We Are All Vibrators

I follow Marie Forleo because she's hilarious and shares great advice for people interested in becoming entrepreneurs and basically rocking out an awesome life. She hosts Q&A Tuesday's on Marie TV and every week she tackles a pertinent topic and/or question from her subscribers. I had fallen behind in watching her weekly videos but today I watched a few to catch up. Turns out that she recently posted on a topic related to the fact that our new McNair scholars will be presenting in just a few days - overcoming fear and shyness.

Click HERE to check out the short video. Scroll down to hit play.

Now, I realize that not everyone might feel as if they are shy, but I would venture to guess that most people (myself included) feel a bit of anxiety (or fear) before speaking in front of others. You have another practice session tomorrow - I invite you to check out this video by Marie to gather up three tips that just might help you reframe how you feel about presenting. The goal: be your best no matter what you are feeling.

Here's the gist:

• You are a vibrator. Your body is a mass of atoms. Stop associating your feelings (like nervousness or anxiety) with something bad. Just recognize that we all vibrate with different feelings and emotions - it's not good and it's not bad. By just experiencing what we are experiencing - without putting a label on it - we can simply experience it and move on. Easy peasy.

• Nickname your vibes. This one cracks me up but I think it can work. Instead of putting a name to your feelings like "I'm nervous" or "I'm scared" - call it something else - something light and funny. Josh uses the example of "shushi" - "I'm feeling shushi" - that's it! It reduces any negativity that might be associated with it and simply accepts that we are vibrating and feeling a bit of shushi at the moment. What name will you come up with?

• Ride it, don't hide it. Take any vibrations you might be experiencing when it comes to presenting and just see it as creative fuel - it's something that's going to propel you into action. Let that energy empower you instead of trying to downplay it. Try to speak authentically from whatever place you are finding yourself. Both Marie and Josh stress that if you allow yourself to feel whatever it is that you are feeling fully, it usually only lasts for seven to twelve seconds. That's all.

The bottom line - reframes can be really powerful in our lives.

Here's the challenge that Marie poses:

1. Tell us the sensation/emotion, that you struggle with most, that you would like to "overcome."
2. Describe the emotion in terms of vibrating atoms. What does it feel like?
3. Nickname your vibes and commit to riding it and not hiding it.

>>>>Be sure to click on this week's ACTIONABLE to complete the challenge.

Try this out when you practice your presentation this week and put it to use on Thursday at the symposium!

How Do You Want To Feel?

Welcome 2013! It's here. So, what do you want 2013 to look like for you? How do you want to feel? With the turn of the year and the start of a new semester, your outlook and approach to things can feel especially fresh.  It's always a good thing to reflect upon the past year or semester and think about the things that worked, things that didn't work, what might have been particularly inspiring to you, major accomplishments that you can build on, areas in your life that might need improvement.

For me, I'm pretty psyched that we got refunded and I can keep doing this amazing work with some amazing scholars.  Now that's an accomplishment!  I'm proud that I ran my first 5K at a 10-minute mile pace and started personal training - made me feel strong.  I'm inspired by my new thinking about my work - coaching work that is - and building on this with my upcoming interactions with all of you.

Time still escapes me though and this is an area in my life that I really want to work on this year.  I know that the key for me in being most productive - creatively, personally, professionally - is to rise early to create the time and space to do just that.  I also know that if I could institute better "sleep hygiene" that it would bring this goal into reach.  Going to bed around the same time and waking up around the same time (including weekends!) is essential but hard to do!  Ideally, I'm shooting for sleep between 9:30 and 10 and wake between 5 and 5:30.  Food is the other thing that needs work!  I'm still a sugar addict.  Late at night (and weekend!) sugar eating isn't doing me any favors and I know it.  Most of you will say - oh Lynn, you eat so well - well, that's because you usually aren't with me during nights and weekends...LOL!  I know that if I brought this into moderation, it would not only make me feel better, it would improve my sleep.  A win-win - yes?

So, how do I want to feel in the New Year?  My top-three at the moment: effortless, smart and in my zone.  I want to make things as easy as possible and stop dwelling on the "shoulda coulda woulda's" in my life.  I want to use my gifts and talents and stop second guessing myself.  I want to develop an inner and outer focus that will bring my creativity to light.  I want to feel at ease when I'm interfacing with others.  When I'm at ease, I feel alive and joyful.

How do you want to feel?  Share with us in the comments below!  Cheers to 2013!  :-)

BIG Picture Thinking

This time of year can become especially crazy for our scholars.  It can be CRAZY in a good way and sometimes CRAZY in a “not so” good way.  Each semester comes with its own set of challenges, evidenced by Maureen’s favorite quote, “it’s been a rough semester,” which always seems to surface round this time.  But that’s okay, it’s just part of the process, right?

• You’ve got paper deadlines.
• You’ve got quizzes and final exams.
• You probably have a few projects coming due (some might even be “group” oriented – yikes!)
• And, for a good number of you, you have your grad school applications.
• Did I forget to mention things like basic self-care (eat*sleep*move) and time for friends/family?
• Oh, yeah, you have those things too.

My goal for this post is to encourage BIG PICTURE THINKING amongst these challenges and never-ending to-do lists.  What I mean by this is that you should try to keep your eye (and mind) on the PRIZE.  This might mean doing better than you did last semester for your grades.  This might be crafting one really superb paper (from one of your classes) that you can use for a future writing sample.  For those applying to grad school – this means focusing your energy on getting yourself into grad school.

This can really be tough with everything going on, but carving out the time to craft and submit super high-quality applications is key.  So is visiting schools!  Several of you have already been “out and about” and that is great!  It takes a lot of time, effort and energy to make these visits happen. 

I want to simply remind you that making these visits happen = getting into your top-choice grad program with full funding.  Period.  It’s exactly the BIG PICTURE kind of thinking that I’m talking about. 

In order to visit your top-choice schools, it might mean that you have to “let some stuff" go by the wayside.  And, that’s okay.  It might be hard to not go “full out” in all of your classes as you normally would (wink, wink) – but doing the best you can given that you are traveling to your schools, and taking time off from classes to do so, will be okay in the long-run.

I think everyone knows that in “our collective CMU McNair experience” to date, the scholars that go and visit schools are the ones that get the best admission offers.  Hands down.

So, it pays to think about your “big picture” of getting yourself into a fully funded grad program and do what it takes to make that happen.  YOUR FUTURE WILL THANK YOU!