Alissa Finerman

Los Angeles Executive Coach, Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, Facilitator and Author

The Power of Why

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There are two kinds of questions: what and why. There’s a time and place for each. What questions tend to be expansive and why questions tend to analyze. What questions help you look forward (ex: What would the ideal business partner look like) and why questions help you assess and sometimes bring you down (ex: why did this happen or why can’t I be in a good relationship).

Why questions are particularly impactful when you are designing meaningful goals. I recently spent a week on the East Coast giving five presentations about Living in YOUR Top 1% to companies in the real estate, bio/pharm and finance industries. Regardless of the industry, people have a challenging time setting goals that are personally meaningful. People seem to naturally set either vague goals (not sure what you are doing), should goals (goals society or someone else thinks you should do), or goals that do not resonate personally but are legitimate goals (I want to run a 10k and be fit and healthy but the person does not make health a priority).

This is where focusing on the why is invaluable. Why do you want to start your own business, why do you want to be a better leader, why do you want to be in shape, why do you want to be financially independent or why do you want to start a blog. When you are clear on the why, your motivation level increases significantly. Most people set a goal without every considering the why and how it connects with your values.

Here’s a three step process to get clear on your why and re-ignite your motivation levels:
1. Write your goal
2. Tell me why it’s important and why you want to make it a priority
3. Go through two rounds of why…if you want to start your own business and the why is to be independent, tell me why being independent is important. Perhaps you want to be the decision maker and determine the business strategy.

You will know when you get to the core why because it will resonate and empower you.

About Alissa

Alissa Finerman is an Executive Coach and Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, speaker and author of Living in YOUR Top 1%. She works with managers, C-suite executives and teams to leverage strengths, shift beliefs and achieve meaningful goals. Alissa has an MBA from the Wharton School and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked with Ross Stores, Petco, BNP Paribas, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Brookfield Property Partners, Neutrogena, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Dress for Success. To learn more about coaching with Alissa, please visit her website and follow her on Facebook

Is An Instant Gratification Mindset Serving You?

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I want it and I want it now. That’s basically how our society is growing up. What happened to working for things and waiting for the Heinz ketchup to slowly ooooze from the bottle and smother onto your French fries? As a consumer nation, we are conditioned for instant gratification and that unrealistic mindset carries over to other areas of our life. Just because we can get the latest iPhone today doesn’t mean we can build a business this second or become a better tennis player right now. Buying something is much different than working for something.

Our society is fast becoming the land of “Instant Gratification,” where five minutes is too long. We need to get in touch with people this second. Every company is trying to figure out: how can we do something faster? It’s great when my computer is fast, I like that, but an instant gratification mindset shifts our focus away from effort and resilience to right now (and I’m not talking about being in the present moment). I have yet to meet someone who built a business or lost weight overnight. There’s something empowering when you invest the time, overcome challenges and reach an outcome that makes you feel good. We grow in that process and increase our belief in ourself.

Here are a few “instant gratification” expectation examples:

– Start a new job and get promoted right away.

– Become an entrepreneur and sell the company for a profit in less than a year.

– Master a new skill such as tennis or golf in one summer – good luck! (I’ve played for 40 years and competed in college and on the professional tour and I’m still learning).

– Exercise and see massive results in a week.

– Start a Facebook /Twitter page or new blog and a have a huge following in a month.

– Decide to eat “healthy” for a few days and see the number on the scale be lower by five pounds (or else we think might as well eat the cookies if it makes no difference).

I completely understand that it can be discouraging when you write consistently for a month and you only have three pages written for your first book, workout like a crazy person for a week and don’t see any change on the scale or visit twenty clients and only make one sale. If Thomas Edison had quit after 9,999 attempts we might not have electricity. I’m just saying it takes time and there is no specific answer for exactly how much time it takes. When you are focused on progress and getting better rather than instant gratification or reaching perfection it’s easier to stay the course.

Is it too late to teach people to work for something?

You don’t learn to walk overnight…

You don’t learn to read overnight…

You don’t learn to spell overnight…

You don’t learn to ride a bike overnight…

….but we expect to build a business or become a master quickly!

If we gave up after one week of trying to walk or spell, the results would not be encouraging. Our natural state is to want to improve and get better. Society and the media often shift our perspective regarding the time frame and effort it takes for a meaningful accomplishment.

So just for the record:

– It takes time to get to know someone and build a beautiful relationship

– It takes time to lose weight and keep it off (ie, months and years)

– It takes time to build a business

– It takes time to write a book (took me about 12 months)

– It takes time to become a master and gain experience in any area of your life

When you understand that any process takes time, you’re not discouraged and tempted to quit at the first glimpse of a challenge. An instant gratification mindset, or the mentality that success is an overnight process and putting in time and effort is not an essential part of the process, is prominent in our society. Our work is to re-shift our mindset to have a more realistic perspective.

How can you shift your perspective to pursue what’s most important to you and stay with it?

Believe in yourself,

Alissa

 

Alissa’s Bio

Alissa Finerman is an Executive Coach and Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, speaker and author of Living in Your Top 1%. She coaches teams and entrepreneurs, executives, managers, aspiring leaders, athletes, career changers, and moms getting back in the workforce. Alissa works one-on-one with clients and gives corporate workshops throughout the year. To learn more and connect with Alissa, please visit her website and Facebook page.

Defining Success On Your Journey

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Alissa’s blog was featured on Positively Positive’s Blog.

 

Success is not a one-way street that let’s you coast on your bike while riding downhill. There are lots of pot holes, flat tires, some flowers on the way, but mostly, it’s up and down, and you just need to believe in yourself and keep on going. You will experience true success as you invest time and energy in actions and projects that make you feel satisfied and fulfilled.

Top 1% moments help us define what success means at different stages in our life.

These top 1% moments are available to all of us regardless of where we are in our life—married, single, lots of money, no money, fancy graduate degrees, no degrees, kids, no kids, love your job, despise your job, old, young, lots of challenges, or minimal challenges. These accomplishments are important to recognize and celebrate because when one of us reaches higher, we can all leverage the inspiration to take a step further ourselves.

A top 1% moment is when you accomplish something that you feel good about and is meaningful to you. They can be big or small—ordering business cards, swimming 110 miles from Cuba to Florida (thank you, Diana Nyad), going to sleep before midnight, changing careers, writing your first book, successfully leading a team project, buying your first home, re-connecting with a relative, running fifty-two marathons in fifty-two weeks to raise awareness and money for pancreatic cancer (thank you, Marathon Goddess), getting back into your photography hobby, earning your certification as a yoga teacher, making your first public speech, completing your first 5k walk/run, or simply making yourself a priority.

These moments expand your view of what’s possible and build confidence in yourself. Top 1% moments help us define our personal best. It’s not a competition; it’s about cooperating. We can all live in our top 1%.

Here are the recurring themes that emerge with my clients when they experience their top 1% moments:

Dream: The journey starts with an exciting dream. Your dream/goal may seem impossible and crazy to others, but it’s not about them; it’s about what adds meaning to YOUR life. For example, Diana Nyad recently fulfilled a lifelong dream of swimming 110 miles from Cuba to Florida. After four failed attempts to complete her goal, Diana, at the ripe age of sixty-four, became the first woman to complete this accomplishment while swimming without a shark cage to protect her. This was going to be her last attempt either way. And yes, swimming 110 miles and fifty-three hours is definitely beyond what most of us can comprehend. (If you are not a swimmer, substitute that word for something that does represent YOUR dream.) Diana’s journey showed us what it means to have a dream and pursue it.

Belief (a.k.a. mindset): All people who achieve top 1% moments have a deep belief in self. Even when others think your dream is crazy, YOU need to believe it. That’s key with every new invention or achievement. You may not know how you’re going to do it, but you believe you CAN. This is exactly what happened with Julie Weiss, known as the Marathon Goddess. She had a crazy idea to run fifty-two marathons in fifty-two weeks to raise awareness and funds to benefit pancreatic cancer (she lost her father to the disease). She had no idea how the journey would unfold. She started with one marathon, and for the next year, she did a marathon every week while working her full-time job. She’s raised over $200,000 and has decided to continue running marathons and raising awareness.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Nelson Mandela

Challenges: Every top 1% achievement has challenges. There is no other way. The challenges may seem unique, but they are all just challenges—time, money, resources, health, knowledge, motivation, etc. Challenges test how much you want to complete your goal. Whether you are looking to take a photography class or complete your first 5k race, speed bumps will show up, but know they are not a valid reason to abandon your heartfelt goals.

Resilience: You may fail several times and feel discouraged many times before success. Diana failed four times and tried one more time—that alone is courageous and a top 1% effort. Part of living in your top 1% is knowing when to move on. Diana understood this and decided this would have been her last attempt. Even if she didn’t complete the swim, it would have been a top 1% effort. Often, when we are operating in the unknown territory, it’s scary, and you start to doubt yourself. Every top 1% moment has that brief period where you want to throw in the towel and call it quits. It’s part of the process, so don’t let the feeling push you off course.

Age: Often, you will be on the wrong side of the age factor—too old, too young, too much experience, or not enough experience. Perhaps you’re too young to start a business or too old to change careers. Forget this and keep moving forward. Disregard age as an excuse. As forty-one-year-old Olympic medalist Dara Torres said, “the water doesn’t know your age…[goals] may become harder to achieve, but your dreams can’t stop because you’ve hit a certain age.” Invest the time to figure out what you want to do and keep moving forward.

Stretch Zone: Every great dream and goal pushes you into your stretch zone—the zone where you need to draw on your strengths, face uncertainty, move past challenges, and achieve something beyond what many thought was possible. When you declare that you are writing a book or changing jobs, there will be lots of uncertainty and challenges. Top 1% moments do not happen in your comfort or stress zone. They happen in the stretch zone.

Top 1% Team: Although great journeys may start from an individual effort, they are more commonly team efforts. Diana Nyad had over thirty people on her team helping her navigate the waters, chart her course, and provide care during her swim. Epic efforts require resources from many different areas. Do you have the right team to help you share YOUR top 1%?

Everyone can enjoy top 1% moments from any starting place. You need to show up with the willingness to invest time and effort, face challenges, and make progress. You will find yourself completely committed to your vision when it’s meaningful and genuinely excites you. You may have some speed bumps or flat tires on your path, so stay on your course. Your top 1% moments can be big or small as long as they’re meaningful to you.

What dream speaks to your heart?

About Alissa

Alissa is an Executive Coach and Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, speaker and author of Living in Your Top 1%. She has an MBA from the Wharton School and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley. To learn more, visit www.AlissaFinerman.com 

Should vs Value Goals

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There are lots of ways we can discover our potential and see what’s possible in our life. One very powerful way is through the process of goal-setting. You may ask —Why set goals? There are lots of reasons. One convincing one is that goals add meaning to our lives. We do this not just by accomplishing any goal but by working toward something that we value and is meaningful.

Goals help us see new possibilities.

A lot of people set goals that I label as should goals. These are goals that other people, family or society think you should do. Often these should goals do not resonate with you on a deeper level and leave you feeling unfulfilled even when you achieve them. The goal will sound perfectly fine on the surface such as work for a well known corporation, start your own business, get promoted to VP, manage a team, get in shape and lose ten pounds, volunteer or start a family. Setting a goal that does not interest or inspire you will only frustrate you. Stay away from these goals as they will rarely bring greater meaning to your life.

To clarify, the issue is not the specific goal.

The issue is whether your goal is a should or value goal for you.

Value based goals are aligned with a core value that is important to YOU such as adventure, respect, learning or connection. So if healthy living is not a core value then getting in shape will never be fun, even though health is a top priority value for others. Similarly, if independence is a core value then working your way up the corporate ladder and working for someone else may not be as fulfilling as starting your own business. And even more shocking, if family is not your top value then starting a family may take a back seat to building your business. Once you fine-tune your goals to align with your values, you will feel a renewed sense of motivation and purpose.

Full disclosure, accomplishing a goal that is aligned with your values is still not a walk through the park. You will always have speed bumps that come up on your path. It’s actually your ability to move outside your comfort zone through short term challenges that helps you build confidence and believe in yourself. This leads to a positive upward spiral which motivates you to explore what else is possible. Setting a goal that matters to YOU can be life changing and open your world to true success.

You know you have a meaningful goal when it speaks to your heart. 

About Alissa

Alissa Finerman is an Executive Coach and Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, speaker and author of Living in YOUR Top 1%. She works with managers, C-suite executives and teams to leverage strengths, shift beliefs and achieve meaningful goals. Alissa has an MBA from the Wharton School and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked with Ross Stores, Petco, BNP Paribas, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Brookfield Property Partners, Neutrogena and Bristol-Myers Squibb. To learn more about coaching with Alissa, please visit her website and follow her on Facebook

 

Crossroads Are A Good Thing

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Crossroads as an opportunity

* This article was featured on Positively Positive

It feels like the biggest ordeal when we come to a CROSSROADS almost as if you’re the only one this is happening to.

Which direction shall you take with your life? Is it time to change jobs, move to a new city, start a family, make a shift in your relationship or finally start your own company?

The feelings can be overwhelming at times. This is all normal for being at a crossroads – that time in your life when you need to figure out your next move in some area of your life such as career or relationships or feel bored working at the same company or are ready for something new.

This feeling will happen over and over again as long as you are creating and continuing to uncover your potential.

Yes, it’s normal.

It’s ok.

And you are on the right path.

You can find yourself at a crossroads regardless of your education, title, role, or how much money you have. It happens to all of us including CEO’s, managers, moms, athletes, musicians and entrepreneurs. It’s actually a good thing because it’s your internal watchdog telling you that something needs to change. This is where the problem rises — the dreaded change factor. On one hand you’re telling yourself that something needs to change but on the other hand to honor this feeling you have to move outside your comfort zone and experience change!

Why would we want to do this when we know that change leads to feelings of uncertainty and with uncertainty there can be fear? Because it’s part of the process of growth and there can also be excitement, learning, success and fulfillment. Please note, you may experience some dips along the way – this is normal too!

I’m working with coaching clients and the theme of crossroads/transitions continues to emerge regardless of industry, background, specific role, money or age. Some are considering their next move such as starting their own company, redefining success and what the ideal environment looks like, launching a new product line, deciding between two jobs, moving to a new city, and starting or ending a relationship. It’s scary but it’s also possible. It’s challenging to leave something that is known even if it’s not particularly fulfilling or the best role for you. It takes courage, listening to your truth, and stepping into the unknown to create something new.

Being at a crossroads is part of the process as you uncover your potential. Sometimes the feelings are overwhelming and frustrating but trust this is the way forward. Consider your options, do the research, define what’s important to you and take a small step. One piece of advice, move away from what you or others think you “should” do and honor your truth. Do not let circumstances that you see as fixed (such as a mortgage) define what is possible as you create your ideal. And finally, move in the direction that resonates with you, not someone else.

Crossroads occur time and time again and give you the opportunity to explore your next level. Accept and embrace them!

Have you successfully moved through a recent crossroads? We’d love to hear about it.

About Alissa

Alissa Finerman is an Executive Coach and Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, speaker and author of Living in YOUR Top 1%. She works with managers, C-suite executives and teams to leverage strengths, shift beliefs and achieve meaningful goals. Alissa has an MBA from the Wharton School and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked with Ross Stores, Petco, BNP Paribas, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Brookfield Property Partners, Neutrogena and Bristol-Myers Squibb. To learn more about coaching with Alissa, please visit her website and follow her on Facebook