At 29 I was one of the first female traders on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, building my own all-female trading company. I lost everything in 1987, which gave me a stellar opportunity to understand my power to choose how I responded to the turmoil. Now, Iām an internationally credentialed Master Certified Coach, Board Certified Coach, University of Chicago-trained psychotherapist, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Over 25 years ago I founded my coaching company, Jody Michael Associates. We focus on building emotional intelligence, executive presence, and mental fitness. When we help our clients learn to lead lightly, they take themselves, their teams, and their organizations to new levels of awareness, discernment, and performance.
I wrote
Leading Lightly: Lower Your Stress, Think with Clarity, and Lead with Ease
The first muscles I build in my executive coaching clients are awareness and mindfulness.
Why? First, because transformative change doesnāt happen without a high level of those two skillsets. Second, while 95% of individuals believe they are insightful and self-aware, only 10-15% are, according to Tasha Eurichin in her book Insight.
Being able to catch yourself within 5 milliseconds of the behavior happening that you want to stop/replace is essential to make meaningful change happen. This book helps you build that skillset.
Your capacity to take ownership of your thoughts will allow you to move forward along the path to success and fulfillment. As a leader, it also enhances your ability to take stock of the bigger picture.
As Eckhart Tolle explains in his profound book The Power of Now, understanding that perspective is a choice that ultimately leads to accountability ā and meaning. He emphasizes the importance of taking responsibility for our thoughts and actions throughout the book, which highlights the benefits of fully embracing the present moment.
**CHOSEN BY OPRAH AS ONE OF HER 'BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH'**
The international bestselling spiritual book, now with a new look for its 20th anniversary. Eckhart Tolle demonstrates how to live a healthier, happier, mindful life by living in the present moment.
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'I keep Eckhart's book at my bedside. I think it's essential spiritual teaching. It's one of the most valuable books I've ever read.' Oprah Winfrey
To make the journey into The Power of Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. Although the journey is challenging, Eckhartā¦
Rarely do we go āunder the hoodā to understand the drivers that account for 90% of our day-to-day behavior. Understanding the core impetus behind a leaderās behavior and decisions is clearly one of my passions, and this book is an interesting read in that regard.
In this book, Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries deftly deconstructs the way we believe we make decisions to reveal that, regardless of the veneer of rationality we maintain, our emotional responses to formative events early in life remain our inner compass.
His comparison of disparate paths to self-development exposes unexpected parallels which lend strength to his argument that feelings play an important role in leadership.
Despite the proven benefits of emotional intelligence, organizational life has typically been hostile to the inner world of feeling. Rationality is deemed superior to feeling, which can contaminate judgment. But without feeling there is no passion, and no action. This book sets out to change people and organizations for the better, by revealing the 'dark side' of leadership behaviour and its impact on performance. Tapping into the startling parallels between the journey to emotional intelligence, the process of psychoanalysis, the practice of leadership coaching and the Zen journey to enlightenment, renowned thinker Manfred Kets de Vries helps executives, consultants, andā¦
How do you create a happy life when you move away from home for the first time; or move to a new city or country for work or studies or love; or retire somewhere new? The Mobile Life guides you through the challenge of making new friends and inventing newā¦
Few people feel comfortable having a difficult conversation.
Even the most seasoned executives would prefer to avoid, rather than confront, the problem. Unfortunately, as we often remind our executive coaching clients, ignoring it doesnāt work and, in fact, can come at great cost to individual employees, the team, the organization ā and the leader themselves.
Those impending conversations also create āweightā for the person as they carry the dread for days, weeks, even months at times. If thatās you ā you are not alone. I want to help you lighten that load. I want you to become more comfortable and competent having them and Crucial Conversations is the book I recommend to help you get there.
Itās a great resource. It will help you gain comfort and confidence in having those difficult conversations with greater finesse and impact. I suggest you buy it, read it, dog-ear it, and highlight the passages you think will help you most, so you can find what you need quickly ā when you need it.
Keep your cool and get the results you want when faced with crucial conversations. This New York Times bestseller and business classic has been fully updated for a world where skilled communication is more important than ever.
The book that revolutionized business communications has been updated for today's workplace. Crucial Conversations provides powerful skills to ensure every conversation-especially difficult ones-leads to the results you want. Written in an engaging and witty style, the book teaches readers how to be persuasive rather than abrasive, how to get back to productive dialogue when others blow up or clam up, and it offersā¦
This classic has stood the test of time because it artfully intertwines psychology and business in a way few books do.
Dr. Abraham Maslow is known for his work on the hierarchy of human needs and self-actualization. I also like the fact that he had the experience ā the street cred, if you will ā as a factory worker, where he gained a very practical basis for his psychological theory and research.
This book offers great insight into what drives people at their core. It will make you a better observer of people and will give you greater capacity to understand yourself and others better.
A seminal work onhuman behavior in the workplace-now completely updated "At last! We have all been quoting Maslow for years and to now have such an excellent compilation of his seminal thoughts on management and organization comes like a timely gift from heaven. The values and principles he taught decades ago are even more relevant today." -Stephen Covey, author, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. "Maslow's book is a readable, impressionistic masterpiece that extolled the virtues of collaborative, synergistic management decades ahead of its time. This edition reveals just how much the management thinkers of our day, including Peterā¦
Secrets, misunderstandings, and a plethora of family conflicts abound in this historical novel set along the Brazos River in antebellum Washington County, East Texas.
It is a compelling story of two neighboring plantation families and a few of the enslaved people who serve them. These two plantations are a microcosmā¦
I love this book because I routinely see blind spots get in the way of leadersā performance and effectiveness.
These leaders are blind to how they are perceived or to their ineffective behaviors. The reason is simple ā most of us donāt investigate and uncover the hidden perspectives we embody; the deeply reactive, repetitive response we have day-in and day-out, or understand the brilliant defense mechanisms weāve built.
The reason I love this book is because itās easy to read and the concept is simple, but profound. The authors explain clearly why forcing ourselves to look at our blind spots is the first step in correcting them, and paves the way for enhanced communication, increased productivity, and long-term success.
Cultivating the ability to see things from another personās perspective is among other ways this book helps break the cycle of āself-deception,ā that prevents leaders from reaching their full potential. Itās a treasure of a book and one that I refer my clients to often.
This third edition of an international bestseller--over 2 million copies sold worldwide and translated into 33 languages--details how its powerful insights on motivation, conflict, and collaboration can benefit organizations as well as individuals.
Since its original publication in 2000, Leadership and Self-Deception has become an international word-of-mouth phenomenon. Rather than tapering off, it sells more copies every year. The book's central insight--that the key to leadership lies not in what we do but in who we are--has proven to have powerful implications not only for organizational leadership but in readers' personal lives as well.
Leadership and Self-Deception uses an entertainingā¦
A conscious approach to leadership and life, Leading Lightly is about looking at how you think, through a radical new lens. Itās a way to powerfully transform your performance, feel more in control, and build new levels of self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Its research-tested methodology pragmatically coaches you step-by-step to build your resilience, so you can be āTeflonā ā no matter what comes at you throughout your day.
An alternative to the everyday stress, pace, challenges, and burdens that weigh you down,Leading Lightlyshows you how to shift your mindset, live lighter, and optimize your effectiveness. Part leadership, part mental fitness, part health and wellness guide, Leading Lightly empowers you to work at your best and operate at your fullest potential.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didnāt matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courtās overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over womenās reproductive rights placesā¦
Many people from all walks of life, even after many accomplishments and experiences, are often plagued by dissatisfaction, pervasive longing, and deep questioning. These feelings may make them wonder if they are living the life they were meant to lead.
Living on Purpose is the guidebook these people have beenā¦