How do you deal day-to-day with the  unprecedented velocity of change, challenge, competition, life/work/world stressors that can limit or erode your most important asset - you and your team?

Your comments count! Note your thoughts on building the DNA of happiness and success by using the comments section below. 

The pain of living and working at a pace that is faster than ever before, the burden of having to make a myriad of decisions before we even step out of bed is REAL. So is the unprecedented speed of change, challenge, competition, transitions, turning points, stumbling blocks and crises that many of us face on an ongoing basis.  Can we lessen this burden?  Yes, but the only way we can lessen this burden is to change our perspective, our map of the world by learning to win the race with wolves.

What is the race with wolves.  The race that even the best and brightest among us are running with 5 wolves: 1.  Corporate, business or personal change, discontinuous change or shock.  2.  Interpersonal problems and conflicts.  3.  Daunting life and work challenges and transitions.  4.  Personal stumbling blocks and turning points.  5. Health crises-physical and mental.

Winning the race with wolves, realizing our potential to not only survive but thrive at the frontier of change, or in the face of difficult, frustrating, even painful personal, professional or business transitions, turning points, stumbling blocks and crises is a powerful skill.

A skill I learned in training, through experience, and at the frontier of some very difficult changes, challenge, turning points, stumbling blocks and crises. My my career as CEO of a successful company, and a pretty horrible life event that threatened my life and career were all excellent teachers. Yes, the greatest teacher is often our most difficult battlefield.  And, paradoxically, more often than not the greatest opponent we face is our self.

Once our basic survival needs have been met we all share a common need to be loved, appreciated and valued. And, often this primal need to be loved is distorted, minimized or maximized by a basic lack of self confidence or self esteem that can cause us to over-achieve, under-achieve, or stay stuck in relationships or careers that are wrong for us and never allow us to truly feel self love from insight out.

Here are ten simple, but powerful steps to build the DNA of success and happiness in your life and your work:

1. Know and understand what you really want, and use it to build your self confidence and self esteem from inside out.  We are socialized to have goals and objectives, and even core beliefs and values that are often not our own.  The journey to really HEAR our own voice, and tap into our true purpose, get rid of false core beliefs and replace them with our true core beliefs and values is the road to building true potential, success and happiness.

2. Be the promise manager and CEO of your life. Use every opportunity to model promise management and leadership in your life and your work. Do what you say, come through with the promises you make, do not make a commitment that you cannot fulfill.  And, get rid of relationships with toxic people who cannot ever really be trusted, have values that you do not respect, and are perhaps emotionally, physically, sexually or financially abusive.

3. Develop the DNA of sustainable happiness and success. Get coached so that you can not only build but sustain the high emotional intelligence edge (your ability to understand and manage your emotions, understand the emotions of others, and use what you are feeling and thinking to inspire, engage and motivate the best in yourself and others), strengthen the life, leadership and communication strengths that can help you not only move forward but stay there with greater happiness and success.

4. Fail forward.  Build your resiliency quotient. Learn to use failures and challenges to build a positive sense of self. That’s right, practice getting out of the comfort zone daily. You are not right all the time, neither is any one else. Yes, while most of us were trained to succeed, reality is that the sheer velocity of change, challenge, competition and stressors makes always succeeding the pixie dust of frustration, workaholism, anxiety, brown out, addictions, ailments and burn out.

5. Take your ego out of the equation, stop personalizing. Focus on building good personal boundaries, developing your ability to stay focused on your true goals and objectives.  And, when you feel angry or frustrated ask yourself if your anger and frustration is caused by feeling invalidated by another person or a situation.  If the answer is yes, you are a hostage of your ego.  Get free. 

6. Cultivate humor, optimism, resiliency. Take time each day for a good laugh.  Yes, laugh it up.  The research is in and it is conclusive, laughter not only connects you with others but it also helps strengthen the immune system and helps you tap into your right brain-your creative, communicative side. Find a way to incorporate humor and laughter in your day.

7. Nurture and build ME time.  One of the most important things you can do is find a window of opportunity each day to have ME time.  Time that you spend with yourself, cultivating your relationship with YOURSELF.  Me time is time when you need to nurture yourself, feel lovable and do something that helps you recharge, reconfigure and reboot your mind, body and soul.

8. Build constructive discontent.  What?  Your ability to not only stay grounded in the heat of an argument or dispute, but to also feel unpleasant feelings and not be held hostage by them.  That’s right you can learn to develop your ability to feel an emotion and not be held hostage by it by learning to step back ride the wave, by becoming the participant observer and letting the emotion pass by just watching and refocusing on your true goals and objectives.
9. Stop reacting and start responding. No matter what happens you have the choice to be the cause or the effect.  When you react you are been the effect, when you respond you are being the cause.  Developing your ability to respond is a learned skill that grows when you build your EQ/EI edge, and develop critical competencies like constructive discontent.

10. Re-discover, nurture and cultivate your joy factor, your happiness set point.  Recapture the child and heart and start to re-discover what really makes you feel happy and fulfillment.  Once your survival needs have been met, material acquisitions are terrific but they cannot and will not create sustainable fulfillment.  Only you can work to re-discover what your joy factor, your happiness set point is by doing things that will help you nurture and sustain your love of self from inside out.

Business Week, in partnership with Interbrand, has just come out with its annual ranking of the 100 Best Global Brands.  check out the article.

Number 1 is Coca Cola taking the top spot for the seventh year running. Microsoft is No. 2. Google clocks in at No. 20. Here are some other top brands:

1. Nintendo — Daring to go after a new crowd

2. Audi — Hatching a plan and sticking to it

3. Hewlett-Packard — Challenging the status quo

4. Burberry — Mining the past to seize the future

5. Citibank – Staying big but going local

As we get more and more readers to this blog, it is my hope to start some interesting conversations. So here is an opening question for use to us to discuss:

What special these CEO's special?

What are leadership approaches are they using?

What is in their personal character that has helped them gain this level of success?

      Do use the comment section below to lend your suggestions. I'll add my comments as well.

Irene Rivka Becker, Chief Success Officer, Just Coach It-The 3Q Edge 

Described by clients as a coach, confidant, sounding board, trusted advisor, transformational catalyst; Irene is a passionate speaker, writer and coach whose personal and professional journey has taken her from dreams of being an academic, to becoming the first woman CEO of a steel company in Canada, doing the first consulting on entrepreneurship in Canada, helping to set up the first mentorship program for entrepreneurs in Canada, working internationally, financial consulting, professional fundraising, trailblazing work in the community at large... and to founding Just Coach It.  

A trailblazer, road warrior and rainmaker, Irene takes her clients and audiences on a journey that is riveting, impactful, inspiring and transformational to those who seek reach higher ground in their work, relationships, leadership and lives by achieving greater leadership, success and fulfillment in a whole new world of unprecedented change, challenges, fierce competition and extraordinary opportunities. 

Professional highlights include:      

-First woman CEO of a successful multi-million dollar steel company that achieved 90% market saturation in its area of specialization during her tenure (1984-1996) as President and CEO.     

-Working internationally in Canada, USA and Europe.   

-Publication of articles and delivery of workshops, keynotes and teleclasses on financial planning, empowerment, emotional intelligence, creativity, leadership, thought leadership, human potential and the joy factor in life/career.     

-A Canadian and American citizen, Irene was one of ten top Canadian business women and professionals chosen by the Federal Development Bank of Canada to set up the first mentorship program for business women in the country, "Step Up" in 1988. 

-Youngest vice president of the largest Anglophone business association for women, The Career Women's Network of Montreal in 1987.    

-In 1985 Irene also became first woman Rotarian in  Canada, Rotary Club of Montreal, and did the first consulting for Royal Bank of Canada on entrepreneurship. 

-Irene also did professional fundraising and has been actively involved on the boards of over 15 business, cultural and community organizations including UJA, YMCA, The Montreal Symphony Orchestra, The Montreal Board of Trade, Starlight Foundation, Enterprise Toronto, The Montreal Board of Trade, West Island Chamber of Commerce, American Chamber of Commerce in Canada.

-Financial planning consultant, workshop facilitator and speaker for Investors Group Financial Services of Canada, and published a number of articles on financial planning.

-2000 she was personally selected by Mark Victor Hanson as one of his first one hundred millionaire eagles.    

-Then coaching found Irene, or she found coaching.  One of the stars in her coaching certification program,  Irene launched Just Coach it in 2003, and subsequently did a certification in coaching emotional intelligence with a psychologist and expert in the field.   

-A woman with an unflinching dedication to social justice, human rights and servant leadership;  Irene led a successful campaign that helped to change the environmental laws in the Province of Quebec, and also won a landmark case for the rights of child victims of parentail abuse at the Ontario Court of appeal in 2003.

Co-author of the book, Exploring Coaching, www.exploringcoaching.com, Irene is dedicated to the highest standard of coaching excellence; and her unique 3Q coaching focus and methodology have helped clients all over the world achieve breakthrough results intheir work, relationship building, leadership and lives.  

Irene's cutting edge candor, enthusiasm, integrity, insight, knowledge, commitment and experience make her a riveting speaker, writer and coach who works dynamically with her audience and her clients on a profound and a transformational level. Visit the Get Inspired section of our website to read Irene's personal story.   

Irene welcomes your inquiries at irene@justcoachit.com of (1) 905-889-0940