I wanted to share some inspiring words from my friend Razi Iman’s book Driven, just available today!

“The word, Junoon (pronounced joonewn) comes from the Urdu/Arabic language spoken in the Eastern regions of our world. Junoon is a state of hypnotic obsession.  It’s a transformative, all-consuming mania; a kind of craziness, if you will, that envelopes your mind and heart to achieve your goal. To live within the state of Junoon is to concentrate passionately on realizing your mission and transcending day-to-day, human motivation to a degree that seems impossible to those around you. Being in this state coalesces and magnifies your ordinary strength of will and determination.”

Razi’s offering a free chapter at DrivenNation.com.

3 comments // In mindset

Meghna heads up the High Impact Teams consulting practice at Ferrazzi Greenlight with Keith. She is based in New York City. If you have questions or want to increase your team's impact, contact her at mmajmudar at ferrazzigreenlight dot com.

Do you have so much to do at work it's hard to stop and take a breath? Then it's time to SLOW DOWN! If you don't, the universe will find a way to do it for you - you'll slip up, get sick, or worse.

Think you can't slow down? Here are two big suggestions that have helped me when I hit one of these vicious cycles of overwhelm.

1. Do just enough to check things off your list – I usually get my work done early. My documents look polished. I like to go iterate over a couple of drafts of deliverables. But in times of overwhelm, I let go of these “nice to haves” and focused on the minimum I needed to get done. So my documents weren’t as pretty, and I had to work right up to my deadline – but the clients didn’t notice and we got positive momentum on a couple of new initiatives to boot!

2. Get present and breathe. I used to pooh-pooh all the stress-management advice. I’m young, I do a lot of yoga, I got stress handled, or so I think…regardless, when overwhelmed, I know my fight-or-flight behaviors take over. I noticed I was acting “fight or flight” – impatient, feeling unappreciated, craving junk food - and reminded myself to breathe, calm down, and take a second look at the situation. This pause short-circuited the feelings of hopelessness, and helped me see the right next step.

Tell me – what do you do to get back on top of your game?

5 comments // In mindset, Uncategorized

Meghna heads up the High Impact Teams consulting practice at Ferrazzi Greenlight with Keith. She is based in New York City. If you have questions or want to increase your team's impact, contact her at mmajmudar at ferrazzigreenlight dot com.

Even the most motivated among us face it at some point: There’s going to come a time when suddenly, achieving your personal and professional goals, really just sounds... hard. It could be so many things – change in seasons, cosmic energy, or plain old laziness – but the result is the same: You’re just not in the game. I’ve been there more than I’d like to admit and I found the tricks below helped me to get unstuck. Try them out!

1. “Flip the Script” – We tend to have a fair amount of negative self talk when we are making changes or trying to accomplish something difficult.  When I start complaining or getting frustrated, I ask myself:  “what if how it is, right NOW, is perfect?”  Once you see the current situation is perfect, it’s much easier to see what beliefs had you stuck and you can move right by.
2. Give in to the emotion and “feel it all” – So it’s beautiful outside and you feel like crap. Give yourself permission to feel really crappy for as long as want. Eat donuts, wear sweats, don’t go outside. When I do this, I get sick of that behavior in about 2 hours and then I have the energy to go outside, make new slides for a client presentation, or schedule interviews.
3. Get a manicure – A colleague asked me to join her in getting a manicure last night and it felt great. Just to sit and not feel like I had to do anything other than pick the right color. (Gold!). Anything that makes you feel better about yourself can ease the way out of a rut.
4. Ease up on the judgment – It’s easy to beat yourself up when you’re not achieving your goals as quickly as possible. We remind our corporate clients, we are all human – so as long as you’re headed in the right direction, you’ll get to your goal soon enough! Don’t give up just as the momentum is starting to shift your way.

What about you - What do you do to get back in the game?

10 comments // In mindset, Uncategorized

Meghna heads up the High Impact Teams consulting practice at Ferrazzi Greenlight with Keith. She is based in New York City. If you have questions or want to increase your team's impact, contact her at mmajmudar at ferrazzigreenlight dot com.

I’ve noticed that sometimes, in our work on teams and relationship building, women feel more hesitant about letting their personal side show at work. And I definitely hear this thinking in my conversations with girlfriends. I have been lucky in this regard, since most of the places I’ve worked encourage people to bring their whole selves to work – it’s what brings the creativity, energy, and passion.

That said, you can definitely tilt too far toward over-sharing: coming across as too emotional, and not having people take you seriously.

The most compelling leaders, men or women, come across as authentic, equally ready to talk about their vegetable garden, children, or next quarter’s sales reports. Here are a few tips to help you find the right balance in blending personal and professional in the workplace.

1. Follow your instincts: I used to think I should show up with Keith and in client meetings completely buttoned up; perfection was the only acceptable standard. But since no one's perfect, this meant I made mistakes that could have been cleared up much earlier if I had only shown some vulnerability, admitted I didn't know, and asked questions.

2. Ask why you're holding back: Lack of candor keeps many smart individuals and teams from achieving their goals. Why are you biting your tongue? Is it because the person is not in the right place to understand you? Or is it because you’re scared? Think about how you can phrase what you’re going to say in a way that is in service to the group.

3. Take small steps: You may work in an environment where nobody talks about their personal lives. Consider sharing a few insights about yourself during down time. Chances are you’ll give others permission to do the same! One of our clients includes gardening tips in her weekly financial newsletter – great fodder for conversations with her clients.

Bringing the personal into the workplace definitely makes it more fun, engaging, and productive. Tell me your stories!

2 comments // In mindset

Meghna heads up the High Impact Teams consulting practice at Ferrazzi Greenlight with Keith. She is based in New York City. If you have questions or want to increase your team's impact, contact her at mmajmudar at ferrazzigreenlight dot com.

As a consultant, I’ve been discussing accountability with executives for a while. When it comes up, I join everyone in the room as we nod our heads and agree to its importance and the need for more.

But to come clean, I had a limited understanding of what accountability truly was and how to increase it until recently.

Accountability, in my new and expanded definition, is about taking enough ownership of a situation to get the results you want. It's about refusing to be a victim of circumstances.

The following three steps helped fine-tune my accountability at work and at home:

1. Identify the areas in your life where you're not getting the results you want – chances are, you're not taking enough accountability for the situation. That's good news, because it means you have the ability to create change.

2. Once you’ve identified these areas, list the steps you could take immediately to move one step closer to your goal. For example, most people agree it is difficult to find a new job in the current economic environment. Instead of being a victim to this situation, list the people who could advise you and who are likely to have inroads to opportunities, and send them an e-mail asking for coffee.

3. Take it slow! Accountability is messy stuff. If you’ve been passively acting the victim, realize that you're going to have a lot of work to do as you take more ownership in different areas of your life. Going back to the job example, don’t expect your upcoming coffee dates to produce immediate job opportunities – chances are, your mentors will give you all sorts of advice and suddenly you'll be deep in the work of updating your resume, improving your elevator pitch, and so on. Just take one bite at a time, and go at a speed that makes you comfortable.

It’s powerful stuff – I’d love to hear how you’ve taken more accountability in your life!

6 comments // In mindset

Mark Goulston

On this Memorial Day weekend I drove by a local cemetary in Westwood, California and saw the sea of American flags and caught a local parade honoring those people who gave their lives so that freedom could live.  Sounds hokey.  Sounds like an inconvenient distraction from my "pedal to the metal"  24/7 life of pushing my career forward... but it helps me to realize the truth of the the following quote and excerpt from my latest book (and realized how much the young soldiers who died too young gave back to a world they didn't get to enjoy).

Wealth is what you take from the world;
Worth is what you give back.

From GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY AT WORK and Help Others Do the Same by Mark Goulston, M.D.

Some years ago, famed special effects master Stan Winston shared one of the things that gave him a sense of worth. I was attending a board meeting of a charitable organization, Free Arts for Abused Children, that was being held in Stan’s amazing studio in Van Nuys, California. (Stan was the charity’s greatest financial supporter. He had donated some of his creations -- Arnold Schwarzenegger's “Terminator” head and Jurassic Park’s “velociraptor” model -- for silent auction at the charity’s fundraisers.)

The board members were seated around a central table when the chairman said, “I think we should all show our appreciation to Stan Winston, who has for several years, been our angel.”

Stan had been sitting on the periphery. After the applause of appreciation by the board members, Stan blushed and said, “No, no. You have it all backwards. This charity is my angel. I have been blessed in being able to make a great living doing what I love to do, but I don’t really know how much I help the world by entertaining people. This charity helps me to know that I am making the world a better place. You are my angel and conscience. I am the one that should be grateful to you.”

0 comments // In mindset