I enjoy teaching networking because it involves complex relationship building skills and requires a high degree of emotional intelligence. Rather than thinking of networking as trying to “get” something from others, it is, instead, a powerful way to make new business friends and expand your circle so that you can create a mutually-supportive community. At the heart of networking is …
How To Adopt the Attitude of Success Part II: Raise Your Energy in 7 Steps
My last blog post on how to adopt the attitude of success introduced the 6 different levels of energy– the different attitudes that you might have about your career– showing the thought that is associated with each level: Stress-Inducing Levels: Level 1: Worried Level 2: Frustrated Motivating Levels: Level 3: Managing Level 4: Service Level 5: Opportunity Level 6: Flow Here …
Top Picks from My Bookshelf: Inspiration on How To Create Success
As an inveterate life-long learner, I constantly read in order to get new ideas and refresh my learning. I still love books: e-books for convenience, hardback and paperbacks for marking up and filling with notes! And I love to share my resources with friends, colleagues, clients and students. If you are an arts entrepreneur or leader looking for some new inspiration …
Being in the Flow: The Start of Authentic Leadership
This past week, I attended the 2014 Opera America conference in San Francisco where I had the privilege of working with the 2014 Leadership Intensive participants. These 14 talented mid-career opera administrators from North America and Europe were selected to participate in a program that provides training and resources designed to “bolster their leadership capacity and advance their careers”. My …
Find Your Life Purpose in 4 Steps: Your Compass for Navigating Career Success
As someone who has experienced many career transitions, I know what it is like to feel at sea and unsettled by not knowing what direction to take your career. This feeling to “stuck” can happen at any stage of your career: in the early stages of your career when you are not sure which of the many options to follow. …
Career Planning for Music Entrepreneurs: Tapping Into Vision and Going for Plan A
The past two weeks, I have had a great time working with the future stars of concert music and talking a lot about how to create a successful career as a musician. First, I spent two days with the Fellows at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, located in the picture-perfect hills of Northwest Connecticut on a beautiful estate where the …
How Arts Leaders Manage Challenge: Change Your Perspective
Rising arts leaders face a host of challenges including too much to do with too little time, constant deadlines, not enough money, time or staff to carry out the great work, conflicting priorities and having to respond to numerous constituencies. In these situations, it’s easy to focus on the negatives. Yet happily, there are some very effective strategies to …
Managing Challenge for Arts Leaders: How to Empower Your Leadership by Changing The Situation
This week, I had the honor to work with the 14 participants in Opera America’s Leadership Intensive, a program dedicated to identifying and forming the future leaders of opera by providing them with the skills and contacts that can help them advance in their careers. My role was to teach the “soft” skills of leadership: how to empower yourself to lead …
Top 10 Public Speaking Tips for Arts Leaders and Music Entrepreneurs
What is the first thing that comes up for you when you think about addressing a group of people, whether it is a wedding toast, a speech to a live audience at a music performance or a presentation at your local charity? If the answer is “fear” or “dread”, you are not alone! Fear of public speaking or glossophobia is …
Living “in the Zone”: How Music Entrepreneurs Optimize Their Flow Experiences
Creative people know the feeling of being “in the zone”, the state of effortless concentration and joy where your skill level meets the challenge at hand, you know what you want to achieve and you are receiving the feedback on how well you are doing, time whizzes by because you are doing something that you love, and you are thus inspired …