This Holiday, Give Yourself the Gift of Gratitude

One of the movies I love to watch at this time of year is The Holiday, with Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jack Black and Jude Law. It tells the story of Amanda, a workaholic movie trailer producer in California, and Iris, a newspaper editor in the U.K., who exchange homes on a whim in hopes of mending their broken hearts. The swap puts each of them in an environment quite unlike their own.  Amanda (Diaz) flees her huge, hi-tech Tuscan style L.A. home for Iris’s cozy, quaint, stone cottage in the English countryside. And Iris (Winslet) leaves behind the tranquility of her country garden for the fast pace and palm trees of La La Land.  

Through a series of events and interactions (that’s where Black and Law come in) Amanda and Iris are each given the opportunity to step back from their day-to-day selves to find and honor the “hidden gems” within their respective personalities. In Amanda’s case, she’s finally able to release the emotions she’d been suppressing for so long. Her softer side emerges. For Iris, she’s finally able to let go of a co-dependent relationship. Her stronger side emerges. 

We all have hidden gems that too often stay suppressed because of the hectic pace and responsibilities of our day-to-day lives. The holidays are a great opportunity to give yourself the gift of time to reflect on the value you bring to your work, to your family, to your community, to the world. 

I encourage you to take some time during this holiday season to write yourself a letter of gratitude. Honor yourself for your accomplishments and for your uniqueness. Think back over the year and those moments when someone has expressed gratitude or admiration for something you’ve done or said – what was the quality within you that prompted their reaction? When we acknowledge those qualities we are able to help them grow even more. End the year with gratitude. Be grateful for YOU, just who you are. Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have. 

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” C.G. Jung

In this holiday season, I’m so grateful for each and every one of you. Thank you for sharing your wisdom through your comments and the work that you do. 

Happy Holidays,

Rebecca

Turning Neuroticism from a Negative to a Positive

Neuroticism is not a trait that we generally consider positive.  And yet, according to a recent Huffington Post article, when someone is neurotic and is also highly conscientious, it can actually be a good thing. These “healthy neurotics,” as described in the article, are able to “harness the anxiety that is so fundamental in neuroticism, and use it in a positive way.” 

People who are conscientious are cautious, and explore the risks of something before jumping in. This helps mitigate the negative behaviors often associated with neuroticism, and often results in increased productivity by channeling that nervous energy into action. The homework you were stressing about gets done.  The deadline looming gets met. You figure out a way to resolve the conflict you’ve been agonizing over. 

Society has historically cast neuroticism in a negative light, pointing only to the downside: anxiety, fear, moodiness, worry, frustration, etc.  Think Seinfeld’s George Costanza. The Odd Couples’ Felix Unger. And every character Woody Allen has ever played.

Lumina, however, explores the positive side of neuroticism, along with the positive side of the other four major personality descriptors –extraversion, agreeableness, openness and conscientiousness – the Big 5 Personality Traits.  Lumina is based on the Big 5, which National Geographic’s publication Your Personality Explained, called the cutting edge approach to measuring personality because it doesn’t categorize people as “types” but rather empirically and scientifically measures each of their 5 personality factors for a more unique and comprehensive picture.

Lumina research shows that by measuring the opposite of each of the 5 personality traits, rather than just measuring how much of one trait a person is using, reduces the bias toward having a huge amount of that particular trait.

Lumina strives to have an unbiased approach to personality traits which helps individuals embrace their true unique talents.  In this manner, Lumina explores the positive side of “being cautious, taking calculated risks, being conscientious and structured,” all elements that can be found in a healthy amount of neuroticism.  Lumina findings show that these elements used at certain levels can actually help on the road to success, both in life and in career.  

If you would like to learn more about your personality traits and how to leverage them for more personal and professional success, please join us at one of our upcoming Lumina Spark Experience events – Monday, December 5 in the Dallas/Plano area and Thursday, December 8 in San Francisco. Contact us at info-us@luminalearning.com for more information.

Lead on,

Rebecca

Connecting the Dots Between Emotions and Behavior

How many times have you – at the end of an uncomfortable situation – walked away beating yourself up for how you reacted to it? “I shouldn’t have gotten so angry.” “I don’t know why she always makes me cry.” “I should have held my ground.”  For most of us, our lives are littered with shoulda woulda couldas – often the result of our emotions taking charge of our behaviors with little or no input from us. 

The key to putting yourself in charge is self-awareness. Understanding your emotions, not necessarily just where they come from, but how they manifest themselves in your behaviors, is essential. Once you have an awareness of how you typically respond to certain triggers and in certain situations, you can choose a different response. It’s not about avoiding certain emotions, or interpreting them as good or bad. After all, your emotions are your emotions. It’s about understanding them and learning to be emotionally agile so you can reframe your behavior into a more productive response.

Harvard Medical School professor and psychologist Susan David, author of Emotional Agility, says, “We will find ourselves in situations where we will feel anger, sadness, grief and so on. Unless we can process, navigate and be comfortable with the full range of our emotions, we won’t learn to be resilient. We must have some practice dealing with those emotions or we will be caught off guard. I believe the strong cultural focus on happiness and thinking positively is actually making us less resilient.”

When we experience an emotion, we should recognize and act on it. You know you are feeling something, what are you going to do with that? Are you acting in a way that aligns with your belief system, or are you reacting to old baggage? Emotions are not good or bad, right or wrong. We have to reframe and understand where they are coming from, or act on them and make a change.  Our emotions come into play when our core values are compromised.  If our behaviors are not in line with our core values, it creates discontent within us.

So how do you begin the journey from recognizing emotions to managing behaviors? Lumina Emotion is the internal compass that helps us align our behaviors with our values and beliefs.  The Lumina Emotion Portrait uncovers the relationship between your inner feelings, emotions and behaviors. It examines unique patterns of behavior, including how you may tune up or tune down certain behaviors to suit the needs of your environment. It also focuses on how you can overplay your strengths and highlights potential blockers to interpersonal effectiveness - those emotions we feel when we are overly stressed or under pressure. Lumina Emotion helps you understand how you will react. It takes you on a journey to composure, which helps you find the behavior that will rescue you.

With self-awareness, you understand your core values, your core emotions and the triggers that result in reactive behaviors. You know with certain triggers you get angry, and you know what that looks and feels like. With this knowledge, you have the power of choice. Now when triggered, you can choose to take a step back, and leverage “the power of the pause.” You may still be angry, but instead of reacting in the behaviors that have not turned out well in the past, you use that power to choose to simply be quiet, listen and then, calmly ask questions. You’re not discounting the emotion, you’re simply reframing your response.

Most emotional intelligence tools on the market today focus on interpersonal relationships. They look at how interpersonally astute you are – how social, how engaging, how empathetic. Lumina Emotion is about the whole gamut of emotions and the associated behaviors. It’s not just about how well you get along with people, it’s also about what that quality might look like when you are over-extended/stressed.  “People-focused” under stress may become “people pleasing.”  “Modesty” under stress may become “self-critical.”  Lumina Emotion keys you in to your emotional reactors and gives you a model you can use to reframe your responses for more successful outcomes.

Interested in adding Lumina Emotion to your Learning & Development toolbox? Join us for our next Lumina Emotion qualification, Oct.31-Nov.2 in Dallas. For more information contact us at info-us@luminalearning.com. 

Lead on,

Rebecca

Lumina Spark Goes Digital with the Splash App

I am so excited to announce that Lumina Learning, who is at the forefront of psychometric assessment tools, has taken another leap forward by enabling users to view and compare personalities in the palm of their hand! 

The Lumina Splash App, launched earlier this month, allows you to explore, share and compare your personality right from your phone or other mobile device.  You can “speed read” your personality in just a couple of minutes by answering a set of 24 questions to create your own personal “Splash.” The Splash is a colorful representation of 8 aspects of your personality. It shows the degree to which you are 1) Discipline Driven; 2) Down-to-Earth; 3) Introverted; 4) People Focused; 5) Inspiration Driven; 6) Big Picture Thinking; 7) Extraverted; AND 8) Outcome Focused.  Note that it’s AND not OR.  Part of what makes Lumina unique is that we recognize that humans are complex beings. We can be Introverted AND Extraverted. People Focused AND Outcome Focused.  A big picture thinker AND down to earth. No boxes or labels here!

Using the Splash Navigator within the app, you can drill down to each of the 8 aspects to find out more about what they mean.  Getting ready to work with someone you haven’t worked with before? Share your Splash with them to see where you complement one another and where you differ to more quickly build rapport. 

The Splash created with the Splash App is a first step in building self-awareness, and just a small preview of the breadth of information available in the full Lumina Spark. In addition to the 8 aspects, the full Lumina Spark includes a personalized portrait of your strengths and development areas in 24 qualities represented in three personas: Underlying, Everyday, and Overextended.  Your Underlying persona is who you are most naturally. Your Everyday persona is how you “show up” based on what’s required of you at work, and your “Overextended” persona is how you behave under stress. Attaining self-awareness by understanding your strengths and development areas in each of these personas is powerful, and may help you discover things like why you’re not feeling fulfilled in your current role; or a quality you want to leverage going forward; or how to better communicate with that “difficult” colleague or family member. 

If you’ve attended a Lumina Spark workshop, you can see the digital version of your Splash any time during and after the course by simply scanning the QR code on the paper version of your Spark portrait. You can also share your QR code with others from the workshop to compare personas. The app also provides an easy means to get in touch with your practitioner. 

If you’d like to know more about how Lumina Learning can improve communication and increase effectiveness within your organization, please contact me at info-us@luminalearning.com or 888.827.8855. 

Lead on,

Rebecca