. First, you develop an awareness of your current beliefs about time and then as you practice the strategies you’ve read about, you’ll feel more and more connected with time. When you befriend time by using mantras, belly breathing, affirmations and thoughts based in the energy of abundance rather than lack, you’ll create a friendship with time that will leave you feeling more peaceful, calm and nurtured. Time will even start to give you gifts. You’ll find that you’ll get more done with less effort when you shift your beliefs about time. It’s one of the most effective self-care practices because it truly changes every second of every day. May you end up feeling like you have more than enough time for all the meaningful things you want to do in your life. If you have any questions or want to share your results as time becomes your BFF, please use the contact form here. Want to know if your self-care practices are truly effective or if they’re just adding more stress to your day?Get the free Daily Self-Care Checklist by clicking here. Visit my website for more info! Read more from Christina! Christina Marlett, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine As the creator of Courageous Self-Care, Christina is passionate about helping stressed out high achievers learn to lead their communities, families and themselves from a place of wholeness, overflowing energy and deep self-respect. She excels at helping overwhelmed leaders revitalize their energy from the inside out so that they can be productive and peaceful at the same time. Christina is a certified Embodiment Coach, Body Awake Yoga teacher, Happy for No Reason Trainer, Energy Codes Facilitator and BEST Practitioner who helps you take inspired action so that you have epic relationships, vibrant health and so much energy that people will ask you what you’ve been doing differently.

Written by: Wil Becker, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. In this picture, you see my feet hanging through my ceiling. I was attempting to do work at my house without a friend to help me. I have found that when I try to do work on my house or my car without a friend, I end up in trouble. In 2014, I found myself in trouble at work. I was put on a 90-day personal improvement plan. The circumstances are not important right now; however, it was a big challenge to my job at the time. During the year of 2014, I would wake up with nightmares of my boss coming to my home at 7 AM and firing me before I could go to work. Still to this day, I can clearly see his car at the time, and him walking up the sidewalk to that house. What happened after I was written up, is that an upper-level manager pulled me aside and offered to coach me. It was a short session, where he walked me through a couple of things I needed to change to improve my work relationships, and ease the tension between me and that boss. Over the next several months, I put into practice the things that he taught me. He would check up on me regularly to see how things were going. This inspired me to look into more information and seek personal education through reading books, watching videos, listening to audios, and meeting up with other people in the pursuit of personal growth. Over the next few years, I read more books and listen to more business owners and leaders than I had in the previous years since I graduated college. As the transformation that took place, it inspired my new boss to provide reviews that encouraged the company to find a new job for me because I had grown so much through the process of reading, listening, and associating with leaders. The reason I got into coaching is because of how much it has helped me in my own personal life. I encourage people to seek out a mentor in their profession. This will help you tremendously to avoid pitfalls, mistakes, and other traps; that can affect a person new in a specific field. My specialty is helping people who are stuck in their jobs and feeling like they have no future. My coaching is tailored to take an individual like that, and help them transition into a more valuable employee. Please check out my website; I believe I can help you become the hero of your story! Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Wil! Wil Becker, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Wil is a serial entrepreneur with several businesses under his belt. He has served in several leadership roles over the last 25 years as a Youth Pastor and Congregational Leader. He has also served with the Boy & Cub Scouts organizations as a leader. He has moved up in his profession because of his leadership skills and his consistent self-education. Wil seeks out the best books and mentors to learn from. His desire to help others got him to start Turning Leaf Solutions and open the doors to his coaching business! He is excited to help you become your best self!!

Written by: Louise Siwicki , Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Feeling overwhelmed as you juggle fertility treatment, work, and your other responsibilities? Well, you are not alone. In Australia., we work an average of 40-50 hours per week… and I know many of you reading this spend much more time on your job than that! That's more time than you spend with loved ones and friends per week. We spend most of our working lives at work in this modern world. Meanwhile, you also still have a household to run and, somewhere in between would like to fit in a little downtime. Now, if you’re throwing fertility treatment into the mix. Spending time at fertility clinic consults, appointments for blood work and sonograms, managing medications and performing injections, having procedures done, and beyond. If you add up the hours involved, fertility treatments feel just as demanding (if not more) than an actual job. It's certainly more emotionally demanding! Now I don’t say all of this to overwhelm you, but rather to point out how important it is that you prioritise yourself during this time. Having a plan to manage the stress and anxiety of undergoing fertility treatment while working will help you remain feeling calm, capable, and in control. 4 ways to manage your fertility and work to empower you to feel in control. 1. Put Yourself First You have full permission to put yourself first and carve out regular time for self-care. What makes you truly happy? It’s time to get work that out and incorporate this into your life again. Self-care is not selfish. In fact, during fertility treatment it is crucial to prioritize yourself and manage your stress levels. Activities that make you truly happy are essential. Is it a walk on the beach, exercise, meditation, journalling, reading cooking, going for a coffee with a close friend? Dinner with you your partner? Whatever it is this must be a priority for you. Schedule time into your day to make sure this activity happens. Also, be sure not to over-commit your precious time. It’s important to be social if you find it helps, but protect yourself from saying yes to everything you’re invited to or asked to participate in. Give yourself full permission to say no. There's no pressure during this time. 2. Ask for Help Outside of Work Consider where you can use support with day-to-day tasks. If you’re used to managing everything yourself, I know asking for help is difficult. You may initially feel like there isn’t anything you could possibly pass over to someone else. But this isn’t forever and letting go of responsibilities is necessary to help you focus on what’s most important: Taking care of your mind, body, and emotions during fertility treatment. What can your partner take over around the house? Can you hire someone to help with cleaning or landscaping? Can your friends or family help with meal prep or taking the dog out for a walk? Every little bit helps, and you’ll thank yourself for planning ahead. 3. Communication is key at work Treatment can, and often does, interfere with work schedules. Make sure you understand your basic timeline and important estimated dates ahead. Procedures like an egg retrieval or embryo transfer cannot be moved or rescheduled. Don’t be afraid to ask your care team questions if you’re not sure. Many woman say they feel isolated and alone in the workplace when dealing with infertility. They have not communicated their situation for fear it will negatively impact their career. While it can be scary to open up about your fertility journey at work, many patients are surprised by how accommodating and helpful management can be during this time. Be upfront with HR so they can help you rearrange your schedule or find coverage, as needed. Being as open and honest about your situation as possible is key to keeping the lines of communication open with your workplace so they are able to work with you and around your schedule of fertility appointments. 4. Reframe How You Think About Your Time at Work You may think work is the last place you’ll want to be during your treatment timeline, but many patients find that going to work during their fertility treatments helps in an unexpected way: It keeps their minds off of the worry of conceiving. If you’re open to it, work can serve as a retreat from the pressures of infertility. Instead of thinking about your egg retrieval or transfer, at work you may be able to stay in the moment and focus on the task at hand. This simple reframe can help you stay positive and optimistic, and we can all use more of that. Many women find that the pressures of work and fertility treatments can sometimes be too much. By taking note of these simple ideas you may find you feel less overwhelmed, stressed and anxious and more in control of your fertility journey and your working environment. I work with clients on a daily basis that are struggling to manage both work and their fertility journey. My professional individualised programs are specifically designed to provide you with the support you need to effectively navigate this very stressful time with ease. Follow me on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , and visit my website for more info! Read more from Louise! Louise Siwicki, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Louise Siwicki is a specialist in the fields of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Time Line Therapy®, Hypnotherapy, and Fertility Coaching, expert. She offers specialized programs for both women and men suffering infertility issues through pregnancy and early parenthood. She uses different practical processes and techniques to rewire the brain of her clients and build new neural pathways. This eliminates and heals the root cause of stress and anxiety, the negative emotions and limiting beliefs holding them back from achieving the success and happiness they desire in life. After suffering through 6 years of infertility issues herself, she has since dedicated her life to supporting women and men through this very challenging time in their lives. She is the founder and CEO of “Louise Siwicki Coaching,” author of "The Secret to Getting Pregnant is not Just in Your Body but in Your Mind" and a public speaker. Her mission: To help everyone understand the importance of the mind and body connection. If you don’t master your mind, your mind will master you.

Written by: Dr. Kapil and Rupali Apshankar, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. What does success mean to you? You might define it as having a stable job in a large company where there’s an opportunity for growth, or owning a home. Or maybe your vision of success includes owning your own business or backpacking through Europe every five years. Your personal success goals most likely also include spiritual, relationship, and other life aspirations. Whatever your perspective may be, one of your primary tasks in life is to cultivate your own good fortune. What will you do to welcome success into your life? Try these ideas for cultivating the success you seek: 1. Know, believe and tell yourself you’re worthy of success. What you say to yourself every day contributes greatly to the type of life you live. So, say to yourself that you’re worth whatever it takes to be successful. You know you deserve it. 2. Be very certain about what you want, but be flexible about how it shows up. When you’re confident about exactly what you seek in life, you’re better able to stay focused and keep your eyes on the prize. 3. Visualize your goals. Imagine what success will feel like – but bring it into your present, like you’ve already attained what you want. Picture in your mind having achieved your goals and the emotions that go along with your victories. While you’re working to achieve success, consider how your life will look at each step of your journey. For example, you might live in your apartment for two more years before you begin shopping for your own home. Your new place will have an extra bedroom you use as your office. When you have your own office at home, you’ll be able to expand your business, which will make you more money and lead to greater financial security. 4. Prioritize your goals for YOUR success, not for someone else. Make your objectives an important part of your life. Think about your goals each day. Talk about your intentions with your friends and family. When you do, the plans you make will become real, tangible, and believable. 5. Do at least one thing per day related to your goals. Incorporate working toward your goals into your daily life. Whether you make a phone call or research something on the internet, contribute to your goals each day by doing something. You’ll feel more actively engaged with your own path to success. 6. Hang out with successful people. Soak up all the knowledge you can from those who live the life you dream about. Watch what they’re doing and then learn from it. Can you apply those same things to your own life? Find inspiration when you hang out with people you deem successful. 7. Think of yourself as already successful. Point out to yourself daily what you’ve done recently to achieve a goal. View yourself as a person who’s already achieved success in his own right and in his own ways. Believe that you’re successful. 8. Shift gears when you need to. In your life journey, you’ll naturally change your goals a bit or add new goals. Cultivating success means you’ll sometimes need to change your course of action or begin making different decisions that are in alignment with your new goals. When you engage in these strategies, you can achieve your goals – and begin creating your dream life today. Live Your Bliss is a Transformational Lifestyle Design System that we created which empowers you to DISCOVER, CREATE, and LIVE your very best life. On your own terms, and nobody else’s. Join our global movement at Blissvana, take charge of your life and start living your bliss today. We’d love to help you become the Michelangelo of your own life and create a masterpiece of your life. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and visit our website for more info! Read more from Dr. Kapil and Rupali! Dr. Kapil and Rupali Apshankar, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Kapil and Rupali are Amazon's 1 bestselling authors and globally respected business and life strategists. They are founders of Blissvana, a boutique personal development, self-growth, and success studio. Their coaching methods have been proven at the highest levels of success in every dimension of human life. Kapil and Rupali's lives revolve around love, happiness, abundance, and bliss ‒ at home and work. Kapil and Rupali's purpose is to create the highest possible quality of life they can for themselves, and the people they love while helping others around them do the same.

Written by: Kathy Grassett, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Attention new and aspiring coaches, consultants, and expert online service providers who feel like they were totally winging their business plan this year and are now freaking out because they made little to no progress on their goals this year! Give me five minutes and I will share the five simple strategies you should include in your plan for your business next year, so you will head into the new year focused, clear, and confident that you know exactly what to do to start or grow your business and your income exponentially and not find yourself one year from now looking back wondering what the hell went wrong. Plus, I will tell you one of the biggest mistakes I see people encounter when trying to plan out future business activities and the battle-tested approach I use when developing a business plan that will forever change the way you look at yours. I’m Kathy Grassett and I have spent over 25 years planning and executing multi-year, multi-million-dollar strategies and projects first in my corporate career, and now as a business coach for women coming out of long corporate careers who are ready to monetize their expertise but are frustrated and struggling to create a lucrative online service business. But what I’m about to share applies to all online service business owners. When you’re just starting out and even if you’ve been doing this for a while, planning your business activities can be a daunting task. I mean, planning isn’t a sexy activity to start with so it can be difficult to get motivated to do it. Then, some people just aren’t planners. And, if you’re like many emerging entrepreneurs, you just don’t know what to plan for. What you end up with is one of the most often neglected, but critical, activities in your business. So, if you fall into any of these categories and want to make next year THE year you break through, I’m going to help kickstart your plan for next year. Here are five areas I want you to plan for to make next year the most productive and profitable yet. Attraction First, identify your ATTRACTION activities. This is all about how you intend to bring people into your world. Because if people don’t know about you, they can’t fall in love with you and become your client. So, plan for things like lead magnets, speaking engagements, podcast guesting, joint ventures, advertising, networking, and webinars. Engagement Second, identify your ENGAGEMENT activities. Once your potential clients come into your world, if they’re not immediate buyers, you must keep engaging with them and let them get to know you, to turn them into paying clients. This is also called nurturing. There is likely some overlap between the attraction plan and the engagement plan because the things you do to engage with potential clients may also attract new ones, and that’s okay. So, plan for things like community, free training, workshops, blogging, promotions, and direct outreach. Enrollment Third, identify your ENROLLMENT activities. This is all about converting potential clients into paying clients and the programs you’re enrolling them into. So, plan for things like creating new programs, packaging up new offers, launches, and marketing campaigns. These first three areas align with what I tell my clients are the only three systems you really need to run a 6-figure business. They represent the client journey ‒ attraction, engagement, and enrollment. Plan for how you’re going to execute that journey for your clients. Revenue Fourth, identify your REVENUE plan. How much money do you want to bring in for the year? Identify the mix of offers that can achieve that amount. For example, if you only sell one thing ‒ say a 6-month program for $5,000, how many of those would you need to sell to get to the revenue number you want? If you have multiple offers, play around with the math, and determine how many of each you’d need to sell to make your revenue number. Then break it out by month. Seeing it broken out at this level of detail makes it feel a lot less intimidating than blindly trying to achieve a yearly total. Operations Lastly, identify your OPERATIONS activities. These are the back-of-house activities that are needed to support everything else, whether to create new assets or strengthen what you already have in place. These are generally not revenue-producing activities but are important to plan, nonetheless. So, plan for things related to startup, your website, technology (email and scheduling functionality for example), hiring a VA, documenting procedures and processes, and upgrading your office. Now, picture yourself sitting at your computer or with a big notebook in front of you to focus on planning your future business activities. Your launches, new programs, marketing campaigns, business improvements, the whole works. It’s so exciting. There’s so much possibility. You have something you know you need to get done or have a great idea for something new you’d like to try and then, suddenly, you think to yourself, “But how in the hell would I even do that?!” And then what happens? The must-have thing and the exciting new thing become these big black holes and you push them far out if you even put them in your plan at all. One of the biggest mistakes many people make when putting together big, bold business plans is that they start thinking of all the things they don’t yet have in place to pull off the things they want to include in their plan, so they shy away from including them. They’ll think, “I’ll include that next year after I have some testimonials.” Or “Maybe I can pull that off once I’m further along.” And big, bold business plans become small, wimpy business plans that cause you to play it safe and repeat the same activities over and over. And you’ve heard the saying, “Current actions only get you current results.” So, the best strategy is to tell yourself, “I do not need to know how to do what I’m planning to do.” Want to put a new webinar into rotation but don’t have a clue about the topic? Plan it anyway. Want to try a Black Friday promotion but haven’t the faintest idea about where or what to promote? Plan it anyway. Need to create and launch a signature system but don’t know where to start? Plan it anyway. Include the big, exciting things you need and want to do in your plan even if you’re not quite sure how you’re going to pull it all off yet. You need to see these things all laid out in front of you to motivate you, energize you, to guide you. And the things you’re resisting putting in your plan are probably the things that are going to propel you to your next level. You are resourceful and you can figure hard things out, you just don’t have to figure it all out right now. Because one of the most powerful and profitable things you can do to close out the year is to plan for the next year, I don’t want the year to end without you getting fully organized, prepared, and confident to hit the ground running in January, so you can finally reach those goals and achieve your most productive and profitable year in business. So, stop winging it and missing the mark. Allow me to customize this strategy for your business and co-create your business plan with you, so you can confidently ring in the new year knowing you are ready to make a lot more money with a lot less effort, in a way that is powerfully authentic to you. Contact me via my website, the link to which is below. I assure you, waking up on New Year’s Day bursting with clarity and confidence about the year ahead is just too good to pass up! Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Kathy! Kathy Grassett, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Kathy Grassett is a business coach, speaker, and leader specializing in career reinvention, business growth, and money mastery after a life in corporate. After a successful 20-year corporate career in IT, she had trouble adjusting to life as an entrepreneur and realized her lingering corporate identity was limiting her potential. Kathy now teaches clients her strategies for shedding the corporate layers that are holding them back and creating a simple but lucrative business model that will power them into exciting new levels of impact & income. Kathy’s mission is to help her clients surpass their corporate success by making a lot more money with a lot less effort in a way that is powerfully authentic to them.

Written by: Mariann Bobály-Dienes, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Now more than ever understanding each other is key. In the era of a global pandemic, travel disruption, and work from home, communicating with intercultural remote teams has become a fundamental business need. So how do you reach everyone and make sure each team member is more or less on the same page? Here are a few tips if you are new to this game and want to have an effective intercultural communication strategy from the start, but they can also help if you are already experienced and need a bit of pick me up. Forget all your assumptions about effective communication of your native culture (hit the reset button) The culture we grow up in influences us. We get conditioned to behave according to societal norms that we consider right and when we encounter a new culture, we mostly try to use our skills from our own culture. This happens to most of us, but it prevents us from effectively communicating with other cultures. It might create resentment, frustration, and misunderstanding. In order to get your message across effectively, you need to let go of your pre-set communication skills and understand that what works in your culture will not necessarily work in your interactions with other cultures. Examine the culture you are dealing with and assess yourself in view of the target culture (use intercultural tools) Getting an overview of the cultural dimensions of the cultures you interact with is the first step. You can use tools that are available online to get information about the specific cultures you need to understand. One of the greatest ones is Erin Meyer’s tool, available online here. But this will not be enough ‒ understanding is only one part of the equation, you need to assess and change your communication style according to the respective culture and you need to be willing to adapt your behaviour. Select a means of communication that works in all cases (it will most probably not be email) You probably use several channels for communication ‒ including email, a chat application, mobile phones, and other software. Take a look at the culture in question and see what works best. Have a discussion with the team members to decide which would be the best and start using that one. Select one that would be suitable for emergencies and that can reach all your team members, even if resources are scarce. Do not assume that having a common (English) language will solve all your problems Even if you have excellent associates with nice business English, sometimes there is misunderstanding and things don’t always work out the way you planned. The assumption that we speak the same language is only true so far as we technically speak English, but with intercultural teams the variety of English as a first and second language is huge. This can affect even the most mundane of situations, such as what time you need to show up at a meeting to the most important ones, whether you get a deal, a contract, or a new hire. Be sure to clarify, specify and signpost in your interactions as much as you can. Second languages are learned in all sorts of places in all sorts of ways, and we all know for a fact how much gets lost in translation English as a second language is taught in various manners with all kinds of resources and results vary. Students learn in search of a career and a better life, but there is often anxiety attached to using it, and mother tongue interference and accents will also produce issues. Implicit and explicit meaning can be attached to certain things and concepts. What is acceptable in one culture might be completely inappropriate in another with all kinds of different connotations that we are not always aware of. Heather Hansen’s work in this area is outstanding. Acknowledge the time zone difference and the transition time from one culture to another ‒ offer psychological safety Remote teams are usually not situated in the same time zone and often not in a similar culture. Time zone differences will have an effect on the team members ‒ one time zone in the morning ‒ full of energy, another in the afternoon or evening ‒ winding down with a lower attention span. This is just one example worth considering when adjusting your communication style. Also, the process of living in one culture and switching to another when working is often overlooked. This is not an easy thing to do, it can become a skill and become easier with time ‒ but both team members and managers need to understand that sometimes they need to put on a different culture hat when they are at work and that the actual switch takes considerable emotional energy. On Screen and Off Screen Conversations Will Differ Each culture brings a set of nonverbal communication characteristics. They will show up in a different way and will influence telephone conversations and video calls. Also bear in mind that telephone conversations will not be suitable for certain discussions in certain countries. Video calls can also create stress and tension because of different rules in a given culture and can be out of the comfort zone of a lot of people. Recognize the Individuals Behind the Culture As much as intercultural models are helpful, overgeneralization can be rather misleading when it comes to personal interactions. We often live in cultures and learn to act according to a culture, but we also have our own personality and identity, which is shaped by several factors, and it is not simply the culture of the country we live in. Here again, excellent tools exist for analyzing a team and its members to foster understanding. Using them can generate understanding at a much deeper level. Csaba Toth has developed an excellent model, Global Disc. Ask for help from an intercultural expert You can do a lot to improve communication and increase synergies, but there are cases when a third eye can work wonders. An intercultural expert can throw light on issues and save you time, energy and headaches by pointing out blind spots that you yourself are not aware of. The mere fact that somebody understands your perception issues and makes you understand that you are not alone with your views, you are not doing anything wrong, just trying to deal with a different culture, is huge. A lot of organizations miss out on the opportunity of understanding intercultural differences because they do not appreciate the value of such insights. I can only close with one sentence at the end of a rather successful intercultural workshop. “I wish we had known this when we started working here ‒ it would have saved us so much energy and time.” Go on and explore other cultures and you will see you will find out so much about yours and will only benefit from the learning process. For further research: https://www.erinmeyer.com/ https://icq.global/intercultural-disc/ Follow me on LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Mariann! Mariann Bobály-Dienes, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Mariann Dienes is an intercultural consultant and applied linguist with a background in both business and Applied Linguistics. Having worked for multinational organizations for more than 10 years, she brings a wealth of experience to intercultural consulting. Her qualifications in Applied Linguistics, Neurolanguage Coaching and English Teaching provide an excellent skill set that facilitates intercultural understanding at its best. Her primary aim is to assist clients in achieving an increased awareness of cultural dimensions, and foster understanding and cooperation in organizations.

Nad is an adult learning and development, global consultant. He specializes in helping teams design prosocial relationships and become future fit. Prior to coaching Nad served as European VP and MD France for a Fortune 500 company. He was an honorary professor with ESSEC Business school. Nad also launched several startups in Europe. He is an Amazon best-selling author and lives in Paris, France. Nad Philips, Prosocial Relationship Coach Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better. I am a French-speaking Flemish/ Copt who attended a La Salle school in Alexandria, a European university in Antwerp, and an American college in Boston. I lived in some 10 cities on 3 continents, still have some remains of 6 languages, and hold 5 master’s degrees and 10 certifications. Obviously, I am multicultural and love learning and transmitting that knowledge. I am keen on developing myself and helping others who chose a similar route. However, I identify best with being a practitioner, every day I am in the trenches either learning or training others or developing L & D programs. I train and coach one to one hundred professionals each year. Over the past decades, thousands of managers followed my training globally in Europe, Asia, Africa, the middle east, and the US. I developed management programs for large multinationals that have been deployed globally. I am a dialectical and systemic thinker; I hold a constructivist mental model. I consider myself a humanist, my view is that we humans are socially and intricately related to others and the environment making it a necessity to create a culture that will enable us to show the best of ourselves rather than our shadows. In terms of mood or tempo, I am best described as Allegro ma non troppo! I feel as an artist in my craft, I love innovating as well as adapting and implementing evidence-based state-of-the-art research findings. I am so grateful for all the researchers out there making the world more intelligible (my daughter being one of them). As a multicultural citizen of the world, I see myself as a bridge maker, closing the knowledge gap or the widening relational chasm. Something important to me is to link the mind and the heart with the guts. We all need to strike a balance between those 3 brains. Above all, I am a family man, I have a supporting wife and together we marvel at our two wonderful children. I have a brother and a sister which delights me to be an uncle to a bunch of outstanding nieces and nephews. Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today. The subtitle of my book the Work-Life Project was: “Defining moments” when it is time to move on you need a destination and a pathway. This defining moment for me was when I turned 40 and realized that if I wanted to spend time developing cognitively, socioemotionally, and spiritually I had to leave my executive position. And I did it, not because I was not developing myself and my direct reports at the time, but because I wanted to devote myself entirely to this calling, I also felt legitimate since I climbed the corporate ladder to the very top. If you want to attempt Mount Everest or any other peak, preferably you choose a sherpa who has done it before. I have coached many of the world’s Olympic champions and top athletes and appreciate what it takes to develop and grow. What is your work inspired by? The zeitgeist: our current era is subject to high levels of complexity and uncertainty causing stress and anxiety in the workplace. The professionals I meet daily seem at a loss as if their current solutions and maps became obsolete. My work is helping draw new maps and charter a new course. Some of it is experiential through experimentation and learning. Some of it is making available the excellent work done by researchers at the forefront of their field. But to do that one need to go back to basics, to hold on to something that can act as an anchor a safe haven, a launching pad and a refuge to come back to gain strength and be nurtured, and that are RELATIONSHIPS, more accurately secure, prosocial relationships. It is no surprise that coaching has become a staple of leadership development at this moment in time. A good coaching relationship is one based on secured attachment and psychological safety a doc to harbor the coachee to allow him to build confidence and grit to get out in the world and thrive. I am always in awe of the beauty and complexity of life and human beings, a never-ending subject of subtle realizations and inspiration (I recommend reading the wonderful book of biologist Robert Sapolsky “Behave”). What Prompted the decision to Specialize in prosocial relationships? The deplorable state of professional relationships that’s prevalent in many big organizations. To professionalize interactions among coworkers, companies and their consultants came up with this dreadful idea of treating your co-work as internal customers/suppliers. This resulted in rendering the communications transactional. From role to role and not from person to person, it quickly became generic, and non-embodied. Year after year Gallup poll results warns us about the dwindling scores of engagements at work and the ever-rise of actively disengaged employees. The solution in my opinion is relational. Relations precede communication and the quality of the relationships determines the social script used and how we treat each other, interact with one another, and talk among ourselves. If we want engagement, that means we start with building strong bonds. If we want performance and well-being in the workplace, we need to work on a prosocial relationship based on trust and cooperation. This is not an easy task. How do you help your clients? My ideal clients are those who have already reached a certain level of team maturity and want to take it to the next level. The framework I developed is called: Designing Prosocial Relationship TM The system has two parts: 1) training and 2) coaching The training part gives a foundation in evidence-based research findings in the field of psychology (attachment theory) and sociology (group dynamics) as well as system thinking and the science of relationships (love and respect). We cover 21st-century management, organization, and leadership. The work is grounded in interpersonal neurobiology framework and systemic and dialectic adult developmental theory. Coaching is the pathway to implementation and success. The framework is taking the team and the team leader on gradually guided self-disclosure milestones. We go at the speed of the team. At each milestone, the team DESIGNS their modus operandi. These values and rule-based system governs the relationships and regulates behavior. The idea is building on complementarity and improving the game plan of the team leader to go from individual competencies and capabilities to collective performance and well-being. Why do they call you “coach oxytocin”? Because I strive to help, the team creates strong bonds and a secure prosocial relationship. Oxytocin is the bonding hormone or neurotransmitter; it seems that the people I coach produce more of it; the good news is it becomes addictive, and it can potentially change the quality of our relationships for the better! What makes you different than other L & D providers? The challenge for me was rather to show resemblance because others could quickly identify the uniqueness or singularity of my approach. I believe what makes this framework special is its multidisciplinary approach as well as the breadth of the evidence-based research results that the teams can draw from to find their unique way. What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future? More oxytocin! Enable more and more teams to build prosocial relationships to thrive and flourish. Continue to enjoy being in resonance with my clients, building authentic relationships that exude love and respect, and individualized consideration. Follow me on LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Nad!

Written by: Shamala Tan, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. A big mistake that we all make is we try to do them all or don’t do them at all! Have you ever experienced this? I have. I used to be I WANT TO FINISH EVERYTHING TODAY. Or I’m so tired, I don’t want to do anything, and a procrastination monster I became. All that changed when getting my life organized was a matter of survival. It became such a valuable life skill that even when my life doesn’t depend on it, I am still a to-do list person! I read an article recently that people who live by to-do lists are decisive and they value their time. This is so true for me. I do this in my life and I also make sure that my clients follow this ‘rule’ in order to live their lives much more purposefully. This does not mean that I am a super-organized person or that I am rigid in how I do things. One reason why I value my time is that I have realised that there is so much I want to do in my life and that 24 hours a day is barely any time. And if I do not get organised in how I use my time, I may just end up in the last hours of my life full of regrets. I do not want to end up way, so the next best thing is to take charge of what I can! Over the years, I have developed different systems to take charge of my time. NOW, I have a list of to-dos on a daily basis. It doesn’t matter if it is the workday or a rest day. (I work on weekends because they are the best days for my coaching clients)The list helps me to stay on track to finish the tasks at hand. What I really like about lists is that it helps me to also filter out: urgent vs. important vs. needs to get done. By putting my to-dos into three categories, I have a broad overview of what I need to do. The list includes my personal to-dos, chores, work-related stuff, coaching sessions with clients, and so on. I have set days where I only do certain things, and the rest will be left to other assigned days. This way, I do not have to keep adjusting my mind space several times a day in order to get things done. I only have to focus on a few things and get one thing done at a stretch with no interruption whatsoever. For e.g., writing this article is done at an assigned time, and day. I am geared up to write every week at this particular time and at this particular desktop! The writing flows as my mind is prepared to do its thing. During my rest days, my list becomes somewhat loose. I may choose to take the dog out for an hour in the open field but I do not have a set time for that. I go more with the flow of my body and mind. I may choose to cook or just read, and again with no fixed time or agenda. So it is pretty restful with no stress whatsoever. So not everything needs to get done NOW or TODAY! It all comes down to planning your time, and the trick is not to fill your time with too much or too little. If you are starting to take charge of your time – adjustments are needed. In my experience working with clients, I have witnessed that there are two extremes here: there are people who will realise that they actually cannot squeeze that much in, in 24 hours. And there are those who realise that they can add a whole lot more to their 24 hours! It has been too much or too little. Isn’t this interesting? Sometimes people can nag us for not getting things done. I had a partner once who nagged at me for not immediately wanting to train my dog to be more consistent in a new behaviour. I told him, I am not choosing that battle today. Simply because I have had a full day of work, and this thing with the dog is going to take more work than I can put in during that short time and it was not something I wanted to address immediately. Plus it was not life-threatening or detrimental to anyone. So choose how you use your time wisely. Most importantly, remember it is not just about the time you use. It is all about energy management as well as the mental and emotional effort that plays a major role in how we use our time. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Shamala! Shamala Tan, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Shamala Tan is an author, spiritual entrepreneur, and healer. Her work focuses on transforming the lives of others on the spiritual, emotional, mental, and earthly levels. Shamala’s clients include small business owners, holistic practitioners as well as those seeking to find more significant meaning and value in life. Shamala offers laser coaching to her clients on a one-to-one basis or in a group environment, offline as well as online.