How consciously do you live your life?

This morning I left home early to go to meet a new client way on the other side of town (for those of you familiar with Hong Kong, I was going from Kowloon Tong to Taikoo Shing). Knowing my tendency to get lost, I budgeted an extra half hour for the trip as buffer.

I was just about to get on the minibus, when suddenly I realized I had unconsciously – unthinkingly – followed my normal route to go to the office. I had walked and waited 20 minutes for naught, as the stop for the minibus to my client’s office was right in front of my home. I ended up taking a (more expensive) taxi to the MTR subway station. Sound familiar?

After half an hour of walking and waiting for my usual (and this time, wrong) minibus, I ended up taking the taxi to the Kowloon Tong subway station, at 4 times the cost.

Too often, and in too many areas of our lives, this is how our brain works – research shows we program scripts that run automatically, allowing us to function on autopilot. This is great for many reasons, but not good for one important one – creating the awareness and space for us to improve.

How often do you blame circumstance or others for your predicament? And how often do you kick yourself for not thinking before you acted?

Often to make life smoother, it’s not simply luck but making the effort to think before you act. As I say in my Business Etiquette seminars, we learned it in kindergarten, and then struggle to implement it consistently all our lives. It affects our work and personal lives and relationships.

For me this morning, if I had simply taken a second to consciously think ahead and choose the best way to get to my clients’ office instead of walking to my usual bus stop on auto pilot (client’s office = other route, as opposed to leaving home for work = usual route), I would have saved myself a lot of trouble.

So how often do you make conscious choices in your daily life?  How do your unconscious choices impact you?

Making the Case for Image at Work – It’s Your Strategy, Not Your Clothes

As a Trainer whose focus is on Confidence and Professional Presence, when people find out what I do for a living, they usually think that I must really care about how I look. Meaning I spend hours on my hair and makeup, reading fashion magazines and shopping.

The reality? Time to do makeup every morning? 5-7 minutes. Hair styling? 1-2 minutes. Getting dressed? 5 minutes. Which is why this phrase in Mike Zimmerman’s interview of Dr. Mehmet Oz stuck in my mind: “[Dr. Oz] sets himself up before so he doesn’t have to think about [his comfort, etc.] during.”

The goal of packaging yourself, and the driving passion behind what I do, is to ‘set it up’ so you don’t have to think about it after. It’s ‘anti-vanity’. We all know that how you look, act and communicate weighs in just as much on how people perceive you as the quality of your work does. Countless studies have proved this, and anyone who doesn’t agree can refer to the case of Susan Boyle. And if you still don’t agree – yes, I understand where you’re coming from, because I was you.

Having grown up as ‘the studious one’, my ego was firmly entrenched in ‘hard work’ and ‘results’. On the basis of this I was promoted to a certain point, then my career came to a complete standstill. And still I stubbornly refused to give up my pinks and chiffon. Then one day I decided to stop complaining about my career and instead focus on what I could do to move my career forward - and along the way learned what a difference packaging makes. Not only did people take me more seriously, I gained a newfound sense of freedom in always being able to ‘forget about how I looked’ with confidence. Best of all, I found that you can be just as strategic about your personal packaging from design to daily execution just as you would any business project. Not only was it effective for my career, in the end I was able to noticeably simplify my life.

As an entrepreneur and mother of 2 kids, time is my most precious commodity. I’ve had the bad skin, the 20 pounds excess weight, the self-esteem issues. I’ve also been through the crazy shopaholic and severe budget challenged phases. And I’m finally at peace with it all because I’ve found a way to ‘set myself up before so I don’t have to think about during’, creating more time in my life to enjoy the things that matter the most – time with my family and friends, time for rest from work, and time to build our businesses with the goal of helping others do the same.

The Choice Between Being ‘Nice’ and Being ‘Assertive’

Last Friday I conducted a Professional Email Writing Seminar (I know it sounds boring, you’ll have to believe me, we had a lot of fun), which included a case study on how to respond when you are the client and your supplier screws up – royally. I thought I had it licked when I led them through my model response showing them how to cover everything in the original email – focus on solving the problem asap, identify responsibility and possible penalties – in a calm, professional manner. Suddenly, one person asked ”So do I still write my email reply so nicely if I’ve already yelled at the guy on the phone?”

People who know me will know that I am a recovering Passive Aggressive. I resisted for many years to assert myself in the workplace, which did nothing for my career. Which is why this article in the Huffington Post ”Nice Women Finish Last At Work, Study Says“ by Laura Stampler is so interesting.

The study showed that people who are ‘disagreeable’ earn more and are more likely to be promoted at work. Women earn less regardless, but there is still a nice premium to being disagreeable. The twist is that men are respected for their disagreeability, whereas “… the perception is that if a woman is agreeable, she gets taken advantage of, and if she is disagreeable, she’s considered a control freak or ‘the B-word.’”

Which got me thinking – my passion and career is supporting people to perform their best at work – so was I wrong to teach people to be ‘nice’ to others? Was what I learned at the Emily Post Institute based on a naive belief in a utopian workplace where people respected one another and had great careers being ‘nice’?

That’s when I realized – it’s not a choice between being ‘nice/doormat’ and being ‘aggressive/assertive’. There is no conflict between respect for others and respect for yourself. The Chinese saying “對事不對人“ describes it best, meaning you focus on the issue and not the person (personal attack). Most of us humans have an ego, large or small, and the ego craves respect. When you feel someone is attacking you, your ego hijacks your brain and goes into full-throttle self-defense. The problem with this at work, is that a brain in flight or fight mode is not operating at optimal level to resolve the issue at hand, regardless of who is in the position of power in the relationship.

So go ahead and choose respect, just remember that this respect includes respect not only for the other party, but respect for yourself – your own interests, your vision, your values. Do unto others AND yourself, what you would have others do unto you.

Wrapping up 2010 ~

As we approach the end of 2010, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of you who have supported Evie Consulting over the past year.

As many of you know, I am 9 months pregnant and expect to deliver my second child by the end of this month. Over the course of this pregnancy I surprised myself with my ability to deliver training: first in the midst of severe pregnancy nausea to fulfill commitments I made prior to getting pregnant, then at 7 months pregnant delivering 6 days of training in 8 days over 2 cities, and finally doing an average of one event a week over the last 7 weeks, wrapping up with the final event last Friday. All much to the chagrin of my doctor and husband!

This was only possible with the gift of faith from clients who believed in me and my work, and the support of our wonderful team at Evie Consulting. I am very thankful for the opportunity to work with all the people who participated in our training seminars – you are the reason we started Evie Consulting, and you inspired me as much as I hope I was able to inspire you. We are happy to share that we spoke to over 1300 people in the last 12 months!

I will be taking a short break to spend time with my new baby, and will be devoting myself to training again from around the April timeframe and already have plans to travel to China for training events at that time.

We will continue to focus on what we do best, which is helping people build true confidence from the inside out to support their professional and career success through training, coaching and consulting services for institutions and individuals. I look forward to seeing you in the new year!

7 Tips to Making Your Professional Image Journey a Success

This past week was a whirlwind of training where I broke my own record – training 6 out of 8 days, in 2 cities for 4 clients and over 500 people, all while 7 months pregnant!  I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to touch the lives of so many people and spread the ‘positive energy’ that is the vision behind what we do at Evie Consulting.

Peking University Strategic Interview Skills Seminar 2010

One of the topics I trained on this week was Professional Image and Presence, one of my favorite topics as it is not only a fun topic but also very practical – the feedback we get from our corporate and individual clients is they start to see the results they were looking for immediately following the training.

As someone who went through the same journey to increase my own confidence and professional presence years earlier, I have shared here some ways you can make your professional image journey a successful one.  I originally wrote this as a follow up message to those who attended our seminars, but thought it would be useful to share on our blog as well.

1. Make changes, big or small, one step at a time:  There may be several or many things you identified about your image that you could make even more professional.  Trying to do them all at once or too quickly can be stressful, and some people will end up feeling overwhelmed and give up in the process.  The key is to make changes one step at a time.

2. Make a list:  If you have taken one of our Confident Professional Presence seminars, try to find a quiet moment to write down everything you think you could do to present yourself more professionally or confidently while the training is still fresh in your mind.  This is more for brainstorming – it doesn’t mean you have to do every thing on your list.  The list is useful as an easy reminder of what else you could choose to do.  If you are the type of person who likes to plan, take it one step further by coming up with a timeline of when you aim to complete each item.

3. Celebrate your successes:  As you make your changes, acknowledge and celebrate each one!  It takes effort and courage to take responsibility for your own success, and professional image is one part of this journey.  Don’t worry about the changes you haven’t made, instead focus on how wonderful are each of the changes you have already implemented, so you can feel good about continuing your journey.

4. Identify your supporters:  Not everyone will understand what you are trying to achieve and may try to talk you out of it, i.e. “Who cares? What difference does it make?”.  When I consciously started to ‘dress for success’ people noticed and asked what I did differently, yet when I told them they all said that wasn’t necessary – they wanted the same results but without making any effort.  Remember – if you do what everyone else is doing, you will only get the same results as them.  To get different/better results, you need to do something different.  Have confidence in yourself and what you are trying to achieve, and get the support and validation you need from people who will understand what you are do and will be supportive.  It is your personal journey.

5. It’s not about beauty:  Not all of us were born with movie star looks.  The point is not to look beautiful or handsome, although that can certainly be a wonderful side benefit, but to look your own personal professional best.  Your image is one of the tools that can help you, or harm you, in the workplace and your career.  The great thing about this tool is that it is entirely under your control – use it strategically as you would any other tool to your advantage, to achieve the career success you want and deserve.  Make it easy for the people you interact with as part of your work  to see the confident professional you are inside, or aim to become, by consciously managing your outside image to reflect this.

6. It’s your choice:  No one is forcing you to change, and most people don’t like change because it takes effort, and can be scary.  Remember that this is entirely your decision, and you are the one who benefits (well, also your relationship partner and your company!).  Don’t expect a lot of compliments in the beginning, but you can be sure that if you implement changes steadily over a period of time, you will see a definite positive difference from where you started and will love it!

And last but not least…

7. Decide what action step you are going to take next, now! If you haven’t started already, don’t give yourself the chance to make excuses – there is always something you can easily do to get closer to your ideal professional image now.  So stop and take a minute now to think – identify something that you could easily do by the end of this week.  You can even tell your friend, colleague or boss what you have decided to do to increase the chance you will follow through.  So what are you waiting for?

The Top 10 Rules for an Effective Resume

These are our Top Ten Tips on writing an effective resume – all these are mistakes that we have seen too often in the thousands (and thousands!) of resumes we’ve seen over the years – things that we help our clients with to dramatically improve the success of their job applications. We shared the original list with participants at the UBS Career Forum we moderated in July.

Do these, and do them well, and you will be well on your way to getting the job you want. Good luck with your job search!

UBS LEADS Certification Program 2010

The Top 10 Rules for an Effective Resume

1. Write your resume with the end in mind – the ultimate goal is to be screened in for an interview. The more effort you make to tailor your resume to the job, the higher your success rate.
2. Always proofread to perfection for: punctuation, spelling, formatting consistency.
3. Present your name and contact information clearly so that it can be easily referenced.
4. Use a professional email address.
5. Make it easy for the reader by formatting your resume so that it can be scanned quickly for relevant information:
   - Include sufficient white space.
   - Make breaks between, and groupings of, similar info readily apparent.
6. Don’t waste the reader’s time – any and all information presented must have a purpose. To ensure relevance:
   - Ask yourself ‘why’ for each piece of info you decide to include or exclude.
   - Pepper your resume with keywords to help the reader link & match to the checklist (i.e. what the interviewer is looking for).
7. If you want your resume to be longer than one page, make sure your content truly warrants it – remember your audience and the recruitment process.
8. As appropriate, explain anything that may hurt your candidacy in the Cover Letter.
9. Remember anything you include (and exclude) on your resume is fair game for interviewers, so be very strategic.
10. Your resume is the first impression – the resume is what recruiters/hiring managers often see first. Triple check everything and get your friends and mentors to do a sanity check.

Welcome to the Evie Consulting blog

Evie Consulting helps people achieve their full career  potential. Our clients include corporations, schools, and individuals looking to gain the competitive edge they need in today’s business world. Our effective professional development solutions are specially designed to cultivate confidence and positive thinking, and include Consulting, Training and Coaching.

We’ll be using this space to share practical information, including stories and articles, that we hope will help inspire you in your own career path and personal development. We look forward to your comments and feedback, whether it be to share your opinion or your own personal experiences.