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Tag Archive for: Positive Intelligence

Coach Mary Olk - How do you Bloom

How do you Bloom?

June 16, 2023/0 Comments/in Balance/by MaryOlk

Coach Mary Olk - How do you Bloom

Summer is finally here in Minnesota! Watching flowers unfurl to gorgeous blooms got me thinking about a very important, consistent challenge for my clients in coaching. Blooming proudly.

Flowers naturally blossom, bloom and show off their brilliant colors and textures for the whole world. We LOVE the beauty they offer and are transfixed by it!

For many women, boldly blooming, especially in the workplace, is a challenge and doesn’t come naturally. We are uncomfortable talking about our strengths, our wins and why we are generally great at what we do. Self-advocating is a challenge for ME even after 30 years of practicing!

The great news is that self-advocacy is a skill. We can learn how to get better at it and overcome the self-advocacy gap (1) that research has shown to be a real problem for women in the workplace. Why is it important? Your self-advocacy skills and confidence in yourself shape many important decisions, including your willingness to contribute ideas in the workplace, your choice to apply for and pitch yourself for a promotion, or negotiate for a salary raise. It’s a required skill to meaningfully navigate your career path. Less than half of women in the workforce say that they advocate for themselves in the right amount (2).

So how DO you get better at advocating for yourself? Here are two tips I use with all of my clients – and myself too!

  1. Recognize the discomfort – your experience is legit!
    • The discomfort is REAL. Some of that feeling comes from things that are out of your control. Gender stereotypes are alive and kicking in the workplace which affects how we act and can make self-promoting feel difficult and awkward.
    • How do you add to the discomfort? Look at how YOU contribute, What’s the story you’re telling yourself? And how is that contributing to the negative feelings? Often our inner critics have tactics that unnecessarily add tension to the situation. You know judgmental comments such as you’re not good enough, you don’t have the right experience, if you talk about what you do well – you’re bragging.
  2. You don’t have do it alone! Find your allies.
    • Who in your organization can and would advocate for you? I ask my clients ‘Who are your Apple-raving-fans?’ Although women have a hard time self-advocating, we are fantastic at advocating for others so leverage tendency and help each other.
    • Who can help you craft and practice your message? This can be a friend, a partner, a trusted co-worker or a coach. Talking through your credentials and strengths with someone else will help you get more comfortable and confident. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!
    • Find organizations that can help support you. Organizations that are all about female empowerment can be huge to help you find your voice, your confidence and strengthen your self-advocacy skills. Here are some ideas and well respected sources to check out: Chief and this list from Wharton.

And just in case you think I’ve got this handled – I don’t! I still experience discomfort … even after 30 years of coaching! It takes ongoing practice and continuously working on these skills. KEEP AT IT! This month, I challenge you to do one thing – even if it’s just writing down a list of your top strengths or having a conversation with a trusted someone to practice saying them out loud.

If you’re not sure what your strengths are or if you get anxious thinking about it – a coach will help you find your voice and your path! Email me for a FREE sample session to see how coaching might work for you.

Cheers to your beautiful, blooming self!

Mary

  1. https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/how-gender-stereotypes-less-than-br-greater-than-kill-a-woman-s-less-than-br-greater-than-self-confidence
  2. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/women-self-advocacy
https://coacholk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Coach-Mary-Olk-How-do-you-Bloom.jpeg 788 940 MaryOlk https://coacholk.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Coach-Mary-Olk-helv.png MaryOlk2023-06-16 11:03:512023-06-16 11:11:23How do you Bloom?
The Results Part 4

The Results: Part 4

April 26, 2022/0 Comments/in Balance/by MaryOlk

The Results Part 4

The WHO I coach is perhaps the most inspiring part of my work. AND one more favorite part?! Experiencing the incredible transformations that my clients realize. I am regularly awed by the scope and magnitude of change my clients create and the growth in their capacity for courage, wisdom, resilience, and grace. One of many joys in this work is seeing my clients blossom and succeed.
Last month I shared the incredible success stories and challenges that my clients have navigated through from my perspective as a coach. Now you can hear from the people who truly matter – my clients!
Here’s what my clients have to say about their coaching:

#Sales #rejection #values #actionplan

“For sales people in general a great coach is an asset because we are forced to deal with negative emotions every day – there is a lot of rejection and fear. The resilience needed to withstand that is greater when you have an asset like Mary.
She helps me think through what is going on. If there is conflict with my values, she helps me articulate what is going on. From that we trade action steps to progress through a challenge, or take on an opportunity. She takes what is within me and helps me make sense of it and create actionable steps.
Mary does not bring a one-size-fits-all approach – this is a customized approach we have worked on over the years.” – Gabriel Harren

#empowered

“Mary established trust and empowered connection from the very start, she held me “big” and made me feel that “I can do it”. I left hungry for more – and it was what I truly needed.” – Leonid Frolov

#choices #change

“She rerouted my auto-pilot so instead of following same old road signs – you’re not enough, you’re dumb, you’re ugly, you’re a jerk – she helped me to try different routes. I learned about choices. Not just thinking about possibilities but actually living them.” – L.S.

#happiness #values #change

“The values exercise was the core upon which everything else emerged. Without the explicit listing and discussion of my values, I probably would still be at my old job not knowing why I was so unhappy and what I needed to do about it. The mind-map simply helped me further develop my understanding of my core values (the reflection of who I really am) and to bridge it with my skills, experiences, and actions with the world around me.” – M.M.

#happiness

Coaching with you helped improve my overall sense of well-being. You are a warm, stellar human being with a sharp wit and superior coaching skills! I continue to feel much gratitude for our time together. – P.C.

#accountability #intuition

Mary really supported me. When I was questioning my own confidence she did not let me get away with it. Mary coaches from her heart and intuition. She always held the bar for me higher than I could picture it for myself and pushed me to get there. Mary, to me, is an angel on earth. – Jane

#authenticity #clarity

“Working with Mary has helped me have much more authentic conversations with people in my life, whether those are people I’m dating, or my relatives, friends or colleagues. She’s helped me get a clear sense of my voice in all those types of relationships.” – Annemarie E.

#happiness #challenges

“There were two big main issues that Mary and I worked with: I had too much on my plate, and my marriage was blowing up. So we worked on both.
I gained a good sense of not only who I was but trusting that I had the answers, which is really where you want to get to: That you can trust yourself with the way you are feeling and that the decisions you are making are right for you.” – Dayle Q.

I hope in this month of showers & flowers, that you have an understanding of what I do and why I love it! Maybe you’ve even been inspired to turn your own showers into growth. Or perhaps you thought of someone in your life that could benefit from finding balance instead of burnout. If you know of anyone who is navigating life’s challenges and wants a partner to foster their growth, please do pass on my name. Word of mouth brings me the clients that fit me best and that’s why I appreciate YOU!

May you bloom and grow! 😂☔🌸
Mary

https://coacholk.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/The-Results-Part-4.jpg 839 1000 MaryOlk https://coacholk.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Coach-Mary-Olk-helv.png MaryOlk2022-04-26 14:38:142022-04-26 14:40:13The Results: Part 4
HOW I Coach

HOW I Coach: Part 2

April 11, 2022/0 Comments/in Balance/by MaryOlk

HOW I Coach
Even though I’m a coach who is a cheerleader for positivity and possibility, I know that LIFE IS HARD — it isn’t always sunshine and butterflies and unicorns and rainbows. The old saying April showers bring May flowers is an apt analogy for life and coaching. We all have gray, rainy days and thunderstorms that pop up. Sometimes even seasons filled with them.

My job as a coach is to help you learn how to navigate those uncertain, challenging, rainy days so you can learn and grow from them. Coaching through those grey seasons can evoke transformational change and here’s HOW…

AWARENESS

The starting place in every coaching engagement is self-awareness. Life throws us curve balls that we often exacerbate without even knowing it. Through exploration, self-reflection and some data collection, coaching helps clients discern what are the real challenges and what are the manufactured obstacles; what is it I can control and what can’t I control; what is most important, what is urgent and what can wait.

One of the biggest obstacles for anyone amid any transition is a personal pattern of mental gymnastics that creates stress and negativity making it almost impossible to respond to the challenges of life with strength, resilience and confidence.

Thank goodness for my friend and mentor Rick Carson who pioneered Taming Your Gremlin® over 30 years ago to help us FREE ourselves from the monsters of the mind! His simple, not to be confused with easy, three step process begins with SIMPLY NOTICING how I’m adding to the misery of a current situation. Once I get good at noticing, step two — I can fool around, play with different options to reduce the misery. Step 3 – repeat as needed!

Twenty years later, another friend and mentor, Shirzad Chamine integrated the research findings from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, performance science and positive psychology to create Positive Intelligence (aka PQ) – a simple operating system to help build the mental fitness to respond to challenges with a positive mindset instead of a negative mindset. Guess what – there are three muscles that strengthen our PQ: The Saboteur Interceptor (catching the monsters); Self Command (directing the focus of your mind) and The Sage Perspective (looking without judgment for the opportunity in the challenge.)

ACTION

Once a client gains clarity and awareness, that’s when your coach asks – what are you going to do with that?! Transforming learning into meaningful action is the purpose of every single coaching conversation. And both of the above-mentioned tools are critical in coaching because they integrate AWARENESS with ACTION!

ACCOUNTABILITY

Did you just cringe? Accountability gets overused and abused but in coaching it’s your friend – helping you to stay true to what you want to do. Transformational change only happens when you have some way of calibrating your success.  Accountability is so misunderstood and so critical to lasting change that I wrote a whole other blog post about it!

AWARENESS + ACTION + ACCOUNTABILITY = SUCCESS

That’s my secret formula for HOW I COACH!

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Positive Intelligence- Mental Fitness

PQ: My Newest Tool for Mental Fitness

January 6, 2022/0 Comments/in Balance/by MaryOlk

Positive Intelligence- Mental Fitness

We’re in an auspicious time – the beginning of a brand-new year! Hopefully you’ve crafted a fresh set of intentions, goals, and/or resolutions to inspire and support you in 2022.

Did you put YOU at the top of that list? No doubt you want to bring the best of yourself to your challenges, circumstances, and relationships this year.

So often we bring our worst – not our best – to our goals and intentions. We inadvertently add stress through our own negative mental machinations. Anybody else worry, fret, ruminate about what could happen or what did happen or what might never happen?! GUILTY!

So how do we meet the challenges of life and work starting with our best — confident and resourceful?

You’ve gotta start with your mental fitness.
It’s the foundation for success in every aspect of your life.

The Positive Intelligence (PQ) program is the newest addition to my life AND my coaching toolbox! With PQ, you learn to strengthen your Sage (your authentic, natural, creative self) and quiet your nasty Saboteurs (those judgmental internal critics lurking in your brainy brain) through daily practice. PQ integrates all of the effective tools and techniques I used with my clients over the last 20 years. Even better, it’s built on research from neuroscience, cognitive behavioral psychology, performance science and positive psychology! Of course, the best part of the program is the App that makes it super easy to build your mental fitness muscles EVERY DAY!

This program has made a huge impact on my own life. I’m more grounded, open and resilient. I spend less and less time in negative spirals in my mind. I have a more positive outlook and challenges are tricky but not stressful. I’m less cranky overall – just ask my family!

In the spirit of my theme of the month – everything is new – I wanted you to know that the PQ program is the new, exciting part of ALL of my coaching engagements. Stay tuned — there’s more to come in 2022!

If you want to strengthen your mental fitness to effectively and confidently accomplish your 2022 goals, send me a message!

Questions, comments, suggestions? Comment below!

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THANK-FULLNESS: The Practice of Gratitude

THANK-FULLNESS: The Practice of Gratitude

November 1, 2021/0 Comments/in Balance/by MaryOlk

THANK-FULLNESS: The Practice of Gratitude

November is a month full of giving thanks around my house. We celebrate Thanksgiving, and if you watched my theme of the month, you know I also celebrate my birthday and my wedding anniversary, too.

My birthday gives me the chance to appreciate all the gifts in my life.

My anniversary allows me to stop and appreciate my soul mate and the relationship we have been cultivating for over 30 years.

I get the opportunity for a lot of practice being thankful in November!

Join me this month as I dive deeper into the PRACTICE OF GRATITUDE. In my podcast episode “Practicing Practical Gratitude” I talk about three simple tips and practical ways to add gratitude:  NOTICE, FAKE IT, and SAVOR.

Notice is simply writing down a list of things you are grateful for today. People, places, things, situations. It can be anything! Aim for at least 5.

Fake it is faking a smile (or biting a pencil or your finger) which stimulates your brain to connect to appreciation emotions without even having to try!

Savor is taking a couple minutes to experience the sensations of gratitude by calling to mind one of the things you are grateful for and lingering in the feelings/sensations.

What if you did one gratitude practice every day this month?!

I invite you to experiment this month with a variety of ways to get grounded in the practice of gratitude – EVERY DAY! I promise it will rejuvenate your spirit and open your eyes to your rich, meaningful and magical life.

If you want a little more detail on any of the three practical gratitude techniques, head on over for a listen.

Comment below or send me an email (Mary@coacholk.com).

Warmly (with a deep, easy, full breath),
Mary

https://coacholk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/THANK-FULLNESS-The-Practice-of-Gratitude.jpg 1006 1200 MaryOlk https://coacholk.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Coach-Mary-Olk-helv.png MaryOlk2021-11-01 10:37:352022-02-24 19:57:56THANK-FULLNESS: The Practice of Gratitude

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Challenging. Empathetic. Creative.

My time with Mary has been invaluable.

I began working with Mary at a time when I was approaching a major life change:  I wanted to change my career and re-balance my life. Mary was an incredible accountability partner in helping me navigate, plan, and adapt during this transition, and — most significantly — she helped me get in tune with what I truly want in this next chapter of my life.

Her direct, no-bullshit, empathetic coaching style and her ability to push me beyond my surface responses were critical to helping me take real ownership of my life, career, and relationships. Furthermore, her coaching – especially with the PQ program – has been transformative and has given me the tools to continue growing on my own which is a true treasure.  I am grateful to be in a new place, with new insight and compassion for myself and others.  It’s been an amazing journey–and Mary is an amazing coach!

Jeanne F Testimonial
Jeanne F.Higher Education Executive and Coach

Three Words: Energetic. Challenging. Creative.

Mary is a true “coach’s coach”. I learned so much from her as my supervisor during the coach certification process that I hired her to coach me again…and again…and again. Mary was so effective that I engaged her at several key moments in my career. Our work together was always up-lifting, insightful and action-oriented, and I am grateful for both the wisdom and the kindness she shared with me. Thank you Mary!

Laura Weiss Testimonial
Laura WeissCPCC, PCC

For sales people in general a great coach is an asset because we are forced to deal with negative emotions every day – there is a lot of rejection and fear. The resilience needed to withstand that is greater when you have an asset like Mary.

She helps me think through what is going on. If there is conflict with my values, she helps me articulate what is going on. From that we trade action steps to progress through a challenge, or take on an opportunity. She takes what is within me and helps me make sense of it and create actionable steps.

Mary does not bring a one-size-fits-all approach – this is a customized approach we have worked on over the past four years.

Gabriel-Harren
Gabriel HarrenMinneapolis, Sales Rep and Entrepreneur

THREE WORDS: Professional, Humor, Authentic

Mary’s sense of humor, coupled with her raw authenticity, gave me a huge play ground to be myself and to experiment with letting go of concepts about myself that no longer served me.  Our work was, and continues to be, life-changing.

I send my closest friends and family to Mary when someone needs a coach.  Enough said.  I know you’ll get nothing but excellence when you work with her.

Jane MassengillMaster Certified Coach

I’ve pretty much doubled business over the course of working with her. I know it is tough to attribute it to one single thing, but I know with certainty that she is a part of what has allowed me to do that. And, working with Mary has helped me have much more authentic conversations with people in my life, whether those are people I’m dating, or my relatives, friends or colleagues. She’s helped me get a clear sense of my voice in all those types of relationship.

She has helped me get out of my own way on the goals that really, really matter to me.

Annemarie-Estess
Annemarie EstessSan Francisco, small business owner and coach trainee

I am somebody who needs homework. I need someone to say ‘Do X Y and Z and get back in touch,’ instead of ‘Think about this and we will talk.’ Mary structured things for me in that manner. Otherwise it is easy for me to put things on back burner.

There were two big main issues that Mary and I worked with: I had too much on my plate, and my marriage was blowing up. So we worked on both.

I gained a good sense of not only who I was but trusting that I had the answers, which is really where you want to get to: That you can trust yourself with the way you are feeling and that the decisions you are making are right for you.

Dayle-Quigley
Dayle QuigleyHayward, Wisconsin, emergency room physician

My coaching journey with Mary has been wonderful. She was a sounding board to test ideas, conversations, and dreams about what I want in my career and my personal life. Coaching with her helped me grow into a stronger leader and find my voice to speak up for myself. Coach Mary helped me gain the confidence and skills to self-advocate and ask for what I deserve from my superiors. This was the catalyst for opening doors to a new career role that is a wonderful fit for me, a role that I didn’t even know was an option when I began.

Leslie S - Testimonial for Mary Olk
Leslie SHigher Education Senior Project Manager II

There is no colleague I respect more than Mary Olk. She has an unwavering commitment to personal and professional growth for her clients and herself. She is a truly gifted inner guide—extraordinarily insightful, self aware, highly skilled, and wise. I am especially proud she has chosen to integrate the Gremlin-Taming® method into her own naturally potent style of facilitating others to tap into and channel their potential.  Her clients are beyond fortunate to have her in their lives.

Rick CarsonDallas, Author, Taming Your Gremlin® and A Master Class in Gremlin-Taming®
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