Who is in charge?

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Today I received a text message from a client of mine that said, “I just got some very disturbing news at 8:20 am that my nephew committed suicide in my parent’s pool early this morning”. And last month I received a text message from a friend that one of the managers we both knew at a company we had worked for had committed suicide, a young man in his early 30s.

It’s these types of events that strengthen my belief that complexity in social trends is draining the personal power, leaving people feeling powerless and anxious. The Struggles due to social expectations and pressure, bad marriage, finances, or job leave us vulnerable and lead to feeling victimized! The first step in recovery is to understand feeling victimized is a choice. Yes, a choice. The missing ingredient in most cases is the ability to push back on self-loathing thoughts. Take every experience as a learning opportunity and put the outcome to use to moving forward. Let us recognize that feeling secure does not mean to be egotistic, selfish, self-centered, or a bully. It has nothing to do with money, luxury and status. Feeling insecure doesn’t happen suddenly, it happens over a long period of time.

So, how can you reclaim your sense of security and empowerment? Stop giving away your power! You don’t have to please everyone. You don’t have to be what others want you to be. Be who you are. You will accomplish much more as you than as the image what others want you to be. Your feeling of self-worth will increase, and you will start appreciating you, as you are today at this moment. This doesn’t mean you don’t evolve or change, it means you will evolve and change with your set of experiences.

In the quest for self-empowerment we must seek mental adulthood. Our physical being has no choice to grow to adulthood, but psychological adulthood is not given, takes focus and work. How many people have you met in your lifetime that you may have commented ‘boy, he/she is 40 year going on 14’? Adulthood comes slowly, we mature with experiences and as our ability to digest information and process them strengthens over time we develop our core-self. Our core-self is the author of our life story; this idea is opposite of being a victim, who lives a life authored by others. Ask yourself, who’s in charge of my life?

— Shohreh

You can Transform Your Life

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Managing fear is key in achieving successful transformational change in our lives. This includes fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of change, or even fear of fear itself. This is especially true when making bold changes, the kind that could take you to a whole new level of living, or, out of a paralyzing tailspin. The bolder the change, the bigger the fear, as fear is our resistance to change.

So how do you manage deep resistance to big change? Make a deliberate move to alter the direction of your life. This requires managing the present, selectively forgetting the past, and creating a future. To manage the present, you must live in the moment. Be present each and every minute and experience the events as they unfold. Selectively forget the past experiences that have a negative narration such as regret, guilt, and despair. And focus on the future you desire. In doing so you allow your mind to enter the creative zone and have the ability to create the future you deserve.

Shohreh

Road to Success

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Clarity requires awareness, awareness requires focus, and focus requires shutting down the noise. Successful people learn to shut down the noise every minuteof every day so they can prioritize and only focus the important things. ~ Dr. Shohreh Rostami Aftahi, PhD

Clarity

Distraction or Action?

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The advancement in technology, global access to information and goods give you the ability to get on your multiple devices to shop, to access information, to communicate instantly via FaceTime, or Skype. Everything is at your fingertips. We wish, and we can have. But what is the price you pay for this advancement. The question is whether you are happier now than decades ago? Are you more or less stressed? Do you actually enjoy what you have more now than people did before having all this? Perhaps if you are honest with yourself you can admit that you are not necessarily happier simply because of the abundance of stressed. We are under tremendous amount of pressure in our daily lives and some of it self-induced as we need to keep up with the Joneses, have to have bigger and better of everything without paying attention if this is truly what makes us happy. But if I ask you what is your purpose and what do you really want to achieve, and more importantly when your time is up on this earth what is the legacy you want to leave behind, what will your answer be?

Don’t get me wrong, the advancements we enjoy in the 21st century, the ability that we can snap our figures and pretty much get anything we want within our means is great, we would not, nor should we give it up. However, how can we adapt so we can keep the stress at the minimum and the ability to enjoy the life that we are afforded?

The answer is to declutter and bring clarity in your life. Understand what brings you the most joy, then set goals we can achieve that will bring us closer to the state of living that is joyful. Write your goals down as goals that are not written down are simply wish list. The next step is to identify the activities that would allow us to achieve our goals. Anything else is a noise, and noise is a distraction. Shot out the noise and don’t be distracted. This is a deliberate act and requires awareness each and every moment. Time is perishable, each second that is gone you will never get back, don’t waste your time. Successful people are successful because they are focused on activities that are relevant to their end goal.

The question is what are you willing to give up to get what you want? There is always a trade off, and you are the only one that can answer this question for you. So, what is it you really want, and are you willing to do the work to achieve it? We make choices every day, and there are consequences for each choice. What are the consequences that are acceptable to you? You own the decision and the consequences. Write each chapter of your life with pride and make it count.

— Shohreh

 

How do you define success?

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Over the last three decades, I have observed how leaders deal with the massive changes shaped by multi-cultural workplace and globalization. I have lived in the most diverse and cosmopolitan cities in the U.S. and perhaps in the world, and the business community reflects that.

Over the years I have worked with many executives, all of whom have their own view of what it means to work in the global community. In recent years I have worked with leaders from India, Britain, Australia, and of course US whom each have had teams from multiple nationalities and ethnic backgrounds.

I help executives gain a clearer perspective of themselves and their work so they can become more effective in managing their business and leading others. This means helping them unwrap the complexities so they can understand themselves, their team, their organizational culture, and the business challenges they are facing. Only then can they derive strategies to get the best out of their people and drive the business forward.

There are variety of issues that leaders face daily, it may be daunting targets in a shrinking market, managing conflict amongst the team, or understanding the purpose, mission, and vision of work. My job is to be brutally honest and say what no one else would dare say, inform, reassure, and provoke thoughts about what it means to be a leader in a global setting. And the result is very gratifying as not only what I do leaves a positive impression on my clients, but I see the impact on their families and teams. Meanwhile, the business is growing exponentially and is more profitable. That’s how I define success!

— Shohreh

Success Is Not an Accident

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The last few months I have been focused on getting rid of clutter in my head. Meditating, reflecting, and centering on clarity. It is very easy to slip into riding the chaos and letting excuses become the blinders diverting you from your true path. And I was riding the chaos and letting the shinny items distract me. But no more. This is the time that all that I have worked for should come together, of course if I get out of my own way!

Let’s go back to clarity, the ‘must have’ to succeed. Whether it is your business or life in general, if you can be crystal clear what are your vision, mission, and purpose; set your very specific goals accordingly and write them down, as unwritten goals are simply a wish list, then you have part of the recipe for success.

Next assess your attitude. Proactive, responsible, optimistic, enthusiastic, and abundant; or blame, excuses, negative, denial, and scarcity? Attitude is 80% of why we behave as we do. Therefore, your thoughts trigger certain emotions, and your emotions determine your actions.

If your self talk is empowering and positive, you are well poised to succeed, combined with knowledge and skills, which result in competence.

Choices we make have profound consequences. Success is the consequence for making the right choices. Personal accountability is a powerful motivator to keep you honest and doing the right things. Remember the seven Cs of personal accountability: clarity, competence, continuous learning, constraint analysis, creativity, concentration, and courage.

— Shohreh

 

 

Are we disparate enough to find a solution?

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Like most of you I too am heart broken about the recent shootings and so many innocent people losing their precious lives. However, I struggle to believe the background check before purchasing a gun is the answer to the problem. I find it to be a pacifier deterring us from the real issue. The last two shootings were committed by two 18-year olds in Arizona and Texas campuses in response to an argument. When an 18-year-old feels pulling a gun and shooting another human being is easier than using his reasoning and social skills to problem solve and settle an argument we have bigger problems than debating gun control.

Another tragedy occurred in the hands of a 26-year old that massacred young and old on the campus in Oregon. I do not defend his actions, it was a horrible and heinous act, however, why would a 26 year old be so isolated and removed that no one noticed his cries for help prior to him totally losing his humanity and taking these precious lives to then turn the gun on himself? This is another sign that most of us do not pay attention, or care enough about what is going on around us. We are not present in the moment to notice when someone may be crying out for help. We don’t care enough to extend ourselves to another in need. When someone in school, work, or where we play acts strange we mostly choose to raise an eyebrow, have smirk on the face, call him crazy and distance ourselves.

What happened to the random acts of kindness? The question is if these young people were raised by a society that cares in total and pays attention to the needs of the youth, how many of these incidents will we experience? Additionally, we fail when as a society we spend more money operating prisons than investing in mental healthcare. There are hundreds of families that are faced with raising a child with mental and behavioral issues that have no options to access resources to get help for their child resulting in tragedies of different scales. So at what point are we going to demand the change required to truly prevent these tragedies? Are you going to care enough to be a part of a social revolution before you or a loved one is touched by similar tragedy?

— Shohreh Rostami

To be happy or not?

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You make hundreds of choices everyday. However, how many times do you consciously stop and ask yourself what are the consequences of a given choice and does it ultimately make you a happier person?  Most of us are conditioned to react to the circumstances and environment, which means we don’t consciously decide to take action. This reactionary impulse is limiting and leads to feeling powerless and victimized by circumstances. If you take a step back and witness the choice making process a deliberate act, you will feel  empowered and liberated. So the question to ponder on is why would you allow yourself to react instead of taking action?

— Shohreh Rostami