Coaching Tips

Creative Energy Options

Restless Patterns

By Sylvia Lafair | April 26, 2017 | Comments Off on Restless Patterns

By Frank Walsh | CEOptions Certified Pattern Breakthrough Coach It’s not you, it’s me… Well it’s also you, but with some guidance I have seen how the patterns of my past influenced our relationship. I started to feel it in my mid 40’s. Things were different. I had evolved, you had changed. You didn’t make me happy…

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a man presenting in a meeting

Leadership Lessons: How Listening Changes Your Responses

By Sylvia Lafair | April 17, 2017 | Comments Off on Leadership Lessons: How Listening Changes Your Responses

Hearing and listening are related. Similar yet very different. We hear loud sounds, the wind, someone laughing or yelling. And then what? We just get on with our day. Listening, ah, another story entirely. Were you ever told to “listen up†when you were a kid? Did someone ever say “Hey, will you just shut…

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Creative Energy Options

The Colors of Gender Thanks to Modern Marketing and Ancient Ancestors

By Sylvia Lafair | March 7, 2017 | Comments Off on The Colors of Gender Thanks to Modern Marketing and Ancient Ancestors

From the day you were born, even before conception, there are beliefs and stereotypes that are attached to gender. Let’s consider the color continuum for gender. Pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Right? Where did this begin? Who decided which colors belong to which gender? Here is a brief trip through history.…

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Creative Energy Options

Magic Moments Best When Unexpected

By Sylvia Lafair | August 30, 2016 | Comments Off on Magic Moments Best When Unexpected

Got on the bus. Waited. Got on another bus. Waited even longer. Had a bad feeling this paid in advance tour was going to disappoint. And it did. Almost. Tours to that revered site in Rome, the Vatican are expensive and seemingly necessary. Otherwise the lines can be hours long. The Vatican is a must…

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Creative Energy Options

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

By Sylvia Lafair | August 3, 2016 | Comments Off on Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

I hear this plaintive cry from executives and middle managers all the time. I hear it from superintendents to elementary school teachers for at least ten months out of the year. Getting along is what we all want. Right? So, why does it seem almost impossible to get through even a few days without feeling…

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Creative Energy Options

What Courage Looks Like

By Sylvia Lafair | June 20, 2016 | Comments Off on What Courage Looks Like

Twice a year we do a program for leaders and emerging leaders. It is a four session program spread over five months. Each time I include clips of leaders who have and continue to make a difference in our world. There are a few staples, like Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln. We choose from a…

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Creative Energy Options

The Downside Of Growing Your Organizational Culture

By Sylvia Lafair | May 12, 2016 | Comments Off on The Downside Of Growing Your Organizational Culture

I was sitting having a quick dinner in Manhattan with some colleagues. The place was packed and the noise level high. Just a typical 6:30 p.m. time of workplace decompressing, after one of those typical rush and get it done days. At the table to the left we heard “No one should be forced to…

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Creative Energy Options

Powerful And GUTSY

By Sylvia Lafair | January 26, 2016 | Comments Off on Powerful And GUTSY

I have a birth to announce. Beautiful babies come in various packages. Some in the warm skin of an infant son or daughter. Others as works of art, music, photography, dance, the written word. Joan Scharff just gave birth to a wonderful book of poems and pictures. I met her several years ago when she…

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Creative Energy Options

How To Get Heard After You’ve Been Whacked Upside The Head

By Sylvia Lafair | September 23, 2015 | Comments Off on How To Get Heard After You’ve Been Whacked Upside The Head

Dear Dr. Sylvia, I know you think that we can all transform our negative patterns. I have my doubts. You see, I read your book…twice! And I still have a serious problem. I took the Pattern Aware Quiz and know I am considered a persecutor/bully. I have worked hard to change my style from being…

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A woman with her finger on her lips as if shushing someone

Leadership Development: SHUSSSSH Don’t Rock The Boat

By Sylvia Lafair | December 15, 2014 | Comments Off on Leadership Development: SHUSSSSH Don’t Rock The Boat

Imagine a world where bringing up unpleasant or conflictual subjects is applauded. Imagine if in school good grades were based on asking the unaskable. Just imagine. Where would YOU fit in that kind of setting? Would you be one to ask “Hey, why is the emperor naked?†Or would you be one to put your…

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