Play to Your Strengths: How to Find and Use Your Strengths to Create Success

Our culture is rampant with negativity.  From report cards to annual reviews at work to billboard advertising, we tend to hear what’s wrong with us, where we are weak and what we need to do in order to improve.  Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a society where everyone’s talents were recognized, validated, encouraged and admired? That’s why strengths are such a positive factor in creating success:  they tell you what is right with you.
Strengths are the tendencies and skills at which you naturally excel.  Strengths can be developed, deepened and even resuscitated after lying dormant for many years. 

My message to clients is to play to your strengths.  It is one of the keys to creating success in your life.

Know Your Core Values: Great Decisions vs. Difficult Decisions

Values are the core principles that run your life.  They are the key to your authentic self. One of the best ways to create success in your life is aligning your life with your top values and making decisions that honor those values. In my career development workshops, I introduce the concept of values so that my workshop participants can …

Celebrate Your Achievements and Get Over Your Perfectionism

Many high-achievers reach their goals, only to move on to the next one without pausing to reflect on their accomplishments.  Then they wonder why they do not derive satisfaction from their achievements. Often, the reason stems from perfectionism and the voice of your inner critic.Celebrate Your Achievements and Get Over Your Perfectionism

The Music Entrepreneur’s Personal Board of Directors Meets Again: Specific Ways to Get Support and Boost Your Career

A few months ago, I wrote about the first meeting of the personal board of directors of my friend and mentee, a brilliant, talented musician. This young music entrepreneur has assembled a personal board of directors with a wide range of experience: 

•    An internationally famous professional musician
•    A retired business executive
•    A retired media executive
•    Her boyfriend/life partner, also an early-stage professional musician
•    Me, a lawyer, life coach and former arts executive who knows a thing or two about creating career success in the music world

Whereas our first meeting was a general discussion of how our young musician could launch her career, this meeting has a very specific goal:  to provide feedback on her applications to university teaching positions.

Time Management for Music Entrepreneurs: Conquer Your “Overwhelm”

To be a successful musician—or indeed successful in any enterprise—time management and prioritization are essential skills.  Musicians are busy people! It is essential for them to manage their time AND their energy.  And often, things crop up that interfere with smooth time management and create obstacles to career success.  Read what time management challenges the students at the Yale School of Music are facing and how we went about solving them.

Get rid of your Crazymakers!

One of the biggest obstacles to success is having your life cluttered up with crazymakers-the people who sap your energy by asking for favors and never reciprocating, making and cancelling dates, making everything about them and not giving you what you need.  Read about how I got rid of my crazymaker!

Have a Dream…or Have Faith in Yourself Part I

A powerful way to create your authentic success is to have a dream and translate that dream into concrete goals.  Read the experience of several people as they figure out their dreams and make them happen.