5 Simple Things You Can Practice to Experience a Richer, More Sustainable Sense of Happiness…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Well we are into the new year – your first full week back to work is behind you and now you have 51 weeks ahead of you – yay!

 

Are you also a week into your new year’s resolution?

 

As we all know, most people fall back into old routines by February – so do resolutions not work?  I don’t think resolutions work or don’t work – I think only the people adopting them do (or don’t) work – as in they do or don’t do the work involved in keeping that resolution active in your life.  If you tend to drift away from resolutions – no judgment – I do too.  Maybe the reason they don’t work for me (and what I do instead), will resonate with you too…

 

Personally, I am not one for resolutions because they mostly exist within the context of doing something differently or taking some new routine or ritual into your life with the belief that the benefit of that new ritual will bring you something wonderful that wasn’t there before.  In other words, it implies that something was wrong in your life before and this resolution is the answer to fixing that wrong.  It all sounds like a fat recipe for disaster to me because all it does is bring you into a deeper awareness of the wrong in your life – which usually only brings more wrong into your life.  Who wants that – not me – so after about 21 days I only become more present to what was wrong in the first place – no thanks!

 

Instead, I have learned to

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I love that this was said…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

“I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops.”  Donald J. Trump

 

I love this spirit of being open to opportunity.  Having a day planned with activities (your HOW ideas) that keep you in alignment with your goals and values (your WHAT ideas) is great – but always leave room for the Universe to reveal HOW opportunities you couldn’t have imagined or anticipated to show up – and then take advantage of them over your HOW plans for the day.

 

Your HOW ideas are never better than what the Universe will put in front of you every day!   You are on the hook for WHAT to accomplish and to act on opportunities that bring you closer to manifesting your WHAT ideas – you are not on the hook for all the HOW ideas – delegate most of the HOW to the Universe.

 

Can’t find your purpose? 8 characteristics can help you let your purpose unfold…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

There’s nothing like good TV watching over the holiday break and my favorite kind of TV is documentaries and anything related to spiritual or self development – boring to some (probably) many – I know – but then, on the other hand, I also like silly, slapstick “Dumb and Dumber”-esque comedies – go figure!  I am who I am!

 

Anyway, recently I was watching a Super Soul Sunday show on the OWN network with Oprah and she was interviewing Wintley Phipps – a world-renowned vocal artist, education activist, motivational speaker, pastor, and CEO and Founder of the U.S. Dream Academy.  For nearly 30 years, Pastor Phipps has traveled the world delivering messages of hope, advocacy, and equality to many thousands of people.

 

In this interview with Oprah, Pastor Phipps shared 8 dimensions of characteristics that he feels most reflect the characteristics of God.  Through practicing these characteristics he believes it’s possible to gain clarity about your personal destiny.

 

I thought these were great traits that reflect what I have observed in many of the most cherished and valued high-performing employees I have known over nearly 25 years in my work.

 

Can’t find your purpose? 8 characteristics can help you let your purpose unfold…Here are Pastor Phipps 8 traits and my ideas of how I have sensed these traits in top performing, happy employees. 

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Here’s How You Can Feel Fulfilled – Even in a Job You Hate

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Client profile #4:

 

Name – it’s me!

 

Age range (at the time) – 26-38

 

Initial situation – I was working in a financial services firm in NYC straight out of college.  It was a dream job for me when I started – it was a job that complimented my business management major, in the field I wanted (HR) and in an industry that suited my personality – smart people, super fast paced, posh, polished and professional.  On top of it, I got the job over 3 other hopeful candidates all who either had more experience or a fancier degree than me PLUS it was a recession when most of my friends were struggling to get any job at all.  The whole thing wreaked of certain success.  And it was for many years, until…

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How livin’ the dream conquers the fear of success (or lack of success)

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Client profile #3:

 

Name (changed of course to protect identity) – Jack

 

Age range – 30-40

 

You don-know Jack – or maybe you do ;-)

 

Jack was a music theory major in college and became a touring recording artist – sounds great so far doesn’t it!!

 

Even though Jack was livin’ the dream – touring with famous artists and even doing some work for film and TV (plus his Dad supplemented some of his income so he could keep going with his dream – to become a famous artist) – he too had success derailing thoughts.

 

Jack felt he had a lack of industry knowledge which kept him from getting to the next level with business managers and recording lables.  Jack accepted this degree of limitation he felt he had because he loved playing music so much – why change or stretch himself outside of his comfort zone?  After all, life was pretty good plus he didn’t really have any life obligations beyond fulfilling his own dreams and ambitions – until…

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Here’s how you can avoid having your family on your case this holiday season about your career and life choices.

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Client profile #2:

 

Name (changed of course to protect identity) – Paige

 

Age range – 21-25

 

Can you relate to Paige? 

 

Paige is a recent college graduate who finished her undergrad degree in 4 years (yahoo!).  Even though she was consistently on the Dean’s list, she doesn’t think she is smart and she wasn’t happy with her GPA (overachiever? – maybe).  What’s even more impressive about Paige is that she waitressed her way through school!  She wanted to get through school within 4 years so she could start getting a real paycheck in the real world.

 

Despite all this ambition and energy (even though Paige didn’t see herself as ambitious), she described herself as “indecisive” and said her biggest struggle has been in developing “confidence” in her choices.  Paige shared that she thought she wanted a degree in social work, rehab counseling or psychology but she was uncertain she could finish any of these degrees within 4 years.  So she settled for a double major in English (which was always her comfort zone) and Anthropology.

 

Family is the biggest influence in getting out of career indecision – and sometimes it can be the cannon that shoots us right into career indecision (especially if we think we are the black sheep of the bunch)…

 

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Wanna get free coaching with me? Here’s how – but the offer only lasts a for a short while…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

So what goes on in my free consultation anyway?  Let’s look at a typical real life example of potential client profile and the powerful breakthrough they can have in an initial session with me…

Client profile #1:

 

Name (changed of course to protect identity) – Ashley

 

Age range – 21-31

 

Current situation – working less than 2 years at first job out of college – Ashley likes the company she is at, is good at her job in sales (cold calling), and has been successful overall.  However, the job has become monotonous and she is getting bored with it.

 

Ashley doesn’t think she is using some of her best skills to her fullest ability and some of her skills she doesn’t feel she is using at all.  Why doesn’t anyone notice what she can really do?!  

 

She isn’t sure if she should switch careers, industries, pursue a promotion or maybe even go back to grad school (well, this wasn’t true for Ashley but it’s so common in many of my other clients in this age range I threw it in there).

 

Ashley has an idea that her ideal industry would be in entertainment but she doesn’t know enough about the job options within that industry, and her dream job of being a live news or talk show host seems far fetched.  Plus, she is afraid the pay will be way too low to support her big city lifestyle.

 

So what’s a girl to do?

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Is Worrying About Money Keeping You Up At Night?

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Anyone who is going through a career crisis worries about money at some point.  If you seem to worry about money much more than you would like – here’s something that may help you shift into a more balanced perspective about money…

 

Do you believe that your relationship with money was developed in your childhood?  Do you believe that those beliefs may still be running the show with how you relate to money today?

 

This concept and more are introduced by my friend Ellen Rogin at her recent TedX talk.  Ellen is a CPA, CFP®  and an Abundance Activist® – those are fancy credentials that let you know that she is a highly experienced financial advisor who is chock full of “left-brain” credentials (MBA, CPA, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™).  She balances that professional training with her “right-brain” know how (balancing values, big picture ideas, meditation and a sense of humor).

 

Ellen is a nationally-known expert on living a life of success and prosperity and building wealth. She speaks to audiences around the country on creating success and abundance in their lives and in the lives of their children.  In addition to all that she is also the NY Times bestselling co-author of Picture Your Prosperity:  Smart Money Moves to Turn Your Vision into Reality.

 

In this brief video Ellen shares tips as well as a simple exercise on how you can have a breakthrough about your relationship with money – PLUS – she also teaches you how to break the cycle of bestowing your limited money beliefs onto your children.  Through this video you can help your kids have a healthy relationship with money as well!

 

I hope you enjoy this video and that it helps you sleep with less worry about money…

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Here’s why you may not have gotten the promotion, bigger bonus, salary increase or other reward your less deserving peer did…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Have you ever been passed over for a promotion?  Have you ever experienced not getting as a big of a bonus or salary increase as you thought you deserved given the results you delivered?

 

These things are always a big let down for sure.  However, they downright “steam your bean” when someone you believe is less deserving gets them.   Your mind immediately goes into thinking “What do they have that I don’t have?”

 

Well, as a former head of HR I can tell you that often there are multiple factors that play into those seemingly unfair choices – and you can’t always predict or control all the reasons why some less deserving peer got what you wanted – and deserved!

 

But I can share a secret with you…

 

No one gets those things without having an edge over their higher performing (and sometimes more loyal and experienced) peers.

 

So here’s why you may not have gotten the promotion, bigger bonus, salary increase or other reward your less deserving peer did..

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If work has you feeling like “I don’t wanna…” – shift your focus to this…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Sometimes we just don’t wanna do the things we have to do.  The reasons are vast and wide….

 

We’re tired, cranky, hungry, we don’t feel good, we just need a hug – oy!  We’re downright babies sometimes aren’t we?!

 

We all have our off days.  We can have our moods from time to time but what we cannot do is sustain a sense of satisfaction from our work if all we are focused on acting on our negatively charged moods.  At work, our moods tend to become negatively charged when we are focused on what we  perceive to be as less than favorable external factors and lack of potential rewards.  This includes things like:

 

  • doing stuff we don’t like to do (tasks we have to do)
  • worrying about how other people react to what we do
  • interacting with people we don’t like
  • having to do more with less time and resources
  • having to go somewhere we don’t like to do our work
  • working under undesirable conditions

 

In other words, we are focused on factors we have little to no control over.

 

I am a believer that we can only EASILY control 3 things at work:

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