Laurie Beth Jones Blog

How to Regenerate Your Career
by Laurie Beth Jones

How do you regenerate your career? Here are some quick tips to help you in your regeneration process. Underline anything you think might help you get started.

1. Cut it up. (Take smaller tasks/cut your hours.)
2. Change it up. (Ask to be transferred to a different department.)
3. Ask for more. (Take on more responsibility, management opportunities, or new projects.)
4. Make it fun again. (View it as a hobby. What about this was once fun for you? How can you get back to doing that again?)
5. Get a mentor. (Having someone to help talk things over can give you a new perspective.)
6. Learn something new. (Learning = Growth)
7. Take on a special project. (The stimulations of something out of the ordinary will fire new neurons.)
8. Ask others what you are good at. (Maybe you’re in a rut and can’t see your new path that is obvious to others.)
9. Offer to help mentor someone else. (Their challenges and fresh approach might inspire you!)

What ideas do you have? What can you do to regenerate your life, career or relationship. When will you begin?

Prayers for your Regeneration,
Laurie Beth

Calculated Curves
By Laurie Beth Jones

If you spend a lot of time on California freeways, like I do, you will notice that sometimes the engineers don’t know how to calculate the curves.

Like there is this one spot on the 5 north, right before Carmel Valley Road exit, that the road turns too sharply for a car going 65 miles per hour. You feel yourself suddenly grabbing the wheel and correcting it just in time. You notice skid marks all over the asphalt, and tire marks up on the median. You realize “It wasn’t just me. This has happened here before.”

There is an intersection in Spring Valley that is perpetually having fatal accidents. The lights are not timed right, perhaps, or there is too much of a blind curve coming down.
When I see skid marks along the road, I don’t always fault the driver. Sometimes I wonder, doing systems thinking, if perhaps it isn’t also a flaw in design.
I am reminded of the cartoon I once saw showing a woman staring at a flat tire. She says to her friend “Don’t worry, Wanda. Only the bottom is flat.”

What affects a small part, affects the entire part.
That is why Jesus said “If your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light.”

I am also reminded of my nephew, who, as a four year old, was reprimanded for biting his younger brother. Bennie, who grew up to be a lawyer, pointed out to us “I didn’t bite him. These teeth did!”

When we focus on a single act, or accident, it is too easy to disassociate it from the systems thinking or design that caused it. Sometimes, yes, it is just an individual driving poorly. Or just the bottom of the tire that is flat. But unless the entire road is re-considered, accidents and bad behavior will continue to happen.

Are you focusing on a single act of yourself, or someone else, and overlooking the habits that led to it? The system that supported it? If so, what is it?

One Mission at a Time
Laurie Beth

Dear Friends,

If there is one constant in any leader’s life, it is change.  True leadership is about understanding how to work with this dynamic, in this dynamic, and through this dynamic.  A trick question I ask participants in our Path Eements Team Training is this:  Which  personality element is most naturally suited to and able to handle change:  Earth, Water, Wind, or Fire?  Some say Fire, others Water.  Finally it dawns on them that each element is naturally CREATED to bring about change…fire through heat, water through life giving, wind through shape shifting and seed bearing, and earth through support and nurturance.

A good leader is able to commuincate with each element in their own value language to help them see and embrace the change that is needed—the change they were naturally created to help bring about.

Whatever it is you are handing out, the question God will ask is this:
Would you like some CHANGE with that?

Blessings as you lead this week.

Laurie Beth

The Elements in Stage 3 of Change (Part 4 of 6)

Preparation -  Ready for Change

Yay-y-y-y – Clients in this stage have overcome most of their ambivalence.  With your help they have identified a strong motivator. They understand what the likely barriers are, and they’ve formulated possible solutions. Probe carefully here and don’t take statements at face value because if these thinking tasks have not been thorough the client is still in the Contemplation stage.  This is the time for helping your client design plans of action, and the Eight Steps to Success taught in The Path is a great tool to use in this stage. This is the time to Discover, Design, and Do.

This may be the most challenging phase for Earth clients because of their desire for assured outcomes, but they are very capable of transforming thought into action. Use your coaching skills to help them move beyond the known to explore alternative ideas and solutions. The strength they will bring to this process is the ability to communicate candidly and objectively. Point out and celebrate the value of experimentation and acknowledge the successes immediately.

This is an interesting time working with Water clients because of their tendency to procrastinate unless they are being reactive to some event. They  have a hard time moving from thinking to action. Pull your coaching skills into helping them imagine possibilities that they’ve never experienced. Use your edge to move them off the mark and provide direction, but don’t overwhelm them with the broad scope of things. Be patient with their baby steps in the beginning and remember these clients are highly adaptable. Once parameters have been established and agreed on, you’ll find they often are most comfortable finding their own way but like to check in with you for clarification or affirmation.

Wind clients become highly in this phase because action is involved. Encourage them to design a variety of actions that are fun, but in alignment with the client’s agenda; don’t let them sidetrack themselves. Help them check their impulsivity and spontaneity long enough to establish clear short-term objectives with clearly defined measures of success. This will help them manage their tendency to get bored with long-term goals and accept responsibility and consequences. Provide the inquiry and reflection that facilitates their ability to assess their activities and outcomes objectively without their usual tendency to embellish.

During this phase Fire clients may feel like they’re getting an oxygen feed because they are so oriented toward goals, actions, and accomplishments. At this point they are likely to act prematurely and take precipitous action before thoroughly thinking through an action plan. Use your coaching skills to help them become more aware of and respectful of the thoughts and feelings of others as they form their strategies. The coaching challenge in this phase may is to help your client delay making decisions in favor of more complete data gathering, paying attention to the details they prefer to ignore or diminish.

Remember, although we may want to teach our clients the tricks we know about being successful, it’s our job to assist them to discover, design, and commit to their own strategies for forward movement . . . because that’s what sticks!

Jacque Salamy: The Path Coaching Training Program, Program Instructor