To all of you that have left the encour­ag­ing sup­port­ive comments,

“Thank You.”

When I launched Strengthen the Har­mony between Your Life, Fam­ily and Work my instinct and con­sult­ing work with busi­nesses and non­profit orga­ni­za­tions told me there was a need for peo­ple to look at their life from a holis­tic per­spec­tive.  But I had no idea if this would res­onate with read­ers.  Thank you so much for your encourge­ment.  I will con­tinue to write from my heart and hope that the top­ics res­onate with you.

Please feel free to sug­gest ideas for top­ics from your own life.

Thanks again for your sup­port­ive comments

The hol­i­days are almost upon us.  Many of us will be spend­ing time with fam­ily.  Some of us look for­ward to that and oth­ers of us dread it.

Think about your fam­ily life for a moment. If you are like most peo­ple, there are a vari­ety of dynam­ics that sur­round your fam­ily.   You get along, you don’t get along.  You laugh and have fun and you storm and yell.  You talk to each other and you don’t talk to each other.  You love your sib­lings, but you can’t wait to go home and get away from them.  You love your par­ents, but they drive you nuts.  You love your own kids, but you can’t stand them at times and you can’t wait for them to grow up and leave home. (OK,  I can hear some of you chuck­ling and nod­ding your heads, espe­cially if you have teenagers.)

So what can you draw upon when con­flicts arise and you need to save your san­ity?  You can draw upon your core val­ues.  Your core val­ues are your foun­da­tion.  They are your guid­ing prin­ci­ples.  And if they are truly your core val­ues, they are very slow to change.  They pro­vide you with con­stancy and clear direc­tion.  So when con­flict arises in your fam­ily, get clear on your own core val­ues and then assess whether your fam­ily — includ­ing your chil­dren — know and under­stand your core values.

Hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with your chil­dren about your core val­ues will help them to under­stand the rea­sons for rules, guide­lines and your con­cern about accept­able and unac­cept­able behavior.

And as you get clar­ity of your core val­ues, check them to deter­mine if there is one that allows for respect and tol­er­ance.  A num­ber of fam­ily issues are caused by people’s inabil­ity to respect dif­fer­ences and allow a fam­ily mem­ber to be dif­fer­ent than the fam­ily norm.

Reg­is­ter for a Strengthen the Har­mony work­shop to bring more har­mony into your life and family.

As I lis­ten to the mul­ti­tude of news sto­ries about one of the world’s best golfers crash­ing his vehi­cle in the early morn­ing hours and as the  details unfold about his pri­vate life, I am sad­dened for him, his wife and fam­ily and for us.  This is just one more high pro­file celebrity who has momen­tar­ily self-destructed. It is one more high pro­file per­son who in moments of indis­cre­tion has jeop­ar­dized his career and his fam­ily life.

Then I step back and try to gain per­spec­tive and real­ize we all have sim­i­lar vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.  We all can stray from our paths, our fam­i­lies and our beliefs.

So what is it that enables us to stay true to our core val­ues?  What is it that enable us once we fal­ter to get back on track?

I don’t have the answer to that. But I do know the clearer you are about your core val­ues, the harder it is to ignore them.  Clar­ity brings focus and strength.  In your per­sonal life and in your busi­ness life.

To get clar­ity about your core val­ues, check out the Core  Val­ues eCourse for a sim­ple resource to guide you in clar­i­fy­ing your core values.

To strengthen the har­mony in your life, reg­is­ter for a Strengthen the Har­mony workshop.

Today is Thanks­giv­ing.  A day for giv­ing thanks, enjoy­ing fam­ily, friends, good food and football.

So what are you truly thank­ful for?  Do you really rec­og­nize the bless­ings in your life even when your life seems to be out-of-control?  Or is it out-of-control because you are not rec­og­niz­ing the bless­ings in your life?

Do you keep a grat­i­tude jour­nal?  Writ­ing down what you are grate­ful for every day is one way to keep “Thanks­giv­ing” and your bless­ings in mind every day of the year.  I’ve used this tip and it is amaz­ing how it shifts my atti­tude and what it brings into my life.  (like the courage to launch Strengthen the Har­mony.)  It doesn’t have to be a “big deal” type of jour­nal.  Mine is just a small book (with a beau­ti­ful cover).  It takes me 3 — 5 min­utes to write a list of what I am thank­ful for.  I just use a sim­ple for­mat.  “Today I am thank­ful for.….  It is amaz­ing when you reflect on your day, the things that are bless­ings -  my hus­band who made cof­fee for me that day,  the purr of my black cat when she sits on my lap, the enthu­si­as­tic wel­come from our Great Danes when I come home, the email mes­sage from a friend, the client who sent a pay­ment, a phone con­ver­sa­tion with my mom, the hugs from my grand­chil­dren, the phone call from my daugh­ter or son, the flow­ers in my gar­dens, the new snow on the ground.   My Grat­i­tude Jour­nal helps me shift my focus to “what is.”

Give it a try.  I write long hand, but maybe the com­puter is a bet­ter option for you.  Or record it on your cell phone. Or on your knees pray­ing.  Just use what­ever method works best for you.

Happy Thanks­giv­ing.  And I am truly grate­ful for this blog and the oppor­tu­nity to chat with all of you!

If you are an employee, do you know the core val­ues of the busi­ness or orga­ni­za­tion that you work for?  Do you know the core val­ues of your super­vi­sor?  Of your colleagues?

If you are a busi­ness owner, have you clearly iden­ti­fied the core val­ues of your busi­ness? Have you artic­u­lated them to your employ­ees? And do you insist that the com­pany cul­ture and code of behav­ior reflect those values?

Core val­ues help you get to the root cause of dis­agree­ments and issues that cause stress, con­flict and anx­i­ety in the work­place.  Core val­ues address the root cause instead of solv­ing a symptom.

In my strat­egy con­sult­ing busi­ness, I see lots of peo­ple in orga­ni­za­tions solv­ing symp­toms instead of resolv­ing root causes. The trou­ble with solv­ing a symp­tom is another symp­tom will just sur­face to take its place because the root cause has not been addressed.  This causes more time to be spent on solv­ing another symp­tom tak­ing time away from work­ing on the work of the orga­ni­za­tion.  It also causes more stress, anx­i­ety and dis­sat­is­fac­tion in the work­place. Who needs that?

So if you are feel­ing stress, anx­i­ety or dis­sat­is­fac­tion in the work­place, check in with your core values.

Here’s a lit­tle activ­ity to help you deter­mine if you core val­ues are a good fit with your employer’s.  On a piece of paper, 1.write down your core val­ues. (See post in Your Life.)  2. Write down exam­ples of how each core value is “drawn into play” in your work­place.  3. Write the core val­ues of your employer.  (If you don’t know the core val­ues, check if any are pub­lished on the company’s web­site.  Or ask some­one who might know.)  Then com­pare your core val­ues to the those of the orga­ni­za­tion.  Are they aligned? Are there areas of conflict?

Know­ing if there is align­ment or dif­fer­ences will help you deter­mine if you need to take action to make changes — In your own life or in your workplace.

And if you need a resource to help you clar­ify your core val­ues, check out the Core Val­ues eCourse.  It is a good tool to get you started.

Visit www.StrengthenTheHarmony.com to reg­is­ter for a webi­nar. Or give the Gift of Webi­nar to some­one you care about.

Young mom car­ry­ing son

Core val­ues… we all have them, whether we acknowl­edge them or not.  So what are yours?  Can you eas­ily tell some­one what your core val­ues are?  Do you design your life around your core val­ues?  Do you live your core values?

Most of us would be able to say “Of course, I know my core val­ues.”  If that is true, then try writ­ing them down.  I think you will dis­cover that when you try to write your core val­ues, it is much harder than expected.  Try also writ­ing how a spe­cific core value man­i­fests in your daily life.  This is a great exer­cise.  How can we expect our chil­dren, spouses, rel­a­tives, employ­ers and friends to “get us” if we are not clear in our own minds about the guid­ing prin­ci­ples we draw upon to make deci­sions.  Think of how much eas­ier it would be to get your kids to under­stand your rules, if they knew your core val­ues.  Think how much eas­ier it would be to inter­act with your spouse or best friend if they knew your core val­ues.  This could be a great con­ver­sa­tion starter.

If you are look­ing for a resource to help you clar­ify your core val­ues, check out the Core Val­ues eCourse.  It is a good tool to get you started.

To add more har­mony to your life, reg­is­ter for a  Strengthen the Har­mony webinar.

Friends.  What more can I say.  Friends can be a strong sup­port sys­tem to help you strengthen the har­mony in your life, your fam­ily and your work.  Who else will lis­ten to you as you vent, as you try to work your way through what you are deal­ing with, as your shed your tears or help you cel­e­brate when you over­come your obstacles.

The Bag Ladies Ball

I have two dear friends who just recently helped me restore some har­mony to my per­sonal per­spec­tive and work life.  We don’t live near to each other.  We don’t talk by phone often.  We might email once in awhile.  We all have our own busy lives filled with work, fam­i­lies, friends and com­mu­nity.  But we have a strong friend­ship.  We met as col­leagues over 20 years ago.  We worked for dif­fer­ent employ­ers, but served on a state-wide asso­ci­a­tion board together for a num­ber of years.  When we went dif­fer­ent ways, we dis­cov­ered we missed see­ing each other and decided that we didn’t need con­fer­ences or meet­ings as the rea­son to get together.  So we  started get­ting together for one “overnight” a year.  That has con­tin­ued for  over 25 years.  We are still get­ting together for an “overnight.”  Some­times we can even make it two nights.  Some­times we can make it twice a year.  We have dubbed our get-together the “Bag Ladies Ball.”  (At some point in our lives, we were each close to being a bag lady.  And we also show up for our get-togethers with things stuffed in a vari­ety of bags.)  Over the years we have sup­ported each other through job changes, job losses, chil­dren being teenagers, chil­dren grow­ing up and leav­ing home, chil­dren mov­ing out of state, divorce, death of par­ents and loved ones and cel­e­brated births, new begin­nings, pas­sages into dif­fer­ent stages of life and just the glo­ri­ous­ness of being still con­nected to one another.

These two friends just helped me work through a slump I was in try­ing to pull the next few pieces of my busi­ness together.  One of them is await­ing the birth of her first grand­chil­dren.  (Yes, its twins.)  The other has recently retired after a very active career and is now tak­ing time to assess and deter­mine what she wants to jump into next.

Friends!  True friends are rare.

How do you and your friends sup­port each other?  How do you deal with your dif­fer­ences?  (even the dear­est of friends can drive each other crazy once in a while.)  How do your friends help you strengthen the har­mony in your life, fam­ily and work?

As I think about strength­en­ing the har­mony in my life (and in help­ing oth­ers) one of the first things that comes to mind is the mul­ti­ple “hats” we all wear.

In my life, I wear the hat of spouse, mother, grand­mother (of eight and it is the absolute blast), daugh­ter, sis­ter, busi­ness owner, friend, gar­dener, Great Dane and cat care­giver, bird feeder, vol­un­teer and per­pet­ual learner.  Try­ing to fill the role of each of these can be a daunt­ing task.  Main­tain­ing bal­ance across all of them is dif­fi­cult if not impossible.

The Jug­gling Act

If I try to bal­ance all of them, I find myself becom­ing mediocre at some.  Medi­oc­rity across all the roles does not work for me.   It only causes more stress.  What I’ve learned is there is an ebb and flow to the level of my involve­ment in all these roles.  When I have to focus on cer­tain roles, I  remind myself it is OK to put oth­ers “hats” on the shelf for a bit.  (Obvi­ously, you can­not do this with your chil­dren, although you may like to.)  I’ve also learned that there are ways that I can incor­po­rate just a bit of time in my day for cer­tain roles like life-long learner.  I’ve learned to make use of drive time to lis­ten to audio tapes of things that inter­est me.  My car has a trav­el­ing library of audio tapes that I have to move when I put on my “grandma hat” and trade car seats for audio tapes.  I fill my iPod with edu­ca­tional pro­grams, sub­lim­i­nal tapes and med­i­ta­tion pro­grams and lis­ten at night while falling asleep or while I’m trav­el­ing on a air­plane, or walk­ing the dog.

What “hats” do you wear?.  How do you man­age your “hats?’  What tips or tricks have you learned that could help oth­ers?  Please share your thoughts so we all can learn.

Well, the cat is out of the bag.  I know I should be pro­ject­ing this air of pure con­fi­dence, but I think it is impor­tant for the integrity of this blog to reflect what I am actu­ally feel­ing.  Trep­i­da­tion.  Excite­ment.  Amaze­ment that I’ve got­ten this far.

Cross­ing my fingers

Ques­tion­ing why I am not fur­ther. And much, much more. And cross­ing my fingers.

You see, I’m no dif­fer­ent than every­one else who is work­ing on achiev­ing their goals, build­ing the life they desire, and fam­ily har­mony. We all want to reach our goals.  We all want to have the life we dream about.  But I know from my own life that some­times it just feels like “I’m the only one strug­gling with this.” or “Why is this so hard?  Every­one else seems to get it so eas­ily.” or ” How come I am not get­ting what I want as fast as oth­ers get what they want? or “Why do fam­ily or work needs keep tak­ing pri­or­ity over what I want to accomplish?”

Being Authen­tic is Important

I want this blog to be authen­tic and a place where read­ers can find resources that help them on their jour­ney to strength­en­ing the har­mony in their life, fam­ily and work.

You see, I believe that the peo­ple we believe are suc­cess­ful — busi­ness owner, celebri­ties, hap­pily mar­ried folks, etc.  — have all expe­ri­enced their own per­sonal demons and dif­fi­cult times.  They just stuck with it and fig­ured out how to get through and get bet­ter.  That is what this blog is all about.  Help­ing you to get through what­ever is hold­ing you back and get bet­ter at strength­en­ing the har­mony in your life, fam­ily and work.

I don’t know where this jour­ney is tak­ing me.  I only know that I was given the idea — some­how it floated into my head and at least I was wise enough to “hear it.”  Up until now, I have been reluc­tant to truly embrace it and take action to take the idea to the world.

But now I am tak­ing action.  I hope “the world” will wel­come the idea and use the resources to take action in their own lives.

The topic of my sec­ond post (Yea!!  Feel­ing really expe­ri­enced now…) is to explain the pur­pose of this blog.

The  pur­pose  of this blog (StrengthenTheHarmonyBlog.com) is to

Strengthen the Har­mony Workbook

pro­vide arti­cles, resources and of course com­ments from the read­ers about top­ics and ideas that strengthen the har­mony in your life, fam­ily and work.

We all have many things that can cause stress in our lives.  It could be our kids, aging par­ents, work­loads that are increas­ing, finances, rela­tion­ships with our spouse, per­sonal goals that seem to always be out of reach or put on the back burner.  It could be try­ing to revamp our lifestyle to be health­ier or try­ing to learn a new skill (like blog­ging) or set­tling into or out of a job.

Any one of these things can add stress to our life.  Any one of these things can cause us to lose focus. Any one of these things can be the last straw that sends us over the edge. That’s why I finally took the leap.  I finally decided it was time that I put this idea out there.

So what you will find on this blog are arti­cles, ideas, tips and even humor to help you strengthen the har­mony in your life, fam­ily and work. I don’t have the answers.  But I do believe that as we share our thoughts, ideas and sup­port one another, we will dis­cover and uncover answers that will help us strengthen the har­mony in our lives.

I know I sure need more har­mony — espe­cially in the finan­cial area.  Devel­op­ing StrengthenTheHarmony.com, ShopliftingIsStealing.com, Whalen.com and ItStartsWithUs.com has def­i­nitely drained my resources.

I  am cer­tain that by pro­vid­ing qual­ity infor­ma­tion and serv­ing oth­ers, it will be replen­ished.  I’m still look­ing for­ward to the adventure.