TGC Newsletter: The Gratitude Issue

What I'm Reading

Similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Spiral Dynamics, initially theorized by Clare Graves, teaches us about developmental stages, specifically around values. We must focus on our values as we design the best life for ourselves because they are our motivators, whether it is safety, achievement, or community. Then, when you identify your values, you can learn about how to live them through actions.

At the beginning of my coaching sessions with new clients, we learn about their values and how they impact their now and their future. This information guides our decisions about what to prioritize or leave aside. 

Another way to identify your values is to identify what you’re most grateful for in life. Are you grateful for peace and stability? Are you grateful for friendship and community? Find the connection between action and value. When they’re aligned, you’re moving in the right direction. If few actions align with your values, it’s time to reconsider your actions or values.

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What I'm Listening To

A client once decided to shift their time and attention from job searching to volunteering and service work. The job search process was difficult and confusing, but volunteering brought them back alive. For those of us who put significant meaning into our professional lives, without a job, we can feel lost. Service to others helps. That’s why in Finding Joy of Service from Rethinking by Adam Grant (Spotify and Apple Podcast), the secret to success is a commitment to serving others. 

My challenge to you is to do something nice for another person daily. It can be anything from holding the door for a few extra people behind you to donating to a mutual aid fund, dedicating every Sunday morning to cleaning up a river, or organizing with your local climate justice chapter. Do this for a month and report back. How did effect your mood, and your perspective on your day?

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What I'm Doing

Sitting with gratitude. For a million and one reasons, I (and we) have experienced pain and loss over the past year and a half. For a million and two reasons, I am grateful. I am surrounded by activists who, despite the hate they receive, continue to fight for people and humanity. They ground me when overwhelmed. I am surrounded by people with different life experiences. They teach me resilience and nuance. I am surrounded by mentors. They believe I can fly. I am surrounded by loved ones who take care of themselves and me. They show me how to move on and love myself better. 

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What's Moved Me

Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give into it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. IT could be anything, but very likely, you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

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What I'm Wiggling To

You can feel the raw emotion in the bridge of last night’s mascara by Griff, reminding you of the undeniable pain of heartbreak. Take the hairbrush as a microphone, wiggle it out, sing at the top of your lungs, and turn that volume up so high you can’t hear yourself sing along.

Stay Playful,

Tamar

TGC Newsletter: October 2024

What I'm Reading

When you think of goats and farm animals, do you think of leadership? Neither do I. In my studies and process of building a leadership course for Graduate students here at Emerson College, this article on Goats and Leadership: Fostering Talent in Diverse Teams by Jesse Hirsh came to my attention. Stay with me. 

Each creature or plant has a role within an ecosystem with unique skills and abilities (shoutout to evolution). The same is true for a team. Every group needs a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, thoughts, skills, and abilities; without it, we are a monolith. 

When we value diversity, we meet people where they are by empathizing with and respecting each other's backgrounds. These skills, paired with an understanding of influence, are required to be a successful leader. 

I once had a co-worker with a poor relationship with a group of our students. Both were wrong, and both were right. I first met with the students to understand what had happened and then de-escalated the situation. I listened, validated their frustrations, and shut down their inappropriate sexist comments. I told them when they were right and told them how they were wrong. Then I spoke to my co-worker, a peer. With kindness and empathy, I asked her what happened. I validated her frustrations and asked her, in her opinion, what went wrong. I shared where she was right and where there were opportunities to try a different strategy. All parties listened because I met them where they were with their experiences and their perspectives. I listened, and therefore, I had an influence. Despite my success and report with the students, I also needed my coworker's strengths. She was a tougher teacher than me, and many students responded better to her style than mine.

In leadership, just like in an ecosystem, we find strength through diversity, adaptability, and meeting people where they are—learning to balance our unique skills while drawing on each other's strengths to build something greater together.

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What I'm Listening To

As illustrated in the Goats and Leadership article, we need each other. It may be easier to achieve our goals when in tandem with a friend. In 2019, I became a close friend’s accountability partner for writing her book. It was an opportunity to connect weekly. The Buddy System podcast episode discusses the importance of pursuing goals with a partner. Have you done this in your life or career? What worked, and what would you change?

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What I'm Doing

Teaching CliftonStrengths to undergrads, master’s students, and the Museum of Science Think Tank Innovators and their mentors. What is the CliftonStrengths Assessment? Developed by extensive research through Gallup, we all hold 34 different strengths, but they are expressed at different levels and cause various types of expressions based on the unique outcome per individual. There is a 1/10,000 chance two individuals have the same top five strengths. Businesses, organizations, and students appreciate the new language around their strengths to support their personal and professional growth, shed light on how they think and work, and the additional materials that provide insights and guidance on leveraging each strength for success. 

My top strength is Winning Over Others (WOO). It means I’m motivated by working with people and thrive in environments where I can constantly meet new people. My other top strengths include individualization, communication, connectedness, and empathy. 

I’ve learned much about myself through understanding my top five CliftonStrengths. I already knew I love working with people and am an empath. However, individualization and connectedness gave me a better understanding of how I think, which helps me understand how I navigate the world, my work, and how I show up in relationships. Individualization means I am intrigued by the unique qualities of each person. I understand that no program I create will satisfy everyone, and each friendship is unique. Connectedness means seeing patterns in the human experience, making meaning out of everything, and believing there are few coincidences. Individualization consists of individual stars in the sky; connectedness is the ability to make a constellation. These skills allow me to create dynamic and engaging programs to fit individual’s needs and find ways for everyone to have a shared outcome. Learn more about CliftonStrengths here.

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What's Moved Me

Love After Love

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

— Derek Walcott

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What I'm Wiggling To

Settle Down by Wild Rivers from their new album. Try not tapping your foot to this one, or have a dance party in my pajamas in the winter.

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New Client Testimonial

Seeing clients “graduate” from their time with me as their coach is always rewarding. I believe growth is the coolest part of our experience in this world—from child to adult, from seed to beautiful flower, from pain to peace, or from the unknown to clarity. It’s an honor to be part of anyone’s growth process. Here is the latest perspective of a client who completed their time with me.

“Tamar has been an amazing coach and is a huge part of my success today. Her personalized coaching style is one that makes you feel heard and cared about. Throughout my time meeting with Tamar she opened my eyes to many new methods of thinking, especially in a professional space. Her patience and understanding made the daunting task of stepping into the real world much easier and more bearable.

At the beginning of my coaching, I truly was unsure if meeting with someone who knew nothing about me would result in a job/ career path. I felt so lost and didn’t know how I was going to figure out my next steps. However, it was quickly evident that Tamar loves getting to know her clients and working with their strengths to find a path that’s right for them.

I cannot thank her enough for all the time and effort she put into helping me grow as a professional and even more as a human being. Thank you!!!” 

Know someone who feels stuck in an area of their life? Share my website and link for a free 30-minute consultation.

Stay Playful,

Tamar

TGC Newsletter: September 2024

What I'm Reading

Why Do We Live in Frustration?: Philosophy and Techniques for Dealing with Frustration from F*ck Up Nights, an organization that hosts events around the globe for individuals to share stories of their failures and mistakes.

We try something, fail, and get angry, frustrated, or annoyed. We analyze, try again, and maybe fail again. Maybe we get a little bit better, maybe we get better then fail, again and again. Perhaps it makes us pissed off. Maybe we’re hurt by someone’s behaviors or beliefs. 

Here’s the good news: we learn something precious when we get angry and frustrated. We learn about our values and needs. Are you annoyed your coworker takes too long to share their opinion on a new idea? Maybe you value jumping into a project. Are you frustrated your friend only makes plans with you at the last minute? Perhaps they value spontaneity, and you value advance planning. If you are angry about a politician’s policy (or lack thereof), maybe you value self-agency or freedom over your own body. 

What has made you frustrated, angry, or annoyed recently? What value has not been aligned? Knowing this, how can you communicate what you need from the situation?

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What I'm Listening To

It’s easy to be cynical and negative. Sometimes it’s fun! But when does it hold us back? In the podcast, Cynicism is Exhausting. There’s an Alternative, by A Slight Change in Plans, Psychologist Jamil Zaki discusses “hopeful skepticism” to view things like a scientist: a theory is only a theory, and we need evidence to support a claim.

My questions for you are: what is the difference between hope and optimism? What is the difference between safety and learning? How does cynicism reflect your values?

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What I'm Doing

Angry journaling. I’ve been working on my anger in therapy. I keep my anger hidden from almost everyone, but I can feel it tensing my body, jaw, shoulders, and chest. I hold onto it for a long time (hello, stubborn Taurus characteristics). I’m focusing on my anger because I want to forgive myself and others and forgive quickly.

Jews are about to enter the New Year, a time of repentance and, ideally, behavior change for the betterment of myself, my community, the nation, and the world. Maybe, in the spirit of anger, values, forgiveness, and learning lessons, it’s time to recognize what value I’m not fulfilling in my life and bring it back.

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What's Moved Me

"It's nice to have a little help, but we often resent when someone else tries to do it all for us. Each individual wants to make their own dreams a reality. If someone hands you the whole thing on a silver platter, they gift you the result but rob you of the accomplishment.

Remember this not only when chasing your dreams but also when supporting others. Help along the way, but let them run their own race. Your job is to live life with them, not live their life for them."

From James Clear’s newsletter, September 5, 2024

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What I'm Wiggling To

I met Remi Wolf at her sold-out concert in Boston! Listen to Disco Man, my favorite song, which made me a huge fan of this talented singer. How did I meet her, you ask? I ran into my cousin, who went to Graduate School with Remi’s dad! My cousin was kind enough to bring my friend and me backstage to hang out with the band (and Remi’s dogs).

Stay Playful,

Tamar