Knowledge | Zinga Hart

Free Higher Ed Approved Tools for Your Authentic Success

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Zinga H

If you’ve ever connected with me on LinkedIn, you know I am a proud higher education professional. I honestly believe improving the higher education industry will help unlock the purposeful potential of our nations. So far, it’s been a long journey of leadership, suppression, growth, challenge, contradictions and support. It is an industry that frustrates and excites my energies to no end, and I will not stop until I figure out how to tie higher education to the trillion-dollar ROI it can naturally and organically produce?

Wondering what is a higher educational professional?

Essentially, we staff colleges and universities in the various roles and positions needed for the organization to effectively and efficiently run. We are the admissions counselors who talked you through the ins-and-outs of campus living or the advisor who helped you consider majors. Our role also extends to presidents, government consultants, faculty, and residence services. A higher education professional is many-faced, multifaceted, and mold-as-you go role that truly attracts those who are flexible, service-oriented, and enjoy problem-solving as a whole.

Credit: WinterisComing.Com

For me, it is a career interwoven with my destiny.

What have I learned so far?

Ever since 2013, when I made it my personal mission to show the world the value of education, I studied and obtained my M.Ed. in Higher Education, with a focus on adult development and success. From my journey, I have learned many things, but the first thing I would tackle in my mission is sharing the tools we use to help develop others. It amazed me, how Meyers-Briggs was only taught for the first time in college and Holland was discussed only in a career-development course in graduate school. These are tools that could be freely accessed by anyone, but only randomly encountered on a syllabus for some students to see.

Well, today, I see and share, so that you can take one more move towards building your authentic legacy of success. Check out three of my favorite tools to use that will help you unearth your inner brand and tap into your personalized success strategy.

Your Learning Style

There are certain ways that people process and use new information. If you want to make any form of learning easier on yourself, discover your learning style and implement any useful techniques immediately. The VARK test was first shared with me by my biology professor, who I later discovered would teach me a lot about learning. VARK stands for Visual, Auditory, Read-Write, and Kinesthetic. These are four basic domains or learning and familiarizing yourself with your special way will cut down on a lot of the time it takes to build new skills, like skills you will need to achieve your final vision of success.

Try the VARK Quiz

Your Work Preference

The Holland Code was named after John Holland, a person who used military job duty classification to devise a test for work preferences and how they affect success in certain roles. From this research, he came up with six main types of preferences: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Conventional, and Enterprising. These six preferences will help you narrow down and understand why you prefer to crunch numbers over writing songs, or why helping people motivates you every day.

Discover your work preference with O*Net.

Your Personality

Myers-Briggs is more popular, but it is still not as widely-used as I’d prefer. This inventory is longer but allows you to understand and describe some of your personality traits and how they interact with others. One, great version of this test is through 16-personalities. What’s your type?

All three of the options are useful tools for discovering and articulating your uniqueness. Of course, everyone is a bit of everything so nothing will be a 100% accurate to you, but it gives you a great headstart.

Audit Your Success Path with these 5 Questions

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Zinga H

Your success is the purpose of this blog.

Those who have been on their own success path for a while know there is a point where stopping to review, assess, and align is key to re-clearing the path that leads to your final vision.

How do you know when it is time to audit your success path?

While sometimes there may be huge red flags, like falling into deep addiction or burning out on a project you really cared about, most of the time there will only be subtle clues like debilitating procrastination, overbooking yourself with priorities, and a feeling overall stress.

Whatever the signals will be for you, the outcome will be clear you are not moving forward in ways that matter.

While there are many audits we can perform, financial, social media, productivity, etc. the one for our personal success will only take connecting with our inner selves and openly reflecting and receiving on the answers we bring out. These five questions will help you dissect what points in your success path could use some focus and where you are doing well already.

1. What are my current priorities?

2. How do they align with my larger purpose?

3. What ways am I dividing my time on a daily and weekly basis? How do that support my larger purpose?

4. How consistent am I towards working on my success?

5. What is draining my energy and how would I rather invest this energy?

While audits can be a deep exploration of your current status, you can use these questions as a way to begin to unfold what might be holding you back, which in turn gives you a place to find solutions. It is absolutely imperative that you listen to your honest answer, whatever it may be. I’m not reading your answers and no one else is, so there’s no need to be polished/pretty/etc. If you do want to discuss your answers know I’m always here 🙂

Comment or Contact Me Anytime.

3 Paths to Clarity

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Zinga H

I created an infographic for http://www.cultivatedvisions.com social media postings. It reminded me of how important it is to ensure you continuously seek to clarify who you are and who you will be. There are so many areas of input that can muddle up the inner voice that guides us while we fulfill our purpose. Sometimes the voice is so subtle it sounds like it’s coming from our Self.

So here’s an adapted version of the infographic to apply to any area of your life where you seek to find clarity.

Daydream to Boost Your Most Passionate Career Path

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Zinga H

96% of adults daydream. If you are one of those adults, ask yourself: are you using this seemingly random activity to the fullest potential?

Like most successful activities, daydreaming to your favor will take practice, purpose, and persistence and, in this case, we’re going to focus on your career. How can you use daydreams to ensure you are reaching your career path’s most passionate potential? There are simple techniques to do so, but first a short overview of current thoughts around daydreams.

What are daydreams?

Daydreams were discovered when scientists notice neural network activity while participants were not participating in anything at all. This came to the formation of the phrase “stimulus-independent thought,” which are thoughts created sans interaction or engagement with the environment outside of our minds. In this sense, daydreams may seem as if they are out of your control, and they can easily be, but the truth is our mind is a muscle and we work with it as we would most functioning muscles in our body.

So how can we use daydreams to create our best career path?

We must actively practice day dream by engaging in personal discovery sessions. This type of daydreaming is called positive-constructive daydreaming, which is the active reflection on our feelings, thoughts, imaginations, and other personal facets of our life in an open manner. This activity means letting go of any urge to stop yourself from thinking a thought or dreaming a dream. Studies found this type of thinking led to an overall sense of well-being and furthermore it opens you up the possibilities of where you can apply your value.[source]

How can you use this on your career path?

The answer is there are many ways to do it and you mustn’t stop at one! Experiment and continuously reflect on your career path throughout the time that you desire to earn a living for yourself. Two simple ways to incorporate this technique into your life is by:

Take a career quiz

Taking personality quizzes, like this one, or this one, and imagining yourself in the ideal roles that they describe for you. When it comes to career construction, my old mentor, Dr. Mark Savickas, told me they’re only about half right. Yet, this is a safe and simple activity to envision a future you.

Put yourself into the position and research it. Note what excites you and what doesn’t as you explore what the role has to offer.

The closest personality test for your work preference is the Holland Code, a model developed by John Holland and used by the military. My Holland Code was IEAS, most Holland Codes are the first 3 letters, which meant my career preference would be book restorer. NO!!! Don’t let online or even legitimate quizzes decide your career path, in order to find your authentic value you must dream deeper into who you are.

Career Path Dream Land

Asking yourself probing questions and then answering them until you reach a point of profound clarity is a thing. This is what is needed to really unearth the answers of who you are and where you are meant to bring value to the world.

A safe way to do this is what I call a mini-self-retreat. Find a way to get time alone and comfortable: send the roommate or partner out, find a baby or pet sitter, or go to a hotel.

Relinquish yourself from responsibility save for your Self.

Then have a nice thoughtful internal discussion about what you want. Stay with the discussion and record your answers for later use, listen to yourself with openness and innocence, as if within you there is a great warm source of your very own personal all-knowing. It can seem different at first, but this is just a surface level way to find your authentic value from within.

Will daydreaming get you a job? No. Constructive daydreaming and self-discovery will set you on a path to a career you are confident carrying as a part of your life’s legacy. If that’s something you think is worth having, let me know!

Comment and we’ll connect 🙂

No affiliate links in this post.

One More Move: Face Yourself

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Zinga H

Being an authentic leader, requires a healthy and growing amount of self-awareness. Back when I was in college (not tooooo long ago), I realized, I would avoid myself in the mirror if I was feeling the winter/semester blues. Now, I am a lot better at choosing to be positive, optimistic, and present, but back then I found this to be a big indicator that I was in a fog.

So why might one avoid seeing themselves in the mirror when they are down?

Avoidance is a coping mechanism we think helps us escape feelings and thoughts we do not want to deal with. I didn’t want to deal with being a first-generation, out-of-state, working-class dishwashing college student in the middle of my first dreary/frozen Ohio winter. From my reflections, I saw this as a time where my mind was not happy with my situation and thus nothing was good enough, most importantly the view of myself. It was almost as if I could not look myself in the eye because then all the truth would spill out and I would have to face it. One good thing is: avoidance and other limiting thoughts and behaviors are surmountable. It just takes practice.

Here I am, growing my authentic leadership everyday, and hopefully you are too! Facing yourself in good times and especially bad times is a conversation you must continue in order to ensure your mind, body, and spirit are all on good terms. So my One More Move Challenge below is to Face Your Self.

Challenge steps:

Find a comfortable place with a mirror.
Stand in front of the mirror and move close enough to feel as though you are truly staring within – .
Ask yourself: How can I achieve [x] ? ; or How can I project who [I truly am]?
Answer yourself
Accept your answer and express gratitude for your honesty.
*Bonus*: Give yourself a big kiss. [Rarely my style, but it can be fun :)].

Seems simple, but this may be uncomfortable for some people. Facing ourselves is not a practice people delve in often. Find a moment to make friends because you are your own best friend for life. Repeat this exercise every and you’ll begin to build your confidence and character leading to your authentic career brand.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

One More Move - Sounds out the word omm which is a common chant in yoga

One More Move: Give Gratitude

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Zinga H

Back to our regularly scheduled One More Move article! This series gives you singular moves to keep you motivated, authentic, and connected as your grow you personal and career path. This week, I challenge you to express gratitude. Why? Because it is through this expression of gratitude that we heighten our life’s quality, elevate our mood, and build our interpersonal relationships with others.

The benefits of gratitude are immense. It affects our mind, body, and soul. Below is an excellently designed infographic on The Power of Gratitude. You can see how the power of gratitude can help you can gain more energy, get better sleep, be less anxious, and have fewer headaches. All these benefits are necessary to regulate in order to stay motivated on the long-haul to your legacy. In a sense gratitude is the attitude of leadership that keeps us going and connected to ourselves and others around us. How do you find gratitude through out your day?

Credit Thanksgiving Infographic from Mind Valley Academy.

Here 5 easy ways to express gratitude today!

Write a recommendation on LinkedIn
Send a thank you card to a colleague
Give a generous tip to your server
Publicly thank someone on Facebook
Handwrite a letter of appreciation to a mentor your admire

Tiny Buddha offers 50 unique ways to express gratitude, which focuses a lot of being fully present with others and considering ways to truly touch another person as a leader. There are many places where we can express gratitude. When we take time to make this one move we ripple forward positivity and good vibrations.

To cap off, here is a TED Talk on the Transformative Power of Gratitude. Give gratitude fair value as your return on investment is worth the deposit.

Take 1 Hour To Automate Your Social Media

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Zinga H

I manage the social media as a part of my role. It is a small percentage of my day so to stay consistent with my schedule I set aside 2 hours a month to plan and organize posts I like on Hootsuite. With the ups and downs of working in higher education, it can be easy to forget to reach out on a daily basis. Using a social media management system can help you to share your own content and build your brand by displaying what interests you value. Here’s how I would split up the time.

10:00 Review my annual social media plan – Make any adjustments and add in any new creative ideas around the events happening in my local area.

10:05 Scan through Feedly and look for articles that match the month’s theme and my brand’s values. I right click through the ones I like and write relevant reviews with a short link going back to the original post. Read through the articles, write a short summary, and find a relevant picture to represent it. Sometimes there will not be a picture that represents well enough, so I will often find a better article or create the picture myself using Canva or find one on Photopin.

10:35 It averages about a minute per post to get the month scheduled for one post per day. Doing this grew the social media page by 300% over the past three years. It’s small, but steady, growth, and engagement averages around 27% percent of organic views, where organic reach for a page my size benchmarks at around 11%. So once I’m done I check to make sure every day is posted and review for typos.

10:40 For the rest of my time, I scan my social media feeds on Hootsuite and share relevant content from my community, specifically from other social media contributors within our organization, such as what’s happening in the Facebook groups, on our Listservs, or other events emailed to me.

10:50 Finally, I will add in a few posts supporting initiatives I have in my department.

When it comes to social media marketing, what you share from others should balance to four times of what you self-promote. Linking together is key to building a strong voice and vision with your social media brand.Finding time to consistently post is a matter of scheduling and automation. There are plenty of tools to use but Hootsuite is definitely tech I pay to have.

What are your biggest social media management challenges?

Want success control time. This shows a clock falling to the ground to show a sense of time being out of control

Want Success? Wield the Tool of Time!

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Zinga H

photo credit: 12 sec via photopin (license)

Do you want to move forward in your career, manage multiple projects with ease, drastically reduce stress levels?

You may be wondering how can I take control of my time?

What we know about time do know about time? Scientifically we are still inconclusive. Early theories related time to the breakdown of things; the collapse into chaos. The theory behind the relationship between time and energy show that with time dormant energy will move velocity and acceleration at a constant rate. Although what time is exactly is still fuzzy to definitions science agrees it plays an important role in the things that happen and perhaps even the creation of the universe.

Yet, with all the studies surrounding time Carrol claims it is “not the be found in the underlying laws of physics” Time does not take up space and does not have a mass. Which in a sense means time is a imaginary. It’s not a real part of our physical world, but one created by us humans. It is hard to pin down this tool we created. Major philosophical theorist divide into three parties: Presentists, Growing-past philosophers, and eternalists. Presentists believe on the present is real. Growing-past philosophers believe the past and the future are real and eternalists believe in the existence and reality of past, present, and future. I lean towards the eternalist camp. I think most entrepreneurs do, since the future is the substance of our dreams.

Which is why “time is money” is the mantra of any wealth warrior. Recorded in The Free-Thinker in 1719, the phrase time is money relates the idea that time is a valuable resource as one of the purest measures of human value since our time is finite on this earth and we must produce what we best can and seize opportunity. Are you leveraging your time to maximize your return? Wasted time is wasted money and it moves you further away from the feeling of success. As though you are not maximizing the opportunities available in your life. How can we escape the subtle sense of chaos that comes with time?

We have to focus on what is really at play. You have a desire to effectively seize the opportunities you have before you. Time-management needs to be re-named to Self-management. Self-management is “the process of evaluation [sic], prioritizing, and organizing one’s tasks” . Time is the imaginary tool we use to measure the movement and completion of tasks. We watch a flower grow and a forgotten yogurt die. When we use the tool of time right we realize the steps we are taking towards our goals. When we use the tool incorrectly, we can dwell in non-present aspects of time like stressing over the future or reminiscing in the sweet past.

How do you manage yourself wisely? The first step is to put yourself first. Self-management is a continuous process of a commitment to developing yourself. It took me ten years to get a comfortable grip on time, and I’m still striving for greater discipline. What major roadblock in my way, was the belief that if I just gave my mind, body, and spirit up to other things I would somehow feel fulfilled with the time I was spending. So I worried unnecessarily, ate indulgently, and felt all types of ways without making any real traction in my goals. It was only when I focused on myself: being my healthiest; cultivating my thoughts for pro-action; and rewarding my behavior with gratitude and respect that I suddenly began to take leaps towards achieving the life I desired.

Practice items

Here are some reflection exercises for self-management:

What do your value? How do you rank your values?
What are your top 20 priorities? Drop it down to 5.
What does it take for you to perform at your best?

References

Time and Energy – Millennium Relativity.” 2002. 5 Aug. 2015 <http://www.mrelativity.net/TimeEnergy/TimeEnergy.htm>

What Is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory …” 2014. 5 Aug. 2015 <http://www.wired.com/2010/02/what-is-time/>

“Time | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.” 2009. 5 Aug. 2015 <http://www.iep.utm.edu/time/>

“What is the idea behind the quote “time is money”? – Quora.” 2014. 5 Aug. 2015 <http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-idea-behind-the-quote-time-is-money>

“Time = Money | SUCCESS Magazine | What Achievers Read.” 2013. 5 Aug. 2015 <http://www.success.com/article/time-money>

“Time Management – Exploratory Studies at Purdue.” 2014. 5 Aug. 2015 <http://www.purdue.edu/exploratory/academic-support-new/time-management.html>

Management: Developing Self-Management Skills … – SQA.” 2007. 5 Aug. 2015 <http://www.sqa.org.uk/files_ccc/CB3496_self_management.pdf>

One Move Monday: Give a Good Hug

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Zinga H

One Move Monday Give a Good Hug - Cute Hugging Kittens

It’s Monday and it’s time for One More Move that will bring you closer to your authentic success. This week I challenge you to hug someone for five minutes. Yes, five minutes! In this digital world we’re constantly seeking to connect with more information; more friendships; and more experiences, but sometimes the rush to go from one activity to the next causes us to miss the authentic human to human connection that comes from physical contact. Hugging, holding a hand, or giving a pat on the back are always to physically and spiritually connect and be a touch point in someone’s life. As a #mompreneur I am always struggling to find quality time with my husband and daughter, yet when I take the time to hug them beyond the quick embrace on my way to work, I find I feel refreshed and fulfilled.

There may be some science behind the method! When we connect in a hug, we generate an oxytocin flow that helps us feel less anxious; get better sleep and boosts our sense of belonging.

Interested in learning more about oxytocin? Here is a great Ted Talk discussing how oxytocin may build our morality, which builds trust and eventually stable authentic success.