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Are you feeling tired of having to be on a treadmill towards your success and continuing to go after results and milestones, and it's still never really good enough?  Today, I'm sharing about stopping measuring your life according to your success. This was something I had to learn about many years ago as a recovering perfectionist and as someone who's highly driven and A-type. Maybe you can relate. It was always about…
But I often felt tired, unfulfilled, and empty. It's really sad I felt that way even though I often achieved what I wanted when I was younger…
I'm not saying that to brag. I'm sharing the pressure. I had the feeling of, “You have to do these things.” There was no doubt from others I’d perform and no discussion I'd be going to university. I continued in my life with goal after goal and result after result and asking myself, “Can I be the best at everything?” The greatest gift I received from my first coach was her helping me see that I was measuring life according to success when she introduced me to the wheel of life, which is a professional coaching tool. It is now a nonnegotiable, something that I go through every quarter, and then I take my clients through as well. Switching from measuring your life according to success to measuring life according to your satisfaction was a complete game changer for me.  I hope that if you haven't already heard of it, you go and do it or you reach out to me so that we can do it together. When you measure your life according to success, you will always be chasing success. Because the moment you achieve success, you probably won't fully celebrate it. You'll just look for the next goal or the next piece of success. Success is fleeting because…
Everything is a moment in time. What happens all the other days? Well, if you measure your life according to your satisfaction, then you can have success, not just when you're having the success, not just the moment you decided, but you can have happiness now, you can have happiness later, and you can have happiness every single day on the way to success. Recently, I spoke at the LEAP Conference put on by the Vancouver Regional Construction Association (VRCA) and Canadian Construction Women (CCW). They hosted this event, and I asked the audience, “Do you want to have happiness now or happiness later?” People were like, “Oh, I kind of want both?” Yes, it's like in construction. If you said to a homeowner or a soon-to-be homeowner whose house you're building your house, “Hey, do you want to have floors or ceilings?” They’d answer, “Don’t I want both and walls in between?” You do, right? You want success now and happiness now. You want happiness every single day and you want happiness and success on the day you feel like you're successful. But what's happening is we get into the success trap, where we're striving and pushing and working harder and ignoring our intuition, our self-awareness, what we want, and that inner voice. We just keep pushing it, pushing it down, pushing down, pushing it down because society is telling us these are the things that you want:
It is friggin’ tiring. Doesn't it tire you out just thinking about all of that? Yes! I have been a victim of that and so have my clients, and I see this in women in my audiences. Have you been as well? The Solution The simple solution is to stop measuring life according to success, get out of that success trap, and instead measure life according to your satisfaction. Right? A life built on satisfaction is happier, more full of energy, more full of confidence for yourself, there is more joy, there is more space, and you get to really honour the things that matter most to you. Because that's the problem. We're honouring things that matter to society. But really, that's society's agenda. It's not your agenda. If you're not even looking out for you, who is? Wrapping Up I encourage you to reach out to me. Let's do my Wheel of Life because there are extra areas in mine, which means extra opportunities for more satisfaction in life. There's a very specific way that I take my clients through.  The benefit of it is in the end, it's going to give you a 360 view of where you are in your life in your satisfaction. It's a game changer in the way that we use it to ask, “Where do we want to be?” Not let's look at the sadness of the low numbers now, but where do we want to be and let's use that to paint the picture about what life can look like. Some opportunities for you We had our 1st call for authors for the next book in the Dynamic Women® series. We had Success Secrets, Confidence Secrets, Trailblazer Secrets, and now Leadership Secrets. If you feel like you have something to share there, please apply here. Another opportunity is the She’s Goaled Program 2.0. In that, we’ll use the wheel of life and we're going to be helping you use that as a speed course to reach your goals with coaching masterminding, group support, connection with others. Every single month you’ll be able to reach your goals that much faster and feel much more satisfied in life. Satisfaction equals happiness, energy and resonance PLUS feeling proud, contentment and joy of being where you know you want to be. If you're still struggling around striving for success, let me know. If you want more success, but more ease reach out. You can comment or email me [email protected]. If you don’t want to be tired and worn out anymore, you can have success and happiness without having to give of yourself so fully and intensely. You get to take a step back and really decide what works best for you and live a life that has more space, more joy, and more time for you. Read my other blogs:
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Have you felt the power of other people cheering for you? Have you also felt the disadvantage and the annoyance of people competing with you? Today, I’ll talk to you about five ways you can cheerlead other women rather than compete. A little background story What brought this topic on was my latest blog where I talked about the things I do after an event.  I've been sitting in this fun place of doing a great keynote and getting a lot of accolades. Obviously, I want the clients to be happy. But the ones that impacted me the most were from other speakers and the other women who are my peers. Having them cheerlead for me is really meaningful. I've been in a lot of situations in my life, where people have been intimidated by me. People have felt the need to compete. They maybe went into that place of being jealous and tried to cut me down. Do you know what I found? The more we cheerlead for each other, the more room there is for everyone to succeed, not just a few, but for everyone to succeed. I've got five things that you can do to cheerlead more. #1: Acknowledgments Acknowledging someone else. You can do a simple acknowledgment in four or five words. This is something I often talk about and teach in my programs. Basically, “You are a/an” plus an adjective and then the title. For example:
That can be professional. It can also be around things more personal or around who they're being. For example:
We can go through all these different adjectives, all these different titles - you have many options. The key thing is, that you say nothing after. You’re acknowledging the person for who they're being, not telling them the exact situation or thing they did to get the acknowlegement. It's really impactful when you just say the five words or you change “You are” to “You're” and then it becomes four words. We're starved for acknowledgment in society because everything is about competition. Everything is asking us, “Are you good enough?” The number one limiting belief all rolls down to “You are not good enough” or “I'm not good enough.” To combat that, acknowledgments have such power.  These acknowledgments in advance and after are profound. I've been receiving these different acknowledgments on LinkedIn, on social media, on my posts, on other people's posts, and where they tagged me in them sharing what they took away from my talk, or how well I did. I've been receiving them in emails, and just verbally people saying them to me, and I'll tell you, you can never hear it enough. If you think, “I'm not going to go up to the speaker. They've already heard it 20 times from the people who talked to them before me,” still say it. You might say in the bathroom when you see them and walking down the hallway, in an email later, on LinkedIn, writing them a recommendation, whatever it may be, don't miss the opportunity to acknowledge them. #2: Get photos together with the other people That's something I'm very grateful for Michelle Diamond, who did all my photos on the day and does all my photos for my business. When she was at the event, she said, “Let's get photos with the other speakers.” It's funny because a lot of times I get photos with maybe the organizers, the person who put on the event, the hosts, the sponsors, and people who just want a photo together with me, people who bought my book and such.  But getting photos together with other people shows that you're cheering them on, and you want to collaborate, or you want to just acknowledge and not be in competition with them. Get the photo and then post it on social media, right? That's cool to do to show, “Hey, this person did awesome, and here we are in a photo.” If you find yourself entering a room, and you're intimidated by someone, or you feel like “Oh, she does the same thing I do.” Why not chat? Then say, “Hey, let's get a photo together.” It could be a selfie or someone else could take the photo, and then just tag them on social and be like, “Hey, great meeting you.” Super simple to do. #3: Connect on social media Since with the photo you have the opportunity to tag them, you can also friend them, be a connection on LinkedIn, whatever it is. Don’t feel like, “Oh, we can't be friends on social because we do the same thing”. We’re all unique and therefore not in competition. Different people hire based on their preferences. That's how wild it is in the different industries with customers. It might be like:
There are so many different reasons. There are no two people who are the same. Just like your fingerprint. Everyone is unique. Connect on social so that you can be in each other's lives. If you do feel that you're triggered by what they're doing because you're jealous or such, really check in with that. Get some coaching on that so that you understand…
Then you can get beyond it. What I found is a lot of times with people I'm jealous of, it's because I'm not moving forward in that area of life, and I wish I was like they were. Or I'm triggered by them because they probably have a quality that I have that I'm either not turning up enough or I feel like, “I could do better by turning it down a little bit.” You're connecting on social so that you can cheer each other on in the future. #4: Liking and commenting on their posts How do you cheer each other on? After you connect on social, you can like their posts and comment on their posts. That's where you can cheer them on. It doesn't mean you have to have them on your podcast or in a book or something. But just hitting the like button is a really easy way for you to cheer on someone else. Even if they're doing a similar thing as you, it is totally fine. #5: Compliment them We acknowledged them, but why don't we also compliment them?
You might be wondering, “Well, what's the difference between an acknowledgment and a compliment?” Oftentimes, an acknowledgment is acknowledging who they're being while a compliment can be more so around what they're doing or what they have done. Compliments often come after the fact and are specific, and acknowledgments can also come before and be more general. Wrapping Up There are your five ways to cheer others on. Which one of these do you think you're going to use more in your life to cheerlead others rather than compete, and which ones are you already using? Hey, you might even have some that I didn't mention. More than likely, and I would love to hear those as well. Comment below! P.S. Are you a leader? Then we invite you to become one of our collaborative authors for the upcoming Dynamic Women Leadership Secrets book! Apply here. Read my other blogs:
I often get asked what I do to prepare for a talk or how I land a talk. Today, I'm going to talk today about what I do after a big talk. It's maybe not something people talk much about. We usually talk about…
 But how about what you need to do AFTER a big talk? It’s just as important as the others to your career. Please note: These tips are good for after a big event, project, party, book/product launch and anything else that needed a lot of your energy or time. Here are the three things I do after a big talk: #1: Celebrate: I celebrate that I did a big talk or that I had an event, or I had a book launch or whatever it may be. I celebrate that I've done it. How do I celebrate it? I'm going to give you three main things: 1. I write down the things that I did well or I do voice-to-text on my notes.
I write down all the accomplishments that I had. The reason why I want to do this is because we're so quick to forget or we're quick to point out all the things we did wrong. 2. I share online. I grab some pictures, I write a caption, and I thank the client. I tag some people who were part of it, and I share how the event went. I wanted to tag them. I wanted to share on social that I worked with them, and so that people know, “Oh, okay, she can speak for that industry. She can speak on that topic, and she can open a conference with high energy and a powerful message.” Celebrating publically is super important. This is one of the things I just shared on stage at the LEAP conference for the Vancouver Regional Construction Association (VRCA) and Canadian Construction Women. There is great importance to accomplishments and then sharing our successes with others because a lot of times as women we downplay them or don’t own them at all. (You may have heard me say this before) According to a Business Insider study, also on leanin.org, women and men view success differently. Men attribute their success to their innate qualities and skills. Women attribute their success to hard work, luck, and help from others. How are we ever going to move forward if we don't actually own and share our successes? That's going to help us to elevate and be promoted and to be asked and called upon for, in my case, more speaking engagements and maybe in your case, being a trainer or something else that is important to you in your life and moving your career forward. 3. Capturing any positive feedback and images in a folder. What I did right away was for anyone who shared in their Instagram or Facebook stories or put in their stories, anything about me, then I made sure that I shared it back. Then I also put it in my highlights so that it would be there. But then because I was heading on vacation right away, I asked one of my team members, to go online and take screenshots of any positive feedback, any photos of me, and then save them into a folder. The folder is the date and the name of the talk so that I can go back to it and look at what's there - and probably share them later in other ways. Also making sure we're commenting back on everyone who posted and replied and everyone who posted about my talk, about me, about meeting me, about getting my books, whatever it may be. #2: Recharging
I see that as my “Recharge Day” because I give a lot of energy to my talks on stage and then after the event talking with audience members. I also show up early to do a tech check. I've practiced all week maybe even before. Plus doing my regular work that I take care of, so I see it as a rest day. I relax. I sleep in. I hydrate. I eat really good food. If I'm home, I book a massage or I book some other type of restorative session with a practitioner. I take care of myself. Probably I'm doing some celebrating on that day as well, but recharging is so important. I've given you a list of lots of different things you can do. Even if you can just give yourself a few hours in the morning or have a slower start to your day, it's really helpful. I get that you might have two, three events in a row or talks in a row or projects in a row. Make sure you book yourself off that weekend, or in the evenings, you book yourself off to have a break. #3: Review I don't know if I'll review this week, but I get the recording of my talk, whether it be the video recording, which is ideal, and I transcribe it, and I review the transcription as well. I go over it and review…
Not just my actual stage time, but what did I learn and what did I do well before, during and after? The weeks leading up to it, the morning of or the day of tech check, then the stage, then after, and also when I was on stage, oftentimes, I'll ad-lib. I'll add something that just comes to me at the moment and I want to capture that for future talks if the audience likes it. I might add in new jokes or new one-liners or a callback, which means referencing something I did before, or I'll have some audience engagement. There are things that I will change, so that's another question, what will I change? It's funny because for this talk I had a double applause at the end. There was applause like, “Woohoo, great job!” but I hadn't finished. There were another few sentences and then there was another applause. Because at that point, this was now pushing me overtime, I basically ran off the stage. This is an example of something I would change: I'm going to change the closing to make sure it's one powerful close with one powerful eruption of applause, rather than two of them.  Then I'm going to stand on stage, and I'm going to receive the applause and standing ovation. Those are small things that I might change. I review the tape and also when I say I transcribe it, the reason is I want to see certain words that are very important to the way I present. Now, the way I do a keynote is different from the way I do a speak-and-offer. However, I still want the audience to have benefits based on certain things that I say. If you're a client of mine, ask me what those things are. Those are like covert ninja moves that I do from stage. I review the recording and I review the transcription. I see how I did with this talk. It was a new talk. It was customized to the audience, and so there were a lot of pieces that were customized. Now what I'll do is I'll go back, and I'll say, “Okay, what pieces are for that audience, and I have to change them for the new audience and what things can carry forward. How can I tighten this up a little bit better? Do I want to say something else? Did this piece not land?” I'm also going to be listening to the audience's reaction on the video. If I can, because we had multiple cameras, I'm going to be watching their faces to see their response to the different points. If it landed as strongly as I wanted each piece to land or which pieces landed stronger, I'm going to pull info based on what I did. There is quite a bit of analyzing that goes into it, and that's just so I can keep elevating my presentation and my keynote skills. So for this third step, review the recording and the transcription, what did I do well, what did I learn, and what will I change for next time? Wrapping Up Those are the three phases I go through after I do a big talk. But it's the same after a big event. It's the same after a book launch. It's the same after I lead a program or a training. The list can go on. Make sure that after you complete something, you celebrate it because when you celebrate, you're going to get some motivation from it. Take time to recharge so that you're not burnt out. You want to keep going and doing well afterwards because you probably gave a lot to it. We want to pump you back up again. The last thing is to review it. Focus on the good. Grab the learning from both the good and the things you think you can do better on so that you don't wallow in the disappointments of it, that you really pinpoint the good stuff and make sure you carry all of that forward. I hope that you have had a recent opportunity to be able to now go and apply these three things. If not, put a little note in your calendar for the day after this big event, write down the words celebrate, recharge, and review, and give yourself some time in your calendar. I always book myself off so no one is allowed to book me for a meeting or coaching session the day after a big event, a big party, whatever it may be. I hope this was helpful. Let me know in the comments what the best part was. Share this with a friend who makes you think, “Wow, yeah, my friend should do these things. This would be beneficial. I want to see if my friend has done these or these people in my network.” P.S. One of the biggest things I did for 2024 was launching the Trailblazer Secrets book. It’s the third book in the Dynamic Women series. We’re now working on the fourth book - the Leadership Secrets. If you want to be one of our collaborative authors, apply here, and we’ll reach out to you. Read my other blogs:
It's International Women's Day, and how exciting that we get to not only celebrate women on the day, but we get to move our gender forward.  Today, I'm going to be sharing about the things you should be doing around this time, the ways you can be, and the things that you must be doing for us to be moving forward as women. We have lots to do if we are going to be moved forward as a gender and be able to have gender parity and equality before the year 2154, (which is the year that has been estimated). It’s definitely not going to happen before I die, but what if it could? What if we looked at appreciative inquiry and we said,
We amplify that. We multiply that by many. I’m going to share nine things today: three things you can do, three people you can be, and three things you must do. 3 things you can do #1: Attend an event Well, firstly, for International Women's Day, I don't know how many events are happening. Maybe hundreds, thousands, or millions. Attend an event, whether it's in-person or online. Be there to be educated. Be there to hear and to support. Just attend an event. I'm always getting multiple invitations. This International Women's Day, I am very honored to be speaking for the Vancouver Region Construction Association for their International Women's Day event called Leap. I'm going to be talking about leaping forward and the tools that we can use to be able to break barriers and elevate success. #2: Implement one action Just one action. What's one thing you can do that will help to move women forward?
There are so many different things that you can do. You don't need to look to me. Go attend an event. You'll find something out. It might even just be something that moves you forward. #3: Educating yourself just 1% more In putting the final details on my presentation that I'm going to be doing this week, I wanted to grab some stats. I am in Canada, so I grabbed a bunch from Stats Canada. I'm going to let you know them so that you can educate yourself and know 1% more. 89 cents is what women working full-time and part-time make for every dollar men make. That's from Stats Canada in 2022. I like to think it went up, but not sure that it actually would. The next one is women in Canada hold about a third, to be precise 35.6%, of management occupations, then only 30.9% of senior management level occupations. This is from Stats Canada 2022 as well. One of the first times I heard a stat that just astonished me was that there are more CEOs named “John” than there are female CEOs. That really ticked me off. That's part of why I talk a lot about women's empowerment and confidence, and I want women to talk more about their successes so they can be seen as the ones who are a perfect fit for the job. I wish they wouldn’t be so humble and downplay their accomplishments. I'm not blaming women by any means, that is why I do the work I do. The reason why we have Dynamic Women Global Community is because I want women to be able to feel confident to step into these roles, and not wait to be asked. Another stat is, according to Stats Canada from 2019, one and a half million women live in poverty in Canada. The horrible thing is, a lot of times, these women are also single mothers, and so their children suffer as well. That's not okay. Let me give you one more stat, which for me was pretty shocking. Everyone talks about the glass ceiling, but there's actually something called the “broken rung”, meaning the rung on a ladder. It's actually just that first step, that management role, that rung is often quite broken, meaning women aren’t getting into that role so they're not even able to move up the ladder, which is pretty sad. Here's the stat that goes with it. “For the ninth consecutive year, women face their biggest hurdle at the first critical step up to manager. This year, for every 100 men promoted from entry-level to manager, 87 women were promoted. That's 13 less, and this gap is trending the wrong way for women of color. This year, 73 women of color.” It’s 14 less than what I'm guessing they're saying is Caucasian women. “73 women of color were promoted to manager for every 100 men, which is down from 82 of women of color last year.” Crazy. This is as a result of the broken rung. Women fall behind, and they just can't catch up. There's also mommy's penalty, meaning that when they leave the workforce to have children, then they come back, it takes them 10 years to catch up in their pay. When men leave to take care of a child on paternity leave or when they have a child, their pay doesn't change. Then again, worse for women of color. Horrible, horrible, horrible. The three things you can do:
3 people you can be #1: Be a trailblazer You be the one to step forward and to speak about inequality. You be the one to say, “I'll take that manager role. I'll take that supervisory role.” You be the one to say, “That's not okay.” You need to be following the rules if that's the case. Be a trailblazer to speak up about these things, maybe not in your company, if that's uncomfortable, but maybe to other people around you to be a trailblazer. If you want to know more about how to be a trailblazer in different ways, you can always grab the Trailblazer Secrets book. # 2: Be an ally This is really great for the women who are already in a position that they're really happy with, already making the money that they want to make, and already have the life they want to live and also for men. You can be an ally. You can be speaking up for others.  #3: Be a mentor When you’re a mentor, you have a mentee. You're going to put that hand out to give a help up to someone. Not to do things for them, but…
There are so many ways you can be an ally and be a mentor and really help women to step up. A lot of times women will only step into roles where they see role models. Where they go, “Ah, that person has done it. That woman's done it. I can do that too.” If you are willing to put some time in and some care and share some of your expertise, or some of your cheerleading, with a woman in any industry, the one you're in or even a different industry, that would make a huge difference. 3 things you must do If you don't do these things, I’m going to be ticked, and you'll understand why. #1: Say someone's name in a room that they're not in You can't say, “I really wish that there would be more women in upper management” if you are in management, and you're not going to say a woman's name. You can't say that you think women should be earning more, and then again, not put a woman's name forward. We could go on and on and on and on. This is something you must do even if it's not, “I think this person is perfect for the role,” but “I think this person is showing promise.” Or “I think we could invest in this person to get some more training.” Say their name. I experienced this recently with someone in my speaking community. She's also a client of mine and a dear friend now. A couple of times, she has said my name. She has put my name forward in areas where I'm newer to it. What a joy it was to receive an email that said, “Hey, so and so said these things about you.” Wow, that made that email to me more of a warm introduction, rather than “Will I be able to talk this person into hiring me.” Say someone else's name when they're not in the room because the only way they can get in the room a lot of the times is if you do say something. #2: Hire female speakers and pay them There has been a big debate in my speaking community, CAPS or the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers. Without naming names of people who are speaking up about this, a bunch of women were invited to speak for International Women's Day events, for no fee. What are we saying about that? “You're good enough to come and speak to our people for International Women's Day, where we want you to inspire others, and we want to move gender parity, equality, all of this forward, yet, we're not going to pay you. We don't have a budget for you.” Now, all the speakers I know if there's an organization that is in alignment with us, we might work out an agreement. But if you're going to ask someone to speak, if you're going to ask someone to train, to coach, to use their expertise, especially on International Women's Day, please pay them. Also, please don't underpay them either because by underpaying them, you're really devaluing them. If you're going to do a women's event, please make sure it is worth the while of the women that are coming. Their time and expertise matter. #3: When women have the courage to speak up about the ways they were wronged or in the ways they want to move forward, their dreams, their goals, and their aspirations, listen to them. Listen to what they have to say. If they were wronged, validate their truth. If they are desiring to move forward, validate that truth. We need to do that because what happens is, if the women speak up, and they're not listened to, they won't speak up anymore. If they speak up, and we listen, but then we don't validate the truth, or do something about it or connect them with someone who can, how can we move forward? You can even just emotionally support them or cheerlead them on as I mentioned, when you're an ally or a mentor.  Now, I've shared with you the three things you must do:
Wrapping Up These are the nine different things that you can do not just to celebrate women on International Women's Day. That's just not enough to actually move the gender ahead. I get that you may feel that you’re just one person, “What can I really do?” It just takes one person doing one thing to impact one life and then inspire. That ripples out. When one helps one, the other one will help others. That often reminds me of when a very, very simple act of me speaking and coming off the stage and someone speaking into me positive words and saying, “Diane, you really have a gift. You're going to go places.” I was like, “Oh, I'm going to go places like, what's that mean?” We know that means, “You're going to go do great things and have great opportunities to have success.” But to hear someone else that I admired, they didn't know I'd admired them, but that I admired and looked up to, speak inyo me was powerful. Bonus: Compliment those around you There's my bonus to you because I want to round it up to 10. Compliment those around you. Tell them what you see in them, tell them the skills they have, the personality traits that are coming out, and the positive things so that they latch on to that and do them more and then they're be boosted. Because being a woman can be really hard. There's an uphill battle. We know for our BIPOC ladies, it's even harder. Then, if you're also an immigrant, even harder. If English is your second language in Canada, it's even harder. If you have multiple kids, you're a single mom, you have an illness, it's even harder. When we speak that into others, that's something amazing. You won't even know the impact and the power that you've had. Let's share one last thing. Here’s one last example of that. Last weekend, I was at an event for the launch of another book that I'm in and the organizer of all of it said to me, “Diane, you look really happy. Since the last time I saw you, you seem really happy.” I said, “I am really happy.” Probably helped that I had a “Life is awesome” shirt with sequins all over it. But her sharing that, and witnessing who I was showing up felt really, really good. I encourage you to do that today. Every day compliment, speak into at least one woman. You can speak into men too but make that the bonus. Just make sure you compliment a woman every day. Not just about her appearance, but who she's being and what she's doing. I hope you're going to implement some of these things and that you’ll celebrate International Women's Day to help to move our gender forward. Read my other blogs:
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