The Traveling Introvert

Have you found yourself in a difficult situation lately? Have you dealt with a difficult client or customer? How do you deal with your customers after a rough start to your day?    In today's episode I discuss:   The 7 steps to handling any difficult conversations or situation.    Remaining calm Listening  Wait until the other person is calm  Apologizing  Find common ground  Move towards an endpoint Next Steps     https://thetravelingintrovert.com/about (The Traveling Introvert) - About the show https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert) - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine.   Check out membership levels at https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert), a place for introverts to thrive. 

In today's virtual world it’s all about virtual meetings. In these meetings, there's the age-old question “Where are you from”? This can be a difficult question to answer.    In today's episode I discuss:   Why you don’t want to ask, people “where are you from?”  How to be more inclusive in the way you ask questions.  How to better frame your questions for today's internationally connected world.  Staying conscious about appropriately networking questions.  https://thetravelingintrovert.com/about (The Traveling Introvert) - About the show https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert) - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine. Check out membership levels at https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert), a place for introverts to thrive.

Do you have people in your life you find “difficult”? Do you find yourself getting frustrated with the difficult people in your life? Are these negative situations affecting your personal or professional life?   In this episode I discuss:   How to identify patterns in the situations that frustrate you. Identifying your feelings with each difficult situation. What to do with your newly gained insight about your frustrations.   https://thetravelingintrovert.com/about (The Traveling Introvert) - About the show https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert) - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine. Check out membership levels at https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert), a place for introverts to thrive.

Are you someone who is always pushing tasks off until the last minute? Do you find yourself constantly procrastinating tasks in your personal and professional life?    In this episode I share:   How procrastination can hinder your success.   How procrastination can negatively affect your health.  Why procrastination is the key to destroying your confidence.  How procrastination affects your reputation, trust, and credibility with others.  Why procrastination is making you lose out on opportunities.  https://thetravelingintrovert.com/about (The Traveling Introvert) - About the show https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert) - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine. Check out membership levels at https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert), a place for introverts to thrive.

Do you feel like you have to tell all your friends and family about what you do? Have you heard people say that you should tell everyone about your business ventures because you never know who they know? Are you someone who’s reluctant to share much of your personal life on the internet?   In this episode, I share:   Avoiding the pressure of being everywhere online. Why it’s okay to not share everything about your work or career with everyone in your life.  How building a community around your work, while keeping private is possible.  When sharing more about your business is appropriate. https://thetravelingintrovert.com/about (The Traveling Introvert) - About the show https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert) - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine. Check out membership levels at https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert), a place for introverts to thrive.

Are you someone who is happy with their job, and have no intentions of leaving? What are the benefits of interviewing, even if you’re not looking for a new job?   In this episode, I share:    Why you should interview for jobs even when you aren't looking to move.  Why keeping up to date with the most current interviewing information and interview styles is important.  How interviewing can be a great way to learn more about an organization  How practicing interview skills can be a benefit you later.  Why making connections with recruiters matters.  How you could end up finding something you didn’t know you were looking for.   https://thetravelingintrovert.com/about (The Traveling Introvert) - About the show https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert) - Coaching, courses, and more, to help you shine. Check out membership levels at https://thecareerintrovert.com/ (The Career Introvert), a place for introverts to thrive.

We have forgotten how to truly dream. The world is full of opportunities, and everything can be reshaped. Sometimes dreamers are seen as abstract creators with a train of thought that's hard to follow. Having a dreamer mind seat doesn't mean you are void of reality. A lot of dreamers are very practical. Here are some benefits to being a dreamer.   Dreamers take nothing as certain or definite. They let their imagination breathe, keeping in mind that your current situation is just a temporary state of thing and that everything has the potential to change. Whatever negative things are happening in your life are not permanent. This can give you a more positive outlook on life. Additionally, positive things in your life are a chance to smile. It's a common trait of a dreamer mindset to appreciate all aspects of life. This doesn't mean you are immune to the bad things happening. The difference is the way you deal with them when these situations arise.    Dreamers tend to be more positive in their thinking and m

Why would you want to go on a solo journey? Most of us enjoy travel, and that comes in many forms, from a weekend trip or a year-long trip. Most times, we tend to travel with others. But there are reasons to consider traveling alone.    Silence and solitude: our lives are filled with noise and stimuli from the start of our day. Rarely do we get silence and solitude. These are the best times to slow down and reflect. Experiencing retreats alone by yourself in nature can have great benefits on your mental well-being.   Learning to deal with loneliness: voluntary periods of loneliness can calm your mind and entangle all that's going on in your head. Disconnecting from your normal routine and going into nature helps you gain calmness and concentration and puts you face to face with your strengths and weaknesses to work through.    Detaching from technology: we spend so most of our time online. We have the tendency to get lost and scroll on our phones for hours. Companies design their content this way to kee

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How to be more assertive   Being assertive doesn't have much to do with being an introvert.  Assertive communication helps you get your message across in a clear, respectful, and direct manner regardless of being an introvert or an extrovert. Assertive communication is a valuable skill to have. It helps you lead with confidence and enables groups to work more effectively as a team. Additionally, assertive communication reduces stress, anger, and depression. Good communication skills provide mental clarity and better relationship with others. Assertive communication can be important in all aspects of life, not just work. Here are some tips to help you feel more assertive.    Understand your value: what benefits do you provide to your organization, and why do they matter? Create a detailed list and be ready to offer it up if requested. Highlight your strengths and weaknesses, be realistic, and avoid internal criticism. If you want to be taken more seriously, you need to know your value.    Expect discomfo

A brief summary of this episode

Let’s talk about some things that can help you ease into a new job and avoid feeling overworked for those first 90 days and ways to help you avoid burnout.    If possible, look at a calendar, and at 90 days mark, schedule at least a three-day weekend. It’s often the case that at a new job, the new mental processes and all the new learning will have you feeling burnt out at about 90 days. Also, consider the same for 30 days and 60 days if your job allows. Keep federal holidays in mind and use them as rest days as well to avoid burnout.    Set the tone early on for the type of boundaries and recharge time you would like that allows you to work best. This could be as simple as telling your manager you would like to, for example, avoid early meetings on Mondays. Set these expectations early on.    Be intentional about meeting people. It doesn't have to be a live Zoom meeting. It can be prerecorded video or audio. Meeting with people daily via zoom can be tiring, so be intentional when meeting with others. 

Today let’s talk about employers and red flags. There are tell-tell signs from employers that might indicate to you that it’s best not to accept a job offer from them or look for a new job if you are with the company currently.    The first one is the sink or swim method. At first, it might seem like the company has a good onboarding process, but once work starts, you are left to your own devices to succeed or fail on your own. Avoid companies like this because if you are not appropriately trained, chances are others aren’t appropriately trained, and customers aren’t happy.    Also, if the entire staff is either young or old, this is a red flag. It can mean that it’s hard to move up in that company, and everyone has been there for a long time if everyone is older. And if everyone is younger, it means people aren’t sticking around and just moving on.    Always in an interview, ask, why is this position now open? Is this a new position, or is this a position someone left, and why did they leave? The answe

Let’s talk about how your attitude or mindset can affect your performance.    Studies show a positive correlation between a positive attitude and performing your best. Multiple studies back the idea that a negative attitude leads to poorer performance and quality in work.    A positive attitude encourages constructive thinking, gives you a more optimistic look on life, and it can lead to more energy and motivation to reach your goals. Practice positive thinking, and you should see a noticeable difference in your quality of work.    Here are some tips to get you started:   Expect Success: successful people expect success, even when they fail. Failing is still a success. A positive attitude and drive will push you forward.    Look for inspiration: we are surrounded by inspiring things. Be open with your mind. The more variety, the better.    Build up your perseverance: a person with a positive attitude will persevere through hard times. Don't get discouraged when things get hard. Focus on the overal

Let’s talk about making time for fun and creativity.    It’s easy to block out time for work and events you know are happening, and it’s even easy to block out time for rest. But are you also blocking out time for fun? Not vacations or parties. But just something you find to be fun.    Start allowing for some mental white space in your calendar. This time is for sitting, daydreaming, and being creative without distractions from your phone, work, or social media. Truly just sitting with you and your thoughts.    When you are thinking about your schedule (even if you work a 9-5), think about when you can schedule some creative white space and some fun time.     Before creating a schedule that works for you, consider the following.   Know your priorities and your overall goal: This way, when you are scheduling, you keep an overarching goal in mind of what moves you forward.    Learn to say, No: No, or you could say “let me check my schedule.” Knowing your priorities makes it easier to say no, and it

Self Compassion   Let’s talk about the importance of showing self-compassion. It is important to remember that everyone is going through something, whether we know it or not, and we need to learn to be more compassionate towards others and ourselves.   There are times in our lives where we are hard on ourselves. When you do this, you lack self-compassion. The way your inner critic speaks to you would never be an acceptable way to speak to others. Don’t allow yourself to speak that way about yourself either.    Here are some tips for self-compassion:   It can help to give your inner critic a name. Example “Beatrice”, that way when you are having negative thoughts about yourself, you can tell “Beatrice” off by name with an appropriate speech.    Avoid negative self-talk, internal and external. It’s okay to accept responsibility for a mistake. But name-calling is not an appropriate response to making a mistake. You wouldn’t talk to others that way, don’t speak to yourself that way either.    Practice

Creativity    We as humans all think of different ways of doing things, we daydream, we work in or out of the home. So even if you don't consider yourself a creative person, we all are all creative by nature.   Solutions start with creativity. The ability to form an idea that brings new and different value to a problem is creativity. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, but thinking of creative ways to help you and those around you daily can be of great benefit. Here are some ideas to get you thinking creatively.    Get rid of the fear of failure. Creativity is about trying new things. There is always a risk in trying new things. Just because it doesn't work now doesn't mean it won't work in the future. The more you harp on the failure, the less room for positive growth you give yourself. Embrace the lessons that failure gives you.    Don't stick to the status quo of what's been done before. Learn from what's been done but make it your own. Don't be concerned about what others think about your idea

Tips for remote team leaders   Let's talk about some ways to be a better remote leader.    First, hire people who can work independently. There is no need to micromanage a team when you can trust that they are getting the job done. Hire candidates who have taken ownership of their work in the past.    Over communicate, and encourage others to do the same. Communication is different when working remotely. Consider a shared google calendar for the entire team (including CEO). Find ways to make sure everyone is in the know.    Cultivate spaces where people can share what they are working on regularly. And make it so that others can hold each other accountable. Be it with long projects or a project of the day.     Understand that life happens, people get sick, people need off days, the doorbell might ring, you could hear kids in the background. As long as the work is getting done and the interruptions are just occasional, be understanding.    Be flexible about how you communicate. Not everything needs

Let's talk about traditions.  What are some things you do during the holidays or the year solely because other people have done them before you, whether alive or dead?   Traditions can be held dearly to us.  But they should be able to grow and change in a way that best suits our lives. Like themes, they should be flexible. When we learn more, we should change the way traditions fit into our lives.    For example, instead of holiday cards this year, I chose to send voice memos with a personalized message to the close people in my life. Many people appreciated this, and it can be a one-off tradition, or I can choose to do this again. Traditions don't have to last 20 years. You can choose to incorporate one-off traditions into your life.    Think about the things you do every year because it's expected of you and not because you like to do them. Reconsider these traditions and change them in a way that best fits you. Make your traditions add value to you, don't just think about what happened in the past;

We are coming to the end of 2021, and it’s a great time to talk about Themes. These aren’t goals or resolutions for the New Year. But instead, overarching themes for your New Year or even next season.    Traditionally you might start a New Years’ resolution, but these goals tend to be strict and ridged on the intended action. Say “work out every day” or “lose 10 lbs by x date”. And when we miss a day or don’t achieve our goal, it derails the entire resolution, and we then have “failed.” Instead, a theme is a word or short sentence that guides you through the year or season to make more decisions towards your said theme.    My 2021 theme was Year of Discovery, so I chose activities that would let me “discover” something new throughout the year. As long as you move forward in choosing activities within your theme, you won’t fail.    Themes help you avoid burnout. The broadness of themes means you can choose something different daily and still move forward with your theme. You will feel more accomplished a