Design Your Day

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Linda Yates

What would the perfect day look like? You have the power to design your day so that your energy is optimal throughout the entire day. One of the secrets to getting that power boost in the afternoon is to take a lunch hour.

You may be tempted to work through your lunch hour rather than taking a break. Managing your time is a skill everybody can learn and implement. It’s often the little things that make the biggest impact.

It may be tempting to keep your head down and not take any breaks. By designing your day with breaks, you will be more productive and energetic throughout the day and into the evening.

With mental and physical breaks, you give your mind time to regenerate. With that reboot, innovation will be easier. With innovation, anything is possible.

You are in control of how you spend your time. You get to make the choice.

Thanks for watching Linda’s tips. These tips will assist you in uncovering, realizing and accomplishing your potential. Sign up today for our FREE Newsletter @ www.LindaHYates.com.

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Linda H. Yates – The Image Energizer is a highly-sought Keynote Speaker, Executive Coach and Corporate Trainer. She has produced over 250 educational seminars on helping individuals and businesses uncover, realize and accomplish their goals. Host of The Executive Edge podcast and author of Beyond the Clothes and the audio course and workbook 6 Steps to ENERGIZE Your Personal Brand, Linda Yates believes that NOTHING is Impossible!

Kicking Email Time Management Blues

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Linda Yates

Do you feel overwhelmed with your email inbox? Perhaps you have experienced email time management blues. I have! Kicking these blues seems to be a journey rather than a one-time event.

Comments from friends such “Linda, only touch things once.” I know this deep down but putting it into practice is a little difficult from me. My inbox can get up to a 1,000 emails pretty quickly.

One of the practices that I am trying to implement is to NOT look at my email every few minutes. Putting my iphone aside and turning off Outlook when I’m working on other projects helps me cut the distraction of email.

I am a big believer in responding to all email. One of the values I employ is to be responsive to my clients. That is one of the ways I energize my image. Balancing being responsive and productive seems to be the catalyst to effective email time management.

Another trick is setting aside times in the day to deal with email. That one takes discipline. One of my latest practices has been to group emails that are non-essential and delete. Having email folders is a great way to keep organized. Filtering email is also a huge help. Now, if I could only figure out how to do that on my Macbook with Outlook…

I would love to hear your best practices to email time management.

Opportunity To Serve

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Linda Yates

Priorities sometimes shift. That would be why I haven’t had the opportunity to write a blog post for a couple of months. I did however have the opportunity to serve members of my faith and community for a 3-month period. This was totally voluntary and sacrifices were made.

In this experience and opportunity to serve I learned several things that I would like to share:

1. How you greet others on your team impacts your day. Each day that I was training tour guides for the LDS Fort Lauderdale Temple Open House new tour guides would come on each shift. I found that my attitude set the tone for the entire shift. It was critical to greet each guide with love and warmth. It may be a little thing to greet someone with a smile – but that may be the only smile they get the entire day.

2. Keeping a sense of humor. Throughout the weeks of serving I was outside in the mid afternoon sunshine. There were a couple of days that weather came in. One in particular we started experiencing thunder and lightning and was told by security to move out of the structures we were using as they weren’t grounded. This inconvenience of having to run to my car in the downpour of rain ruined a pair of shoes and freaked some of our team out. Rather than letting the emotion or fear take over keeping a sense of humor is critical to keep everyone in a positive mindset.

3. Enjoying the moment. Taking time away from my business was a sacrifice. It was also however an incredible life changing and more than likely once in a life experience. These tour guides that I trained provided tours to over 55,000 individuals in South Florida. It was an amazing experience. And now as I fondly look back I’m grateful for each amazing moment and the incredible people that I had the pleasure of working with.

4. Finding something bigger than myself. When we invest ourselves in causes for good we trigger a greatness that we can only imagine. Often times we may be hesitant to push our shoulder to the wheel in worthwhile efforts. Through this experience I gave really a drop of time in the far-reaching impact that the events created. Lessons learned will be guiding principles throughout my journey.

5. Body language of 12-18 year olds never lie. Having the opportunity to work with 1200 youth was a great study in furthering my research of what body language communicates. Their bodies speak louder than words could ever speak. It was evident when they were bored, uncomfortable or having a great time.

These lessons learned can be applied to business and personal activities. When given the opportunity to serve I may go in the experience thinking that I will be giving such great value but the amazing result is how much more I gain.

Serving is one of the best kept secrets to having a happy and prosperous life!

Positivity

Posted on March 25, 2014 by Linda Yates

If you want more positivity in your life then you can achieve that goal today by turning off the news! Yes it’s good to be informed, but if you get distracted from achieving your winning edge then avoiding the headlines is your key to success.

I realized this years ago. I was a news junkie. What I began to realize though is it was impacting my attitude and profitability. By turning off the news and focusing on positivity I am able to stay clear in my mind and heart. Light attracts light. Just as avoiding negative individuals paves the way to untapped potential. Positive individuals on the other hand should be your quest.

You always have a choice to seek out positivity or negativity. Think about today how negativity has thwarted your growth. Staying in a winning edge mindset will open your world of possibilities without end.

Try it today – turn off the news and let positivity flow freely into your life!

Post by Linda H. Yates Coaching & Consulting Group.

Thanks for watching Linda’s tips. These tips will assist you in uncovering, realizing and accomplishing your potential. Sign up today for our FREE Newsletter. www.LHYatesconsulting.com

Getting your hands dirty

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Linda Yates

In order to be an effective leader, you need to be willing to get your hands dirty. Jordan Zimmerman in his book Leading Fearlessly states “… I don’t have to master every skill; I just need to understand them.”

In leading your team, they need to know your expectations. They need to see that you are not above “getting your hands dirty” if needed to accomplish what is expected. Whatever it takes is the attitude of the top leaders. The top leader isn’t always top management.

Years ago, I worked for a CEO in a small business with 4 employees. This CEO was going through a business transition. While going through this stressful time, he hurt his back. Because I saw his vision for the company and believed in it – I sacrificed my will and put aside the attitude of “that’s not in my job description” and went to work in creating as much value as I possibly could. Still to this day, he credits me with the praise that I was the one who kept his business going.

I knew a job had to be done – the company needed my energy, devotion and loyalty. It was rewarding to put aside my pride and add deep lasting value. A true leader will recognize your sacrifice. A true leader is willing to sacrifice all to reach a goal.

You can lead today in whatever situation you are in. Put aside pride and go to work. You will be respected and more opportunities will come your way. An effective leader understands that when things are going great – it took teamwork to drive success and the leader credits the team. You have the power within you to achieve more than you every thought possible.

Lead out and on!

Head Trash

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Linda Yates

Head Trash – You can eliminate it!

This past week I was networking with a gentleman that admitted he was nervous to get on stage and present to a group of donors and CEOs of major companies in the area. He mentioned that he wasn’t usually nervous to speak in front of groups that were half the size. As he was speaking I was able to change his state by telling him this was head trash.

What are you allowing in your head? You have more power than you realize in controlling your thoughts and reactions to those thoughts. Here are some keys to make certain you are eliminating head trash:

1. Not buying into negative thinking – when you start thinking that you can’t; turn that thought around to “what if” – what if is a possibility statement. Success could be on the other side of that question. My brother shared a great quote he saw “You Can If You will.”

2. Reflect on a past success – when you begin to doubt, go back into your memory bank to a success you experienced. Think about what was going on in your head and copy those feelings and emotions.

3. Take the anxiety and turn it into excitement – rather than stamping out the fear use it to power through the head trash.

We are capable of more than we realize. Just as an athlete trains to make a touchdown or win a race, it all starts in our head. Don’t let head trash stop you from achieving your goals and experiencing opportunities that could move you to the next level. Your winning edge is just a thought away.

Linda’s Tips: What is your body language saying?

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Linda Yates

What is your body saying about you? When you are conversing with others does your body language illustrate openness or is your body putting off negative closed signals? The way we use our body when trying to persuade someone to our ideas is critical to success.

As mentioned earlier, 93% of communication is non-verbal. 58% is represented by how we use our body to communicate. The way you hold your body also impacts how you view yourself. If you want to appear and FEEL more confident start watching your personal body language as you interact with others throughout your day.

You can increase your effectiveness as a leader by being aware of the non verbals you project. By being aware of what your body language is saying to others will be the key to unlock your next level to success. Are your ready to turn the key?

Thanks for watching Linda’s tips. These tips will assist you in uncovering, realizing and accomplishing your potential. Sign up today for our FREE Newsletter. www.LindaHYates.com.

Use Fear as Energy

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Linda Yates

Have you ever been afraid to do something? I have. Fear can be a de-motivating factor that can thwart potential. We can turn fear around by facing it and using it as an energy to move forward. Understanding what fear is and utilizing it’s energy to be motivated can assist in uncovering, realize and accomplishing more than we ever thought possible.

Finding inspiration from others who have conquer a fear that you have is one way to move forward with your goals and objectives. Sometimes taking a step into the dark is where progress happens – taking that leap of faith will launch you to realizing your potential.

Thanks for watching Linda’s tips. These tips will assist you in uncovering, realizing and accomplishing your potential. Sign up today for our FREE Newsletter. www.lhyatesconsulting.com

Quashing Self Doubt

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Linda Yates

Have you ever had a dream or a goal but self doubt held you back? I have been thinking a lot about this lately. One of my coaching clients delivered a speech on “Starve the Doubts” recently. As we working on this speech, he was struggling with self doubts about competing in an upcoming speech competition. The very topic was starting to trip him up.

I have found that when I start doubting myself that is the time to push past my comfort zone. Magic happens when you push the zone. If we let self doubt dictate how we run our business or live our life we are short changing our opportunity for success. It is in the journey that success is realize. Quash self doubt and you will be tapping into your winning edge.

The next time you start to doubt yourself – push on, push through and success will be yours.

Linda’s Tip: To Do List

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Linda Yates

Last week Linda shared a couple tips on getting a good night’s rest. One of those tips was to create a master to do list. By creating a master to do list you are creating mental space in order to think more clearly. This to do list tip has created a higher percentage of productivity and is a great time management tool. List everything out on your to do list, whether it’s in your business or personal life will allow you to methodically achieve more than you ever thought possible.