leading teams for difficult times

Leadership for Difficult Times

Posted on by Zinga H

leading teams for difficult times

Lead Your Teams With Your Head Grounded

Dealing with difficult times is a part of doing business. From running out of paper on copy machines to not having enough quality time with the people you care about can cause a low-level amount of stress that can be overcome with smart healing moves. What happens when the amount of unrest in external influences starts to seep into the productivity of your team. Caring about  external aggravations, stressors, and threats can keep your team feeling secure enough to focus applying their full potential. How can leaders better lead their teams when times are stressful? Here are 5 bits of wisdom to consider

Build awareness

Knowing what is causing stress within your team. Ask questions and listen to the different insights and concerns your team is building around the point of concern. Build awareness within yourself as well. Find when your fears or temper is getting the best of you and spot stress-management techniques to improve your state of being.

Encourage communication

While some of your team may be very vocal about the shaky times your are in or that are beginning, some others may not be so engaged. Getting every team member on board in your organization will require reminding everyone that communication isn’t only encouraged, but a priority. Schedule productive meetings, have an anonymous comment and suggestion box, and remind every one of the confidentiality and protection policies you have in place.

Remember your mission

It is easy to get blindsided in a disaster. What keeps you in place is your purpose and end goals. While steering your organization forward may require flexibility it is important to always keep in mind what you are steering toward.

Provide avenues for stress relief

Tumultuous times often cause undue stress on leadership and team members. Relaxing the body and mind will keep your company’s spirits lifted. Host retreats, bring in healthy fruits, have a company potluck and remind your everyone to take care of themselves.

Acknowledging challenges is a positive sign of good leadership within your company and a step in your journey of small business success. When the tough times arise, it is time for even more assessment, experience, and communication to ensure that you continue to fulfill your mission and vision.

photo credit: 13a.LedelleMoe.Collapse.Lofts14Two.WDC.29jul06 via photopin (license)

Hack your sleep routine

5 Ways to Hack Your Sleep Routine

Posted on by Zinga H

Hack your sleep routine

Sleeping is important. When it comes to your growing list entrepreneurial ventures using sleep to keep your mind and body fueled will become ever important. Sleep keeps us alert, happy, motivated, and creative. These are all qualities needed to sustain the long hours, pivot  gracefully and receive more opportunities in your life. Check out 5 ways to enhance your sleep schedule, so you can advance your wake time.

  1. Wake Up Earlier – There are several ways to do wake up earlier in the mornings. The first is to have a reason to wake up. Knowing what you want to do with your time will help convince you to wake up. Also, it will give you a good routine to flow into right after turning off your alarm. Besides having a plan, one action to take is to set your alarm at your normal start time then set it ten minutes earlier each morning progressively.

Tweet tip! Ditch your cell alarm and switch to a standalone alarm, that way you can charge in another room and minimize cell phone distractions – 

  • Take Naps – Taking naps is shown to have great effects on our productivity [link]. Many of my friends look at me incredulously when I say I take naps daily. How do I do it? I practice. Start in your nap spot and set your alarm for a 5-minute nap, then a 7 minute, then 10. Work your way up to a 20-minute nap and you will have the power nap [link] mastered.
  1. Sleep in Phases – Poly-phase sleeping is the practice of sleeping on a schedule of multiple smaller rests throughout the day over one long rest during the night. In essence, it’s your nap routine pumped to the max. I’ve not mastered this, but some people manage to get their sleep down to two hours a day. What a dream. Steve Pavlina explains this how to do this in detail.
  1. Meditate – I’ve heard 20 minutes of meditation is equal to 4 hours of rest. Try just one minute [link – YouTube video] to start. The increase in oxygen to your system will help it feel satisfied and mellowed, like the rest you can get from a well-maneuvered massage.
  1. Write Before Bed – Sometimes going to sleep can be difficult, especially for the entrepreneurial mind that often races with new ideas. One way to settle your mind is to take the time to write them all out before going to bed.

A good sleep schedule is a great practice in personal leadership. Take the time to nurture your body and your body will nurture you.

 

photo credit: Dormir en N&B via photopin (license)

One Move Monday: Mountain Pose

Posted on by Zinga H

Mountain Pose

Photo credit: Crazy Sun Om

Mountain pose. To the lax eye it would seem a person is just standing. Mountain pose requires much more of us. In a sense it is the perfect pose for being in full connection with our bodies. The poses we wear affect our projection of confidence with others and ourselves. Take the time to stand fully and revel in your body’s ability to ground itself while simultaneously reaching its height.

Therapeutic benefits of the pose are:

  • Reduce the effects of flat feet.
  • Improve your posture.
  • Strengthens the lower part of your body and load bearing joints.
  • Improve concentration and increase alertness.

Here’s a video by a favorite Youtube instructor, Adriene.

Follow the 12 minute video or read  more about the pose here.

Find your balance today.

Tech Review: Build a Cleaner Resume with Resume

Posted on by Zinga H

When job searching it is important to spend a time catering your resume to each and every position. Taking the time to keep track, modify, and distribute multiple resumes can be draining, add making them modern and beautiful and you can find yourself consumed with time spent on just your resume alone. One website that helps makes this process easier for the job search is Resumonk.

online resume builder resumonk

Resumonk offers users easy design, fair pricing, and a sleek interface. Although there are some cons overall, the website delivers and has become a favorite since emurse went away.

Easy design

When first using Resumonk users have the option to start from scratch or import their LinkedIn Profile. The import tool was great because it brought in all facets of my profile, including any recommendations others have left. One downside was it listed all my skills. While useful you will have to pare down as it will take up a lot of space on your resume. It is easy to navigate from section to section, and there are many options to design your resume as you see fit.

Fair pricing

Resumonk is a freemium website. While you can use it for free, I ended up purchasing the subscription because I enjoyed the premium resume designs offered. A lifetime plan is $59 dollars while a 1-year plan is $20. Depending on how long your job search will take $20 for a year should be plenty of time to design, re-design, and distribute an unlimited amount of resumes.

Sleek Interface

A lot of resume builders online are ugly and as dreadful as filling out an online job application. Resumonk gets past that by paying attention to the design. The templates are well worth using and the fact that it pairs the design with the cover letter makes this web application a true professional service. Finally your dashboard provides you with all your past resumes to copy, edit, and reuse, making your job application process much easier.

Cons

While I will be using Resumonk for a while. I do hope they improve their resume template options. Although there are 4 pages, without the promise of more to come, I worry their designs will become generic as more users purchase their services. It should also be easier to transfer sections and pieces of one resume over to others. Finally, the import from LinkedIN can be awkward as it tends to list your oldest job at the top, requiring me to re-arrange in present chronological order.

Overall Resumonk is a great resume builder and tracker. You get to make 4 free resumes with the free option so check it out today!

Resumonk

HowZinga Hart.com One More Move Foot Yoga - Two feet crossed together Photo found on unsplash.com and was taken by -Soon Ngu www.flickr.com/photos/soon91/

One More Move: Foot Yoga

Posted on by Zinga H

 

 

A balanced body is a productive mind. Ground yourself today by pampering one of our heavily used (or not) body parts the foot. Built as a natural representation of balance our feet hold us up steady and when taken care of can move us forward to destinations hosted at the furthest reach of our overall vision.

For One More Move, care for your feet and open yourself up to a deeper feeling of being balanced, grounded, and overall more healthy. Here’s an excellent yoga video made specifically for caring for your feet.

Note* (Updated from One Move Monday on 12-19-15)

Tech Tool Review

Posted on by Zinga H

Canva is a tool to buy to make your marketing life easier. Simple design, lots of options, and a simple pricing model make it a web app worth investing in. I run leadership events in Northeast Ohio and creating flyers for the event I almost immediately turn to Canva. It works so great, you won’t regret investing in it as a simple tool for your business.

Canva a semi-free graphic design app

Easy to use

Canva is a simple web app and you can access it anywhere and anytime. It’s easy to share using links and there is no download needed to share designs. It uses a two-panel design where you drag-and-drop images, designs, and clip art to your visual marketing content. There is also an option to automatically optimize design sizes using an array of pre-cut formats in the size of Facebook picture posts, twitter posts, web page banners, infographics, etc. Canva keeps it easy to use and there are a ton of ways to incorporate it in your marketing strategy.

Tons of free options

Free web apps are a dream for anyone charged with marketing for their start up. Canva offers tons of high-quality graphics and beautiful designs to use in your marketing material. I have used Canva to create many formats enhanced for web use. Colors are easy to change to add your can upload and use your own graphics for free adding even more to your design options.

Simple pricing model

Canva’s free options make web marketing easy and even fun. Canva monetizes its model by charging a dollar for premium flyer elements, clipart, backgrounds, and designs. It’s straight-forward and there is no need to sign up for a monthly subscription. While, I use the free options often, I buy the stock art they offer because it is good quality. It also makes it easy to market quickly and consistently.

One Move Monday: Morning Pages

Posted on by Zinga H

Free thinking is a powerful form of organizing our thoughts and relieving stress when it comes to managing our businesses. Writing, drawing, and mind mapping all take part in helping us go from the “think” stage to the growth stage. For your One Move this week, take 3 minutes or 3 pages to write as much as possible. The 3-page move actually refers to the idea of keeping morning pages.morning pages - good morning - writing for success
No need to review what you right, that’s a move for another week. For now humble in the fact that your mind can churn out as much as you allow it too.

photo credit: welcome to your day via photopin (license)

5 Top Apps Worth Using Daily

Posted on by Zinga H

In the entrepreneurial world, time is still money, and a major detractor of progress can be poorly built tools that have the guise of serving a purpose. Introducing, applications. While some mobile and web applications serve a great purpose, many can often suck away our time and leave us with very little results in the way of moving towards venture success. So what is worth it? I consider it only apps I have paid money for or am willing to pay money for in the future. Here are the top five I use towards strategic planning and executive leadership.

1. WeekPlan for daily planning. WeekPlan was the first app that was ever graced with my Paypal balance. With its sleek and simple design, the app incorporates Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s great features include planning your week according to quadrants, having a long-term option for listing goals/tasks and color coordinating tasks according to roles you designate. In addition, the customer service with the app goes above and beyond in authentically reaching out to clients.

2. Trello – If WeekPlan is in the trenches, Trello is in the war room. Great for long term strategic planning, Trello has the ability to break up and track long or short term projects.

3. Stitcher – Entertainment is great. Knowledge is power. Learning while commuting is one of the safer driving distractions and you feel the benefits of acquiring more knowledge. Stitcher allows you to access newly posted podcasts. Choose podcasts in business, leadership or success to help keep you moving towards your goal.

4. Pinterest – Visit your vision often to make sure you are on the right track. Pinterest is a great tool for visioning [article coming this week] and it is worth visiting often, especially if you are a visual learner.

5. Twitter – Connecting with the social world requires daily maintenance. The key is in planning well enough and simply enough so there is room for organic spontaneity. Twitter allows for a lot of simplicity and a way to connect with the worlds that intersect with your world.

Be wary of the apps you spend time on since they can make or break your progress. Find ones that leverage your see-saw of success and you will feel an authentic progress towards your desired purpose.

Progress is One Move Before Another

Posted on by Zinga H

progress is one move before another. leaf on a sidewalk.

Getting through the week positively can use external motivation sometimes. Remembering progress over perfection is a running motto that can keep any entrepreneur moving forward. One series to incorporate is taking time for singular moments of doing one thing for a length of time. The length of time should be no longer than five focused minutes, and then walk away. There are many moves we can take towards success, and some get you to the end goal quicker than others. For readers of this blog, look up for the upcoming series to help your business progress: One Move Before Another.

A first move to make is always centering yourself.

For today’s move: A yoga mediation made perfect for self-centering.


Centering ourselves comes in many forms. What are some ways you find quick balance?